No, not Independence Week. That doesn’t come until the first week of July. This is Independents Week, a whole different roll of gum.

Starting tomorrow, and for every day this week (it may go longer depending on how many people I find), I will be profiling Independents who are running for President. As a non-affiliated voter myself, I can understand how Independents who are running find it frustrating that they don’t receive the media attention afforded to an Obama or a Clinton or a McCain. Heck, even Ralph Nader, that perennial candidate for President, is an Independent who’s getting some media attention. I’ll be getting to him last, as he’s known so well, and as long as he remains an Independent by the end of the week. Who knows, the Green Party could pick him up again by then. I’ll eventually be getting to the third party candidates.

I’m going to have to make a decision on one or two of them, as they may call themselves Independents, but are actually part of a party with “Independent” in its name, which really is affiliating yourself with a party when you come to think about it. It’s not the same as running on your own, with no party affiliation.

So, I’ll profile them, give an idea of their history and what they stand for. I’ll then give my own opinions on the candidate. Ultimately, however, it is for you to decide. You may find a new favored candidate, or perhaps my profiles will re-affirm your choice in one of the major party candidates.

Why am I doing this? Because nobody else is doing it. Even I’ve been mostly covering the major party candidates, and it is two of them which I currently like. So, I hope to turn the tide a little bit, and inform you of who else is out there.

It may also perhaps change my favored candidate, since I’m really starting to get sick of both parties. So, tune in tomorrow for the beginning of Independents Week here at Dymersion.

Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report isn’t someone to consider in the eyes of many, especially if you’re liberal, but the aftermath of his report is causing waves of fury, especially if you’re an Obama supporter.

This morning, Drudge put up a photo of Obama dressed in traditional Somali garb during a visit to the country in 2006.  Worse yet, he pinned the circulation of the photo on Clinton campaign staffers.

No matter who actually did it, this is bad for Clinton, and the aftermath of the event is worse than the actual circulation of the photo itself.  In their response to the charge of putting up the photo, seen here on Politico, the campaign says:

Enough.

If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.

This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.

We will not be distracted.

What’s missing from this response is an outright denial.  If they didn’t circulate the photo, what harm is there in denying you did it?  It would turn attention away from themselves and on to another source.  Perhaps an unaffiliated Clinton supporter, or even someone from the McCain camp.  Yet, their response is to essential say, “We won’t deny it, we just want you to forget about it.”

The whole situation is ridiculous, and it comes on the heels of the “Obama is a Muslim” emails that were circulating several months ago, and which some people still believe.  I think this blog post sums it up best in showing that a lot of our political leaders don traditional clothing on their visits around the world.  Even Clinton has done it before, as you can see.

Maggie Williams, Clinton’s campaign manager, is the source of the above quote.  So, if they really didn’t send it, I hope Clinton either reprimands or fires her.  It’s simply bad press to not deny something if you didn’t do it.  It’s even worse press to not come out and admit that you did, but try to ignore the situation entirely.

I must say, though, the next couple days ought to be interesting.  I wasn’t incredibly big on Clinton before, but was willing to accept her into the fold if she should win the nomination.  Now I have to say that if it can be proven beyond a doubt that it was her campaign that circulated this, she is completely off my consideration list now.

Fear mongering is a bad, bad way to run your campaign.  It’s a Karl Rove tactic, and not something you should be emulating.

I suppose that with my recent hits on the McCain and Clinton campaigns, I can hardly leave Obama out of the fun. As much as I like the guy, I’m not with him on everything he’s done in his run for the White House.

As much as Obama supporters will probably like to mention to me that he doesn’t play dirty “like McCain and Clinton,” there is something I don’t like Obama doing.

In every speech lately, he keeps bringing up the 100 years thing McCain said a few weeks ago. For those who don’t follow this campaign cycle as much as me, take a look at this YouTube video. For all those “tl;dr” people, I’ll be extra generous: McCain is responding to an inquiry someone has on what he thinks about what Bush said about the possibility for being in Iraq for the long haul, even 50 years. McCain mentions that he’d be okay with 100 years, and goes on to mention some places, like Germany and Japan, that we’ve been in for more than a decade.

Since then, lefty news organizations and commentators have been attaching their claws to the “100 years” phrase like a vulture tearing at a carcass, possibly trying to achieve the same effect. Unfortunately (in my opinion), Obama’s been going along with this, even after McCain has clarified his position further, as seen in this article.

