Do the Kennedy's still have "it"?

Obama pasted Hillary in South Carolina. Ted Kennedy, supposedly disgusted by the Clinton attacks on the future of the party, is going to endorse Obama and campaign for him. It's a big pickup. Obama also scored about 878 newspaper endorsements today and a potential VP candidate in the female governor of Kansas (I don't know much of anything about her, but apparently she's a "rising star" in the Obama vein, and she'll be the Democrat rebuttal to Bush's SOTU speech).

We loyal Obama supporters have new life and enthusiasm after the results of SC, no doubt about that. But I still think the nomination is Hillary's to lose. I said that if Obama lost Nevada, he'd be toast. I still stand by that, although this rash of endorsements gives me pause. Obama's biggest problem now is that there just isn't time to be able to cut into Hillary's huge leads in all these big states coming up on Super Tuesday. Though the nomination won't be decided on that day, if Hillary builds up a sizable enough delegate advantage, there's nothing Obama can do other than to hope he can remain close and have Edwards send his delegates to him and hope that the super delagates, which Hillary has a commanding lead in, break his way for some reason.

And that's where Ted Kennedy comes in. The Kennedy's are Democratic royalty. The name is gold and Ted is pretty much the godfather of liberal ideals. In other words, his opinion carries weight with old school democrats, minorities, and union members. This will be his last go round in terms of impacting an election. He's gone all in and is supporting the young upstart over the establishment and he's going to do everything he can possibly do to see that it happens.

Think about it for a second. If Ted Kennedy swoops down as the "savior" of Obama, not only will the Kennedy name be revered by the next generation of Democrats, but he'll go down in history as the man who changed the party forever. He'll be the man who laid the hammer to the Clinton dynasty single handedly, crushed it, and assured that the name "Kennedy" will always usurp the name "Clinton".

But can he do it? This is going to end one of two ways: either Ted Kennedy will show Democrats that he is still relevant and is the true leader of the party, or he'll flame out on the campaign trail in embarrassment. He's drawn his line in the sand and it's going to be fascinating to see what happens in the next 10 days. Can the Kennedy name once again impact democratic politics? I think there is a lot riding on the line here. None of which I've heard anybody talk about.

Even more fascinating, can Ted Kennedy convince Al Gore to join the party? Whereas Kennedy has more of an impact on Obama's perception and gives him some "inside Washington" support, only Al Gore can have the sort of impact that would really make a ton of voters re-evaluate Hillary Clinton before Super Tuesday. Remember, there is a huge amount of democrats that were actively calling for Gore to get into the race. Everything he touches right now turns to gold. And he's got an incentive: Gore could potentially play kingmaker and crush his old boss at the same time.

Obama has got to get that endorsement. Preferably on Tuesday, so as to completely overshadow Hillary's underhanded sneak attack in Florida by making a speech, thus putting pressure on Howard Dean to seat Florida at the convention (which is another reason the Clinton's are pissing off the establishment at the moment, and Dean in particular).

p.s. rumors are swirling that Obama might open a campaign office in Omaha and Lincoln for the Feb. 9th caucuses. If so, I'll probably be knocking on your door telling you to vote for the future :)

Barack needs a xenomorph to visit Hillary

So I saw Ridley Scott's Alien on the big screen this past tuesday. It was great. Nothing like seeing the famous chestburster screen in a theatre full of people. Next up on my list of free movies this semester is Mad Max, Blade Runner, and Robocop among others. What I absolutely can't wait for is The Thing. That film is part of my Holy Trinity as far as movies are concerned (the others being BTiLC, and Halloween) so to see it in a theatre is hugely exciting for me. According to my mother, she took me to it when I was 6 months old. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of that experience :)

Obama is dropping in the polls in South Carolina, which leads me to think that Bill Clinton is single handedly beating him in this race. You know what the interesting thing is? Before Bill got personally involved in the way he is now, Hillary lost to Obama straight up. It was only when Bill Clinton started being the attack dog for his wife that Obama started losing. One South Carolina poll showed Obama's support amongst white's down to 10%. Unbelievable. It's ironic that John Edwards is actually keeping him afloat in South Carolina by splitting the white vote with Hillary when he's hurt him in Nevada and New Hampshire. Obama's support is coming almost solely from blacks in SC. I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes another New Hampshire scenario: a voting bloc that tells pollsters one thing (I'm voting Obama), and then votes Bill Clinton when they get to the voting booth. I'm sitting back and watching all of this with a big blank stare on my face. Bill Clinton has decided to run for president again and Obama really can't do anything to stop it. He's got to hope that something dramatic changes the dynamic, because he's toast. I'm beginning to think he won't even win South Carolina now.

