[Ninong]

Scott,

I don't doubt Barack's intentions but I doubt that he will be able to fully realize his goals. That's not to say that any of the other candidates could do any better, just that it will take a huge gain of seats in the Senate to move any meaningful legislation on health care, social security reform, immigration reform, or any of the other difficult issues where the corporate interests have dug in their heels and have enough votes on their side to stop legislation they don't like. (Speaking of corporate interests, did you see where J.P. Morgan is paying Tony Blair $5 million a year as an adviser? You can't get much more blatant than that.)

The Republican party in particular has more extremists than at any other time in my memory, and I'm 70. There are very few moderate Republicans in positions of power today like there were forty or fifty years ago. Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney were both moderate Republicans.

If you want to go back to the turn of the century, even Theodore Roosevelt was a moderate Republican, especially during his second term, which is why the Republican party refused to nominate their own sitting president for reelection. He became president upon McKinley's assassination just six months into his term as vice president and he pretty much carried out McKinley's platform for the rest of his first term but he became much more progressive in his second term.

I voted for JFK in 1960 and I remember how inspirational he was during his campaign. I also remember how disappointed many of us were that he wasn't able to achieve many of his goals because of resistance in the Congress. He blundered into the Bay of Pigs debacle but that was something he inherited from Eisenhower. He successfully forced the Soviets to back down and pull their missiles out of Cuba.

After JFK was assassinated, LBJ managed to push through the civil rights reforms that JFK wanted but that he was unable to get through the Senate because of resistance in the South. Then those same Southern senators and representatives started switching to the GOP, where they were welcomed with open arms. And the GOP became the party of intolerance as well as the party of big business. Even though I didn't care for LBJ's personality at all, I voted for him in 1964. He mismanaged the Vietnam war but Nixon and Kissinger mismanaged it even more when they got in. (Let's be brutally honest here, LBJ misled us into the Vietnam war but at that time we were still following the Domino Theory view of communism put forth earlier by the Dulles brothers.)

I'm getting too far afield here, the point I was trying to make is that the House and the Senate are more polarized now than at any other time in my lifetime. The Democrats can pass legislation in the House by a simple majority but they can't get anything through the Senate without 60 votes to envoke cloture and enough Republicans are willing to filibuster to stop anything they don't like. Trent Lott even openly bragged about how effective their "obstructionist" tactics have been. That's the word he used.

If Barack beats McCain in a 1964-style landslide, then I think his coattails could result in a net gain of 15-20 seats in the House and 5-6 seats in the Senate. A lot of Republicans are retiring at the end of the year and that will make things easier for the Democrats, assuming they don't put Hillary Clinton on the ticket. I'm afraid that her name on the ticket would increase the GOP turnout. I would love to see Barack pick someone like Tony Zinni as his running mate to counter McCain's warmongering.

[Ninong]

NY Times Wrong Again, Claims Hillary Won Nevada

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - With the exception of Nevada, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost to Senator Barack Obama in every state that has held Democratic caucuses instead of primaries.

(That's not true. Hillary lost the Nevada caucus and she lost the Texas caucus, which resulted in her losing the state of Texas entirely. Nevada awarded 25 delegates: 12 to Hillary and 13 to Barack. Barack WON Nevada. Barack won the Texas caucus by much more than the 4 measley delegates that Hillary won the Texas primary. We still don't have the final tally but Barack WON Texas, not Hillary.)

She is not giving up on Wyoming so easily.

On the eve of the Saturday caucuses here, Mrs. Clinton arrived for rallies in Cheyenne and Casper, trying to seize on the momentum from her primary victories in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday to pull off a rare caucus victory. Her appearances came after her husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned in the state on Thursday.

(If she loses Wyoming -- and I believe she will -- it will be because Wyoming is one of those sissy latte-sipping, touchy-feely caucus states, not a manly state like Ohio.)

[Ninong]

Wyoming Caucuses Underway

Looks like a record turnout for the Wyoming caucuses. The news media are reporting lines of people several blocks long waiting to enter some locations. That's rather hard to believe considering that there are only 59,130 registered Democrats in the entire state of Wyoming. There are only 136,000 registered Republicans. In fact, not many people live in Wyoming.

We should have the caucus results later on this afternoon. How long can it possibly take to count a couple thousand votes?

