Tag: primary

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Love Letter to Howard Dean

Straight from the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” department comes this beautiful little email from a reader over at Andrew Sullivan:

“I am Floridian, and was told from the beginning that “my state would not count.” For that reason, I stayed home … to now “count” the Fl vote would disenfranchise me even more than if Fl were not to count at all. To the DNC & Howard Dean: I played by your rules, decided that you were telling me the truth when you said Fl votes would not count so I stayed home. Now, you’re going to count it? Well, screw you.”

This person is pissed and I don’t blame them. First they’re told their vote won’t count, so they stay home. Then Hillary manages to strong-arm Dean and the DNC and we hear rumors that some sort of “compromise” will be reached. We’re talking no-win scenario here folks. I really wish the Democrats would grow a spine every now and then, especially when dealing with their own. Yet another part of this campaign that Hillary Clinton managed to frack up royally. Calgon, take me away!

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North Carolina’s Patience Pays Off

While watching the primary coverage last night, I was curious about the seemingly large number of delegates that were at stake here in North Carolina. As the Daily Kos reports, it turns out North Carolina received bonus pledged delegates from the DNC as a reward for playing it cool and going late in the primary process:

“To keep states spread out and not all clustered in February, the DNC offered bonus pledged delegates to those states that went late in cycle. Thus, instead of only getting 66 pledged delegates to the Democratic convention in Denver, Indiana gets to send 72. And North Carolina went from 89 delegates to 115. Those extra delegates put Indiana ahead of Tennessee and Maryland and gave it as much voting strength as Minnesota and Missouri. And North Carolina bypassed Massachusetts and New Jersey.”

So thanks to North Carolina’s willingness to wait our turn, not only did we most likely cast the deciding ballots in the race between Clinton and Obama, but our fine state will have more political leverage at the convention. Well done North Carolina, I always knew you were a class act!

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North Carolina: Primed & Ready

No one would have expected when the presidential primary season started that little ol’ North Carolina would play such an important part in the selection process. Our state’s late primary has always been something of an “also ran” to the rest of the nation, but not this time. Now we’re center stage and I think I speak for North Carolinians when I say “Let’s do this thing!”

Like many of my fellow NC’ers I’m ready to get in there and vote in the Democratic primary and help elect Barack Obama as our party’s choice for President of the United States. I was speaking to my friends Anthony and Corey this past week at lunch and they both agreed with me that no matter what the outcome, they want to get the primary completed and get onto the general election. Hillary has made several calls to each of them and I could hear the impatience in their voice as we talked over lunch. As the large number of NC early voters reveals, they are not alone.

If the latest Zogby polls are to be believed, then Obama still holds at least a 9 point lead over Clinton as we start the week. Things are tighter in Indiana, but something tells me that Barack just may pull it out and finally, thankfully, put the nail in the coffin that is the Clinton campaign. But knowing Hillary and her “entitled” attitude, it would take nothing short of a miracle to get her to drop out of the race early. Something tells me if Indiana and North Carolina go the way I think they will, she’ll see a number of super delegates abandon her en masse.

I feel like North Carolina is that underused rookie sitting on the bench who turns to his manager and says with fantastic enthusiasm “Send me in coach!”. Our time at bat is almost here and for our sake, and the sake of our children, I hope we step up and hit a homer.