Both Kerry and Gore won WA in the general election and still lost. Clinton needs to win WA as well as FL and MI in order to win in the general election. So, if we are worried about how the voters in FL and MI are going to feel if we disenfranchise them, the the same must apply to voters in WA.

Clinton's claim that she is ahead in the popular vote and therefore should be the nominee is based on a popular vote total that does not include any votes from WA, CO, IA, or NV as those states held valid caucuses but did not keep track of the number of voters voting that day. (These states just kept track of the number of delegates allocated based on the outcome of the caucuses).   Read More »

McCain this week voted against a bill that would require equal pay for women (Obama and Clinton voted for it). McCain stated that women didn't need the bill because the reason they weren't receiving equal pay was because they needed better education and training to do so. http://www.wtop.com/?nid=213&sid=1392352   Read More »

I have a question for everyone out there. With the voter irregularities (which were caused by republican controlled election apparatus) that occurred in FL & OH in 2000 and do we really want to really require wins in either state in order to win the White House?   Read More »

I have a question for everyone out there. With the voter irregularities (which were caused by republican controlled election apparatus) that occurred in FL & OH in 2000 and do we really want to really require wins in either state in order to win the White House?   Read More »

IX here are the talking points you requested. I hope they answer your question with respect to Obama:

1. He has charisma and is a good orator.
2. He appeals to independents and republicans.
3. He has details on the important topics and his details make sense.
4. He is a uniter and tries to find common ground with his people to solve problems.
5. He gives people hope that we can undo the harm Bush has done to this country and change the way we operate within the world the way it is now.
6. He is smart, flexible, and adaptable. When something goes wrong, he learns from the mistake and adapts what he is doing so that the mistake won't happen again.
7. He is willing to listen to advice, but is also smart enough to make his own decisions based on that advice.
8. He hasn't always been rich and so he knows what it's like to work hard for your money and then have to pick and choose where you spend it.
9. He looks to the future rather than to the past.
10. He has an ability to phrase ideas that were considered liberal by many Republicans in the past in ways that sound like common sense and appeal to all Americans.

Although I am an Obama supporter, I do not believe that the super delegates need to endorse Clinton immediately just because Obama is now ahead. I am not upset that Clinton chose to stay in the race. She has every right to stay in the race. The problem I have is what she is doing while staying in the race.

If you care about this country then you shouldn't want McCain or any Republican to win in November, and you shouldn't do anything that would make it easier for the Republican to win the general election. Over the past month, Clinton has been making sure that the Republicans win the election in November (even if she is the nominee.) She's done this by consistently saying that McCain is more qualified than Obama, by creating commercials and sound bites that McCain can use against her or Obama, by trying to "steal" pledged delegates, etc.   Read More »

She would not be talking about the popular vote as a means to determine how the super delegates should decide who to vote for:

Several caucus states did not record the numbers of people attending and thus have no popular vote to add their voices to the popular vote. This disenfranchises those voters completely. (And unlike MI & FL these caucuses were held within party rules and these voters should not be penalized for having caucuses instead of primaries.)

You can't have it both ways. Either disenfranchisement is wrong or it's not. And if it's wrong for MI & FL, then it's wrong to disenfranchise people in caucus states.

But then, I forgot - Clinton didn't win these caucus states so of course she doesn't care about disenfranchising the voters there. She only cares about disenfranchising the voters who voted for her.

This game is ridiculous. Let the super delegates end this now. Choose one candidate and lets move on to unifying.

Clinton's main goal here it to win the nomination and then go on to the general election and win the Presidency. The question I have, is that if fighting for the nomination at this point severely damages her own ability to win the Presidency, how is it in Clinton's best interest to keep fighting?   Read More »

The huge picture here is that the attack on Obama's church is a huge threat to our separation of church and state.   Read More »

I realize now what we need to do to get to party unity. The supporters of the candidate who wins the nomination need to acknowledge that the supporters of the losing candidate are not thrilled at the outcome and may not be excited to vote for the nominee. We need to thank the supporters of the losing candidate for keeping the good of the country first and foremost in their mind by coming out to vote against McCain. They don't have to be excited or feel thrilled at the idea of our nominee as President, and we need to give them permission to have those feelings.

I think if everyone in the party would acknowledge this fact about the supporters of the candidate they oppose, we would maybe be able to get on to the step of healing the party for the general election.

