Fantasy Politics USA

Fox News and The Politico are both reporting that Hillary Clinton plans on taking Barack Obama’s pledged delegates. This is based on an interview with a “high-ranking Clinton official,” according the The Politico. A close look at the interview tells us a different story than the title of the article though. The title claims that Clinton will target the pledged delegates, but in fact, the “high-ranking official” only mentions that it will be a tactic probably employed by both sides. “I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates,” according to the “high-ranking Clinton official.” Fox also distorts this story with the title of their article being, “Clinton Aiming To Draw Pledged Delegates From Obama.” The Hillary campaign has responded to these charges by saying, “We have not, are not and will not pursue the pledged delegates of Barack Obama. It’s now time for the Obama campaign to be clear about their intentions.” In the same Politico article they claimed that Doug Wilder, former governor of Virginia told Bob Schieffer of Face The Nation that there would be riots in the streets if Obama is not nominated. In fact he said, “there will be chaos at the convention.” That’s pretty clear already with this close race, but far from riots in the streets.
Alan Cosgrove

Ron Paul announced today that he will be cutting back on his national campaign staff, and putting more focus into his congressional seat. Since Mitt Romney has left, Paul feels “the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero.” In a letter to supporters Paul wrote “that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter.” Since it is clear that Paul doesn’t have a chance to win the republican nomination, he wanted to make it known that he has no interest in running as a third party candidate as has been rumored in the past. Paul told supporters, “I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties — just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.” Besides if he keeps up this quest for the president he might lose his real job which is important to him. Paul says, “I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.” Paul would like his battle to continue, but has realized if he keeps this stuff up he could lose his congressional race. If that happens he will lose his platform which he has held for so long, and his voice of reason will fade away. He needs that platform in Congress because, “In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me,” according to Paul. Despite his lack of votes in the primaries and caucuses Paul stays a winner on Presidential Idol, and we wish him luck in his congressional race.

Alan Cosgrove

With super Tuesday and all, John McCain has just been to busy to do his real job lately. On Wednesday McCain skipped an important vote in the Senate on an economic stimulus plan that would have given 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans rebate checks. It looked like he was going to go to the floor to vote, but he didn’t. He was in town for the vote. “I haven’t had a chance to talk about it at all, have not had the opportunity to, even,” McCain said. “We’ve just been too busy, focused on other stuff. I don’t know if I’m doing that. We’ve got a couple of meetings scheduled.” The vote was blocked by a Republican filibuster, and failed by 1 vote. They needed 60 votes to pass the measure. The final vote was 58-41, but Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid switched his vote at the last moment in a parliamentary move that allows him to bring up the measure for another vote at a later date. This ensures that the plan backed by President Bush and the Republicans should now pass since there is such an urgency to do something about this failing economy. Senate Leader Reid said this after the vote, “Given a chance to act as recession looms, more than 40 Republicans today said no to helping 20 million seniors and no to 250,000 disabled veterans. They said no to those who have lost their jobs and no to small business.” McCain had nothing at all to say about this. It was a “lose, lose” vote for McCain. If he voted no with his party, then he alienates all those seniors and veterans. If he votes yes, then he alienates all those conservatives he is trying to reach. That would be particularly hard for McCain since he is speaking before the Conservative Political Action Conference this afternoon. This is the group that booed him in absentia last year. So far this year McCain has missed all eight Senate roll call votes. He was asked about this later and said, “It’s very hard. Obviously, I’ve missed a lot of votes. There’s no doubt about it.” Every vote this year is a lot, and he is correct, doing your job is hard sometimes. The Clinton camp didn’t miss this chance to attack this McCain weakness. A spokesperson for Clinton said, “By failing to stand up as the deciding vote, John McCain let our families down. Tonight’s events prove once again that we need a president who will be ready from Day One to act in the interests of middle-class families and turn our ailing economy around.”
Alan Cosgrove

MoveOn.Org has announced that as a group they will endorse Barack Obama as the next President. Obama won overwhelmingly with 70.4% of the vote compared to 29.6% for Hillary Clinton. The group claims to have over 1.7 million members in the Super Tuesday states. “Our members’ endorsement of Senator Obama is a clear call for a new America at this critical moment in history,” MoveOn.org’s Executive Director Eli Pariser said. “Seven years of the disastrous policies of the Bush Administration have left the country desperate for change. We need a President who will bring to bear the strong leadership and vision required to end the war in Iraq, provide health care to every American, deal with our climate crisis, and restore America’s standing in the world. The enormity of the challenges require someone who knows how to inspire millions to get involved to change the direction of our country, and someone who will be willing to change business as usual in Washington. Senator Barack Obama has proved he can and will be that President.” Pariser said, “Barack Obama has our members ‘fired up and ready to go.'” Obama has responded by saying, “In just a few years, the members of MoveOn have once again demonstrated that real change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up. From their principled opposition to the Iraq war – a war I also opposed from the start – to their strong support for a number of progressive causes, MoveOn shows what Americans can achieve when we come together in a grassroots movement for change. I thank them for their support and look forward to working with their members in the weeks and months ahead.”
Alan Cosgrove

Ralph Nader has launched an exploratory website and committee to run for President in 2008, and claims to have formally filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Committee. Nader says he finds both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama unacceptable. “They are both enthralled to the corporate powers,” Nader said of Clinton and Obama. “They’ve completely ignored the presidential pattern of illegality and accountability, they’ve ignored the out of control waste-fruad military expenditures, they hardly ever mention the diversion of hundreds of billions of dollars to corporate subsidies, handouts, and giveaways, and they don’t talk about a living wage.” He called Obama’s Senate career “mediocre, and quite cautious.” “It’s not that he doesn’t know what the score is, of course he does — look at his background, he knows plenty,” Nader said. “But he’s censoring himself.” Nader said there are plenty of voters looking for a candidate like him. “John Edwards, the banner of Democratic Party populism, is dropping out, and Dennis Kucinich dropped out earlier, so in terms of voters who are at least interested in having major areas of injustice, depravations, and solutions discussed in a presidential campaign, they might be interested in my exploratory effort,” Nader said. Nader was asked about being a spoiler for the Democrats again, and he said, “political bigotry will be the label on anybody who uses the word ‘spoiler’. Because ‘spoiler’ means minor candidates are second class citizens. Either we have an equal right to run for election, or we are spoilers for each other trying to get each other’s votes.”
Alan Cosgrove