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There is a very distinct difference between primaries and general elections that people continue to ignore and it is simply unacceptable at this point in the game. It is simply a tiring argument that I just have to make at least one more time here while I have the opportunity.

Nominating Contests Explained

Caucuses and Primaries are selection methods for the party. Within its bylaws and rules, primaries and caucuses are generally free to be run as the party decides (yes, there are significant exceptions to this but let’s simplify the game). This is why some state parties choose a primary and some state parties choose a caucus and some state parties inexplicably choose to do both. Okay, so it isn’t inexplicable but it is still really stupid. Then there are open and closed primaries that either allow anyone to vote or closes it to declared party members only. Ultimately, if the party allowed, it could pick its candidate without any external influence at all. There is no law that states a person has a right to vote in a primary and for it to count in any way (i.e. there might be a law saying that a primary must be done and that people must be allowed to vote but the party doesn’t have to take the result for anything). And while it is generally good to get the opinions of your party, it isn’t necessary. Since there was no right to have your voice heard, the people of Michigan and Florida were not disenfranchised. Saying they were disenfranchised implies that they were entitled to a meaningful vote regardless of party actions. That never was the case.

The winner of the nomination contest (under party bylaws) is the party nominee. This is formalized at the convention. That’s it. It says very little to the strength of the nominated candidate in relation to the general election. Since there are naturally more losers than winners, this should go without saying but it doesn’t seem to be obvious to a lot of people.

The argument of the Obama campaign is that he has more delegates for the Democratic nomination and that makes him the strongest and most able to win the general election. This logic seems tortured at best on at least two fronts:

1. The delegate difference is fairly small. When it comes down to it, the delegate difference isn’t going to be that significant. If it is simply a matter of winner versus loser, that would be one thing but that simply doesn’t jive with the results.
2. More delegates does not mean better electoral success. Using that formula, Kerry should have had a better chance of winning in 2004 than either Obama or Clinton would have in 2008 and that doesn’t seem plausible. Kerry, by the numbers, was a nearly consensus candidate (especially after second place Edwards joined his campaign).

Democrats “Turning Their Back on Obama”

Those who would accuse Hillary Clinton supporters of not being logical when they think that McCain would be a better choice than Obama are missing a few things. One being that not all Hillary Clinton supporters are party Democrats. Open primaries guarantee that. Clinton has also clearly been positioning herself as a centrist in her Senate career. Given the priorities of voters, it is likely that those who are turning their back on Obama are the ones doing so because they are following their centrist tendencies. I know as a more centrist, non-party conservative, I’d rather support a moderate centrist Democrat than a hard right religious conservative. I would vote in the Republican primary though for who I thought should win and if someone who I found more counter to my centrist views won it, I would switch in the general (or vote third party). People who are loyal to the Democratic party will vote for the Democratic party. People who are loyal to people will pick their next candidate based on a litany of criteria. It isn’t far out, illogical or “moronic” and it seems insulting that people still go down that road.

The Superdelegate Math

If superdelegates were simply supposed to confirm the will of the people, then the Democrats should get rid of them. The purpose of superdelegates was to correct the people whenever they went too far left to win. It was to bring a centrist bias to the organization. If you’re a Democrat and can’t stand this process, then rewrite the bylaws. Democratic leaders believed that this would help preserve the party’s place in American politics.

Now we could argue all day on the impact of superdelegates if they did in fact reverse the will of the people (regardless of the small margin by which it would be). But the fact that Clinton has been so harassed about her position that she is best able to beat a Republican, I am starting to wonder if Democrats are losing sight of the big picture. If Hillary is the best person for the job and she still has a chance and you are a Democrat, I think you support that until that is no longer the case. I would hope that Obama supporters would make the same argument. The point is to field the best candidate, period.

If you can’t argue your candidate on that basis without resorting to party intimidation/unity bullshit, then don’t bitch when people who grow tired of party politics leave you behind (which is one of the reasons I am non-party now). I am not going to make the argument that McCain should be elected because he has an “R” next to his name. You need to consider him, along with the other options for president, based on criteria that is important to you. If that D or R is the most important, then fine. Just don’t be surprised when someone else happens to think differently.

