primaries

As I pointed out yesterday, one of the more interesting primaries held yesterday was that in the OH-02 Democratic primary, where the winner will face Jean Schmidt in the fall. The race gained national attention last week when candidate David Krikorian told a group of people that Yalamanchili couldn’t win any elections because of his name.

Well Krikorian was wrong and Yalamanchili did win an election – against Krikorian himself.

Krikorian didn’t let his defeat silence him though. While conceding the race live on local television, Krikorian decided to blame Yalamanchili for “playing the race card” and went on to to say Jean Schmidt will win this fall.

Krikorian also lost in 2008, when he ran as an independent and called himself a “Reagan Conservative”. This guy really is something else and given his tendency to blame everyone else for his woes, it makes you wonder if he really isn’t a Republican.

The DNC Change Commission has been working on changes to the way the DNC handles primaries and it looks like the super delegates could end up losing their vote:

The Commission spent most of the meeting discussing the future role of automatic unpledged delegates (super delegates).  It discussed several approaches, but the final recommendation won’t be made until the final Commission meeting.

The Resolution authorizing the Commission called for a significant reduction in the number of such delegates, but many of the members favored converting all unpledged automatic delegates to unpledged automatic non-voting delegates.  Elected officials and DNC members could still attend conventions and provide guidance, judgment, and leadership, but they could not vote and therefore would not be able to counter the voter’s candidate preferences as expressed in the nomination process.  A component of this approach would be expansion of the number of pledged party leader and elected official (PLEO) slots.  So a member of Congress or DNC member who wanted to be a voting delegate could run as a PLEO, pledged to a candidate in reflection of voter preference.

So we would still have super-delegates but they won’t be able to vote. This would be an excellent move. The final decision should be made after the first of the year, and basically would require the people this affects to vote on it. I think it’s time for all Democrats to call the party and ask them to support this measure. A few powerful people should not have the ability to overturn the will of the party members as a whole. That is very undemocratic.

Just reading Eric Erickson’s post on RedState trying to spin NY-23 into a great victory, I can’t help but notice his closing:

For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down.

In other words they are going to teabag Charlie Crist next.

But that isn’t the only interesting thing in his post. For example:

First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose.

So if they didn’t vote for John McCain, what about the primaries? John McCain was chosen by the Republican electorate to be their nominee.

(Source: Wikipedia)

That’s an awful lot of green, which represents states voting for McCain. How did he pull it out over the conservatives when they have such a “strong base”, or did the conservatives decide not to even vote in the primaries?

I have been told by quiet a few attorneys in the past that if the police pull you over and tell you to get out of the car then you should ask them if you are under arrest. If not then you don’t have to. The same thing happened to Henry Gates. He was told to leave his house and didn’t. This was before he was under arrest. I think that could be an interesting argument in court for illegal search and seizure.

Another part I find very interesting is that Gates asked the cop for identification. True this was after the cop asked Gates for the same and Gates was probably just being a hard ass in return, but there are tons of safety courses out there that tell you to ask cops for identification and they must provide it. Perhaps that’s another question to be asked of the arresting officer.

President Obama getting into this debate last night was an excellent move. Back during the primaries I wanted to see the candidates asked about a rash of police violence during the debates. On an almost daily basis we see stories of police deploying tasers on suspects who don’t need them. We also see things like gay couples being arrested for – well being gay.

I would love to see Congress take up this issue and impose strict laws upon law enforcement. If a cop violates the law they shouldn’t be given a reduce sentence because of their “past record of upholding the law”. Instead they should be given the maximum penalty. They not only violated the law, but also violated their oath of office and the public trust.

Its time for our nation to tell the police that we appreciate what you do to keep us safe, but we will not tolerate anymore ego trips. You are not above anyone else because of the uniform. On the contrary – you should be a better example for all to follow.

Who ever thought the head of the RNC would be such a rogue?

(audio only)

Think Progress points this out:

It’s ironic that Steele insisted he was “not backing down,” because directly following Steele’s original statement regarding primary challenges, the RNC walked back his statement in a message to Politico’s Ben Smith, insisting it “has no interest in getting involved in primaries.”

So the head of the RNC is saying one thing and the actual RNC is saying another? Wow do they have a problem.

And thank God. After tonight all the states will be counted. This has been a long primary season, but that's due in a large part to this new crazy schedule. That's also why I supported sanctions against Florida and Michigan. Without sanctions for violating the timing rule, we could end up with our 2012 primaries in 2010. States will keep jumping one another until we enter a time of perpetual primaries and general elections. It needs to stop, and the whole primary process needs to be revamped. Hopefully the DNC will take this on after November.

I must say this primary has brought out the worse in the blogosphere. I been reading blogs that are very pro-Obama and very pro-Clinton. The level of discourse these blogs are engaging in is disgusting. It also emphasis what I hear at every Jefferson-Jackson dinner, party fundraiser, etc., from people who have been active in the party for years; "we don't visit the swamp land of the blogs".

As much as I wish he was, he is not. The media seems to not understand that though. They keep going on about "if Obama looses Kentucky". So? There is still a race going on. Neither candidate has reached the magic number to become presumptive nominee yet.

Yes Obama will be the nominee.

Yes Hillary doesn't have a chance to catch up with him.

But people know there is still a race going on. Some people are still hoping Hillary can pull off a miracle (sorry it won't happen). The media has this notion though that they declare the nominee of a party and all America should bow down to their infinite wisdom. Sorry but that's not how democracy works. Thankfully enough Americans do know that and still go out and engage in democracy. If they listened to the media then McCain wouldn't be the GOP presumptive nominee and Hillary would have been declared victor before the primaries even started.

So Fox, MSNBC and CNN, get over yourselves. You are not the king makers, we the people are. You do not dictate democracy, you report on it, and right now you are doing a piss poor job of doing that.

Her campaign is massive debt:

Barack Obama began the month of April with a 5-1 cash advantage over a debt-saddled Hillary Rodham Clinton, setting the stage for his lopsided spending in the crucial primary state of Pennsylvania.

Financial reports filed Sunday by the Democratic presidential candidates with the Federal Election Commission show Clinton had $10.3 million in debts at the start of the month and only about $9 million cash on hand for the primaries. Obama reported having $42 million for the primary.

(emphasis added)

So how viable will she be against John McCain in the general if she is already this far in the red? Obama has proven his ability to raise record amounts of money. Going against the right wing noise machine, it takes money to be louder. Obama can afford to be the loudest candidate in the general.