As Morris goes, so goes the nation

I hope you're right.

I know I am right. I'm the chairman for my precinct, and I was there, and I counted the votes personally. Morris, Minnesota is totally in the Obama camp now.

PZ, you are a true activist, well done!

Well, now that the Democratic nomination is sewn up, here's some good news from Florida:

1) The Highlands County antievolution resolution just failed
2) Two of the seven State BOE members are on the record as supporting the new and improved public education standards

http://www.flascience.org/wp/

Show 'em sove love!

Aside: oh great, Huckabee is opening his speech with Biblical allegories...

Amazing results from Morris. Your influence must be spreading. For myself, I want another Clinton to clean up after this Bush. I'd like to see Obama in the WH in 2018. He has the time and he could do so much in the Senate until then. However, I will vote for him should he get the nomination.

You do know that Minnesota Republicans are probably going to for Huckabee, right? And, outside of Montana, it is the only state giving Ron Paul double digits so far. Too much lutfisk?

Sorry, I meant I hope you are right that "As Morris goes, so goes the nation."

Whoops, there was just a big change in the numbers shown on Google News. Huckabee is now a distant 2nd to Romney.

But can Morris overcome Norris?
As Chuck goes, so goes the Nation?
Then you'll all be Hucked.

Aside: oh great, Huckabee is opening his speech with Biblical allegories...

Yeah, that David and Goliath crap was a little too ham-fisted to be true dog-whistle.

And seeing Iowa up on the map along such luminaries as Arkansas, West Virginia, and Alabama as having gone for Fuckabee made me weep. I mean, come on. One of these things is not like the other...right? Right? Please tell me we're not as fucked up as banjo country.

Yeah, the Oakdale/Maplewood/North St. Paul (eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities) caucus had more than 4 times the participants of the last one (more than 3,000 registered more than a half hour before convening).

I don't know what the tally was, it was a zoo, with ballots having to be made on post-its by the end.

They made me a delegate, too, so now I have to figure out how the process works.

(I went for Obama, for the record).

This is good news. For some reason I had you pegged as a Hillary supporter (based on an older post that I don't specifically recall).

As long as Obama keeps it within about 100 delegates he should do fine. The more time he spends campaigning the more people like him. The spread-out primaries in the future can only help him.

I like Obama, but I can't name any of his policies. To be honest I can't name any of the candidates' policies.

Still, Obama seems to be less likely to continue America's policies of starting wars abroad, which is pretty much my biggest test of a candidate.

The Ron Paul whackos show up yet?

MSNBC just showed Minnesota going 2:1 for Obama. You're holding up so far, at least.

OK, but in November how many are going to go for McCain (or whoever the Repub turns out to be).

Obama is a great speaker, and 100 times better than any Republican candidate, but he's in the wrong on policy issues that really matter.

He's against a health insurance mandate, despite the fact that you can't get affordable universal healthcare without it.

He's stated that Social Security is in a financial crisis, a popular right-wing talking point, but it's not. It's solvent for decades, guaranteed (unless its reserved funds are looted). If economic growth plays along, it could be set indefinitely.

He claims to want to eliminate bitter partisanship. None of the important goals, such as universal healthcare, can be accomplished without extreme partisanship. Every single Republic in Congress is far to the right of every single Democrat. They'll fight tooth and nail to prevent universal healthcare, along with the insurance lobby. There's no negotiating; no compromise. They have to be steamrollered to get this country back on the progressive track. This is something that FDR understood well, when he pushed through the New Deal. It's something Edwards understands just as well, with Clinton not far behind. Obama doesn't appear to grasp this fact of the current political reality at all.

It still baffles the hell out of me that people are still voting for Huckabee. I can't believe there are that many folks out there calling themselves "patriots" yet effectively trying to literally destroy our freedoms.

Aside from that, I still don't really know how to feel about Obama. I mean, it's so damn refreshing having someone speak in a language that people actually use as opposed to the gibbering simp we've currently got in the White House. But, I am going to have to actually set aside some time to learn about these candidates (which I plan to do soon).

