Open Thread: Obama's Nomination Night

watched the Mets finally win one game over the final weekend to just barely avoid throwing the pennant away 

Watching CNN for a bit tonight, I noticed that their election night coverage now features their "political experts" in a war room-type setting, where they are placed behind computer monitors.  They quote from the "breaking news" on the screen as they comment on the night's events.

It's a work in progress.  Anderson Cooper looks awkward as he navigates from table to table of pundits soliciting their opinions.

Keep on the lookout for fumbled attempts by cable television to try to be as cool as the 'net.  

 Obama and the mess that is his democratic party in Illinois:

Tomorrow, Senator Obama's land deal laddy and political patron, Tony Rezko will find out how many of the 24 counts on which he was been tried, he will be convicted. 

This is a major deal in Ilinois and is part of an ongoing series of trials against the Illinois democrat party that Obama leads. It's hard to make the case for change when your state party, and closest supporters are going to jail.

Illinois is a mess right now, and it's largely because of Senator Obama's cronies. The Governor, who is reportedly also on his way to court 6 years after being elected calling for change, now loses to a convicted GOP felon in a head to head matchup in a state that hasn't gone our way for POTUS in 20 years.

The political journalists that cover illinois politics have asked for months why our national party had not tried to tie obama to the 1.4 million people who have gone on welfare since he came to the state, these corruption cases or the fact that his mentor and patron, senator emil jones, is get this demanding a pay raise while he runs the most dysfunctional state government in the country.

As well, Senator Obama has a former collegue of his named Carol Ronen who recently earned a 38k a year state pension for, get this, spending 8 weeks working as an advisor to the governor. She now works for the obama campaign. ouch.

Finally there's this. In the hometown of the candidate that has called for change, and pledged to work with Republicans to get things done, more than 40 kids were killed at school this year in what became a major local story. What's most striking is that a couple of them happened the same month that Obama went to san fran to make those now famous gun comments while his staff did nothing. That alone begs the question as to the sincerity of his message as if the rest of the stories about his nefarious surroundings and indicted buddies did not.

Given that the democrats have used the president's misreble poll ratings on several issues against us now, I hope we can return the favor with the Senator's closest associates and work in Illinois.

As soon as she pointed the audience to HillaryClinton.com in her speech, I fired up my laptop to find out if two things had happened:

• DOS due to all the heavy traffic on her server (nope - not yet at least)
• Poll to ask voters whether she should run as an Independent (nope - not yet at least)

She's just asking for donations and validation ("I'm proud of you Hillary, and I am proud of everything we're fighting for") at the moment.  Of course you can comment and tell her to run as an Independent or just fight all the way to the convention.  What would Rush do? 

She did point out that out of 35 million votes, she won 18 million.  Two thoughts on that.  First and foremost, this is from April 13, 2008 (CNN Political Ticker):

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Jimmy Carter reiterated the sentiments of many Democratic Party leaders on Sunday by saying that it would be a “serious mistake” for superdelegates to choose the candidate with fewer total delegates.

“I think it would be a very serious mistake for the Democratic Party…if a candidate had the majority of popular votes, the majority of delegates and a majority of states — all three — were the superdelegates to vote contrary to that, I think it would be very difficult to explain,” the former president told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”

Carter is the latest in a series of prominent Democrats to say that nullifying the popular vote would be a flawed approach. He said that he “basically agreed” with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who on March 15 stated "if the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party.”

And this is from Chris Wallace's interview with Howard Wolfson on Fox News Sunday, June 1, 2008:

You know, this party has not nominated somebody who didn't win the most votes in the primary since 1972. 1976, 1980, '84, '88, '92, '96, 2000 and '04,the person who's won the most votes was our nominee. We think that's a good tradition. We ought to keep it.

What a great tradition.  I definitely think they ought to keep it.  The only thing worse than losing the White House in Novemer would be losing it to the neo-Marxist party candidate.   

5.2% ( 36 of 691 ) precincts
reporting as of Jun. 3, 2008, at 8:17 p.m.

	Tom McClintock	1,418	55.3 %
	Doug Ose	936	36.5 %

We need a song to celebrate this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEy8nN4k71Y&feature=related

Secondly, barring the sudden replacement of McCain; there has to be some differences between the two, preferably on something McCain hasn't flip-flopped on.

So says KCRA (Sacramento):  With 20 percent of precincts reporting, McClintock has 12,871 votes, or 53 percent of the vote, compared with main rival Doug Ose, who has 9,391 votes, or 38 percent of the vote.

The contest was a blueprint for the traditional Republican Party schism between die-hard ideological conservatism -- embodied by McClintock -- and more moderate, business-oriented pragmatism, which Ose represents.

The conservative district stretches from Sacramento's suburbs north to Oregon and east to Nevada.

The nominee will compete in November against Charlie Brown, who defeated little-known John "Wolf" Wolfgram for the Democratic nomination.

Brown, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, came close to beating Doolittle in the 2006 general election, despite the heavy Republican registration edge in the district.

The latest numbers show a 47-31 GOP advantage.

I just have one question.  What's with all the retired Lefty [Charlie Brown, Jim Webb, Wes Clark, etc.] military officers?  I just don't get it.  My dad must be rolling over in his grave.