I lol’d.  Very well done satire, though it did get a little ridiculous toward the end.

Anybody seen a “I’m Voting Democratic?” version of this?  I might have to make one if not…

It seems that this day in age, simple commentary on a worldly issue is not the personal opinion of the person who wrote it. No! It must be a larger window into the mindset of where the comment was made. In this case, the places are website.

It’s irked me for some time that Bill O’Reilly has gone after the Huffington Post for vitriol posted by some commenters there. According to him, these comments show the larger picture of the Post’s owner, Ariana Huffington. He says these comments show the contempt that she has for this country.

News flash, O’Reilly: There’s this thing called the Internet, and a subset of that technology called commenting systems. You know that; by your own admission, you have some on your own website.

Yet, having a commenting system means responsible moderation of what is posted. O’Reilly has also claimed that many of the comments remain up there. I don’t doubt that, but he must understand that different websites have different commenting policies. Some allow pretty much anything, no matter who it’s from, or what it says. Others are quite draconian in the policies, and delete anything that’ll fan flames. I’ve had experience with both sets of policies.

I’ve been part of websites where I’ve had to keep track of commentary and posting, and make sure it didn’t break the rules. During my time doing that, my moderation style has been called both too lax and too trigger happy. I try to keep a balance in my moderation, as with all things in my life, but it’s difficult. Implement one policy, and you make one set of people mad. Implement another, and a different group is angry. It seems you can never please anybody! If you’re not restricting free speech, you’re letting people abuse it. It turns out to be a never ending cycle.

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Hillary Clinton said today just about everything I wanted her to say.  That works for me!

Now I have five months to decide who I want to be President.  Today the general election season officially begins…

That is the question on everybody’s mind today. I’m hoping for these things:

1) A call to unite behind Obama.

2) A call for her delegates to vote for Obama.

3) That she will fight to have Obama elected.

My opinion of her will greatly improve if she does those three things. I think it’s important for her to do, because the Democrats need to get their act together quickly if they wish to win against McCain. If she doesn’t do these things, and Obama loses in November, she can probably kiss any chance at another chance for nomination good bye, because she’ll be remembered as the Democrat who destroyed the Democratic party.

But if she does these things and he still doesn’t win? She’ll have a better chance in ’12.

A quick note first.  If what the news orgs are saying is true, that Clinton will leave the race by the end of the week, then good!  More on that in a bit.

Anyway, I’m happy I didn’t post an extended entry on the last day of the primaries last night.  Waiting until now has given me the chance to sleep on things, and my tone now will be more moderated than it would have been if I posted last night.

As I said last night, congratulations to Senator Barack Obama on becoming the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party!  As I’ve maintained for some time, I really do think he is the best choice for the Democrats.  I really do believe he could help them take back the White House in November.  So, congratulations to him.

Then there is Senator Hillary Clinton, who, despite a gallant effort to become the nominee for her party, did indeed lose the race.  And unlike the Republican runners-up, made a very good showing.  Yet, listening to her speech last night, I was extremely disheartened with her.  I have always been what some might call a defender of her right to stay in until the magic number was reached.  Whenever some in the blogosphere or media were saying she was finished, I rebuffed these kinds of statements.  “Don’t count your cards before the game has finished” has become my slogan in reference to her, or any other candidate (Republican as well) who was said to be no longer viable.  Yet, tonight has only locked in place a feeling about her that’s been growing for some time.

I don’t know if it’s been the effect of watching too much of the horserace coverage, or if it’s actually been of my own judgment, or some of both, but the fact that she would not concede last night made me feel really angry toward her.  I’m sorry, but when somebody has won a contest, you congratulate them, take your losses, and learn from them.  You don’t do what she did, which was pretty much smack him in the face and not recognize the fact that he’s won.

The part of that speech last night was one I’d expect from her if she had won, not when she had lost, and knew it.  Clinton isn’t dumb.  She’s known for weeks that the odds were not in her favor, and in the days running up to last night had plenty of time to properly prepare that part of the speech.  And yet, what she said did not much what she should have said.  Should she have used the speech to angle for the Veep position?  Absolutely, and I said a couple days ago that she should do just that:

Speaking of that concession speech, what should she put in it? For starters, it could include an adamant call to the party to unite behind Obama. The party needs it. And Clinton can provide it. Second, a statement that she’s going to do her best takes to get him elected. And finally, if I were her, I’d include an impassioned plea to be selected as the running mate.  I’m not saying the pairing is ideal, but she would be silly not to try for it. She has, in fact, already done it in previous speeches.

Well, she got at least one of those out of the way, the part about asking to be VP.  While it’s an important thing for her to do, extremely more important for her party were the two tasks I outlined before it.  The fact that she didn’t do those things, and made the speech entirely about her, is quite disappointing to me.  A lot of bloggers have talked about the narcissistic tendencies of the Clintons, and while I was quite willing to look past this characteristic before last night, I don’t think I can do so any longer.