I'd prefer a Clinton/Obama ticket but would vote for an Obama/Clinton ticket gladly. The problems left by the current regime are so immense, we need to see a whole bunch of intelligent creative people working to solve them, so I'm hoping the continuing campaign doesn't turn into a huge mudfest.

you counted the votes? waiiiiit a freakin minute :-p

Good job getting all the democrats out! 5 repos versus 500 demos. cool stuff. :-)

I'm not sure that mandating insurance companies to take the american public's money is a solution to our healthcare problems.

Hmm, well, my state and California are both going Hillary. I will support her but I want Obama.

I don't know who I'd like to see with Obama, but it certainly wouldn't be Clinton. They are two very different candidates, with very different ideas (e.g. the Iraq war). Obama's views on the war are one of the main reasons I like him - and Clinton's are a huge reason why I dislike her. Perhaps Obama/Edwards is something I could get behind.

I wouldn't be so sure about that, PZ. I think Clinton's going to win out, and right now, I'd rather have her in the White House so that they can start undoing Bush's mess from Day 1. Obama is likeable enough, but I really don't want another Jimmy Carter.

I was supporting Edwards, but now I'm leaning towards Obama.

One question for you Minnesotans: How is the Senate race shaping up? I assume today wasn't the Senate primary, right? How are things looking for Al Franken?

Hey, Jack, we won't have real numbers on the Senate seat until the state convention in June. That being said, up in Mounds View (population 12,000) in the northern Burbs of the Twin Cities I was able to get many of the people to commit to Al Franken. At Least for Now.

I got elected Precinct Chair, too. Mounds View Democrats were solid for Obama, 2:1. It was a very big night for Democrats all over the state. I would be shaking in my boots to be a Republican in Minnesota right now. By September, the only ones left may be the convention delegates from other states.

I'm definitely supporting Obama for many reasons. If Hillary wins, she will get my vote only, no money, no political activism. I'm honestly not excited about her campaign. Honestly, they are pretty much equal, except for the fact that Obama had good judgement from the beginning (giving a powerful anti-Iraq war speech early on) and not supporting the Kyle-Lieberman amendment like Clinton did. All things being equal, he is going to be the candidate who will motivate people to stand behind whatever policy he puts in the front of the nation, he will be the candidate to renew the respect in the international community that has been lacking for so long.

The line to get into the caucus in Boise stretched all the way around three sides of a city block, and Obama swept the Ada County delgates. And 13,000 people showed up to his rally here at 8:30 Saturday MORNING. Can't help but feel like that's a good sign. Sure there's a million more reactionary Repubs in this state, but still, a good sign.

Who the hell is "Lynch?"

Frank Lynch: Man of the Future.

In 2004, Bonneville County, Idaho, had about 125 voters attend the Dem caucus. Tonight, it was over 950. With Obama's huge Boise rally last Saturday, I think something is afoot. And I think the GOP here can smell it.

Obama took 17 of 23 delegates, btw.

My significant other is an Italian. She is currently asst prof in an Ivy League med school. She said that if the Democrats win she wants to become a citizen. (She's been here since 1990) If the Republicans win, she wants to leave the country. I am going to campaign for McCain because I really want to leave... again. (should never have left Istanbul back in '88)

I'm still waiting to see what the eighteen Democrats in my state (Alaska) decided today....

Why are you bothering to vote? Whynot just go to Diebold's website, download a jpeg of the master key to the machines and have one cut. Go in and declare Hillary the Republican candidate and hand the democratic nomination to Ralph Nader. Sheesh.

It does look like the nation is going a bit like Morris. From the results I'm seeing posted now it looks like for the Democrats Obama has a lot of big wins, Clinton's wins seem a lot closer with only a few big leads. (Blue collar scientist, you seem to be in one of the states breaking big for Obama). It also seems like the Dem races are looking more lopsided to me than the Republican races, those seem to have a lot that are still pretty close.