I'm waiting to see how the media plays this story. If Hillary wins, it will be the only thing they talk about for the next three days. If Barack wins, Hillary will be on teevee non-stop telling us that Wyoming is one of those sissy caucus states that don't count. If Hillary wins, she will tell us that Barack should pull out of the race because the people don't want him as their president because he hasn't crossed the commander-in-chief threshold, which you can only cross if you're at least 117 years old, like Hillary and WALNUTS!

[Ninong]

Wyoming Experiencing 15 Minutes of Fame

Wyoming, one of those insignificant, latte-sipping, touchy-feely, caucus states that don't count, is in the national spotlight right now. Most people are surprised to learn that Wyoming is an actual state and not a territory.

Bill and Hill were there all day yesterday pretending that Hillary cares about Wyoming. Hillary only cares about the significant states. She can't be bothered with the insignificant states that vote for Barack Obama. Hillary plans to unite the country by trashing more than half the states. Just remember, if you live in one of those "insignificant" states, Hillary won't have time for you once she crosses the commander-in-chief threshold for real. Hillary plans to unite the country by dividing the country.

I would be shocked if Hillary wins Wyoming. I don't know if I can stand another three or four days of her doing victory laps on all the teevee talk shows. Besides, Wyoming owes us for foisting Dick Cheney on the world.

Barack Obama will win Wyoming today and Hillary will pretend it doesn't matter.


__________________________________________________

This time I would like a smart president for a change. One who is fluent in at least one language.

[Ninong]

Wyoming: 30% Reporting

Obama = 57.82%
Clinton = 39.87%
Other = 2.31%

P.S. -- Wyoming has 12 pledged delegates. Obama will get 7 of the 12 if he just barely wins. He will get 8 of the 12 if he wins by more than 64.3%. Wyoming also has one add-on delegate. The add-on delegate will be chosen at the state convention, so the candidate who wins the caucus gets to choose the add-on delegate. This is true of all 76 add-on delegates. Each state gets at least one, large states get more than one. For example, Illinois gets three and California gets five. All add-on delegates in each state will go to whichever candidate controls that state's convention.

The media is treating the 76 add-on delegates as part of the 796 superdelegates but they're not quite the same. The add-on delegates don't even get selected until each state holds their state convention and you can bet your bottom dollar that all add-on delegates can be guaranteed to vote for the nominee who won that state. So they're not exactly like the rest of the superdelegates.

In spite of the fact that Hillary won some of the larger states, Barack has won more total states and will pick up another half dozen states between now and the convention. He stands to get at least half of the add-on delegates and possibly more. Hillary will not pick up any net gain in the add-on delegates. Her only shot at the nomination is to pull even, or slightly ahead, in the national popular vote total and then try to talk the superdelegates into making her the nominee on the grounds that Barack's campaign faded at the end while hers gained momentum. It won't work.

P.P.S. -- Almost all of Hillary's 40-superdelegate lead is on the DNC. She has a net advantage of 38 superdelegates who are members of the DNC. Barack only trails her by two superdelegates among the elected officials -- Congressmembers, Senators, Governors. Bill used his influence on the party establishment to get many of them to come out for Hillary very early on.

[Ninong]

If Texas Ever Releases Caucus Totals...

We will learn for sure Obama's exact delegate margin of victory in that state. Not only that, but if you add the caucus votes to the primary votes, Obama will almost certainly have more total votes than Hillary in Texas.

I realize that virtually everyone who voted in the caucus also voted earlier in the day in the primary but it will still put a crimp in Hillary's claim to have won the "popular vote."

The Texas Two-Step needs to be junked before 2012. In fact, I think all of the state caucuses should be junked in favor of primaries. These caucuses represent old-time politics when the party establishment tried to control the outcome.

As soon as the final results from Texas are announced, watch for Hillary to whine about how unfair it is that she got fewer delegates than Obama in spite of the fact that the people clearly favored her. No mention will be made of the fact that Bill won the Texas primaries in 1992 and 1996 under the same Two-Step nonsense.

[Ninong]

Wyoming: 34% Reporting

Obama = 56.14%
Clinton = 41.97%
Other = 1.89%

[Ninong]

Wyoming: 43% Reporting

Obama = 66.21%
Clinton = 32.56%
Other = 1.23%

P.S. -- Disturbing news out of Mississippi: Look for a large number of Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary for Hillary as a way of messing with the Democratic campaign. This will definitely have a certain amount of impact on the outcome.