I understand why the Clinton supporters are so angry at many of us who are Obama supporters. We dared to say that we didn't want Hillary to run and that we were going to vote for anyone but Hillary in the primary. (There were 40% of us in MI alone.)   Read More »

Each candidate has their negatives - that is a fact. For example, Clinton has 50% of the country hating her just for being her, Whitewater, Hsu, Bill's lobbying for Arab countries, a fraud lawsuit pending against Bill in CA, her lack of experience compared to McCain, etc. Obama has people in this country who will hate him because his skin is black, Rezko, Reverend Wright, his lack of experience compared to McCain, etc.

These negatives are just facts about these candidates. We each have to look at those negatives and use our own judgment to choose which candidate we think would be best for the country.   Read More »

My husband made this up - I hope it won't offend the Clinton supporters - I just think it's funny and it answers the question posed by Deborah Williams.   Read More »

I wanted to post a theoretical question. This is not a slam on Clinton - it is a legitimate question that I think the party should think about.

I do not believe that it was necessary for Clinton to drop out when it began to appear that the math was against her and that she would never catch up in pledged delegates. But I do believe that it was necessary for Clinton to run a positive campaign, focusing on all of the things that made her a great candidate.

A primary is NOT a General Election. At the end of the primary process you have to reunite the party. Also, at the end of the process you have to run a General Election Campaign. If you go negative on your opponent and it forces your opponent to go negative on you, each candidate winds up being harmed when the General Election rolls around.

My question is this, do you think it is necessary for candidates in the Primary process to remain positive and not run fear ads, not tear down fellow democratic candidates, not endorse republican candidates over the democratic candidates, etc.

If think a candidate should not go negative, then how do we deal with a candidate who does? Should we give them the nomination? Should the super delegates flex their muscles and not give that candidate the nomination if they are in a position to do that?

What does party loyalty mean if it does not apply to candidates and how they run their campaigns against fellow democrats in primaries?

Read this link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hooman-majd/happy-purim-mr-presiden_b_92787.html

This is the second time in several days that McCain has shown his ignorance of any religion but Christianity. First, he doesn't know the difference between Shiite and Sunni in the Islam faith. Now he doesn't even know what Purim is.

How can anyone support him. He's got no idea about the different religions in this country that aren't Christianity.

Twenty-five percent of voters in FL say they will not turn out to vote in November if their delegates aren't seated in some way. It appears that the DNC needs to find a way to deal with the problem of MI & FL before it damages the party irrevocably. So, I thought it might be interesting to apply the problem solving technique that I learned and use on my 8-year-old child.   Read More »

Each candidate has their negatives - that is a fact. For example, Clinton has 50% of the country hating her just for being her, Whitewater, Hsu, Bill's lobbying for Arab countries, a fraud lawsuit pending against Bill in CA, her lack of experience compared to McCain, etc. Obama has people in this country who will hate him because his skin is black, Rezko, Reverend Wright, his lack of experience compared to McCain, etc.   Read More »

Read this blog:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/hillarys-nasty-pastorate_b_92361.html

This scares me more than a black minister preaching from the black perspective.

Does anyone else have a problem with this?

After listening to Obama's speech today and reading the blogs here on this website I finally get why the Democrats are having such trouble unifying in this election. There are two inconvenient truths that no one wants to acknowledge and attempt to overcome.

The first inconvenient truth, that white Christians in this country don't want to acknowledge, is that the minority experience in this country (be it a religious, racial, or sexual minority) is very different from the experience of a white Christian. The second inconvenient truth, that minorities don't want to acknowledge, is that this country has made tremendous strides into being a true meritocracy and has come further than many if not most countries in the world.

Obama is asking us to find our commonalities so that we can move forward and start addressing the issues that affect all of us, minority and majority (like health care, the war in Iraq, the economy, etc.). But I realize that until both the minority and majority are willing to acknowledge the truth of the other group's experiences in this country we cannot move on to finding our commonalities.

I hope that we all will move on to find our commonalities so that we can work on issues in this country that affect everyone of any race, religion, or sex. That is what Obama stands for - do you?

I am truly confused as to why people will not vote for Obama based on Wright's statements. I am a Jew and I frequently have to vote for a candidate whose Christian spiritual leader says things that terrify me. But I have always believed the candidate when he/she says that they do not have the same views as the spiritual leader, and in fact I have never had the candidate act on the views espoused by the spiritual leader. (Even with the Republicans in office, whose spiritual leaders scare me the most, they have not been able to act on the most extreme statements of those spiritual leaders.)

So, my question is, why are you scared of Obama based on Wright's comments? Obama is not Wright. Sitting in a church where Wright preaches does not mean Obama agrees with everything that Wright preaches. So, again, I ask you, why are you scared of Obama based on Wright's comments? What exactly is it that you think Obama will do when he is President, based on Wright's views, that is so horrendous?