LATE UPDATE: OBAMA SWEEP; DELEGATE COUNT TBD

POST SCRIPT: I’m watching election news on the ‘net Sat. eve. as I tidy up the house. I just ran across a piece by Ben Smith at Politico.com about the Louisiana primary that made me laugh. The Obama camp complains of “irregularities” in the voting. No shit. It’s Louisi-fucking-ana, buddy. Where have you been since about forever? Yeah. Right. Return to your regular programming. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

I wrote a fairly long piece about my realization that I’ve turned into a confirmed and eccentric batchelor and that I don’t see the arc of my future including another frenzied dating spurt and perhaps not including much dating at all. I’m trying to get my head around that with uncertain results. Anyway, I spiked that draft.

Then, I wrote a rather long piece that looked at the three states having primary or caucus races today for the Dem nomination. I spiked it, too. The short version is that the next seven states — Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington Saturday, Maine Sunday and the “Chesapeake Primary” in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. Tuesday — all appear to be Obama states. The question is the split of delegates: the states that give O less than 60% and/or HRC more than 40% are states that split their delegates more evenly. For every 5% that HRC falls below 40%, O picks up critical increments of delegates. The problem with the analysis is that no one (and I mean literally no one) really knows what that means since no one agrees on how many delegates each candidate can claim. I’ve seen sober claims of splits close and far and the trouble, in part, is the superdelegates and the other part of the problem is the way caucus votes work — O may have “won” a caucus on the precinct level but not do as well or do much better on the District and State levels, depending on local rules. I tried hard to come up with my own delegate estimates, but it’s too difficult and the data just isn’t publicly available without turning the process into a full time job. Until we know how things work out through Tuesday, there’s just no telling about Ohio and Texas, big ticket states and the next two states that vote, both of which look good for HRC.

I spiked that piece too, and if you didn’t fall asleep during the last paragraph, you know why. I made my own eyes glaze over.

The political news cycles have become a sideshow of annoying and irritating quality: was Chelsea “pimped” and do we care?; was HRC’s fundraising cycle news all a stunt?; do you become part of a cult if you back Obama? It’s all just too stupid to really care about, but feel free to get on a few websites and join the flame wars if that appeals to you.

I’ve let Sinatra outdoors in the beautiful weather and I’ve got some windows open this afternoon (Sat) and I put together a little piece in which I talk to the cat about what’s going on in the neighborhood, but it, too, just sort of fell apart and I spiked it, too.

Maybe you’d be interested in just what I’ve been doing on my internet “vacay”, but, I tell you it’s so boring that it’s what sparked off the “I’ll never date again” post I spiked. I watched “Sin City” on DVD and did a little work at the office and I’ve had an allergy attack that’s making me grumpy and I was very pissy at work with the feminista Hillary-backing, chihuahua owning attorney at my office. Not very interesting.

I have a first cousin who just went into rehab in MS and I’m concerned and would like to reach out. My neice in S.C. is struggling with her pregnancy and I’m praying for her and my sister as I read Mary’s blog. I’ve been amused watching Flibbi and MCARP jousting over the precise meaning of “fucking” and “sexual expression”. Sometimes I’m a bowler, sometimes I dance.

Mom dropped by with a gift appropos of nothing: a new pair of shoes. Out of the blue, but another pair of black slip ons with a tassel is exactly what I needed: after all, everyone knows that nothing can pick up your mood like shopping for shoes. She’ll be back Tuesday with my next Christmas gift installment — maid service. It’ll take me all weekend to clean up enough for them to see the house and clean the toilets.

I’m looking forward to KayOh’s FiveOh party on the 26th, but absolutely refuse to believe she’s that age — she’s still 43 and I don’t much care what anyone says. Of course, my stand on the issue allows me to reduce my age by 7 years, making me a mere 48. Or so. Kinda. About. Nevermind.

I’m trying to put together a poker game for next week, maybe that’ll be something worth writing about. Meanwhile, maid service or not, I’ve got to do some dishes and laundry and change the sheets and all that stuff, so catch you on the flip flop.

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little nugget

Jake Tapper at ABC comments about the cult of Obama HERE and I respond by comment at 10:33 p.m. 7Feb.

Have any of you heard my story about giving up TV? Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m in the same place with the internet. I need a “vacay”, to use the word I learned from Karmic Ironies’ Westika. I’ll be back after the Feb. 5 primaries. Meanwhile, I found this little bit of fluff. About a minute into this, it gets SOOOO good. I just had to share:

