A Week Later

A week after Barack Obama's speech the Washington Post has four different columns about the speech and it's effect and consequences in today's paper.

Robert Novak looks at the problems it may be causing him with super delegates.

David Broder comments on the presidential bully pulpit aspect of the speech.

Bomani Armah asks Barak to show us his "white side" in a satirical look at the speech and the "one drop rule".

Jonetta Rose Barras writes on why she's no longer in the camp of the Rev. Wrights of the world after spending a few decades believing it was the correct path.

Novak makes the point that since the speech Obama's numbers have fallen in Pennsylvania, as some of the undecided white vote decided he was just "another black candidate" based on his speech, not a trancendant one.

Having watched any number of white people be "tossed under a bus" because of racially inept statements, they evidently don't get why Obama can't disown his minister like Hillary was forced to disown Geraldine Ferraro.

This, according to Novak is going to cause a superdelegate problem for Obama, as the start looking at electability once again. They'll wonder if the Republican Attack Machine won't roll Rev. Wright back out come the fall, and beat Obama to death with the good Reverend's words.

Broder's piece is about the substance of Obama's speech and it's delivery. He believes it helped Obama paint himself as a person, like Reagan (sorry Democrats), who can use words to effect change and rally people behind him.

There's little doubt that Obama is a great orator who's come up with top notch speech writers. For him to get to the place Broder puts him though, he has to get past the problems Novak pointed out.

Barras' piece is long, but explains her journey from a person who saw everything in the country as separate for blacks and whites to someone who realized that working together works better. It kind of reminded me of the David Mamet piece in the Villiage Voice, "Why I am no Long a Brain-Dead Liberal".

She doesn't think, by a long shot, that racially everything in the country is perfect. Instead she seems to have found that while imperfect, it's not nearly as bad as the Rev. Wrights, Jesse Jacksons, and Al Sharptons believe it to be. She seems to have stepped out of the comfort zone of those folks, ventured into the "real world" and found out that there are whites, asians and hispanics that aren't afraid to help, all you have to do is ask. And evidently she found enough to give her some hope that all isn't lost as Wright seems to think.

Armah takes a tongue in cheek look at Barack Obama's heritage and tells him it's time to start showing off his "white side". He's gained his black "street cred", and now needs to remind people, by posing for pictures with the other half of his family that he's white, too. Read the comments to see how many foaming at the mouth liberals don't get satire, even when it's pointed out in above the title line.

Read The Full Post!

Michigan and Florida Matter?

The Wall Street Journal is kind of slow to catch on to certain things. After both Michigan and Florida's Democratic primaries; both of no consequence yet since their delegations were decertificed; I said that someone would be trying to seat those delegates.

Low and Behold, the Journal has caught on to that idea and started asking questions about how that would be handled. New primaries or caucus's in both states, using combined voting totals have been suggested (and rejected by Florida). A convention fight on the credentials committee is probably going to be the most likely scenario, but one that Clinton wouldn't be happy with. The committee would be based on vote totals, so like the primaries, it would be split pretty evenly, and could get ugly.

The other option, that no one likes, is just telling the two states that they don't get any delegates, as the rules stated when they moved their primaries. With the number of general election electoral votes at stake no one likes that idea. Telling that many people their primary votes don't count could put both states at risk come November.

The whole situation begs for the two parties to get together, and come up with a new primary system. Possibly leaving the four original early states, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina as the first primaries, then coming up with say 5 or 6 regional dates the rest of the states vote on.

By mixing large and small states into each of the 6 groups, the likelihood of eliminating a candidate before someone votes gets reduced. It would also give the candidates more time to focus on states, instead of having 22 of the vote on Super Tuesday it might only be 7 or 8.

Here's how I'd envision the map, each region would have at least one big state, and no more than 8 states in any of them. (no, the two green areas wouldn't be voting together, I goofed with the colors).

I would think either the north east, with New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania or the midwest with Ohio, Michigan and Illinois would be the choice for the last primaries, making it even more likely that there are relevant candidates available for the voters in those states.

Read The Full Post!

Confused Voting Systems

I've got my "Proud To Vote" sticker on my shirt. It should read "Proud I Could Figure Out The Primary Ballot".


You see, in Illinois, we not only have a closed primary, but we have a confusing one. In the presidential race you not only vote for the primary candidate of your choosing, but you vote separately for the delegates to the national convention. So, on my ballot I voted for Fred Thompson (I know he's out of the race, I still like him) and then voted for two his delegates, with the third delegate vote going to McCain.

I haven't quite figured out why we need to vote separately on the candidate and the delegates, however, it is nice to be able to split your vote in that manner. In my case I could say "Fred was my guy", and at the same time give a delegate vote to the guy I'll settle for since Fred and Rudy dropped out.

Some I've talked to have used to to express a preference for a candidate, but to send a reminder that somone elses positions might make more sense to them on some platform issues. Others I know vote opposite of how I did, for the candidate that's still in the race, but for the delegates of the one who dropped.

Anyway enough rambling, I did my civic duty, and I hope the folks in all those others states holding primaries do theirs. If the number of voters at our polling place before 7am is any indication Illinois should be having a great turnout.

Read The Full Post!