The Dead Guy

This is an update to a post from earlier this month (The Math of Delegates). I thought since there are new polls available, that it was time to update these figures.

Both Obama and Clinton, as well as their campaigns, stated in the beginning that the nomination is about the delegate count. Only recently, when Clinton began to see her chances slipping in gaining a delegate lead did she want to change the rules of which they both had agreed. However, rules are rules and they are there for a reason - so that there is no doubt and no ambiguity in who the nominee is to be. (more…)

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So once again, lifelong politicians have taken words out of context and wielded them as weapons back at the person who spoke those words.

Senator Obama was 100% correct when he said after all the promises we have been given about improving the economic conditions, not just in Pennsylvania - but across America, and yet nothing has truly changed, that we are bitter and many of us blame that which we are told to blame: immigrants, people wanting to restrict the 2nd Amendment, the government supposedly trampling our religious rights, and so forth.

That’s what Obama was saying. And if you hear the whole conversation in context - you know that is what he said. The American people have been given scape - goats to blame by the people that are really to blame - the politicians that won’t do a damn thing to bring about the change needed to restore jobs and better conditions for our country.

But let me tell you something - I’m not bitter - I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!

I could go on, but these folks have said it much better than I. The first one, Robert Creamer, is the person who trained me in grassroots organizing back in 1998 while I was working on a campaign in Washington State. The others I don’t personally know - but they sum up the sentiment pretty well.

When it comes time to vote in your upcoming primary and the general election in November - don’t vote because you have to - vote because you want to … because you want to change the status quo … because you want things to get better … vote who you believe truly shares the real American values and who will best represent us to change the system back for the people, instead of turning its back on the people.

Vote because you are mad as hell, and you’re not going to take it anymore!

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This is not a new concept. FDR and The New Deal. The late Senator Paul Simon’s 1987 book by the same title as this post (Which I have a signed copy of - I had Senator Simon autograph it for me when he was in Iowa campaigning for the 1988 Democratic Presidential Nomination).

With a country that has resources and infrastructure in dire need of help, we need to put America back to work fixing these problems. Where could we start? Well, there are 10 pieces of U.S. infrastructure we must fix now!

And America needs jobs. The March 2008 unemployment rate is 5.1%. However, many thousands of unemployed workers fall off the rolls each month because they either can’t find a job while on benefits or just plain give up. The US Dept of Labor defines “unemployed” as those who “do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.” It’s not a true look at how many Americans are out of work at any given time. When you add in the discouraged, marginally attached, and those working part-time but can’t find a full-time job - you end up with about 9% rate of unemployment.

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Over at CNN, Wolf Blitzer discusses the trend in Clinton supporters talking about the Electoral College votes of states she won the popular vote in this year’s primaries and how Clinton’s tally beats Obama’s (Blitzer: Is Clinton ahead in the only count that matters?). They put forward the (misconceived) notion that since her 14 popular vote wins represent 219 Electoral Votes (not counting Michigan and Florida, which would put her at 263) beats Obama’s wins representing 202 Electoral Votes.

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Mark Penn

NAFTA has not been good to America’s working families. It has been especially hard on working families in Ohio and Pennsylvania. President Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. Senator Hillary Clinton promoted it publicly while she was First Lady and up until she began her campaign for President, continued to say that NAFTA has been good to America. And recently, her former Chief Strategist and -still- pollster, Mark Penn, was lobbying to give the country of Colombia free trade status with America.

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