I’m listening to Harry Connick Jr. croon and I don’t much feel like blogging. I’ve poured over reports, etc., out of S.C. but I don’t have anything insightful to say. My sister, MindOverMary, got to vote in S.C. and she blogs as well as I can about the election.
My grandson’s blog, Blogoraptor, has been updated to include the 50th anniversary of LEGOS and, just in case you missed it, the loss of a tooth. My son in law’s brother is extensively quoted in a Tulsa newspaper article on the “Fightin’ 45th” going to Kuwait and Iraq.
Went to the same party as MCARP Saturday, but I stayed longer and had, I suspect, more fun. I met a woman at the party I wanted to “chat up”, but I quailed and asked around about her to make sure that she was single and all and then asked a mutual friend to set us up. Very unlike me not to have the stuff to just walk up and be a little bold, but I was not up to it this time. I think I may have also stumbled into tickets to a Foo Fighters concert coming up soon and that’s a good thing. Meanwhile, the food at this party was fabulous and so beautifully presented that it was almost a shame to dig in. I was, in fact, bold enough to dig in.
Friday night, after dinner with friends, I went to VZDs about 10 p.m. to see Watermelon Slim and the Workers. I thought there would be dancing, but there really wasn’t; it was still fun and I really like his music and own a couple of his CDs. If you like the blues, you should look into him and give a listen to his newest, Wheel Man.
I’m digging the good weather, but the ragtop has stayed up over the MidLife Chrysler. Tonight, I took an aimless drive around Lake Hefner and found myself amazed at how developed it is at Rockwell and Hefner; that’s out in the country to me, but it’s apartments and strip malls to the folks who live there.
Sinatra’s Siamese side, the talkative half, is about to drive me crazy wanting in and out and in and out and pet me feed me now now now now now. He says he favors Obama because he’s a mixed breed, too. I knew I’d been too focussed on politics when he said that and my impulse was to argue with him, a fruitless task, so I gave up and started reading Maureen Dowd’s “Are Men Necessary?”. I want to write a book, too. I want to call it: “Are Mondays Necessary?”.

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This post updated with a post script early Saturday morning.

I think about politics and enjoy it and write about it. I can’t say I’m all that serious about it, it just seems so in comparison to other people.

So, I’m watching the little fire I have in the living room and listening to Il Travatore (I wish I was making that up) and I’m thinking about some poll results I found curious. It’s a factoid. One poll that was “crosstabbed” (had subset info so you could see if the support of a candidate was male/female, age, race, economic class, etc.) caught my attention. It indicated that immediately following the Dem debate in So. Carolina, there was a jump with Obama losing points, almost all of which were picked up by Edwards. In fact, Edwards is now close enough to just maybe jump Hillary for 2d (if we believe these New Hampshire-esque polls with so many undecideds. Right, folks?)

Anyway, I wondered what happened in the debate that would move just one demographic — older, white, Southern male Democrats — so far so fast and so emphatically in one direction. I was mulling over the theories, including statistical “noise”.

Then, I had a horrible thought.

P.T. Barnum once said that you will never go broke underestimating the tastes of the American public.

What, I thought, awestruck, if Edwards is getting the shallow pretty vote?

What, I thought, horrified, if there were a Mitt Romney with the perfect amount of gray right at the temples, the corporate muckety muck, and John “$400 Haircut” trial lawyer big business baiting populist Edwards in the fall? What if THOSE two were the nominees?

Redistribution of the wealth versus “Greed is Good!”.

From such damn telegenic, pretty faces.

Not purists like Kucinich versus Ron Paul, a deathmatch between also-rans. But pretty pure social welfare state versus corporate welfare state.

And rock star good looks. I mean, really. Both those guys come out of central casting. It’s like West Wing with live bullets and no stuntmen.

And you’ve got that “Father Knows Best” on CBS and “Days of Our Lives” on ABC kind of personal soap opera thing going on with their families as a subtext.

It’s boffo television at its finest.

Just in time for the Fall Season of new shows!

It’s the perfect antidote for all those people who can’t concentrate on Tiger Woods because there’s so much crazy crap about gender and race going on in the kitchen. Two white guys, reasonably interesting argument and we can kick the rest of that crap on down the road for someone else to figure out. I’m too busy being pissed off at the economy and being sick of Bush. That’s the best I got and all I want to think about.

If it’s Obama-McCain, we have a campaign about the war.

If it’s Hillary-Guiliani, we got a subway series of New York nasty.

But, Romney-Edwards is a straight up show down about the economy.

On another, related, note… The blogosphere is wild west blazing guns right now. The Obama and Hillary people don’t seem to like each other very much. Every single one of Ron Paul’s supporters must blog, every single one of them. They are everywhere and very committed. And annoying as hell. Over on the other side of the aisle, they can’t seem to settle just who hates Hillary the most and the Bible verses do fly. Ann Coulter said McCain is like Bob Dole, minus the charm, conservatism and youth. OUCH.

Well, I think I’m onto something. Don’t pick a candidate: pick a match-up. That’s the ticket!

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Post Script: Only a month ago, the headlines asked if Barak Obama was black “enough”. Am I the only one that remembers this? Today, in South Carolina, the media looks at his heavy black backing in the polls and marginalizes him as a “black” candidate. WTF? I predict another tight grouping of the three Dems, as in Iowa, the narrow 1/3 of the vote for each making it fun to try to guess the order they will end up. If, as I guess, Edwards is leaking off white voters from both Clinton and Obama, and Obama has undermined Sen. Clinton’s black support, the N.Y. Sen. could well end up in 3d, although she will pull Obama down from 40+% to the mid 30s and get close enough for all three spots to be in play and if Mark Penn and Bill are good enough, might still pull out a win. In N.H., the polls pretty much nailed Obama and Edwards and under-reported her support and they are volitile enough for that to happen again. I likely won’t know until Sunday morning and the results are like a Christmas present that has been sitting under the tree for weeks. I can’t wait to open my browser and unwrap it.

