(READ MY JOURNAL!!!)

AffLuent iLL Sen. seeks down on their luck blue collar cauc, friends +

GOod Mooooooooooooorning Pennsylvania! C'nI get an A-MEN! "a-men!" C'nI get an A-MEN! "a-men!"

BIO (who i really am): I won my state senator job by challenging every one of my opponents right to be on the ballot, then ran against an empty chair. Then I ran against Jack Ryan for U.S. senate but Ryan never made it to November because I raised enough hell about untrue allegations regarding his personal life which were dismissed by a judge *after* I "won" the senate seat against replacement opponent hack, stand-in Alan Keys. Now I'm running for PRESIDENT before my first term in the senate is even completed! What did those Illinois voters get for voting me into the senate? Nothing! Whatever I promised them leading up to the election is pretty much out the window because I was just using that election as a platform for my presidential campaign.

Now I know what you're thinking: "at what point is this guy going to win a high enough office that he can put his personal ambitions aside and start concentrating on the *Good Of The People*? Well I promise you just vote me into office and I'll maybe probably do something for you and your neighbors and family and everyone in the country.................... that is, unless it turns out there's some higher office I can run for after that. But there probably isn't so rest assured I'll try and maybe look into putting a little something into actually STICKING TO MY PROMISES. I mean its true that everyone who's believed in me so far hasn't got a lot to show for it but hey, the odds are that one of these times I'll be looking out for you... right? I mean just ask anybody in Vegas, odds are you'll get lucky eventually. Now you might look at what my chief economic adviser Austan Goolsby said about my political posturing on NAFTA, and say "this guy says one thing to the voters in public and in private he's doing and saying quite the opposite". Or you might look at what my chief foreign policy adviser Samantha Power said (before I fired her) - you might listen to her going off the record saying my stance on Iraq was also just a bunch of hogwash to please the voters and in no way indicates what I would actually do in the white house.... but hEY... this is B.O. talkin .... you know I love you baby. You know you are my number one. Just never you mind what little mosquitoes "buzz buzz" in your ears. You know i'll take care of you. I *love* you babe. I don't care about those other guys; I just tell them what they want to hear. You're the only one I really care about. I know, I know........... The Clintons are workers, they will *get things done*. But will they love you like I can baby? Do their promises sound so sweet? Sure they can lead the modern world and improve the quality of life for the nation; sure they can bring back the middle class... but would they win "American Idol"?

They say I reach out with a hand that doesn't have to mean it, with a smile that doesn't have to be genuine, with promises no one expects me to live up to (and in fact I go back on them before you even hear them). But 8 years in the white house is a long time baby - eventually i'm bound to get around to you. I may not make your dollar worth more; i may not improve your chances of going from poverty to the middle class; I may just be running for president because of my own ego, economy be damned; I may take the least challenging political position every step of the way - but you know you want to hear it.

Sure now you may say I haven't earned it; you might want to say "let's see what you can do as senator, lets see you work for the people and *then* ask them for their vote. I'm saying okay baby finnnne if you want to be like that - but I know some Republican voters who might not be so "hard to get". I mean I can't tell them "buzz off" after all I get more non-Democrats than Democrats voting for me in places like Wisconsin. And look baby see now that I'm here in Philly I'm recruiting thousands of republicans to switch registration in time to vote for me in Pennsylvania. I mean I'm sorry baby but this is just the way it is: if Democratic voters were all I had to go on i'd NEVER catch up to my opponant. Without Republican voters I would not be where I am today. Baby check the web and you will see that is a fact.

EDITORS NOTE: Spread the word - Pennsylvania can end his white house bid! Send him packing April 22 and maybe he can actually earn those Illinois voters trust and do something for *them* for a change!

I am exploitive, exaggerated, and empty promise

EDITORS NOTE: I was reading yesterday, more about why the superdelegates were put into place. Carter won the nomination that season and during his second year those delegates were unbound because (much as I like him) he was a weak ticket and they say he was a weak candidate against Reagan. Ironically Ted Kennedy had a lot to do with it. Superdelegates were contrived as a sort of protection against the party being chained to a leading candidate whom party veterans saw as a weak contender for the generals. This also is what's at issue for this year's convention and I think it's what B. CLinton was really referring to in the above quote. Regarding Obama, it was heartening to see (for once) an article expressing what I've been concerned about all along:

Quote: But Obama's losses Tuesday in Texas and Ohio -- coupled with his Feb. 5 defeats in California, New York and New Jersey -- have not only shown the strategy's downside. They have also given supporters of Clinton an opening for an argument that winning over affluent, educated white voters in small Democratic enclaves, such as Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, and running up the score with African Americans in the Republican South exaggerate his strengths in states that will not vote Democratic in the fall.

"Winning over affluent, educated white voters in small Democratic enclaves - and running up the score with African Americans in the Republican South - exaggerates his strengths." This would be a good time not to flame back with any knee-jerk first impressions, please. How to say this without pissing people off... I dont know... anyway:

It's a plain fact that Democrats in all states have given the solid majority of their votes to Senator Clinton. The easier it is for conservatives to vote in a Democratic primary, the higher percentage of the total vote Obama gets. This is a fact. That's why Clinton won Ohio by ten points (where its not as convenient for conservatives to vote Democrat) as opposed to winning by four points in Texas (where it was a free-for-all). (Yes Rush Limbaugh contrived to win Republican votes for Clinton but the exit polls still show Obama had more Republican votes). Wisconsin was a dramatic example - Obama had more non-Democrats voting for him than Democrats. In Wisconsin, 27% of the total Dem primary vote were Democrats who voted for Obama, while 31% of the total vote were Democrats voting for Clinton; 31% of the total vote were Republicans and Independents voting for Obama whereas 11% of the total vote were Republicans and Independents voting for Clinton. Now, we either have to say that 31% of the non-Democrats in Wisconsin are actually converts whom Obama magically "won over" with his glowing aura, or we have to say that a lot of what is reffered to as Obama's momentum is really just conservatives taking their chance to vote against a Clinton early. You can call that an example of how "divisive" Clinton is if you want to, but most of these crossover voters in question are the conservative base voters that we'll all be voting against here in November.

