Sex, Stilleto's, "Symbolic Victories" and Men Who Can't Add

By Faith Chatham - June 2, 2008
I don't nominate many sites for a MORE THAN MERE WORDS AWARD. Unless I find something that really inspires me or hits a chord, I do not nominate. Tonight I stumbled on a website which I can sink a stilleto into with glee! Hillary creamed Obama in Puerto Rico and pundits called it a merely a "symbolic victory!" Many of this nation's women are ready to show them some "symbolic punches". Maybe they'll enjoy some only symbolic "sex" or comfort their growling stomachs with "symbolic" breakfast or dinner!

Well, you get the drift of where my head is these days. In that mood, as I hear the Junior Senator from Illinois who rarely showed up to vote since taking office tell ABC that he "has won twice the states as Senator Clinton" and "has gotten more votes" and I hear folks actually calling him the "inevitable Democratic Nominee" for President. Oh well, George can't add either. He didn't win more of the populat vote yet he got inaugurated. I wonder if our budget would be as red if he's been slightly more academic?

Somehow this nation doesn't seem to learn that much. George wasn't that keen on showing up when in the National Guard. He didn't consistently show up to class in college. He was rarely in the office when Governor (except when using it as a launching pad for the Presidency). Does job performance and/or a legislative / administrative track record translate into a reliable predictor of presidential performance? Maybe yes. Maybe no. However, the one we currently have in the White House exhibited job non-performance before he was his party's nominee for President. Democrats and Republicans both bemoan where he's taken us. Karl Rove spun George W as "change agent" and "unifier" too! And yep! He definitely was a change from what we had.

How short is our national memory? Won't we ever learn that "change" doesn't automatically mean the improvements we need. We got "change" with George W.

With change we also need competence.

Senator Obama's spin machine can cast him as a unifier, but when he is unnecessarily abrasive to one of the most competent skilled politial leaders of this generation, he repels millions of Americans who hold her in high esteem. There are reasons why Hillary Clinton continues to score higher and higher percentages of voters in all economic, age and educational levels in late term primaries. Instead of crowing and beating his chest and tallying the votes as he wishes they had been cast instead of how Americans have actually voted, Senator Obama would be wiser to examine what it is that truly inspires the loyalty many feel for his opponent.

Yes, I'd love to see a Democrat as President of the United States. It concerns me that Senator Obama appears to be a candidate who is determined to discount, insult and repel away from him half of the registered voters in his own party which are crucial for a November victory by any Democratic Presidential Nominee.

One of my failings is that I actually tend to add up columns of statistics instead of trusting candidates to tell me how they are doing. Barak doesn't seem to consider the Democrats in Florida or Michigan as "real" voters. He's glad enough to walk off with some of the delegates from those "non-voters" but refuses to attribute the votes cast as "real votes." Ofcourse, if he hadn't LOST, if the voters' had actually chosen him instead of Senator Clinton, he'd be counting their votes even if the delegates were not seated, (instead of just half seated!) I still haven't figured how they'll half those seats in Denver. Wonder which half of the rear end will get the right two legs and who will get split off on the left. Won't matter to Barak because he seems to think that half of this nation will fall in line, shift our loyalty to him automatically if Senator Clinton disappears, and relish his smart mouthed flippant remarks while rushing to give him the key to our pocketbooks, social policy, children's future, and trust him to grant us some "unifying" career path. He smiles while he insults us as he demeans the first serious female candidate for president in this nation's history!

Therefore, I'm nominating www.hireheels.com for this month's MORE THAN MERE WORDS AWARD. It's not a sweet, gooey site. It is biased and that is perfectly all right, now, because it shares my wise, world view!

The closer we get to the National Democratic Convention, the more frequently Senator Obama shows us, with his remarks and consistent self-appreciative, inflated mathematical distorted self-appraisal and reckless comments, that he does more damage to his candidacy than a whole slate of opponents could do to him!

I didn't think to express it this way, but www.hireheels.com resonates: Obama Suffers from Premature Ejaculation!

HIREHEELS is definitely not the site for you if you've drank the Obama Kool-aide and believe that he is the UNIFIER. Spin it how they may, the reality is that Obama is more of a detriment to his own candidancy that Hillary Clinton. He reduces his chances of winning daily by his arrogancy, rudeness, an self-admiration.

He is his own liability, yet seems to be trying to make Hillary his scapegoat.

He could have pulled me toward him. I was a Jesse Jackson delegate. It is definitely not a "race-thing" with me. Before the primary I thought that either candidate would be a vast improvement. Now I am convinced that only one candidate is a reliable improvement. She shows up to work. She has does her homework. She stands up and is counted. She doesn't blame him for making her too tired to be coherent on the campaign trail. She is able to add. She's never once called foul because the media picks on her spouse!

