Back on the voting trail. Today is caucus day in Wyoming and I find it very peculiar that the press is now ignoring (for the most part) WY and just focusing on PA. Something tells me that if Obama wins today (WY is a caucus state so he has an advantage out of the gate) that his win will not have any perceived “momentum killer” for Hillary as it rightfully should. Actually today’s headlines should read “Obama wins WY and TX” since he leading in the pledged delegate count there. With 12 pledged delegates at stake Obama could nearly negate any delegate win Hillary had with a big win.

Another interesting thing to consider. Right now Obama leads in the Popular Vote and Pledged Delegates and Number of States. A fourth category not mentioned is Wins by Percentage which Wikipedia now has as their top graphic on the Dem race page.

click here to view a larger image

Clinton has had 2 whole states where she has won beyond 20% of the vote, where Obama has won 19. Why isn’t the press talking about this? Ah yeah I remember they are more interested in a prolonged fight to help out their ratings now and in that they are regurgitating every Clinton “were gonna win” angle. As usual the Main Stream Media is doing a major disservice to the country. (UPDATE: I stand partially corrected, MSNBC just put on main story the Wyoming race so kudos to MSNBC)

It’s been 48 hours since the polls came in on Tuesday on Hillary RI, OH, and TX-primary victory. Before that victory there was a lot of questionable behavior coming from the Clinton team. Since then she has outright gone Republican-in-Democrat’s clothing on us. Let me explain.

NATFAgate
Just before the Tuesday vote there was a story about a Senior Advisor from the Obama camp talking to the Canadian ambassador about the debate and NAFTA. In that conversation it was reported that this Senior Advisor said “don’t worry, it’s just campaign rhetoric”. This story got some traction and the Obama camp denied the conversation took place. Then a memo was released “confirming some conversation happened” and Obama came out unaware the conversation happened but had to start backpedaling. Well it has now turned out that the call did not come from the Obama camp, but rather the Clinton camp. The Clinton camp denies this but this is a growing story. Mind you this story could have very well cost Obama votes in OH where NAFTA is a big issue.

Hillary for McCain?
So if you are running for President would you psudo-endorse your contender on the other side of the aisle? Of course not, but Hillary has done just that.

“I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say,” she said. “He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

And apparently there is a Commander in Chief threshold to boot to. Who would have known?

“I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy.” And “Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold. That is a critical criterion for the next Democratic nominee to deal with.”

So apparently not only is Obama only worth a single anti-war speech he made in 2002 but McCain is better than him. And now there is this new Hillary-threshold-level that Obama can’t reach. This is beyond surprising this is flat out dirty and something you would expect from Bush/Rove. But wait it gets better…

Ken Starr == Obama!?!?!
Since Obama lost on Tuesday the Obama camp has been getting aggressive with Hillary leading like this statement

This week she made a series of arguments about why she would be a superior candidate, She made the experience argument that she’s been making repeatedly, particularly about foreign policy and her ability to handle a crisis. I think it’s important to examine that claim and not just allow her to assert it. Which I think has been going on for quite some time.”

For instance, “What exactly is this foreign experience that she’s claiming? I know she talks about visiting 80 countries” as First Lady, but “it’s not clear what she had negotiated — treaties or agreements, or she was handling crises during this period of time? My sense is, the answer is no. So, I have not seen any evidence she is better equipped to handle a crisis. And if the only criteria is longevity in Washington, then she’s certainly not going to beat John McCain on that.”

Later, Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod was unequivocal that the Obama team had had enough.”What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said. “There’s no doubt we have held ourselves to a standard of engagement. I don’t think the public is looking for the candidates to savage each other…but you can’t play by two sets of rules, and we understand that.”

“Let’s let there be a vetting, but the vetting is going to be on both candidates,” Axelrod said. “She doesn’t want to release her tax returns, okay, fine. She says she’s a master at foreign policy. She’s a master at health care. What happened? Why was it such an abysmal failure? Why did we have to wait 14 more years?”

So now that Obama is getting a aggressive the Hillary camp has now equated this to the Ken Starr investigation on Bill:

“When Sen. Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Sen. Clinton,” Wolfson said. “I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president.”

