This and That

Just some short takes on the campaign; I’ve been off the grid, busily involved with other things, so here goes:

Michigan-Florida:

It appears as if the agreement to hold another primary election in Michigan has fallen through. Michigan was one of two states (the other being Florida) that moved up its primary in an attempt to cash in on the publicity and importance showered on states that hold their contests early. The Democratic Party’s governing body, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), said that as a result, neither state would receive delegates at the party’s national conventions.

The states went ahead anyway thinking that the national party would relent later. Michigan Democrats agreed on a plan but the legislature and the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, Democrat from Illinois, couldn’t take it forward and come out with a concrete election.

With Florida also throwing up its hands at another vote to take the place of its early primary and stripped delegates, it is bad news for Sen. Obama’s challenger, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who “won” both contests. I use the quotes because in one case, there was no one else on the ballot, and in the other, there was no campaigning as candidates honored the DNC’s dictates not to seek votes personally in Florida and Michigan.

Sen. Clinton is looking to make up ground on Sen. Obama, her “victories” in the two states could have netted her around 300,000 votes in the popular contest and around 50 delegates.
But that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen so that makes her job even harder.

It also could anger voters in those two states who might retaliate for the perceived slight by staying home on Election Day. The national party insists the rules needed to be followed and that they cannot be changed in the middle of the game. They also think that, in the end, Democratic voters will, well, vote Democratic come November.


Skullduggery….

Employees at the U.S. Department of State apparently were snooping in the passport files of the three major candidates for president—Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party and Senator John McCain of the Republican Party. Department officials discovered the prying into Sen. Obama’s files some time ago, the revelations of access to the files of the other two candidates came to light on Friday.

A similar controversy erupted in the 1992 election when a political appointee in the State Department was caught investigating then-candidate Bill Clinton’s passport records before Election Day.

Besides information about foreign travel, passports have sensitive personal data including the social security number which could yield all sorts of private statistics, like credit reports, financial records, etc.

An investigation is ongoing. The campaigns were informed and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apologized to both campaigns. Several of the contractors involved in the affair have been dismissed.


More on the Obama Speech…

The comment and debate over Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on race this past week continues to rage pro and con.

As I suspected, the speech is being viewed in two ways: as a piece of rhetoric and as a political tactic.

The rhetoric is being praised but politically, a consensus is emerging that Sen. Obama may not have done enough to dispel the raw feelings left in the minds of many voters by the incendiary statements on circulating videos of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ.

You can read my previous posts for the details.

A new line of thought is developing that journalists missed the content of the speech and have instead concentrated on the political impact. I am not so sure that the two can be disconnected. And has the senator really said things that have not been said before?

Perhaps his way of saying them, and that it is coming from a politician of mixed heritage may make it unique, but others have posited these questions rhetorically in the past. I am not quite sure how much new ground has been broken in the discussion (such as it is) over race in America.

According to polling data taken after this imbroglio happened, Sen. Obama has lost quite a bit of support as Sen. Clinton has overtaken him in some national opinion polls. It may not do her any good as Sen. Obama’s lead in convention delegates and the popular vote at this stage may be too much for Sen. Clinton to overcome. Also, the party’s “superdelegates” may be loathe to overturn what appears to be Sen. Obama’s lock on the nomination for fear of losing the support of the party’s most faithful and perhaps important voting bloc, African-Americans.

There is discussion of some party elders approaching the campaign of Sen. Clinton to ask her to step aside for the good of the party in the fall. That may be a little premature and even unnecessary. If Sen. Obama were to win the April 22 Pennsylvania, all questions would be moot. He currently trails in all polls by double digit deficits, some approaching the 20 figure.

It is very possible that Sen. Clinton could finish on a winning streak with the remaining contests on the Democratic Party calendar, and while it’s difficult, it’s not completely beyond reason that she could come very close to him in popular votes and trail by 100-200 delegates.

I am not sure what that means (if anything) at this point, but this race, while perhaps solidly going Sen. Obama’s way, could still prove costly. But clearly, he is in the driver’s seat and is the clear favorite to make history in August when he may become the first African-American to accept the presidential nomination of one of our two major political parties.

While all the political signs point to a massive Democratic victory in the fall, there is much yet to be done and both parties are going under the assumption that it is going to be touch and go to see who sits in the Oval Office at 12 noon on January 20, 2009 (when the new president is sworn in).