I’m going to have to go along with McCain’s “they took it out of context” argument here. I think it’s pretty clear from the video what McCain means. He mentions Germany, Japan, and South Korea. All places we’ve been stationed, but not actively engaged in fighting, for many years. So, it’s pretty clear to me that’s what “100 years” means. Yet, in speeches after McCain had clarified his position, Obama was still using the phrase against McCain. He was bringing up the phrase at least as late as after his wins last Tuesday.

For someone who presents them self as the “anti-Washington establishment” candidate, Obama playing on that statement for so long is pretty Washington establishment to me. I’d expect such a thing out of Clinton (well, expect is not the right word, as she’s playing on the phrase too) or McCain, both Wasington veterans, but not Obama.

I feel like, in a general sense, and this isn’t just directed toward Obama, that all the candidates have varying amounts of demagoguery going on within their campaigns. Some candidates are worse than others, but in the end, it tends to be a lot more about style and presence than talking about the real issues.

I think Obama needs to change his tact, and stop calling McCain on something that’s he’s already clarified as the U.S. having done for many years (with two of his examples first starting under a Democratic administration). The longer he keeps it up, the more it starts to look like dirty politics.

The New York Times is reporting a story, an old story at that, about evidence of an intimate relationship he might of had 8 years ago with a female lobbyist,Vicki Iseman.

The liberal commentators are practically frothing over this story. Yet, both McCain and Iseman deny a relationship. I think that is this were a story about a Democrat (like, I don’t know, Bill Clinton, maybe?), if wouldn’t be an issue for the Times. Yet, that’s the lead of all the versions of this story I’ve seen, rather than what I’m about to expand upon.

The real issue for McCain is a possible ethics issue. Though McCain’s camp denies it, could a letter sent to the FCC in 1999 on behalf of one of Iseman’s client, the old Pax TV network, possibly show hypocrisy for McCain, an ardent opponent of special interests and cause a problem for him?

I don’t know the answer to this question. If it weren’t for a history of candidates trying to dig up an old scandal in an attempt to bring the other candidate down, I’d say no. Without reading the actual letters, which I need to see if I can find, it’s impossible for me to tell. Yet, any sense of hypocrisy could be problematic for him if either of his opponents try to drag it up.

Personally, I think it’s old news. What would be more relevant is any possible hypocritical actions since he wrote and got the McCain-Feingold Act passed in 2002, that banned soft money. If they couldn’t find anything since then, it’s probably not worth bringing it up, since people can change over time, and the McCain that might have been hypocritical in 1999 might not be the McCain of 2008.

More to come on this kind of thing, plus other good and bad moves by politicians and media alike.

So, Obama got Wisconsin.  Yet, the cable news nets, CNN, anyway, seem to be surprised by this.  Yet, as far as a couple days ago, I seem to remember reading that Clinton had left the state because they expected this result. Instead, they were going to focus on Texas and Ohio (with334 delegates between them).

I think what may be more interesting is how far the spread was…17 points.  This isn’t some close race.  If this were the general election, a 17 point spread would probably be defined as a landslide.  Still, however, the two are still close, thanks to proportional representation.  Obama needs to keep winning states by these kinds of numbers to pull away from Clinton quickly.  If the two come close on the two big states on March 4th, or if Clinton somehow turns it over, it’s not over for Obama, but Clinton will be back.  However, after winning the last 10 (and presumably 11) states, Obama has huge momentum going into March 4th.  Clinton’s going to find it hard regaining that lead.  She’s betting a lot on Texas and Ohio.

I don’t know.  For me, it still seems to be a Giuliani move.  Staking your claim on the big states may be an decent method if you’re way behind, but it’s not the same as winning states across the board, as Obama has done.  Obama is winning states across the country, and is now winning across a lot of the demographics.

I think it could go two ways in two weeks.  Clinton could win big in the Texas and Ohio and start looking pretty good again.  Or Obama’s momentum might carry him to those states, in which case, I’m not sure that Clinton can dig out of that.  After March 4th, there are two really big states left, and one of them, North Carolina, is in the part of the country where Obama has been doing really well: the South.