New York is destroyed tonight

In a few hours I'll be watching a giant monster destroy New York. At least, that's what I hope to see. Hopefully the hand held nature of the film will allow for some real glimpses of the monster and not some "blink and you'll miss it" crap. A lot of people are saying Cloverfield is good and a lot of people are saying it's hollow disposable garbage. I'll find out tonight which camp I fall into.

Because I'm watching Cloverfield tonight, I'm going to miss the Democratic debate. In any event, below is the video that everybody is calling a "historic" speech by Barack Obama (it seems that that label is thrown around with him quite often, actually). I question the "historic" tag of it, but it goes to what I've always said that he's such a better speaker with a prepared speech in front of him. Whether you agree with what he says or not (Jeff, I can see your eyes rolling at the Scooter Libby Justice comment :) ), what can't be argued is that he does have a really magnetic and powerful presence when he speaks. I do find it great that he doesn't just pimp the black community (poor choice of words, sorry), but also tells them that the black community has been just as intolerant of King's vision as white's. C'mon South Carolina, don't bow to the Clintons: Vote Obama.

P.S. I won "Backloader of the Year" at Gallup's awards ceremony. I'll let your imagination try to figure out what that one means :)

There is no truth....or snow....

Orangutan Island is kickass. The show follows a group of orphaned Orangutan's that have been saved and put together in close proximity with each other on a small island to coexist. The show is just fascinating. These animals are solitary by nature but put them together and they start using tools, helping each other, and testing their human constraints. In one episode, a group of Orangutan's from a neighboring island not only tested the electric fence, but started dismantling it when they found it unexpectedly shut off. I can't believe their are dickheads that go around killing them. Anyways, it's a good show and I recommend taking a look.

The professor of my Christians and Pagans class is bizarre. Just bizarre. He explained to everyone in class today how to prove that snow falling from the sky is just an illusion (objects can't move an infinite distance in a finite amount of space), how red is actually green and vice versa, and that there is no such thing as truth. Every fundamental institution and way of thinking is apparently not real at all. We're trying to wrap our heads around Cicero's "on academic scepticism" and it's mind-numbing. Seriously, try reading this. It'll give you a migraine. Luckily, my friend Jeff is in the class with me, so at least I have somebody to bitch to :)

My african-americans in film class is very interesting. Especially since one of the requirements is that we do a visual presentation of some kind for our final (i.e. a video). Luckily, one of my friends from past film classes is in it as well. I'm thinking about trying to convince him to make a blaxploitation film with me :)

My other english class started out like shit. I thought it was going to be terrible. Then we read Rip Van Winkle and had a fun class discussion about it and I was like "Okay, this might not be so bad". Then I found out that for the next two weeks we're going to be reading gothic horror/supernatural stories from the 1800's. Wow! I'm looking forward to that. Science in the Classical World is my "easy" class at the moment. I don't foresee any difficulty in that one.

Tomorrow night I'm going to a big awards forum at the State Theatre for my job. I've been hearing murmurs that I may be receiving something. I hope that's not the case. In any event, they are catering some place called The Green Gateau. Anybody ever eaten there?

Go Barack Obama! I have a feeling this caucus won't be close, but I'll cross my fingers. Hopefully when the awards thingy gets over a 9, I'll come home to a victory. I'm decidedly pessimistic about it though.

For what it's worth

For what it's worth, I just woke up from a really vivid dream of the Patriots losing. My dream overall was weird. It was of the kind that wasn't quite a nightmare but made me wake up suddenly. Has anyone ever had those? Where you feel fairly unsettled even though you can't really remember what you were dreaming about? I didn't wake up screaming or anything, just a little uncomfortable.

Anyway, the focus of my dream wasn't the Patriots. I was with some other people who were watching it and something bad happened. I can't remember exactly what the bad thing that happened was, but I do remember quite clearly watching the Patriots lose and walk off the field, players yelling at each other. The final score was 17-10 and the Patriots screwed up a chance to tie the game when the botched a 4th and goal play. The mood in the room was fowl and unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what happened after that, but I woke up suddenly in a jolt. Weird, but if this scenario plays out, you heard it here first :)

My classes suck. I'll get into more of that on another blog.

Hillary's anti-democrat shenanigans...

Well, the 800 pound gorilla in the room has finally begun to throw its weight around: race is now an issue in the Democratic primary. Make no mistake about it, this was all the Clinton campaign's doing and as a democratic voter, I am seething with loathing for Hillary. Everybody in their right mind can see as clear as day that when Obama talked about Martin Luther King in his speeches, it was in the context of dreaming for bigger and better things, not in a "Clinton hates black people" kind of way. Of course, the sad reality of the world we live in is that race is still a huge issue in this country. Hillary's people are smart, and they want to exploit that issue to their advantage.