I got to say I'm pleased with the way things are looking right now for Obama. Even though they seem to have similar policies, I just can't get as excited about Clinton like I can for Obama.

Why do I have this bad gut feeling that the superdelegates will sew it up for Hillary, she'll get royally stuffed by McCain/Huckabee, and then McCain will contrive to drop dead leaving us all up to our necks in the manure?

My precinct in Minneapolis had very similar numbers: Obama 306, Clinton 138, Others 10. Looks like our experiences echo the big (Minnesota) picture.

Whilst arguments may forward to a single candidate, their apparent virtues versus failures, does anyone not find it astounding that people are coming out to vote in caucuses in record numbers?!

People are actually taking their right to vote, their right to be heard, with all seriousness and perhaps even personal accountability.

As US citizens, we have been bombarded with news we are in a recession, that our financial future is bleak at best, that our lives are basically out of our control. If an individual does nothing, they are the ones out of control and have no one to blame but themselves.

I was fortunate enough to be able to volunteer to drive anyone needing transportation to their respective caucus site - please note, I did not care where they voted nor for whom they voted, democrat or republican. I was just excited that they were actually voting; participating in their personally owned democratic process.

Ahh, record numbers of caucus voters indeed! Now, can we carry this momentum of record numbers to the actual elections?

I also hope you're right and it will be Victory for Obama...

Wait, 10% turnout is good? Are you kidding me? Setting the bar awfully low aren't we? Is this maybe why things are so messed up? I keep thinking of those huge crowd scenes we see every year on black friday with people trampling each other to save $10 on a toaster, but you get all excited about 10% of your population showing up to actually have a say in how the county is run. Maybe you should offer a coupon for free doughnut at Denny's as an incentive to vote or something...

I think it's great to still see votes for Kucinich, myself, even if he's not running anymore.

Speaking from a UKian perspective, a 10% turnout sounds pretty impressive. Remember, no matter the hype, these are NOT national elections, they are intra-party events. Getting 10% of the whole population to vote in a party leadership election would be amazing.

It might be the lefty European in me, but would someone here mind explaining quickly why Kucinich had so little support?

You have millions of people struggling with high mortgage interest rates because of lenders' stupidity. That leaves many of them unable to pay for health insurance, so if they fall ill, they're stuffed (and so are their dependants), let alone the unemployed or chronically ill. It seems widely recognised in the medical economics literature that universal health care (UHC) would be much more efficient and equitable, and Kucinich co-authored the bill that would bring it about. As far as I can see, he was the only candidate proposing a proper national health service.

In fact, the more I read about his policies the more I like him. He actually seems like a principled left-of-centre politician with a campaigning pedigree (e.g. Muni-Light in Cleveland) and solid support in congressional elections. Everyone would love the USA again if he got half his policies enacted.

For goodness' sake, even Aragorn son of Arathorn endorsed him. What's not to like?

Why wasn't Gravel on your ballot? Obama is okay, and so is Clinston, but I'd rather see Gravel as president.

Peter, it's obvious. Our Democratic Party is equally dominated by social elites as the Republican Party, each with their own vested interests. This forces the party's position to a more centrist view in comparison to party politics in Europe. That's what happens to two party systems: they end up looking like carbon copies with one being only slightly left due to corporate interests versus parties that represent collectively the middle and lower classes. This allows fancy rhetoric but little to no action by the party leaders with only a minimal trickle down to the rest of the country.

But, hey...the world revolves around money. Those with it have the power and persuasion and those without must ride the tide or drown. That's the American Way(TM).

Ah great, the empty-shirt did well. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when people look at the pathetic details of his record.

Most recent being the NY Times article showing him totally lying about his Nuclear Power bill and how the Republicans and the executives who donated $200,000 to his campaign totally compromised him to uselessness. Or how he failed to stand up to the gun lobby and did not give a fuck about a woman's right to choose by voting "present" instead of trying to stop the religious rights roll-back of Roe vs Wade. Or his homophobic, "ex-gay" opening act and his willingness to lie down the evangelical dogs.