On the Republican side, it’s been looking like McCain since Super Tuesday, but I was cautious.  Because back then, there were still over 1000 delegates to be won…plenty of time for Huckabee to catch up.  I was under no delusions that Huckabee was actually going to win all those.  I was just playing Devil’s Advocate to all those who said it was mathematically impossible for Huckabee to win.

Now, after tonight, I will concede for the first time that it now really is mathematically impossible for Huckabee to win.  He could win everything after tonight and only stop McCain from getting the nomination.  Even if it happened, though, I’m still not sure it would matter.  Their unpledged delegates would probably line up behind McCain and shoe him past the finish line.  Oh, and this is without any Romney delegates.  If he does really get all of him, he’s got it.  I think it would be best for Huckabee to cut his losses and bow out gracefully.  I don’t know, though.  Perhaps like Paul, he wants to stay in to spread his message, whatever that is.

So, now we look forward to March 4th, to see where the Democrats go.  Could be big, or could be more of the same.  Stay tuned.

You know, between what Clinton’s staffer said today, and my discovery of McCain’s vote yesterday, maybe my decision will be made before the primaries are over!

So, I was reading an entry over at The Moderate Voice about what one Clinton adviser said about the rest of the primaries.  Actually, the original source is a Fox News story:

A top Hillary Clinton adviser on Saturday boldly predicted his candidate would lock down the nomination before the August convention by definitively winning over party insiders and officials known as superdelegates, claiming the number of state elections won by rival Barack Obama would be “irrelevant” to their decision.

Arrogance!  Plain and freaking simple.  Now, I’m not naive.  I know the Clinton campaign has been playing on arrogance for a while now.  However, to say that you’re betting on the superdelegates handing your boss the nomination, almost accepting the idea that you’re not going to win by pledged delegates alone, is ludicrous.

Lets look at things here.  Right now, both candidates are more or less in a deadheat in terms of pledged delegates.  Obama has more states, but Clinton has more largely populated states.   The real fear some have is that this trend will continue until the Convention in August.  That neither candidate will have the 2025 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination outright.  Then the superdelegates will have to waltz in, and probably become divided amongst themselves.  That’s where it seems with them right now.  That we’ll have about as much of a divided vote amongst them as we will amongst the two candidates.

I sure hope not.  I want one of the candidates to reach 2025 by the convention, and preferably, before the convention.  I don’t want there to be this fight amongst the superdelegates to give somebody the nomination.  And what if the delegates give the nomination to the person without the most amount of pledged delegates?  If that happens, the Democrats can kiss good bye their slogan of being the party of the little guy.  Why?  Because the elites of the party will have just pushed the little guy out of the way.

First off, I’d like to express my shock and sorrow at the school shooting in Illinois, and for the other shootings that have happened in the past few days. My thoughts are with everybody affected. I’ll get to it more closely in another entry.

But first, John McCain. The adamantly anti-torture, maverick Senator, Presidential candidate, and the subject of dislike by conservative talk radio hosts everywhere is getting a lot of flack in the blogosphere for voting against a bill that recently passed bill that bars the CIA from employing waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.

I call pandering. Pandering when he doesn’t really need to pander. Pandering to a segment of the party that doesn’t need pandering to. Come on McCain, you’ve got a majority of the delegates, and if Romney really can get his to vote for you, you’ve more or less have this nomination clinched. I know some say this is in preparation for the general election, but I still call it pandering. McCain needn’t have worried about the general. He might have had a hill to climb to do it, but with the Independent, moderate, and conservative Democrat vote, he has a chance of winning.

Now this vote will come back to haunt him in the general, you just wait. And some of those Independents and like-minded Democrats that supported him?  They’re gone.  And you know what? Now you really will need the support of those talk radio hosts if you want to win.

I’ve expressed some McCain love here at Dymersion, but this vote seriously impacts my view of him as a favored candidate. I haven’t yet explicitly thrown my support beyond any one candidate. Readers will note my particular like for both McCain and Obama, and to some extent, Clinton (though, like McCain, she’s portrays a grumpy old person), and probably won’t until after the conventions, unless something helps me decide more clearly before then. However, I must say, I’m not happy.