Seriously did she steal Karl Rove’s playbook? These trends I am sure are just the tip of the iceberg and we can only imagine what other things she will say to try to get the nomination. This race is going to get a lot nastier.

So it’s been nearly 24 hours since the first polls closed giving Obama a decisive victory in VT, only to see him lose TX (in the primary), RI, and OH in the later hours. While the victory for Hillary has given her new legs in the media, it is nearly impossible for her to catch up to Barack’s delegate count so now it seems that either candidate will either have to “make nice” or go through a brokered election. I can’t help but be a bit put off on her tactics as of late. Like SC, the Clinton camp went for the scorched earth technique (dubed the Kitchen Sink) and went as negative as they could go. This included a very sour commment about experience:

“I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say,” she said. “He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

So for those that does not realize the impact of that statement, she considers McCain ahead of Obama, just not the best statement to make. Clinton may have won 3 states on Tuesday but as other contests have shown she fights very dirty for those votes.

I find it interesting what the base of Hillary is (except for the last Obama 12 victories ). Poor, uneducated, women of all age groups, half of white men, and older voters. It seems that Obama still has a uphil battle with these core voters given the false claims that Obama has to contest at ever juncture.

There are some rumblings now to have a “dream ticket” of Obama and Hillary and while I am sure that the DNC wants this to happen now so the infighting stops, it’s political suicide for either VP candidate. If Obama is the lead than adding Hillary to the VP spot adds the serious baggage the Clinton brand comes with. If Hillary asks Obama to be on the ticket, Obama risks becoming part of the establishment and worse he will be a lame-duck VP since Bill will be the defacto VP. While the “dream ticket” might settle some weary voters’ minds it could cost the party dearly.

So now we have many weeks till PA, and a possible revote for FL and MI. This is one long and dragged out primary season to be sure! And just to show how long it will get it seems Obama has had enough and it’s time to take it to the matress.

This week she made a series of arguments about why she would be a superior candidate,” Obama said, a whiff of frustration in his voice that he may have waited too long. “She made the experience argument that she’s been making repeatedly, particularly about foreign policy and her ability to handle a crisis. I think it’s important to examine that claim and not just allow her to assert it. Which I think has been going on for quite some time.”

For instance, “What exactly is this foreign experience that she’s claiming? I know she talks about visiting 80 countries” as First Lady, but “it’s not clear what she had negotiated — treaties or agreements, or she was handling crises during this period of time? My sense is, the answer is no. So, I have not seen any evidence she is better equipped to handle a crisis. And if the only criteria is longevity in Washington, then she’s certainly not going to beat John McCain on that.”

Character issues also would be explored, Obama predicted. “She’s made the argument that she’s been thoroughly vetted in contrast to me. I think it’s important to examine that argument because if the suggestion is somehow on issues of ethics or disclosure or transparency, that somehow she’s going to have the better record than I have, and will be better able to withstand Republican attacks, I think that’s an issue that should be tested,” said Obama. “So, I think that over the coming weeks, we will join her in that argument.”

Later, Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod was unequivocal that the Obama team had had enough.”What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said. “There’s no doubt we have held ourselves to a standard of engagement. I don’t think the public is looking for the candidates to savage each other…but you can’t play by two sets of rules, and we understand that.”

“Let’s let there be a vetting, but the vetting is going to be on both candidates,” Axelrod said. “She doesn’t want to release her tax returns, okay, fine. She says she’s a master at foreign policy. She’s a master at health care. What happened? Why was it such an abysmal failure? Why did we have to wait 14 more years?”

She asked for it, now it’s a battle. Wyoming is next on March 8th and Mississippi on March 11th then the long stretch to April 22nd and the “Keystone State”.

As I am planning out my 2009 data-center implementation at my job I learned that Dell and HP are going to be releasing their servers with VMWare ESX 3i “embedded” in early April for Dell and March 31, 2008 for HP. For those considering virtualized environments and are considering diskless servers, this might be the way to go!

So you would think that the 7+ years of dealing with Bush that the candidate and their supporters would have learned a lesson, that fear-mongering is a fad that is going out of style like a high top fade (all apologies to Kid from Kid N Play). But fear is alive and well, and it’s Hillary and the entire right side of the political aisle that is trying to run with “the fear bomb”.