Or, as my wife says, "Obama broke my heart" because he's done nothing to stop the war he's Monday-morning QBed Clinton on...

But hey, he's a rock star... An agent of change... One who's, unfortunately, as vacuous as his hero, Ronald Reagan... The only upside is that if he wins, we won't be funding the Contras or any other Latin American death-squads.

On the down-side, universal health-care is shot and nothing will probably get done to roll-back the horrible authoritarian changes we've seen in America. I'm of the opinion that he'll probably be the most useless President Franklin Pierce, who's spineless "bi-partisanship" gave us the Kansas-Nebraska which nullified the Missouri Compromise and opened the new territories, wherever located, to choose slavery on an individual basis.

No, I'm not an Obama fan. We're not in a country that needs the spineless bi-partisanship exhibited by Obama or a "charismatic" President like Reagan. The Republicans have one kind of "bipartisanship" -- WIN AT ALL COSTS. We need to beat the Republicans back to the caves from which they came.

Crap have to go. Take the post as it is.

I am very sure that Hillary can manage the government better than Obama on day one. But I am looking for a leader of the country, and Obama is the best leader that has turned up since Reagan, and is progressive!

I'm still waiting to see what the eighteen Democrats in my state (Alaska) decided today....

Eighteen Democrats in total...? Scary place. ;-)

Why are you bothering to vote? Whynot just go to Diebold's website, download a jpeg of the master key to the machines and have one cut. Go in and declare Hillary the Republican candidate and hand the democratic nomination to Ralph Nader. Sheesh.

Someone should really do this in a place where they use Diebold machines, to demonstrate how easy it is to steal an American election.

Moses, would you please suggest a lesser evil?

I was at the Kansas caucus for my area (suburban Kansas City) last night and the crowd was lined up out the door. (Didn't think there were that many Democrats in all of Kansas, much less in my district.) In the end it was more than two-to-one, Obama over Clinton. I think the fact that she did not get a clear victory out of Super Tuesday must be really bad news for her.

I don't think you understand what the 10% means. These aren't people showing up for 5 minutes to punch a ballot and leave. This is a caucus. These are the people who show up to argue politics and who are there to donate time and money and actually lead the community. 10% didn't show up to vote, 10% showed up to say they are ready to be political activists.

That's huge. It means the democrats in our area have a large pool of people ready to work on the ground before the election and turn out the vote. Caucuses are leading indicators of political will and election turnout.

#16 Thanny. Newsflash. The Social Security fund has been loot ten times over. That money in your FICA is not protected at all. It just goes into the general tax fund. I don't want to have universal healthcare. Have you noticed that the health insurance companies love Hillary. They love her because her solution is lame. She basically wants to make it illegal not to buy health insurance. I hardly call that a solution to the problems doctors care about. I haven't heard about any organization of doctors standing up and praising any of these candidates ideas.

I wish people would apply the same scathing criticism they do to religion to their political beliefs. If we did, there wouldn't be a member of the two party system on this board.

And here's something curious -- some states have primaries and others have caucuses, and some candidates do better in primaries and others in caucuses.

I've found that Ron Paul gets an average of 15% of the vote in the Republican caucuses and only 5% of the vote in the Republican primaries -- rather rough numbers.

And of the other Republicans, Mitt Romney also does better in the caucuses than in the primaries, and conversely, John McCain does better in the primaries than in the caucuses.

And of the Democrats, Barack Obama does better in the caucuses and Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

I think that this is due to which populations participate -- the primaries sample the broader population, while the caucuses sample the more dedicated and activist members of the parties.

I find it encouraging that the Huckster received only 60% of the vote in his home state considering that both McCain and Romney are anathema to the typical Bible Belter. I am also noticing that the turnout for Democrats is consistently much, much higher than it has been for the Repugnicans -- a sure sign there's a fairly large contingent of the latter that has no enthusiasm for any of their candidates. Whether or not that antipathy will keep them away from the polls in November is anyone's guess, but I'm going to hope that quite a few of the wingnuts decide that they can't bring themselves to vote for anyone in November.