Obama was expected to win Mississippi easily but it may be a lot closer than expected. A poll that I looked at that was just released is showing that Hillary will get 80% of the white vote in the Mississippi Democratic primary. Barack is expected to get 85% of the black vote. That same poll is showing that 24% of the voters in the Democratic primary will be Republicans and three-fourths of them will be voting for Hillary as a way to mess up the Democratic race. Rush Limbaugh has been promoting this idea.

[Ninong]

TV Anchors Are All Morons!

One of CNN's dumb-as-dirt talking heads just asked, "What's wrong with seating the Michigan and Florida delegations as they are currently constituted and just let it go at that?"

Besides the fact that both primaries were unauthorized, there is the little matter of Hillary Clinton's name being the only one on the Michigan ballot. And because it was announced in advance that neither primary would count, many voters didn't bother to go to the polls. In every other state except Michigan and Florida, the Democratic turnout was much greater than the Republican turnout.

Many Democrats didn't bother to vote in Michigan or Florida because the Democratic National Committee assured them that it was a complete waste of time because those primaries would not count. Hillary Clinton herself said publicly that she realized the Michigan delegates wouldn't be seated and that was why she didn't see any reason to go to the trouble of asking that her name be removed from the ballot.

P.S. -- Here's another example of just how stupid your average CNN talking head can be. A few days ago the government released figures showing that homeowner equity had fallen to 49% for the first time ever, or at least since figures have been kept. The dumb-as-dirt CNN talking head announced that "homeowners now owe more on their homes than they are worth." That's even better than when they told us that a particular lunar eclipse was really special because it just happened to be taking place during a full moon. And these people get paid big bucks for their stupidity.

[Ninong]

Wyoming: 56% Reporting

Obama = 58.01%
Clinton = 40.85%
Other = 1.14%

[Ninong]

Wyoming: 69% Reporting

Obama = 57.89%
Clinton = 41.07%
Other = 1.04%

[Ninong]

Wyoming: 78% Reporting

Obama = 58.59%
Clinton = 40.37%
Other = 1.04%

[Ninong]

The dumb-as-dirt CNN anchor just asked the clueless CNN reporter in Wyoming if she thought that Barack Obama might be able to pull out a win in Wyoming and use that to gain momentum going into Mississippi where he might be able to pull off a win. "I'm not saying he would be able to pull the race out of Hillary Clinton's hands but he might be able to say that the momentum is shifting away from her."

It was clear from his tone of voice and his comments that this totally uninformed CNN anchor sincerely believes that Hillary Clinton is in the driver's seat right now for the Democratic nomination and that Barack Obama is fighting a desperate battle to try to reverse her momentum. He commented several times about her great victories March 4th in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island giving her momentum that will be hard to stop. This guy obviously has no clue. He honestly thinks Hillary is winning right now and Barack will have a hard time turning things around.

[Ninong]

Wyoming: 86% Reporting

Obama = 58.36%
Clinton = 40.62%
Other = 1.02%

[Ninong]

Obama Won Wyoming

He'll get 7 of the 12 pledged delegates, plus the add-on delegate to be chosen at the state convention.

Looks like he won't make it over the magic 64.3% of delegates to the state convention that would have given him 8 of the 12 pledged delegates. It's not the percentage of the total vote that counts for this, it's the percentage of the delegates selected for the state convention that are awarded as a result of the caucus votes. He will probably end up with about 59% of the total votes to Hillary's 40% and he will probably do just slightly better than that in percentage of delegates to the state convention but not achieve the magic 64.3% (64.286% to be exact). (Update: Obama 59% 61%, Clinton 40% 38%, with 95% 100% of precincts reporting.)

So this is a pickup of 2 elected delegates for Obama right now, plus the one add-on delegate to be named later. Let's see if the dumb mainstream media say anything about Obama beating Hillary by 19 points in Wyoming. They made such a big deal out of her supposed 3 or 4 point victory over Obama in Texas and her 10 point victory in Ohio. If you based your opinion on who's winning on the way the media have been playing up Hillary's astounding comeback on March 4th, you would think she had the nomination all but wrapped up.

It's interesting to note that the Obama Campaign's internal prediction sheet had him winning Wyoming 7-5, which is exactly the way it's going to come out once they finally finish reporting. The Obama people are predicting he will win Mississippi 20-13, for a net gain of 7 delegates. I hope they're right.