For the past ten years, I have essentially had one hairstyle: finger length on top, various levels of lengths on the side. I haven’t had it over an inch long since before this. Maybe it was longer whenever we were dirt poor and my wife was cutting my hair but not by much.

Anyway, it is to the point where I would normally cut it and I am thinking of letting it grow out and doing something different. Here are my limitations:

• My hair is very blond
• My hair is thicker on the sides than on top

So what do you think may look good when I get it grown out long enough?

And yeah, this is the first time I’ve thought about changing my hair in ten years.

If you don’t like the NBA, just keep on moving.

NBA team owners voted overwhelmingly in favor of allowing the Seattle Supersonics to move out of Seattle and into a market that is more than a million people smaller than Seattle. It is ridiculous.

The great news is two of my favorite NBA executives were the ones who voted against the deal.

Mark Cuban, the famous owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Paul Allen, the slightly less vocal owner of the Portland Trail Blazers. That’s it, everyone else voted for the move.

Let me just say that I am happy that Allen is the owner of MY basketball team today. If the owner of your home team voted to allow a deal like this, I wonder what their intentions could be? Maybe they want the flexibility to move their team when the city or state won’t pay 500 million for a new arena (after a 74 million dollar renovation 13 years ago).

If anything has perked up my ears about Obama, it has been this quote that has been widely circulated:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not,” he said.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” he also said.

Hillary misses the mark on this issue for focusing on the “bitter” part of the remarks. I think it is hard to argue whether or not midwesterners are bitter overall. Obviously if you live in an area referred to as the “Rust Belt” though, you may be bitter. Especially when people are building businesses and creating new industries. When you consider that Oregon and California both have higher unemployment than all of the rust belt states except Michigan, I don’t know how these people could be MORE bitter than other areas. Still, whether or not people are actually bitter is really moot. I don’t care.

I also enjoyed the derision from the “Bill Clinton ushered in economic paradise” mantra that has infected Democrats for a while. Would Clinton even be mentioned if his wife weren’t running in the primary? Doubtful. But I am off topic…

What I am bothered by is this idea that because of poor economic conditions, they cling to guns, religion, racism, anti-immigrant and anti-trade ideas. That if someone were to give them a helping hand (I am assuming the government), that they would be able to rise up out of this desperate dependence on these (assumingly) bad things. Or, even assuming the best possible implication, that midwesterners would then be able to choose whether or not they actually like these things.

What I feel like he is saying is that a large number of people (at least in the midwest) who want to have guns, who believe in a god, who are racist, who are anti-immigrant/trade haven’t at all thought about their stances. That if their economic conditions improved, that they would simply come out of it.

Now I don’t know about you but I don’t know any middle or upper class people who are racist, religious, own guns or are anti-immigrant. So maybe he has a good point. Haha

Of course, it is smart of Obama supporters to play off the actual words with what he intended: using wedge issues that exploit these beliefs is wrong. And that’s popular with people who feel that Kerry was denied the presidency because of wedge issue gamesmanship. Even if I believe that Obama misspoke and that he doesn’t have a problem with people who have legitimate and differing beliefs on immigration policy, gun rights, believe in a god, or trade issues, I still get hung up on something.

Wedge issue voters, while perhaps more emotionally charged and controversial than others, are still simply single issue voters. And the problem with deriding single issue voters is that they end up being your supporters too so you come off looking like a hypocrite when you pander to issue groups.

And it is only suspicion at this point but I do believe that Obama meant exactly what he said in Frisco. He wants to help them overcome their financial difficulties so that they can see the light and embrace his viewpoints. It may be inspirational to hear for people who think religious belief or gun ownership has more to do with economic hardship than actual beliefs but for everyone else, you’ve got to be curious where that comes from.

If I may end on a cop out note, Obama’s views not withstanding, I still feel like he would be a weaker executive than Clinton would be. And when you are talking about weakness in regards to an opposing viewpoint, you prefer the weaker one because they would be less successful in implementation. So my views on Obama are still nil but I thought the quote was not a pretty thing for him.

I am feeling overwhelmed on my friends page about the new baseball season (something I could really care less about) so I figured a basketball post would be worthwhile. Specifically, a top 10 of the worst of the “jail blazer” era.

