posted by perkiset on Mar 5

CNN claims that Hillary won Texas because of undecided white male voters that changed to vote for her within the last 3 days before the primary.

Am I the only one that sees that as enormously suspicious?

I mean, isn’t it pretty clear if you are a white male in the state where George Bush came from where you stand re. Hillary? There were that many people that were SUDDENLY swayed into voting for her? She’s both adored and reviled pretty staunchly… so how can this be?

Yes, I have a theory: If you were tuned in at all to the right wing noise machine Monday and yesterday then you would have heard the likes of Rush all exercised about getting EVERYONE to vote for Hillary… why is this? Because they feel dead certain that they can beat her in the general election. The right wing WANTS Hillary as an opponent… does that not scare us horribly?

In my opinion, Bill’s antics cost us the white house for the last 8 years. Had he behaved differently during his presidency and not been impeached then we’d have Al Gore as a president, there’d be no Iraq war, we’d be on a path to energy independence and I would not be embarrassed speaking to my international friends. If their (the Clinton’s) personal love of power is so strong that they cannot see what is really best for the country (for her to go away), she takes the primary and then loses the general election to a war mongering fogey they will never be forgiven. They will have reduced their once-formidable legacy to something similar to Ralph Nader’s cartoon status (on a good day) or worse, being personally responsible for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of middle eastern peoples.

The longer this goes, the more I want her out of the race. However that being said, I am pretty alarmed by Obama’s lack of effective response to a week-ish of bad press and problems… I think the Clinton campaign has expertly and effectively pulled a string from his sweater and demonstrated that he MAY be ill-prepared to handle really tough stuff. The road to Pennsylvania is long and rocky… I guess I am looking forward to seeing how both candidates work through it.

In other news, Mike finally got out of the race last night. As the embodiment of the blending of church and state, all I can say is, “Huckin’ A Bubba!”

posted by perkiset on Mar 4

I am REALLY PLEASED because I just heard on CNN, Howard Dean commit to the notion of, “We started this process with a set of rules… and you can’t change the rules after you start” regarding seating the Florida and Michigan delegates. This is absolutely the most appropriate thing, so that the Clinton camp can’t try an end-run and grab delegates from two states where Obama was not even on the ballot.

If you are unfamiliar with the process, Florida and Michigan went early and tried to tie themselves into Super Tuesday by moving their primary dates up. The DNC told them not to, or their delegates would not be counted at the convention. They went ahead and had what are ostensibly useless primaries. Now they want the votes to count. The problem is, in Michigan for example, only Hillary left her name on the ballot - everyone else was removed - so she “won” Michigan because the only other thing you could vote for was “Unassigned.” If you wrote a candidate it then your ballot was eliminated as well.

So MI and FL deserve what they are currently getting - but I REALLY feel for the voters in those states - they effectively lost their democratic voice because the local Democratic party had a hard on and had to blow their load early. The stink of all of it is that there have been rumors that the Clinton camp was trying to get those delegates seated - which is obviously unfair, but since they’re more and more desperate they’re going to probably try every trick they can.

Well done Howard - reasonably Democrats all over applaud your fairness and objectivity. Unfortunate for the voters in MI and FL, but best for the country and the democratic process in general.

posted by perkiset on Mar 4

So this morning I am greeted on my local politics threads and radio with the unfortunate news that Arizona must cut 67 million from its budget next year. This is a necessary measure be try to get towards our goal of a balanced budget every year.

This news was sandwiched between two stories that I felt complimented each other nicely.

The first was how we’re going to save a bunch of that money – we’re going to pull 22% from our libraries. Essentially, we’re looking at closing all of our public libraries on Mondays and dropping the budgeted items for new books. Those pesky books probably contain liberal-leaning hogwash anyway, so no big worry. Books in general are just a real sore thumb around here, and are probably single most horrible offender in us losing our proud status as 50th worse in the nation in education – we are now 49th. Damn. And we worked so hard for that. But I digress.

The other story was how we are going to have to spend just a titch more of your beloved tax dollar because campus police on ASU will now be equipped with riot gear and assault rifles. Yes, you read that right – the campus police will now have semi-automatic assault rifles much akin to what is being used in Iraq today. Well, we are in the desert, so I guess that was one of the few remaining items we needed to implement to make the façade complete.

In other news, our AZ congress recently passed a bill that was hotly contested along partisan lines. The bill essentially allowed all children in all schools to carry guns. I know you’re not going to believe this, but one Republican congressman actually said that there are “kindergartners that are sitting ducks without the means to protect themselves.” The arch rivals to these benevolent protectors of the people, the Democrats, managed to get the bill amended in heated debate so that K-12 children are not allowed to carry weapons, but college kids can. Now call me silly, but in a world where a change in your depression meds can make you go on a killing spree, is it really a good idea to put more guns in school?

Perhaps I’m just a worry wart. Have a nice day!