BTW, I live in Georgia. There's been a lot of talk in the MSM about the black vote making the difference for Obama. This is purely anecdotal as my office area contains too few people to be a statistically significant sample of anything, but my white co-workers are as fired up about Obama as the African-Americans who say they support him. I never thought I'd live long enough to see white Southerners get behind a black candidate, but it's happening.

I am not concerned at all about Obama's perceived lack of experience or his "youth." (When did 46 become too young to be taken seriously?) We've had presidents in the past who looked great on paper in terms of previous offices held but were lackluster in the White House, and we've had presidents who were viewed as woefully unprepared by their contemporaries and did remarkably well (Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind).

I was curious about Lynch as well. http://www.franklynch.org/

Obama won more states, but Clinton won more delegates, and it's still too close to call on the nominee.

A Clinton/Obama team could well be the first step in sewing up the Whitehouse for the next sixteen years for the Dems.

A really smart nominee, however, would pick someone from the other major party as their VP with the agreement that when that VP ran for president, he/she would pick their VP from the other party in return. Buh-bye partisanship.

I'd love to hear if anyone from Minnesota can beat this:

My precinct in Minneapolis had a turnout of 625!

Obama: 441
Clinton: 180
Others: 4

My e-mail provider has a poll on its website. It's in German, so you can imagine where the so far 31,614 votes have been cast. Just for the record...

The question is "who should become POTUS".

Hillary Clinton35%
Barack Obama61%
John McCain3%
Mitt Romney1%

Rock out with your caucus out!
Anybody else catch the Deadheads for Obama webcast? Wow.

Obama is 4 years older than JFK was at the same point in the 1960 election. He has more experience as an elected official than GWB had in 2000, more than HRC has now, and more experience in Washington than any state governor (Romney, Huckabee). Because he's under 50 and was relatively unknown until a couple of years ago, the common perception - still! - is that he's a greenhorn.

The age issue is a non-issue. The race issue is a non-issue. The gender issue is a non-issue. Issues? What are those? Television coverage feeds the whole cult of personality aspect of a political campaign, and people vote for the candidate they like (beer-buddy Bush, e.g.) rather than the candidate they actually agree with. This is the harsh-yet-stoopid reality of American politics.

Am I getting too cynical?

Agree wholeheartedly with Moses #44. Obama completely misses me, I listen closely, waiting anxiously to be inspired and all I hear is a lot of hot air about 'unity', exaltations to fate and destiny and the burnishing of the bronze idol of Barack . I look at his website and even there all we get are lovely sounding headlines. I look at his background and the most salient fact for me is that he rejected his free thinking upbringing and discovered his faith in a Xian god in his twetnties! Scary. At least Hilary was brought up in bondage and although she is apparently personally devout she does not display this unfortunate illness in public very often.
It's a terrible shame that Kucinich is marginalised, though thankfully some of his policies creep in 4 years later, and also that the pathetic petty obsessions of a navel gazing media can corrupt even intelligent thought. If Tom DeLay, Scooter Libby, Trent Lott et al can be brought down for ethics violations in this administration with both houses Republican for the best part and a completely partisan Justice Dept do people really believe that the Clinton's actually did any of the crimes they've been slandered for? Come on, its impossible to hide real dirt and all they could prove was a sexual liaison Come on let's not buy into the myths of a bereft media.

A Clinton/Obama team could well be the first step in sewing up the Whitehouse for the next sixteen years for the Dems.

Yeah, but the problem with that is, assuming Hillary wins, Bill would be there acting as a de facto VP. In that case, why would Obama give up a senate seat for a VP spot with even less influence than normal?

Preliminary exit polling from 16 states showed that white, born again, evangelical Christians split across the three leading Republican candidates, with one-third supporting Huckabee and the rest evenly divided between McCain and Romney.

Huckabee, the Dark Ages candidate, did better than I expected but not by much.

He only pulled 1/3 of the evangelical voters. Which means a lot of nonevangelicals voted for him.