Now in case you’re not familiar, there was about an eight year stretch where my NBA team, the Portland Trail Blazers, were basically a bunch of criminals playing together. You worried if any of them were violating their probation by hanging out with other criminals. It was an embarrassment.

Recently, the Blazers have cleaned up their act (which is great) but I was reminded of this past era when I was listening to the radio on the way home from

work yesterday (1080 the fan). They put together a top five of the worst Jail Blazers. I am going to put together a top ten list of the worst Jail Blazers and why. And just as a note, this is an “all time” list so it is going to include everything (even when they weren’t with the Blazers). As if we need to demonstrate that most of these guys had issues before and after they came to the Blazers.

So without further ado:

(Read on …)

Obama has been visiting Oregon the last couple days and has been getting an inordinate amount of press coverage in the local media. This isn’t surprising or anything but two things of note:

• Arguably, it doesn’t make a big difference who is elected president. I am one to believe that politicians often go back on their word and are more moderate and more extreme on views we’d like them to be more extreme/moderate on. I am also one to believe that being a good President isn’t necessarily a matter of political skill but of timing and…well, let’s be blunt: dumb luck.
  • Imagine if Reagan had won the nomination in 1976 and won the Presidency. Would he be as universally lauded as the right person for the time? Hell, I have doubts he would would have been re-elected.
  • Imagine if Nixon had won in 1960. Assuming he does or doesn’t get assassinated, he is probably looked at much more differently than the politically hardened Nixon we saw win later in his career.
  • That’s not to say that presidents don’t make their own destiny, or that there aren’t bad presidents, just bad circumstances; just that we often assign more control over world events to presidents than they deserve (in good and bad)
• On the other hand, if some political experience does matter for Democrats (or at least effectiveness in political experience), don’t you really have to look more closely at Clinton? First of all, she is married to a master politician and it really shows in her work in the Senate. You can make a really easy argument that Hillary was at least twice as effective as Obama in gaining influence and pushing through an agenda that served her and her constituents well for the first four years of her Senate bid. Let’s couple that with the fact that her first four years was two as a split majority and two as a minority party and that Bush and Republicans were basically untouchable from 9/11 until mid 2003, that’s impressive. Obama has had a weak Republican majority for two years and one year and change as a majority party. We can talk about her judgment on one issue (defense where she is hawkish), but her ability to deliver as a junior senator has been really interesting.

And honestly, part of Obama’s appeal to me as a conservative is that he has a lot of big ideas but that those ideas still have to go through Washington DC. He is not terribly effective as a politician and that might be refreshing for some and it certainly doesn’t bother me but for entirely different reasons. If you want to make JFK comparisons, consider one of JFK’s bigger ideas was to put a man on the moon. Considering the fact that there wasn’t a ton of political baggage with this and it could be considered defense project (and thus given extra funding and priority with minimal political baggage). Let’s also consider that DC in 1960 was immensely less bureaucratic than today’s government.

Guess how long it took us to get to the moon? Eight years. That’s two presidential terms. And this isn’t even as politicized as some of the proposals Obama has made.

I think both Obama and McCain are in a unique position to come off as genuine people to the casual moderates who often tip the scale for candidates. To a certain extent at least, I believe both to be true to their word in this sense. I think what differentiates McCain’s experience from Obama’s inexperience is that McCain has learned how to get his way on policy when it is really important to him and still come off as a disinterested Washington outsider (a.k.a. the maverick label). If Obama doesn’t win the presidency, he could easily be in the same position as a Senator. Someone enormously popular at home and has a big enough national image to not have to bow to party pressure when he doesn’t want to (but also knows when to toe the line unlike the “hated” Lieberman).

Obama Speech

So I watched the Obama speech that everyone has written about today and figured I’d throw out my two cents.

I was underwhelmed.

I don’t know how to better put it. I am sure if I had a different political philosophy I may have gotten some semblance of optimism from it but as it stands, the speech simply bored me to death when it came down to the reason he was giving the speech. I don’t think this was a Kennedy moment or anything along those lines. I honestly haven’t read any commentary on it yet but it lost my interest early and often.

What if Hillary is better?

