BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Whew!  What a day!  So, before I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord to let someone take the lead in the Democratic race. 

What do we know?  Well, on the Republican front, John McCain is the cheese that stands alone.  Mike Huckabee finally figured out the math and gave up on the miracles, at least in this presidential race.  Some say he “dropped out”, but I find that a strange way to word it.  The numbers for John McCain ended it for him.  It was no longer up to Mike Huckabee as to whether he should stay in or drop out.  He was pushed out based on the lack of math and the lack of miracles.  Period.  Now he has to find a job.

On the Democratic side, it isn’t so easy to figure.  Miracles and math are still at play.  With Vermont casting votes in favor of Obama and Rhode Island going on the Clinton ride and Ohio showing that it still loves a Clinton and not counting Texas for anything yet (Texas is having trouble counting Texas, so I dare not go there) it looks like Clinton gained about 26 pledged delegates.  Twenty-six!  All that work for 26 delegates.  But, let’s face the reality, this is a race where every delegate counts. 

I don’t want to sound like a nay sayer as far as the Clinton campaign goes, because tomorrow is another day and who knows how the Super Delegates will vote.  They have been about as unstable in their support of a candidate as I have since John Edwards dropped out.  But, then again, no one is hounding me to know who I am voting for.  But, for all intents and purposes I can only think of Vince Lombardi when I think of the Clinton campaign.  She may be picking up a little ground…. 26 delegates, but to paraphrase the master, Lombardi would have said that she isn’t losing the nomination, she’s just running out of time.

That said, as I prepare for bed and check the last results from Texas it seems that Hillary Clinton is 4 percentage points ahead of Barack Obama in the popular vote which will determine two-thirds of the delegates from Texas.  But, Obama is taking a rather heady lead in the early results from the caucuses which will determine one-third of the delegates from Texas.

Maybe, today for the first time I realized how really screwed up the Democratic nominating process is.  Some states have primaries.  Some have caucuses (or should that be caucua or caucui… well, you know what I mean).  And, Texas is so big that it has both, a primary and a caucus.  Go figure.

Of course, we have Florida and Michigan who had primaries that didn’t count and may get to have more primaries that do count.  No one has said, so far.

The cherry on top of this hot fudge Sundae would be the Super Delegates who, if they should choose, can ignore every bit of this nomination maze and confusion and decide the whole damned show.

Whoever wins the nomination, we have learned a few lessons from the process this year.  First of all, someone needs to make sure the polling centers have enough ballots.  And, they need to be able to distinguish the Democratic ballots from the Republican ballots.  That falls under the 7P Theory.  Proper Positive Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.  That’s the first thing we need to change.

Finally, even if we don’t like the winner take all delegate concept for each state, we definitely need to decide how we are going to elect our nominee.  At present, it is so confusing and such a negligible situation that not one of the major news networks can agree with another as to how many delegates either candidate has accumulated.  For one, I really like the idea that whole numbers are something we can work with and counting shouldn’t be so damned difficult.  I feel as if I have fallen back into that fuzzy math that was so hotly debated between Bush and Gore. 

Call me selfish, but I don’t want the Super Delegates to elect our candidate.  I really want my vote to count for something.  Or, maybe next time we can all stay home and let the 796 Special People do it all for us and save our time and efforts.  So much for democracy.