Do I think McCain would actually support this bill in practice? Some bloggers are saying that McCain has shown his true colors by this action, but I disagree. This is pandering to get votes, straight and simple. In office, though, he’d probably reject it. However, whether or not he really believes his vote is not the issue here. What is the issue is a man going again his own strongly held beliefs to capture a vote he probably doesn’t really even need to win the general election.

For shame John McCain, for shame.

I call it “Shakeup Tuesday” partially because Obama took the lead, and partially because it comes after Hillary Clinton shook up her campaign.

So, everybody is going ga-ga that Obama has finally overtaken Clinton in total number of delegates. That he has all kinds of momentum that will lead him into next Tuesday’s Wisconsin and Hawaii races, and change up the election entirely.

Well, I’m going to put the brakes on outlandish predictions, particularly after making some of my own yesterday. I don’t want to burst any bubbles, but Obama only has 25 more delegates. I say only because of the fact that Wisconsin has 74 more coming up. If Clinton were to make a clean sweep in that state, she’d be back in the lead.

Now, I know Obama has a lot going for him. Clean sweeps of last weekend’s races, and yesterday’s. So, yes, he does have momentum going forward. Yet, keep in mind that between him and Clinton, in terms of delegates, they’re nearly tied. Between Wisconsin and Hawaii next Tuesday, they could end up tied again. Or Clinton could take the lead, or Obama could take the lead. The fact is, we don’t really know.

And even if we had a good idea, lets keep in mind that up until recently, Clinton had the total delegate lead, and for a long time. Obama could potentially get the lead for the next couple of Tuesdays, and then be surpassed by Clinton again. Or, that might not happen.

This is a very interesting race, even more so than the Republicans, which has become kind of boring with the withdrawal of Romney (and anyone who says Huckabee is mathematically out is forgetting how many delegates that really still are over there). Anybody who’s saying someone is out for the count just because of momentum is a bit misguided, I think. The cable news channels were saying things like this as far back as Iowa, and yet here we a month and a half later, with about as much of a tie as you can get.

Some would say it sucks, but I think it’s pretty interesting that so many Democrats are excited over two popular candidates. However, I will say this: I won’t be carrying this tune forever. I do think that eventually one candidate will need to show up as a clear leader. I’m not in favor of superdelegates (more on them in another entry), and don’t like the idea of them deciding this race. This is a democracy, and the idea that people who were never elected to represent the people could be a deciding factor in the nomination is a little scary. It would also go to show disunity in the Democratic party, which I think the Republican nominee could play on, claiming the other candidate can’t even unite their own party, so how can they unite the country?

So, if momentum helps one or the other candidate, so be it. If they take a lead in pledged delegates, they can claim a mandate to be their party’s candidate. On the topic of pledged delegates, I will say this: Obama has been in the position of having more of them for a long time now. The cable news channels always liked to point at Clinton’s position in total delegates, but when you strip away the superdelegates, Obama’s been leading for some time. If I were his campaign manager, I might suggest he try to incorporate this fact into his speeches or slogans.

So, while I’d be excited to see a battle between the two candidates for a little while longer, I think that after March 4th, there’d better start to be some idea of who’s going to get the nomination. Now, I’m not talking about claiming someone as the nominee at that point, I’m just talking about getting direction as to who it might end up being.

Update: 2/12/08 7:19PM: CNN is projecting Barack Obama as the winner of Virginia, just as I thought.   Also, I’m changing my D.C. prediction for Obama, given its demographics.  I’m going to keep Clinton on Maryland for now, but stress a weak win there.  Too early to tell Virginia for the Republicans, as I expected it would be.

Now, I’m not one that likes to call the cards before they’re counted. It is, in fact, a pet peeve of mine when the likes of CNN, MSNBC, or Fox call a race when there’s only 10% of the votes counted or something. They’ve been wrong before, and will be wrong again. It only takes one county that voted some different way to throw everything off.

However, I would like to make some predictions here, and think I have some firepower because of past trends. On the other hand, certain circumstances may dictate what happens today, but I’ll get to those in a bit. This area of the country is interesting, since you start making the transition from “North” to “South” between Maryland and Virginia. So, I’ll go by state, and divide by party.

Maryland

A quick look at this facts surrounding Maryland show a pretty blue state. It almost seems like the Connecticut of the mid-Atlantic, but even more so. It has Democrat governor, it’s two Senators are Democrats, six of its eight U.S. reps are Dems, and the state legislature has a veto-proof Democratic majority. In this kind of state, like with Connecticut, I’m guessing the only reason those other two Republican U.S. reps are still there is because they are moderates. In my own state, Chris Shays is considered a moderate.