By doing so, Hillary is pushing all her chips into the middle and daring Obama to do the same. The underreported storyline throughout all of this is that Hillary Clinton has no more opportunities to be president after this election. Let's assume that whoever wins stays 8 years, which both Bill Clinton and George Bush did. Hillary would be 68 years old by the time her next opportunity came around. I don't mean to be sexist, but voters aren't going to elect an old woman to be president. Therefore, Hillary has to do everything she possibly can to knock off Obama. The problem though, is that she is alienating democrats everywhere. I've already gone on record as saying I would not vote for her in the general election if she wins the nomination. Now I feel like joining democrats in trying to prevent her from getting into the white house. I can only speak for myself in this, but Hillary's recent tactics have been so low and unseemly that I would contemplate voting for the Republican just out of spite. I can only assume that many democrats around the country feel the same way.

As we were talking a bit about on Dead Politics 4, there is a huge change going on in both parties right now. Democrats are flocking to Obama in a way that hasn't been seen in a long, long time. Whether enough go to him to overtake Hillary is unclear, but my generation of Democrats have clearly seen the light, and that light is not the wife of an ex-president. Hillary's actions are what is causing this divide. There is an unwritten rule in Democratic primaries that our candidates are supposed to be "above" the political attacks that characterize the Republican side of things. You don't tear down another person in your own party purely for political gain. You don't bring up divisive issues of past admited drug use, or worse, race in an attempt to win. The Democrats are supposed to be the party that showcases the fact that race belongs in the past, not drudging it up in an effort to enflame racial tensions. What Hillary and Bill have been doing absolutely disgusts me as a proud democrat.

So the question now becomes: Can Obama transcend the race issue? Race is the ugly topic below the surface of America that nobody wants to talk about. There are deep seeded anti-black roots that are all over this country, not just in the south. Hillary bringing up race is obviously a southern strategy to get every state except South Carolina. Personally, I think Obama can do it, but he needs some help. He needs Colin Powell, one of the most respected black men in the country and who hinted at an endorsement but backed away, to actually step up to the plate and endorse him. He also needs, as I've been saying over and over, the endorsement of Al Gore. Those two are probably the most liked and respected people, arguably, in their parties and a major news event, particularly with Powell, would change the dynamic of the race. I don't know if it's going to happen, but I'm not sure that Obama has a viable counterattack to Hillary. Idealistic speeches can't overcome centuries old racist undertones. He needs to have some big name, respected politicians come out and say "This is bullshit, what Hillary is doing. We won't support her because she is pissing on what the democratic party is supposed to stand for".

Perhaps Obama has some magic up his sleeve and maybe Karma will come back to bitch slap Hillary across the face.

p.s. I will be donating to the Obama campaign this evening because I feel strongly that this is the guy to make things happen. I also feel that by contributing a small sum, I'm at least making the effort to give a big middle finger to Hillary. I hope my contribution is put to good use.

New Semester starts Monday

Here's my classes:

African Americans in Film (English)
Pagans and Christians (Classics)
Science in the Classical World (Classics)
Short Story (English)

"Change" and looking forward hypothetically...

Hillary Clinton has always fallen back on the notion that, nationally, she is way ahead of Obama. That was always the silver lining. Losing Iowa and/or New Hampshire would suck, but in the end, the national support would win her the big delegate states. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Stories today have been littered with Hillary's so called "demise". I, for one, am not willing to just concede Obama's inevitability. After all, Hillary was inevitable 2 months ago, and as we all can see, politics can turn on a dime. You never really know what's going to happen in the future. It could be just as possible that Obama does something stupid, or Hillary's rumored "dirt" has a big impact, or world events shift the electorate's priorities. In other words, Obama supporters can't just assume the nomination is theirs.

But this is the first time that national poll numbers are showing Hillary sinking and sinking fast. Which seems to tell me that the "Obama Wave" that the press seems so enamored by (Tom Brokaw said he hasn't seen anything like it since the days of Kennedy) is happening nation wide. The sheer immenseness of the Democratic electorate flocking AWAY from Hillary tells me that, her support was never that strong to begin with. Democrats are, at their heart, idealists. We want big things, big changes, and bigger than life politicians we can feel have our best interests at heart. But I think this is the first time, in my lifetime at least, that there is a Democrat with the resources to compete with the "establishment" candidate. Let's not forget that Obama, even when way far behind in the polls this past summer, raised just about as much money as Hillary. Even back then, signs were pointing to the fact that Democrats wanted "change".