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

The newest post debate polls in S.C. shows Obama’s double digit lead over Clinton slipping a couple of points, but the real “mover” in the poll was Edwards, who slipped into first place with white voters in that state.

Meanwhile, the undecideds remain very high, about 15%+.

And, don’t believe the spin: Sen. Clinton is trying very very hard to win in S.C., doubling up her ad buys since the weekend to include her specious attack on Sen. Obama as praising Reagan and his ideas.

One reason I hope Obama wins in S.C. is the actual on-the-ground campaign that Sen. Clinton is running there. From the start, she plugged in with the entire “establishment” black Democratic Party leaders. She’s spread what is called “street money” far and wide — “consulting” contracts with ward heelers who hire folks to bring voters to the polls and keep party discipline. She’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on these “community” organizers. I’ve seen this before in party politics and we have it here in Oklahoma. If you run for office in OK on the Dem side, you will meet a great many black “pastors” and “organizers” who want money for gas for their drivers, etc., etc. Way back, cash was turned into half pints of whiskey that were traded for votes here in OKC. It’s a system that had its place in politics, I suppose, but it’s a system that I think is now outdated and corrupt: it’s the last of the Irish/Italian/Polish/whatever machine politics of Tammany Hall.

Sen. Obama has (much like David Boren when he first ran for governor in OK) bypassed that old system in the Palmetto State and brought in volunteer organizers and staff from all over the country to construct their own “ground game” outside the old networks.

I hope he succeeds because that’s what’s best for the party and for politics in America.

Meanwhile, the polls tell me that there are so many undecideds in S.C. that it’s like New Hampshire and you can’t trust the poll to accurately portray the actual outcome of voting. Too many variables, including the ground game versus street money tactics and whether late “attack” mailers affect the undecideds. (The late attacks on Obama in New Hampshire on his “present” votes on abortion related bills in Illinois likely affected that primary; the video below is one of Obama’s answers to similar attacks in S.C.).

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Am I the only one who thinks this woman looks a lot like Julia Roberts?

Gay, conservative, Republican, Ex-Brit, Catholic, and Atlantic Magazine contributor and blogger, I’m a big fan of Andrew Sullivan and read him every day. He’s smart and funny comes at the world from almost exactly 180 degrees from me. He writes a piece in his blog about it being clear that Hillary isn’t really going to be president, but that it’s more like Bill’s really running for a third term. Probably nonsense, but interesting speculation.

I just wonder if I’m the only one old enough and wonky enough to remember Lurleen Wallace, the wife of Gov. George Wallace of Alabama, who ran as a strawman for the segregationist Independent Party candidate of the 60s.

Just a thought.

Since I’m bringing in European observers, I also read Spiegal Online, a German publication, at the behest of John X with the Viennese Squeeze. Their Washington, D.C., writer opines that it’s The End of Obama’s Dream. He may be right, but I think his obit is a tad premature. I believe the German writer is making a common European mistake about the U.S., which is that he doesn’t yet quite have his mind around how big a place this is. He looks at N.Y., N.J., and California, just as I have below, and concluded that Obama is about to go under a Super Tuesday tidal wave of blue collar whites, older women and Hispanics. However, those are only the biggest jewels. There are 22 states on Feb. 5, and some of those states include Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas Oklahoma, Nebraska. With the exception of Arkansas, those states are tough for the former First Lady. The fact that ALL those states are porportional voting instead of “winner takes all” with respect to party delegates, makes prognostication problematic and will likely mean that it’ll be awhile before we really know the results of that Tuesday. Remember that in Nevada, Hillary won by 6 percentage points but got one less delegate than Obama. There will be stuff like that on Super Tuesday. It’s possible to win big in an urban area of a state, therefore carrying the popular vote statewide, but to lose barely in all the surrounding rural congressional districts and the “loser” gets more delegates. Note that all the smaller states I named are also “red” states: states that elected Bush and have GOP holders of most of the major political offices. Part of Sen. Clinton’s problem on Super Tuesday is that even the Democrats in those states have been infected with the GOP anti-Hillary kool-aide because they’ve all been beaten over the head with Hillary by the Repuglithugs for 16 years. Also, for most of the states that come up Feb. 5, I don’t have very reliable polling, nor very much polling and, as always, a very high “undecided”. By the way, Thanks, “B”, for getting me hooked up with this German rag, I enjoy reading it.

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Here’s a weblink to a Tucson Unified School District story about a “pet project” of my daughter with lots of grandchild photograph goodness. I’m very glad my daughter is raising my grand-daughter. That Lil’un’s a pistol. Oh, well. They say we get the children we deserve and I think I got better than I deserve because I married “up”. I think I’d just ’bout ‘splode if I had to try and raise George and Parrish. Parrish is a brilliant kid, gets it from his mother of course, and I’m too old to be challenged by another kid too much like me.

You can’t imagine how reading that article makes me feel and I don’t have the words for it.

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