Republicans

Given the suggestion that Maryland favors moderate Republicans, I’m guessing John McCain is a pretty safe bet for this state. Huckabee will have a lot of trouble here. What is interesting about Maryland, though, is that it’s not a statewide winner-take-all situation, but a congressional district version. Regardless, though, I still think Huckabee has about as much chance as Ron Paul of getting delegates here. McCain’s just simply going to have a larger amount of votes in the two Republican congressional districts.

Democrats

This one is a little harder to tell, since both candidates are really very similar, except on a few issues. I’ll tentatively give the state to Clinton, but since most or all of the Democratic races are proportional, it could end up being very close here. The delegate counts could be very similar. So far, trends seem to show that Clinton is better in the cities, and Obama is better in the suburbs, so that’s the way this ball will probably roll.

District of Columbia

This is obviously the capital of the nation, and the politics here tend to be liberal. Its city council and mayor are Democrats, as is its non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives.

Republicans

I think Huckabee is also going to have a lot of trouble here, given the political orientation of the city. It doesn’t matter who lives in D.C.’s biggest house, it matters who the voters are electing, and they’re electing Democrats. I think McCain will again clinch it here, due to both politics, and his history in the city. He’s been here for a long time.

Democrats

This is another doozy. On one hand, I want to say Clinton will get it because she’s been here for so long. She has a sort of home court advantage, given that it was her permanent zip code for eight years. Obama is newer, but we know that doesn’t mean much, given how many pledged delegates each currently holds. I’m going to say Obama has a very good chance here. Still, I have to tentatively give it to Clinton.

Virginia

Now here’s a state I can really say a lot about. A first glance, some might pass it off as a conservative Southern state. It was a confederate state, after all. But hang on a second! One of its most popular governors of this decade was a Democrat, and the office retains a Democrat now. On the other hand, Virginia’s U.S. Senators are split between the two parties, but it has a greater number of Republicans for the House. The state legislature is also split up, with its House in weak Republican control, and its Senate in weak Democratic control.

However, Virginia does have one thing going for it that D.C. and Maryland just don’t have: The Independent factor. That’s right, the primaries for both parties in this state are open, meaning independents can vote here. So, that will keep this election interesting.

Republicans

McCain will obviously do well in urban areas. He’s also traditionally done well with Independents, and both will help him immensely. On the other hand, Virginia is starting to get into the South, where Huckabee has traditionally done well. Areas outside of urban centers tend to be Republican, and I definitely think the more west and south you go in Virginia, the more conservative you’ll be. You only need to look at West Virginia, where Huckabee won big, to see this.

The majority religious affiliation in Virginia, and by a large majority, is Baptist, and Huckabee was a Baptist minister, so that’s another thing going for him. The
rule seems to favor more moderates in the north, and more conservatives in the south and west. Rural areas are largely conservative, and urban centers more liberal.

It’s really hard to give a winner here. However, given Huckabee’s win in West Virginia, I’m going to have to tentatively give it to him, but it’ll be a weak win, I think. The politics of Virginia are becoming more dynamic as the years go on.

Democrats

Another hard one to guess for the Dems. However, lets gets some quickies out of the way. African Americans make up 20% of the population, so many of those I think will go to Obama. Hispanics, if I recall correctly, are favoring Clinton, and Virginia is seeing more and more immigration of Hispanics. So, those will go to her.

On the other hand, Virginia is a Southern state, and Obama has done well in those states. He’s also done well in the primarily rural states of the West. On the Independent front, they could easily be split up between both, but I don’t know the actual numbers of Independents to tell you so. However, given all those other facts, I’m going to have to give this one to Obama on a state-wide basis, and I also think he’ll do pretty well on the delegate count.

So, there you have it. Three races to get through today. On the Republican side, two are not so hard to guess, but one is a toss-up. For the Democrats, they’re all hard to guess, but I think history and make-up will determine a lot of those elections. Also keep in mind the proportional factor in the Democratic elections. Finally, Virginia’s Independents can participate today, which I think would play a large role in deciding that election, if not for the political and religious make-up of the state.