Wrapping things up, I definitely think she still has a shot for the Veep spot, and still think it could probably work out, but I’ve become pretty disillusioned by Clinton over the past couple weeks.  This heartache of mine regarding her probably wouldn’t have come if only I’d listened more closely to what one of my good friends said a couple months ago (might have been February), about her tendency to feel she’s entitled to the Presidency.

The best thing I think she can do now, and it may be good damage control from the backfiring that’s resulted from her speech, is concede soon and start to work behind the scenes to help Obama win the Presidency.

Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama on a well deserved win!

I’ll post more about it, and what the future holds for both nominees, tomorrow.

I’ve been watching the delegate count for Barack Obama go up all day long.  I don’t know how accurate their estimate is, but CNN has Obama at 2113 right now (up from my 2111 report a few minutes ago).  Other networks are being more conservative with their count; everyone else has him under 2110.  However, I don’t know how often they update.  CNN seems to update the count every 15 minutes to half an hour, while the rest of less frequent.

If you take CNN’s count as true (I’ve already declared my support for MSNBC’s “Middle of the Road” count), could he possibly pass the mark before the delegates are even counted for South Dakota and Montana?

I don’t think so.  I like how the Obama camp has played things out today.  They waited until the last day to release a bunch of superdelegate supporters.  However, I think they may wait until after the votes are counted to release the rest.  So that at least the voters of SD and MO can feel like they pushed him past the mark.  Democracy in action.

Would have posted this earlier, but I spent a great deal of the day preparing my online portfolio website. If you or your company need any video editing work done, you ought to check it out!

Anyway, CNN is reporting Obama at 2111 delegates, MSNBC is reporting 2107, CBS News is reporting 2109, ABC News is reporting 2106, and Wikipedia is reporting 2105. I’m not sure who exactly to believe, so I’ll go with a the middle of the road estimate and take MSNBC’s 2107 estimate.

As the second year I’ve really followed politics closely and the first Presidential election I’ve followed closely from beginning to finish (it’ll be my second Presidential election), I’ve been incredibly excited during the entirely primary season, for both the Democrats and the Republicans, and later on, the third parties as well. Unfortunately, the Republicans ended their primary season several months ago, so the race between the two Democrats has had to keep me occupied.

And what a race it was. The ever flip-flopping blocks of states won by either candidate, the scandals, the Florida-Michigan debacle; good or bad, I loved it all. Yet, in the end, it had to be won by somebody. And in the end, I think the better candidate won.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have much against Hillary Clinton. Her positions are more or less similar to Obama’s, and her attitude is not that bad. Some people say you either love her or hate her, but I don’t see it that way. Yes, there are some things I don’t like about her personality, and I certainly don’t love her, but I also don’t hate her. You cannot deny that she would be a tough President. You only need to look at her campaign this year to know this.

Still, I think based on personality, Obama is the candidate I like more. It’s not so much about positions when you get down to the grind, because lets face it: Obama is no saint to me there. I vehemently disagree with his positions on gun ownership, and I don’t really agree with either candidates full plans for healthcare (nor do I agree with John McCain’s plan). I disagree with Obama on his gay marriage position; I don’t expect a constitutional amendment protecting them from him. However, on other issues, I do agree with him, and because her own positions are so similar, by extension I also agree with many of Clinton’s stances. However, some issues, like gun ownership, are not so weighted in my mind that it puts me off Obama that much. I’ve got other things to worry about rather than how difficult it will be to get a gun.

So, to me it comes down to who I like better. Now, I said above I don’t think Clinton’s personality is that bad, but she does have a lot of negatives that I don’t like. I don’t agree with her “air of inevitability” regarding a Presidency. She doesn’t deserve it, no more than Obama or McCain do. That’s what is great about America, that with the right resources and drive, anybody can become President. We’re not a plutocracy here, at least not in our social consciousness. Yet, her attitude that she somehow deserves the Presidency is off-putting to me, and that is a rather large weight in my mind against her.

So, given all that I consider in a candidate for President, I can think of a no better rival pairing than Barack Obama and John McCain. I wish both of them the best of luck in the coming months, and may the best nominee win!

To anybody who is a new voter this year, or plans on re-registering to vote for a new party or at a new address, be sure to pay attention when you go to register or re-register.

I had to re-register, anyway, since I’m now back at home full time.  When I registered before my first election in 2004, I put down “Independent.”  Although it’s not incredibly important, it can make a symbolic movement meaningless if you intend on not registering for any party, but then find out later there’s an “Independent party” in your state.

In my case, there is an “Independent Party of Connecticut,” which I didn’t intend on registering with the first time.  I only found this out recently, so, when I went to go re-register, I put down “No party.”  You can also leave that box blank if you don’t want to register with a party.

My becoming an Independent (I was originally a Democrat for about a month) was due to my disappointment with political parties as a whole.  So, finding out that I was potentially part of another one was a little funny.

That said, it’s not something that’s huge to me.  But, it feels a little better to know I’m now registered as I originally intended to register!