What kind of fear are we talking about? Well Matt Drudge ran a story that the MSM rolled with showing Barack in a tribal elder garb consisting of a white turban and dress. Drudge said that someone in the Clinton camp circulated the photo and the Clinton camp cannot with certainty deny that it came from them and Obama has taken Hillary “on her word” that she did not authorize the photo distribution. Of course this photo was circulated to help out the false claim that came out of the Clinton camp that Obama is a muslim, a story that many educated people still believe is true and the xenophobia just runs wild! For the record Obama is a member of the Trinity Church of Christ and the smear people falsely claim that the church is radical, racist, and a secret Muslim front.

Switching to the next fear channel, the right side of the aisle is trying their best to ensure that you know Barry’s full name, Barack Hussein Obama. Now I wonder why they would do that, oh yeah that bad man Saddam Hussein. It’s just a shameful attempt to make people feel uncomfortable about the man.

Oh don’t you know that he is communist too? Apparently he father of Kenyan descent and his mother of Kansas descent was some how so radical and so socialist in nature that Obama is a commie. A number of e-mails and threads on the Internet is just pressing this angle pretty hard but at least the MSM hasn’t even picked up the story. Wow a communist muslim, who’da thunk?

Oh and by the way, Obama is not a true patriot because he does not salute the flag during the pledge and he does not wear a US flag lapel pin like so many representatives have since 9/11. Of course the picture was not of the pledge but of the national anthem (for those not in the know it’s not tradition to place a hand over year heart for the national anthem, just to stand) and this is what he feels about that:

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.

“Instead,” he said, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

Now you think that someone actually sticking up for ideas would suffice, but the right is still hammering on this story, and the audacity of a pundint that went on Dan Abrams to criticize Obama while he did not win a pin. Just too funny!

Back to Hillary and her desperation to win Ohio and Texas, these new Karl Rove-eqsue ads began popping up today trying to go for the angle of “think of the children!” is shows a mother looking at her kids at 3am, trying to tug on the emotion strings of the parent electorate. Now Obama did some politikin’-judo and reversed the ad on her today but it’s just another example that victory for Hillary comes at the cost of fear.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” was eloquently spoken by FDR on his first inaugural address as a guide to rise above the fray and not fall into the trap of fear-mongering. Well it seems that for some years fear was traded like a commodity and the sheeple ate it up. At least there is an articulate candidate that can reverse that trend, but how many voters will predicate their judgement based on lies, deciept, and fear?

So I watched the debate in it’s entirety and while it was a spirited debate i think little will change. There might be a shift of Hillary support thanks to her ill-timed quips, and polls are showing that her support is eroding in TX (some show a Obama lead) and OH (latest poll shows a 10% drop for Hillary. What are some of my observations from the debate?

• Hillary was asked right off the bat why she had such a radical change from conciliatory to enraged to sarcastic. She claimed it as “defending herself” because Obama fliers had stated opinions “about my health care plan and my position on NAFTA have been very disturbing to me”. Later it was show that she has supported NAFTA contrary to her claims in 1994, 2000, and 2004.
• The first 16 minutes was a Health Care spar between the two plans. While it was a spirited debate there was not much new ground covered although during the debate Hillary got flustered off the bat because she was asked a question first and tried to fire a zinger that fell almost as flat as the Xerox line: “maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.”
• Both Hillary and Obama agreed that NAFTA would be killed if not renegotiated.
• Tim asked if Hillary’s 5M new jobs claim is lofty given that she promised Upstate NY 200k new jobs when in fact the area has lost 30k jobs. Her response is that Bush is in the whitehouse.
• Tim tried to play the fear card and asked a hypothetical “if we leave Iraq and it goes to hell, will you re-invade”.
• Tim asked Obama if he would stick to public funding as he answered on his questionnaire and some in the press is calling a waffle. Obama stated he would talk to McCain if he becomes the nominee.
• Clinton stalled about making her tax returns public.
• Tim asked if he would reject Farrakhan’s support, which Obama stated he denounced anything to do with the minister. But that wasn’t good enough and Tim pressed on. Hillary tried to find an opening to trip Obama up and said he needed to use stronger language. Obama came back and said “But if the word ‘reject’ Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.” which got some laughs from the crowd.
• Clinton got a huge break in the end with the question “would you ever take back a vote” which she clearly pounced on and said her Iraq vote. While it’s probably to late to help her with the anti-war crowd it was still a clear shot to let her get away from the Iraq vote a little. Obama had a interesting choice in the Terri Schiavo case and while he did not vote on the bill his inaction was just as costly as making a bad vote.