This illustrates a point that gets lost most of the time. The fundies aren't the monolithic, slack jawed, morons marching in unison that we imagine. Although many are.

There is no such thing as a Xian, Moslem, or Jew. These religions have schismed so many times and Americans aren't much for following the rules. There are many, many different viewpoints under the labels. Some evangelicals don't have a problem with evolution or science or separation of church and state. Some may even vote democratic.

Ian (#54):

Obama won more states, but Clinton won more delegates....

Not so.

They're still computing the delegates in most of the Super Tuesday states; Obama has declared delegate-victory; and Clinton is not disputing it.

So Obama won more states and more delegates on Feb. 5. It's true that the race is very far from over, but the trend is uniformly toward Obama: Clinton hasn't posted a net gain in ("earned") delegates on any primary night thus far. (The best she's done is break even on New Hampshire night).

Why do I have this bad gut feeling that the superdelegates will sew it up for Hillary, she'll get royally stuffed by McCain/Huckabee, and then McCain will contrive to drop dead leaving us all up to our necks in the manure?

That's my nightmare scenario. In more detail, the Dems nominate Hillary (they just don't understand the visceral hatered Republicans have for her). Every Republican comes out of the woodwork to vote agains Hillary. We lose both the presidency and the congress.

The Republicans nominate McCain, but to appease the conservatives, Huckleberry is his running mate. After ramping up the war and screwing up the economy even worse than it already has been, McCain dies, leaving Huckleberry to attempt to establish a theocracy.

Those critical of Clinton's healthcare plan need to actually examine it. The government would provide a policy to anyone who wants it, which the private insurers would have to compete with.

Since private insurance is so inefficient, the government policy will be cheaper and more effective. The private insurers will gradually drop out of the healthcare industry (or go out of business, if that's all they do), and we'll be left with a single-payer system, which is what everyone with any sense at all wants.

There are subsidies to make sure everyone can afford the insurance, so no one will be stuck with a new bill they can't afford to pay. The money will come from the rich folks, by rolling back the idiotic Bush tax cuts for those who make 250K/year and up, and adding new taxes on the rich as necessary.

The private insurance companies are going to fight this plan with everything they have. They are manifestly not supportive of Clinton.

But it won't work if people can opt out of insurance, passing the costs on to everyone else until they get sick. Even Obama has stated there'd have to be penalties for enrolling late, which is 90% of the way towards a mandate, without the benefit of the overall cost reduction from the start that a mandate provides.

Thanny (#64):

Those critical of Clinton's healthcare plan need to actually examine it.

Okay. In the (not unlikely) event that she remains a member of that body for the next 4+ years, Senator Clinton can put together a health-care bill that contains mandates and get it through Congress. I guarantee you President Obama will sign it.

The entire health-care debate in this primary season has ignored the fact that designing the minutiae of health-care plans is not actually something that presidents generally do. Which is a stark contrast with, say, deciding whether or not to launch idiotic wars.

I suppose most of you here like Obama? Well, me too - I'm glad there's something (and more than you would think) we can agree on, heh.

Eighteen Democrats in Alaska?? Sitka went 166-66 Obama over Clinton. A good many voters changed from no party affiliation for the opportunity.

A really smart nominee, however, would pick someone from the other major party as their VP with the agreement that when that VP ran for president, he/she would pick their VP from the other party in return. Buh-bye partisanship.

Why the obsession with "bi-partisanship?" Sorry, but I can't see myself voting for almost any Republican. The reason? Because I disagree with pretty much everything that differentiates the Republican Party from it's alternatives. Their policies suck ass. Why would I want to guarantee more people with bad ideas in office?

PZ: Something odd going on here. I stayed at our caucus site and watched the vote count, and it was identical to what you have here in terms of ratio of Clinton to Obama, but with fewer than 100 votes from that one caucus precinct. That is expected.

But we also go exactly one Biden vote. One.

And, I did see this guy who looked a LOT like Joe Biden coming in out of the room very quickly... seemed like he was in a huge hurry...