The bottom line is that with Obama you can subtract any one of a number of factors and depict a scenario where he's pretty much out of the race for the Democratic nomination. In this current race, he's got the votes that he has got so it makes no difference to the nomination; what we are looking for here is examples of his exaggerated strengths as a candidate. Clinton led Obama among Democrat voters before Ohio by six points (zero margin of error as those votes were already tallied). This margin is increasing. I'm not talking about who wins or doesn't win the primary I'm talking about being realistic about the situation at hand here.

1. Basically, you can vaporize Obama's delegate lead today if you erased all these conservative "November Republican" votes from the tally. It is a true fact that if you take away the conservatives who voted against the possibility of a Clinton on the ticket, Obama wouldn't make it to the convention. I'm not saying this is what I think should happen; what I'm saying is it's a realistic way to look at where he stands.

2. These caucuses award valid points, it's true, but they are by no means a measure of A. Obama's real support in those states, B. how he would do in a general election in those states or C. if he could really compete against Clinton in those states if they held a primary (Washington state for instance, he won the caucus 2-1 but the primary by just a small percentage - which suggests that in a contested primary with delegates he probably might have lost).

He's going to lose in Pennsylvania because only Democrats can vote. My prediction is that he'll win about 33% there. If Ohio had been a closed primary, 33% would be being optimistic of his chances. That Clinton won in Texas with 700,000 Republicans voting (to say nothing of independents) is a real testiment of strength. It's therefore realistic to say that Obama's coalition is composed of four major parts: well-to-do Dems, African American Dems, Republicans and Independents. Subtract just the conservative double agents and he doesn't make it to the convention. Now of course he is going to make it to the convention because basically any Dem ticket this year without Obama on it is going to see at least half the black vote either stay home or defect to the other party. And as far as Clinton voters like me go, there's no way I'm going to vote for either of the candidates (Obama/McCain) that conservatives forced onto my ballot - unless Clinton is on the ticket. So what to do?

What I hope for is not realistic: that these issues come to bear on Obama's candidacy to such an extent that he loses the lead and is owed no place on the ticket. For a variety of reasons that have become clear over 5 weeks or so (and I hope they become more and more clear to the voters as the next 7-8 weeks drag on) I wouldn't want him as a senator, much less a vice president. But it looks like that is what is going to happen. Florida and Michigan will be seated and I expect Clinton to win FL by at least her current margin; and seeing that Michigan is running their caucus like a primary, I think she'll win that by Texas-like margins; she will win Pennsylvania. He wins Wyoming and Mississippi; she will win P.R. The gap will narrow enough to force the need of some reconcilliation and the ticket will read President Clinton, Vice President Obama (unless something unforseeable should happen between now and June 3). 8 years of Clinton, then 8 years of Obama. Not that bad I guess. John McCain will lose, Bush will move out of the white house and we can all get on with the 21st Century at last. Too early to bet on it but that's my guess so far.

Well my new hobby is sending my staff all over the state of Pennsylvania to convince as many of your Republican and conservative neighbors to switch their voter registration to the Democratic party to try and keep the *real* Democrats from being to pick their own party's nominee - in short if I get my way it is your Republican/conservative friends and neighbors who will pick me to be *your* nominee. While that may sound far fetched, hey it worked in Missouri, Virginia, Wisconsin, lots of other states and it *almost* worked in Texas. While you may think you're not going to have to vote against the Republicans until November, *really* you're going to be voting against them right there in your own Democratic primary! Go ahead and look it up! THE PARTY REGISTRATION PERCENTAGES ARE ALREADY RECORD BREAKING! I still know I'm going to lose the state (because I don't have a good record of success when only Democrats are allowed to vote), but I'm gonna try to get as many delegates as possible. This is true, you can look it up.

hopefully not my sparse record of accomplishment and the lack of results all my voters so far have to show for trusting my blind ambition; hopefully not that I've been a senator for 3 years and spent the entire time running for president; heh heh. (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)

Pretending cauceses are democratic: CapTimes "Title - Primary, caucus rules stifle real democracy" - " Rules differ by state, but in general, here's what happens at a caucus... The caucus precinct meeting is scheduled for a few hours on a particular day and voters must arrive before the caucus starts. As a result, people who are sick, who work ath that time or who simply arrive late lose their opportunity to vote. That's not the only way caucuses trample on equal rights for voters. When the caucus starts, signs indicate different parts of the room for each candidate. Voters assemble with OTHERS who support the same candidate. The vote is taken by counting the number of supporters. There's something very personal about declaring your preference in front of your neighbors, and trying to convince them of the merits of your candidate. People who've never had leadership roles in politics emerge from the pack by being more persuasive than their neighbors. But caucuses aren't democratic. In most states, a candidate must get 15 percent of the voters at the caucus to be considered viable. In iowa, for instance, after the first count, Dennis Kucinich didn't have 15 percent of the voters at most precincts. People who supported other candidates approached the Kucinich backers and urged them to join groups for Hillary Clinton, John Edwards or Barack Obama. A little while later people regrouped and were counted again. At that point, most Kucinich supporters had joined another group. Media coverage showed Kucinich receiving 0 percent but that doesn't reflect the number of voters who originally backed him."

I.... er.... actually don't usually do much for the people who waste their votes on me................ but im a charmer!

You already know what you want to hear and are ready to hear it!