Despite the Party and most of the media "counting her out", she's recently won in EVERY COUNTY IN West Virginia, a state that no Democratic nominee has won the General Election without carrying since 1916! Her margin of victory continues to increase in late term primaries despite the nation being told repeatedly that "She can't win."

Anderson Cooper published an op-ed by Lanny J. Davis on May 31, 2008 which points out:

According to Gallup’s May 12-25 tracking polling of 11,000 registered voters in all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., Sen. Clinton is running stronger against Sen. McCain in the 20 states where she can claim popular-vote victory in the primaries and caucuses. In contrast, Sen. Obama runs no better against Sen. McCain than does Sen. Clinton in the 28 states plus D.C. where he has prevailed. “On this basis,” Gallup concludes: “Clinton appears to have the stronger chance of capitalizing on her primary strengths in the general election.”

The 20 states, Gallup points out, not only encompass more than 60% of the nation’s voters, but “represent more than 300 Electoral College votes while Obama’s 28 states and the District of Columbia represent only 224 Electoral College votes.” Sen. Clinton leads Sen. McCain in these 20 states by seven points (50%-43%), while Sens. Obama and McCain are pretty much tied. But in the 26 states plus D.C. that Sen. Obama carried in the primaries/caucuses, he and Sen. Clinton are both statistically tied with Sen. McCain (Clinton 45%-McCain 47%; Obama 45%-McCain 46%).

Gallup’s state-by-state polling in seven key battleground “purple” states also shows Sen. Clinton winning cumulatively in these states by a six-point margin (49%-43%) over Sen. McCain, while Sen. Obama loses to Sen. McCain by three points—a net advantage of 9% for Sen. Clinton. These key seven states—constituting 105 electoral votes—are Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Mexico, Arkansas, Florida and Michigan.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama holds about an equal advantage over Sen. McCain in six important swing states that he carried in the primaries and caucuses—Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri. But these constitute less than half—54—of the electoral votes of the larger states in which Sen. Clinton is leading.

I'm not recommending that Democratic voters abandon the party's nominee in 2008. However, I have read comments on ipetition.com from a cross-section of folks who are not enarmoured with the media spin, with the Obama campaign rhetoric or the Democratic Party leadership's bias and marginalization of Senator Clinton. "Symbolic victory my ass!" No victory in any state is merely symbolic.

For months we've seen delegates reported as "done deals" when any political scientist knows that in the American electoral process, superdelegate's endorsements change with the direction of the wind and are historically unreliable as predectors of delegate count until they actually show up and sign-in at the National Convention. Pledged delegates are also difficult to tally accurately until after the State Conventions. There really are no PLEDGED DELEGATES until (1.) delegates show up at state conventions and (2.) elect National Delegates and (3.) those national delegates show-up at the National Democratic Convention and (4) actually sign-in at National Democratic Conventions.

There can be no inevitable nominee as long as these delegates can change their minds and switch presidential preferences up until they sign the permanent roll at the National Democratic Convention. When a political party has a Vice-Presidental incumbent or first-term incumbent President, it is easier to predict the party's nominee, but even such prediction have proven inaccurate from time to time.

This year neither party has an incumbent in the race. Despite the Obama campaign's repeated assertion that the nomination is in the "bag", it's still a photo finish kind of "horse race."

Super Delegates, despite endorsement, are always a wild card which can shift sides up until the final hour. Just this week, Texas Democratic Party Vice Chair Roy LaVerne Brooks, an African American Obama endorser, told the Fort Worth Star Telegram that if the Obama campaign continues to try to force her out of the Texas Democratic Chair's race, "perhaps I should switch to Senator Clinton!" It is highly possible that if Roy LaVerne Brooks switches, other women superdelegates may switch with her. Should delegates doubt the "Obama is the inevitable nominee" rhetoric, others may leave his fold. If Obama delegates decide it is a done deal, they may not show up at state conventions and the delegate count may shift just enough in key areas.

The reality is that nothing is a done deal until the National Democratic Convention is closed.

I hope that Super Delegates will visit www.ipetitions.com and under "sign a petition" search for "Hillary" and read the comments of some of the thousands of people who have signed several petitions.

The "Urgent Petition to Democratic Super Delegates" has 6883 signatures and comments as of June 2, 2008 1:07 A.M. CST. (Click on signatures to read the comments and see the number of signatures). (It was started April 11th!)

A newer petition "To Convention and Beyond" and "Quiet Riot" have thousands of signatures. Senator Obama would be wise to read some of these comments. I think they would bring reality back into clearer focus for him. He seems to be as insulated by folks who tell him what he wants to believe as many Presidents become once elected. That's dangerous in the White House and that's dangerous out of the White House. It becomes especially hard to win an election "to serve all of the people" when you are enwrapped in the glow of your supporter's admiration and out of touch with the concerns and perceptions of your opponent's constituency.