Bipartisanship, to Republicans, means "Democrats give in and do it our way." The Republicans have filibustered something like 134 times so far in this Congress session.

Look at George "I'm the decider" Bush. What recent Democrat would have said that? Democrats don't say things like that because one of the central values espoused by centrist liberals is open-mindedness and listening to people who disagree with us. With far too many conservatives, it's their way or the highway.

And it's not entirely the conservative politicians' fault...look at McCain, who wants to bomb Iran and opposes abortion rights, but apparently still isn't conservative enough for many people. Many Republicans, in order to get elected, have to represent the Christian Right, people who believe that their values are dictated by God, and any compromise is going to be seen as selling out to the gay-loving, baby-killing Powers of Darkness.

The entire health-care debate in this primary season has ignored the fact that designing the minutiae of health-care plans is not actually something that presidents generally do.

Good grief. What country are you talking about? Presidents in the U.S. submit their own bill proposals to Congress all the time. Were you not around in 1993 when Hillary Clinton's first healthcare attempt was sabotaged by F.U.D. from the right and the insurance lobby?

I voted for Obama, but it really has been a toss-up in my mind between him and Hillary. I do think that the Clintons' inept handling of healthcare led to the demise of the democratic party in '94, and that Bill's indiscretions were a big reason we got Bush in 2000 (not Hillary's fault, but she will inevitably be exposed to Bill's scandals). Of course Obama may turn out to be just as inept and scandal-prone in some ways, and the republicans will at some point try to smear him as well. But remember, they were smearing Bill as a draft-dodging, pot-smoking, philanderer well before he was nominated, the hard conservatives are so disillusioned with McCain now that it's not clear to me that they could muster an all-out attack campaign on Obama. Presumably Hillary has learned a lot from her previous mistakes, but then again she did exercise bad judgment in voting for the war, though it's a lot easier to oppose it politically if you're not the senator of the state that was hit the hardest in 9/11 and presumably has the most to fear from a WMD attack. I don't think the comparison that people make sometimes between Bush and Obama is fair, but the comparison with Carter may be... it's hard to say (Was Carter really a disaster, or did he happen to be president at a very unlucky time?). For passing landmark legislation, I agree with #65 that the details of their, at-present, fairly vague healthcare platforms are irrelevant - but I do think it would be important to get a proposed bill to congress -FAST- before the republicans can start the fear-mongering, and Hillary would probably have a better shot at that then Barack. Then again, Barack could appoint Hillary to lead the health care proposal effort. Obama is a hell of a good speaker/motivator, and since that's really one of the most important jobs of a president, I don't think it should be discounted. Ultimately I voted for Obama because something bothers me about the idea of having only two families in the white house for 24+ years. Maybe that's not a very good reason though... i don't know.

Well done. For substance in areas that may be of interest to some above,

http://oberlinsciencelibrary.blogspot.com/2008/01/barack-obama-pushes-f…
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/26/171437/356
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/obama-actually.ht…

Hillary and Obama really are the same platform dressed up in two different superficial costumes. Both of them would force everyone into health insurance companies. Because both require better coverage terms, such as eliminating pre-existing conditions and small deductibles, all existing ppremiums will increase, plus there will be insurance premiums for another 50 nillion customers.

The Frank Lynch solution puts every citizen regardless of age, into medicare, where you have complete choice of doctors etc, and eliminates insurance companies from healthcare.

The difference between Frank Lynch versus Obama/Clinton, is approximately $1 trillion less for Frank's approach, which is enough to pay for free college, free daycare, 20 new green carless cities, a 2,000 mile long windfarm, plug-in electric cars, and 200 new medical schools with free tuition cojoined with 200 new biomedical research centers. All spelled out at the site of the candidate http://www.franklynch.org that Howard Dean/Clinton/Obama work mightily to supress.

Frank Lynch not only champions John Edwards two nations/poverty in America, but actually set up a foundation to fight poverty inside America. It is different from Clinton's foundation that sends our money overseas. Frank's charity http://www.franklynchfoundation.org is devoted to the world's forgotten poor, which are the 50 million poor people inside of the USA that we must incorporate into the American dream.