It looks as though that, if no candidate drops out, that Superdelegates will be the deciding vote on the Democratic nominee. I have to ask though: what’s the problem? The same people that complain about rule changing in regards to Michigan and Florida revotes are the same one’s often backing rule changes in the way Superdelegates vote for and nominate their preferred candidate. The ground rules were set in 2004 and people knew that this was a possibility. If you have a problem with it, change it at this convention for future conventions.

The reason this rule was implemented was because Democratic leadership wanted more of a say in the process because they felt they made better decisions for the future of the party. Now what if Clinton is the best candidate for Democrats (both present and future) and the superdelegates make that decision? Would Democrats accept that or would they move to change the nominating rules?

Old dogs, old tricks

A common theme that seems to be popping up in the DNC’s criticism of McCain is associating him with Bush (a.k.a. the boogie man). Are we going to have another election against Bush and not for ideas? Seriously? Because, this is going to be like the third one in a row and it is getting really old. Bush hasn’t even run in the last one and won’t be running against him. Nor is McCain a member of the Bush administration nor has he ever been considered to be a crony (unless you are a DNC staffer who came to consciousness about three months ago).

Democrats have to be big fans of Bush at this point as they use him in every one of their advertisements. It is just getting old. It was one thing when he was in the election, it is quite another now that he is on his way out.

Eliot Spitzer versus Crispin Glover (The Crisper):

I can’t find a better comparison picture but every time I see Spitzer on TV, I see George McFly.

I haven’t updated really updated in about two weeks. It is time for a bulleted list.

• I started my new job. Still trying to grasp things but I am sure it will lock into place soon.
  • It is strange commuting to work after six months of not doing any commuting and two and a half years of having about a five minute drive or twenty minute walk to work
• We got a new car. It is slightly used but still in very nice condition.
  • I am going to be driving it more than Jen which means she is driving the Jimmy. I think she feels sad about this but I have further to drive and gas isn’t getting cheaper.
• We haven’t got rid of my wife’s old car yet. I am seriously wondering if it is worth the goofing around or if it should just be driven into a donation lot and given away.
• My Dad came down to visit. Jen was really sick that weekend. It was a lot of fun hanging out with him and going to old places we used to go to when I was younger.
• We inherited another case of wine. Amazing how it accumulates.
• I haven’t been drinking much since I have actively started losing weight.
  • I am now down to 225ish. Still sounds bad but consider:
    • In 2002, when I started this journal, I was over 230.
    • When I got married in 2005, I was at 245.
    • When I moved last July (2007), I was at 255.
  • So, I am feeling much better but I need to continue down. I am hoping to be at 210 (or less) by the beginning of July.
• I have been feeling rather sleepless. It isn’t a lot of fun.
• Trips planned:
  • Indianapolis (April)
  • Vegas (late June)
  • Alaska (September?)
• I am startling productive recently. I haven’t been watching much TV but I also really haven’t updated my blogs much because I’ve been working a bunch.

That’s it!

When you use the term “swiftboating,” you often do so incorrectly. Like a poor little boy that cries wolf too many times, you really need to get a freaking grip on the term.

Swiftboating is not:

• All negative advertising
• A brutal attack on an issue the candidate agrees with
• Sarcasm or mocking of a candidate
• A misrepresentation of a candidates views
• One candidate saying another did something (like sleep with a former employee) that has nothing to do with policy and may be true or false (that’s usually called a smear)

If you are going to use the term, it is typically when a third party group with unlimited fundraising capability smears the “apparent” opponent of their causes with information that is unrelated to policy.

I say “apparent” because these organizations, by law, have no affiliation with any candidate and a candidate, by law, cannot have control over that organization.

If you need a reason to universally hate CFR, I can point to MoveOn and Swift Boat Veterans For Truth as two organizations that can appeal to whatever side of the political fence you are. I hate both of them.

I’d much rather have soft money donations going directly to political campaigns where the campaign would actually have to be responsible for what they say. We can point to instances where it has both mattered and not mattered but giving them a third party to blame it on has changed the dynamics of campaigning in a terrible way.

And yes, I realize I am arguing against the namesake law of the candidate I am supporting. For the last time, politics isn’t about perfect fit. Unless you regularly ride on unicorns, perfect isn’t happening in this world.