[SPasse]

Hi All,

Arch Conservative Jeffrey Hart Backs Obama.

http://www.drudge.com/news/103686/nixon-reagan-arch-con-backs-obama

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

I got tired of waiting for the network websites to tell me the results of the Texas caucuses (which are officially called "precinct conventions"), so I went to the Texas Democratic Party website and found all of the results there. I had to give them my full name and address, as well as my email address, in order to access the informaiton. And I had to agree that I understand the results are not official until certified, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, it looks like Texas has 31 state senate districts and that's the way the results are tallied. Obama took most of the by margins of around two to one. Hillary took the heavily Hispanis border districts by margins of three and four to one. Overall, it looks like Obama creamed her in the Texas "Precinct Conventions." Here's a link direct to the results. I don't know if that link will work for you or not. Try it and see. It's working for me. It refreshes automatically every three minutes but it looks to me like all the results are in. According to the rules, they had until Friday to mail in the results. I guess the rules were made back in the days before the Internet.

I noticed some comments on a couple of blogs by some really dumb Republicanists who were outraged that in 21 Texas counties there were no votes cast for Republican candidates in the March 4th primary. Well, duh! That's because in those 21 counties the Texas Republican Party has never held primaries because they consider it a waste of time and resources due to sparse population and no local Republican officials to actually conduct the primary. I believe the same holds true for the Democrats in 18 counties, but not necessarily the same counties. Texas is weird. Not only are you allowed to vote twice in the same day, you are only allowed to vote the second time (in the "Precinct Conventions") if you already voted in the primary.

Someone on one of the blogs claims to have added up all the caucus votes and added those to the primary votes and this guy claims that if you add Barack's caucus votes to his primary votes, he just barely pulls ahead of Hillary by several thousand total votes in Texas. Looks like he creamed her on delegate count due to his strong showing in the caucus portion of the Texas Two-Step but I'm waiting for the official declaration from the TDP.

[Ninong]

Someone suggested that a mail-in do-over primary could be held in Michigan and Florida a lot cheaper than a regular primary. The Democratic party bigwigs in Michigan are trying to get their current delegation seated and counted because they're all Clinton supporters. That's ridiculous. The only names on the ballot in Michigan were Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich. Both Barack Obama and John Edwards asked that they names be removed from the ballot as demanded by the DNC. Little Hillary said she didn't see any reason to do that because "as everyone knows, the votes won't count anyway."

I would think that Hillary should be willing to go along with a mail-in primary because that would probably work out better for her than a caucus, considering how much better organized Barack's get-out-the-vote people are compared to hers. Her campaign organization is a complete disaster. Barack's campaign is making hers look like a bunch of amateurs. And he's campaigning in all 50 states, something that the local Democratic candidates in traditional red states have got to love. If Hillary were the nominee, she might have a better shot than Barack at carrying Arkansas and Florida but he might carry some states that used to be red.

I'm convinced Barack will be the nominee. I'm just hoping that Hillary is not in the second spot on the ticket. It will be interesting to see how John McCain's campaign turns out. I have a feeling his campaign could turn into a trainwreck in a hurry. I think Barack will run circles around McCain in any debates. McCain is not the sharpest pencil in the box. It will be interesting to see if McCain can go eight months without losing his temper.

[Ninong]

HOLY CRAP! The Republicans Just Lost Denny Hastert's Old Seat!!!

This is incredible! This seat has been Republican for ages. It was considered a "safe" seat.

Illinois 14th Congressional District
Bill Foster (D)....... 52,010 ... 53%
Jim Oberweis (R)... 46,988 ... 47%

In 2004, the 14th CD went for Bush 55% to 44% over Kerry.

Check out this great Obama endorsement commercial for Bill Foster. Democrats are winning seats on Obama's coattails and he hasn't even been nominated yet.

[Ninong]

Final Numbers From Wyoming: Obama Wins In a Blowout!

Barack Obama...5,378...61%
Hillary Clinton....3,312...38%
Uncommitted.........63....1%

That's a total of 8,753 votes (out of 59,130 registered Democrats), compared to 675 total votes in the 2004 Wyoming Democratic caucus.

No doubt Hillary will remind us that Wyoming is one of those silly insignificant little states that don't count.

"Obama has won the small caucus states with the latte-sipping crowd. They don’t need a president, they need a feeling." -- Clinton Campaign official earlier this week explaining that the states Sen. Barack Obama has won don't deserve a president.

Starbucks is big in Wyoming? Who knew?