OK, OK, so I went to read some of Frank Lynch's webpages, and you know, its really a wonderful thing that he's up to. Donations for the world's forgotten poor - being all the 'forgotten' poor in America!! This has riled me for a long time - all the attention/fundraising going to the poor in 3rd world countries. What about OUR poor?. OUR suffering immigrant communities? Our childen in Appalachia who have no shoes? I'd like Angelina Jolie to make a good-will tour of the poor communities in America and raise awareness and money to pay for their health care, their education, food for their mouths. Is it because she won't get the same publicity? The UN won't sponsor her?

Wasn't that a great feeling watching all the Obama people come pouring into your caucus room? That's what it was like here in Alaska district 8 (west Fairbanks), which went for Obama 287-124. It seemed like there was an Obama sticker on everyone in the room, and the cheer that went up for Obama's campaign video was about ten times louder than for Hillary's.

It's amazing that even here some people are repeating Hillary's silly talking points, like the "ready on day one" nonsense and the idea that Obama's some kind of empty suit. There's a reason Obama wins by such a wide margin among college-educated voters everywhere, and it's not emotion. He's better on policy and he's got a much more impressive record in the Senate, both in terms of accomplishments and avoidance of big mistakes. The inspiring oratory is icing on the cake.

What about OUR poor?

The only reason there are poor people in this society--where opportunity abounds--is because they simply don't have what it takes to succeed. They are not intellectually capable, or cultural disposed, toward success, and are pretty much beyond hope. [/Murray and Hernstein]

I sure want to read all of these comments (and I haven't stopped by Pharyngula in a few days, so I'm kinda behind), but I want to express my option so bad that I'm gonna burst. I'll read them all in time, but I just love talking politics more than I love talking science and religion, and that says a lot.

Democrats have to consider who is the best for the party in general, and who is going to contribute more to winning in November. While the media claims that democrats are divided right now, the polls indicate that 75% of democrats would support either Clinton or Obama for president. Compare to the republicans, who are so divided that the candidates each represent different wings of the party...McCain for right-of-center moderates, Romany (formerly) for Reagan-era economic conservatives, and Huckabee for those uber-right cannot conceive of voting for anything other than an born-again religious crowd. With Romany out of the picture and Huckabee on the rise, things are scary, but McCain has the nomination all but sealed up...and he's appeal to independents will help in November. But will he bring in Huckabee/Romney/Limbagh/Coulter republicans? That remains to be seen, but things are not looking good. The republicans are far more fractured than the democrats, even with Obama and Clinton in a dead heat (Obama is still approx. 100 delegates behind, but the proportional amount is shrinking, and he does better the longer he campaigns). In fact, there is only one presidential candidate than can encourage republicans to vote in droves...Hilary Clinton. There is so much anti-Hillary sentiment that I doubt that she can win against ANY republican nominee. In contrast, not only can Obama reach out to independents like McCain, he has the same sort of respect (at least for now) in conservative circles as McCain has (at least for now) in liberal ones. The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are nil...so what if Clinton has more details in place? Obama would do good to listen to her, perhaps even appoint her as an advisor or cabinet member (not runningmate, for the same toxic reasons).

I'm still waiting to see what the eighteen Democrats in my state (Alaska) decided today....

Eighteen Democrats in total...? Scary place. ;-)

Why are you bothering to vote? Whynot just go to Diebold's website, download a jpeg of the master key to the machines and have one cut. Go in and declare Hillary the Republican candidate and hand the democratic nomination to Ralph Nader. Sheesh.

Someone should really do this in a place where they use Diebold machines, to demonstrate how easy it is to steal an American election.

Moses, would you please suggest a lesser evil?

My e-mail provider has a poll on its website. It's in German, so you can imagine where the so far 31,614 votes have been cast. Just for the record...

The question is "who should become POTUS".

Hillary Clinton35%
Barack Obama61%
John McCain3%
Mitt Romney1%