What is this "change"? Everybody is jumping on the "change" bandwagon, donkey and elephant alike. Hillary is struggling desperately to tell voters that she is change. Mitt Romney has evoked Obama by telling Republicans that he is the only change candidate on their side, thus the only one who could beat Obama in the general election. Likewise, Huckabee and Edwards are chanting the mantra of "change, change, CHANGE". Let's not forget, that Obama and Edwards were, from the very beginning, the only candidates who offered this slogan. Obama's success has come not from just preaching "change", but from incorporating "hope" into his speeches. Obama has a way of making people believe that better days are just around the corner. That there truly can be an end to the horribly polarizing divisiveness of our country. He brings that across far better and more emotionally evocative than any other candidate. Now, whether or not he can deliver on that message is a different debate. But in the minds of Democrats across the country (and independents, and Republicans), that message is resonating in a way that has even the most hardened political pundits and insiders shaking their heads in disbelief.

Obama, by all accounts, is supposed to cruise to victory tomorrow. Gallup has him winning by 13%. I think it will be a lot closer than that, but who knows? There are two important things to look at tomorrow if he wins.

1) Did he win the Democratic vote? The common thinking is that Obama will overrun Hillary because of the large numbers of independent voters in New Hampshire. That could happen, but if he doesn't win the registered democrats, expect Hillary to go on the attack immediately. She'll frame it in a way that tells the upcoming states that don't allow independents to vote "Don't let outsiders determine our party nominee". That's a solid base rallying cry and it will may even enflare the paranoia and conspiracy theories that Republicans are "infiltrating" the democratic primaries in order to affect the outcome they want. Of course, Obama will counter that one of the entire points of his candidacy is that he can bring independents and republicans into the democratic ranks. But if he wins amongst registered democrats (he won 32-31 in Iowa), Hillary won't be able to use that as a line of attack.

2) Can he replicate the youth and 1st time voter turnout of Iowa? I think this will be the most important thing to look for tomorrow. Obama's candidacy is predicated on the notion that he can DELIVER new voters to the party and finally accomplish the democratic "holy grail": bring young Asses to the voting booth. The amazing thing about Iowa is that he did it. Now comes the real test: can he replicate it? If the polls show tomorrow night that more record turnout among youth and first time voters skew heavily in favor of Obama, then Hillary is toast. Why? Because no matter how strong her base may be in New York or Florida...it won't be enough when Obama's youth support come out in droves to offset Hillary's 65 year old grandmother's. Young voters are also far more forgiving. If Obama does have a screw up that the media magnifies, it will matter a lot less to a 25 year old kid with an iPhone than it would to an older voter. At the very least, the young voters would keep Obama competitive in the later states. However, if Obama does not duplicate his success in Iowa, then Hillary is certain to jump on the fact that Iowa was a mere aberration and that he only won New Hampshire because of the independent vote, and things will change as soon as they get to the closed democratic primaries.

Will an Obama victory tomorrow end the Clinton candidacy like some pundits are predicting? Probably not. There are rumors that Hillary doesn't have much money, but I don't put much stock in those. Hillary supporters can raise just as much money in a crunch as Obama supporters, probably moreso. What I think is troublesome for Hillary is that she's going to have to do a Rudy Giuliani, only focus on Feb. 5th, strategy. There's been a lot of talk about the delegate count. Hillary currently holds a commanding lead in "superdelegates" and that if she can pull out New York, California, and Florida, it won't matter if Obama runs the table. Looking at the numbers, this is actually a somewhat apocalyptic scenario (Hillary will automatically win Michigan since Obama ain't on the ballot). If Hillary does rely on her establishment buddies to secure her an insurmountable delegate count, that will have terrible consequences for the Democratic party.

If Obama is running through states with an overwhelming grassroots support and bringing new voters into the party, and Hillary tries some strange, seemingly underhanded tactic to win (putting aside that it is a perfectly sound strategy well within party rules) by calling in all her congressional and senate favors to throw their support her way even in the face of a huge movement against her...the party will disintegrate and she will have no chance in hell of winning the nomination in November. Obama supporters are nothing if not insanely passionate about the guy and if Hillary is perceived to be doing it more for the Clintons and not the party, there will be a rebellion against her by democrats in the general election. If this nomination process gets to that point (which I don't think it will, but I don't put anything past Hillary Clinton; I'm just talking hypothetically right now) you will see a nightmare scenario where the party fractures and it would probably kill any chance for the Democrats to ever get the youth out in huge numbers. You don't invest this much and then watch a politician sneakily come in the back door for the nomination, even if it is perfectly legit to do.