All in all it was a spirited debate but I have to give the advantage to Obama. He always looked cool under pressure and gave articulate responses. Not to take away from Hillary but her continued ill-timed quips and seemingly easy access to fluster her possibly cost her some points. It will be interesting to see what the TX, OH, RI, and VT vote brings!

A poster called “Grassroots Mom” on DailyKos had not originally supported Obama in this election but she decided to do some very graunular and eye openeing research on both Hillary and Obama and from that research is now supporting Obama.

 ”I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype (now a supporter)”

Her conclusion…

Obama appears to have a better record last year in the Senate on getting his bills and amendments passed than does Clinton. I’ve listed everything that passed the Senate for each them at the end in boxes. But check out Thomas.loc.gov for yourself. I may have missed something.

In my eyes Obama is the superior choice in every way. He cares about more of the issues that matter to me. Kids and health care are important but so is the issue of global warming, on which Clinton introduced not a single bill last year.

Obama is a leader. With bigger majorities in Congress, much of his agenda should sail through. He can inspire this country to change course on so many things, from health care to global warming, where attitudes have to be changed first. I remember Bill Clinton’s endless laundry lists of small, focus group approved initiatives. For those who say Hillary will not govern like Bill did, I respond that the people who were doing the market testing of his proposed policies were Dick Morris, of course, and Mark Penn, who is now running Hillary’s campaign.

It’s Obama for me! I just sent him $100. My first donation this election.

So the proof is in the pudding. Obama not only thinks big but gets the support to get it done. This is the leadership that is needed in the country and like her this is why I support Obama.

So voters turned out in droves and gave Obama his 9th and 10th consecutive win since Super Tuesday, and a win by signifigant margins at that. Now Hillary really is in a TX/OH or bust campaign mode.

Hillary’s false stance that Obama is all style and no substance continues on, praying that if you say it enough it will become true. Well if you want a comprehensive list on what Obama wants for America look no further than his website. And his 45 minute speech last night shows that not only can he deliver a great speech but he can get to the nitty gritty details on the soap box.

So the Clinton camp decided that the best chance to stay in the game is to do a “firewall” of the remaining three big states of TX (193 del), OH (141 del), and PA (158 del). If she could win big in all three states, and Obama does not have big leads in the states proceeding she has a chance to stay in the game.

Well the Washington Post is reporting today that is seems the juggernaut of politicos on the Hillary team is worried about Texas because of the funny Texas delegate proportioning and partial caucus/partial primary rules the state has created. In their rules she could theoretically win the popular vote in the state and still lose the delegate count. In urban areas where Obama is expected to do well they have a higher proportion of delegates.

Thing is they have only figured this out now, just 2 weeks before voting? You would think they would have known about the TX rules by now and not to count on it to be a cornucopia of delegates that they were anticipating. Just goes to show that the most “seasoned” people in the game have no clue what they are doing.

• Kristol can’t understand why Democrats won’t trust Bush on FISA. Geez I wonder why, maybe because the USG was spying on US Citizens before 9/11?
• It’s been widley known that the FEMA trailers issued to Katrina victims were death traps. Now FEMA is finally relocating those occupants but without any financial assistance.
• Now that Obama has gained serious tracktion in the Democratic race, the MSM is now attacking the support of Obama as “cult-like“. I wonder if Regan was running like he did in 1980 that they would have drawn the  same conclusion?
• For those that feel McCain is still on the “straight talk express” let’s not forget he has flip-floped on tourture, Roe v. Wade, and Bush tax cuts to name a few.
• Why is it our so-called greatest democracy can’t even do a simple vote count correctly?
• Hillary has vowed to fight to the Democratic convention. Mind you she will need at least a 2:1 margin of victory to tie Obama but if she did win by 3:1 that would knock Obama out of contention.