kirktastic

I really hate that there are only two political parties in this country so an independent like me has to usually vote for the lesser of two evils.

I’m really pissed about this super delegate thing and how the dems set up the primaries in general. Take the Evergreen state. Obama won every county in Washington state, yet their “super delegates” are going for Clinton. Why can’t the will of the people be the exclusive method for selecting the candidate? Is it because the “party” doesn’t trust the people to make the right choice?

In the Lone Star State, the delegates are doled out based on the voter participation in past two elections based on the state senate district. That means, if you live in a district where there was low voter turn out in 2004 and 2006, you’ll get fewer delegates than one that turned out the vote. Why can’t it be proportional to the population? Since the Texas primary hasn’t really mattered in determine the president since the Garfield (or was it Taft?) election, it hasn’t really mattered. But this time it will matter. The conventional wisdom and the politicos all say that Obama does well with African Americans and Clinton does well with Hispanics. Well, shit, did these groups vote in large numbers in the last election in the important districts? Of course Latinos and Blacks aren’t these 100% voting blocks and so both politicians will have to court all constituencies. Austin will go Obama and I don’t have a clue what will happen in Houston and Dallas (both cities have sizable Black and Latino populations that may “cancel each other out” in delegates. San Antonio is has a large Latino population but are pretty conservative (and old which screams Hillary supporters). And then there’s the fucking super delegates.

And then there’s the complete clusterfuck of what happened in Florida and Michigan. These states wanted to have their primaries early and the national Democratic party said no. But they had the primaries anyway even though they were told by the national party their delegates wouldn’t count and the national candidates said they wouldn’t campaign there. Now if you lived in freezing cold Michigan to vote in a primary if you’d been told it wouldn’t count — and your candidate wasn’t on the ballot? (Florida doesn’t have the cold weather excuse, but still getting Americans to vote anyway, when you’re told it won’t count won’t help).

Flash forward to after Clinton is struggling getting delegates and now she’s saying that Michigan and Florida should count. Of course, even though she didn’t campaign there (officially) her name did appear on the ballot. Obama’s did not. So if these botched primaries do count, it totally is to Clinton’s advantage. The RIGHT thing to do, is to have proper primaries in these states. Give both candidates still running a chance to campaign and have both names on the ballot. Of course, these states have already paid for their primary elections and should they pay again? It wasn’t the tax payers in these states fault this is so fucked up. So the national Democratic party should pay for these elections, right? Well, that’s expensive. National talking heads say they should do the cheaper caucuses in these states. Except for that goddamn US Constitution giving the states the authority to determine how their delegates are determined and both Michigan and Florida use primaries. So these states would need their state legislatures change their laws. The other thing the Clinton campaign doesn’t like is the fact that Obama is 10 and 1 when it comes to winning caucuses.

What could possibly happen is after the next big three delegate states (TX, PA, OH) we could still be at a tie between the candidates. It could all come to the convention in the summer. We could be a situation where Obama has a slight lead in delegates based on the voting, but Clinton wins because of the super delegates (or vice versa, but let’s be honest, Bill and Hillary are already trying to get the super delegates locked up).

So what would happen? Would there be riots and protesting that people’s votes weren’t being taken into account? That the nomination was stolen? Or would people just say “meh” like they did in 2000 when the Supreme Court chose the president rather than the actual process. So if there aren’t riots in the streets, do you think that the Obama supporters will be just as jazzed to support Clinton (this one won’t). So will more democrats stay home in disgust with the whole process and usher in a McCain presidency.

Like I said in my last post, the election is the Democrat’s election to lose. I really hope the momentum from last weekend keeps up for Obama and he can pull away and get the nomination without any super delegate tricks.