Wow, this went really long. These are just some of my observations about what may or may not happen. Believe me, I'm definitely stoked beyond belief that Obama has done as well as he has. It's sort of a validation for me on a personal level since I've been singing his praises for the past 4 years. But I'm also realistic and I know this could change at any moment. He very well could lose tomorrow in an upset and then the entire dynamic is changed.

But for now, I'm going to revel in Hillary's misery :)

It's ON bitches!

Ha! Obama completely blew away expectations tonight in a historic vote, crushing Hillary by 9 points in Iowa.

Not only did Hillary lose, but she got 3rd place! On top of that, Obama actually got the much maligned "youth vote" to actually get out and vote! Over 50% of his support was from people under 30. That is amazing. He also beat Clinton in the female vote. It was pretty much the worst case scenario for Hillary in every respect.

Here's hoping those New Hampshire independents see the light and forgo voting for John McCain (the only Republican I think could beat Obama or Hillary, for that matter) to back Obama. A McCain loss, and another Obama decisive victory will put major pressure on Clinton.

By the way, the much maligned Des Moines Register poll that was released this week that showed Obama up by 7% on Hillary, completely opposite to what all the other polls were saying...was actually the most accurate of them all. They predicted a huge independent voter turnout (though not as big as they expected), and showed Hillary up 1% on Edwards. The final vote showed Edwards up less than 1% on Clinton. Remarkably accurate for the second caucus in a row.

Gallup didn't do an Iowa poll, but they are doing a major New Hampshire poll this weekend that is supposedly going to be all over the news come Monday. We're actually staying open later on saturday and sunday to do it.

Oh happy night!

It's now or never....i think?

Well, this seems to be "it". The general consensus amongst the pundits is that if Obama wins the caucuses tomorrow night, it will catapult him to the nomination. If he doesn't, then we're stuck with Hillary as our nominee. It seems that every single poll has a different leader and other than the Des Moines Register poll, which shows Obama way ahead, every one is within the margin of error. On a pure fan of politics level, this is incredibly fascinating and exciting. It's literally a toss up. I was watching Hardball earlier tonight and Chris Matthews said he hasn't seen anything like this since Kennedy-Nixon. Usually in the last week, someone pulls ahead. Not so this year. Even on the Republican side it's too close to call. I'm going to go out on a limb and say John Edwards won't get nearly as much support as everyone seems to be saying he will. In fact, I think he'll finish at least 5 points behind the winner.

Tucker Carlson had an interesting point of view earlier tonight. When talking to some campaign manager, he said he thought the entire caucus process was undemocratic. By its very nature, the caucus excludes people. Soldiers overseas, people who work night shifts, single parents who can't leave their kids to caucus for 2 hours at night, etc. Carlson's argument stems from the fact that people just can't get out and vote like they can in a primary. It takes time to caucus. You've got to rearrange stuff in your life. It's not a secret ballot. You have to get in front of people and argue for what you believe in. Because it is so "difficult", you end up with a small amount of people who make the decisions for everyone.

Now, I can see Carlson's point. However, I think it brings up an interesting argument to the bigger debate of whether or not there should be a "test" in order to vote. I've said in the past that I believe everyone should be able to vote. However, I do believe that people should be able to answer some basic questions. As of now, I'd be for a weighted voted system: everyone gets to vote, but their vote isn't worth as much if you don't know what the hell you're voting for. Come to think of it, that's definitely another area in which I'm not "Leftist". I don't know a single liberal who would even consider a "test" to vote :)

Anyways, my point is that I think a caucus is sort of a "test" in a sense. The people who caucus are far more knowledgeable than the average primary voter who just drops their ballot in a box and leaves. Caucus goers have to interact with the presidential nominees. They have to actually get in front of their friends and neighbors and argue why their nominee is the right nominee. Isn't this a more democratic way of doing things? I'm not quite sure. It would be a good topic to talk about on the Dead Politics podcast. Obviously, one argument against this would be "well, that Iowa soldier in Iraq might really want to participate but can't for obvious reasons". Of course, there's plenty of people in primaries who have stuff come up as well. I don't know, it's an interesting thing to talk about.

One thing's for sure, I'm gonna have my popcorn out tomorrow night :)

I'm watching Leno and he's knocking stuff out of the ballpark. The Tonight Show and Conan are hamstrung by the writer's strike, whereas Letterman has struck a deal with them, so Leno and O'Brian are relying on themselves to do jokes and come up with bits. I have to say, Leno did a fair job. I can't wait to see what O'Brian does.