Clinton Claims Victory and Breath of New Hope

 

CNN.com has declared Hillary Clinton the winner of the crucial Pennsylvania primary.  This marks a monumental turnaround for the Clinton campaign and gives new hope to a candidate that looked to have run out of steam.  With this win Clinton looks to pick up the majority of the delegates and inches closer to opponent, Brock Obama.

The news of Clinton’s win comes as a bit of a shock.  For weeks the news coming out of all the major media outlets seemed to hint, or outright say, that Obama had seized the momentum and was going for the jugular in Pennsylvania.

At this point it appears that it is anyone’s campaign for the Democratic nomination.  More than likely this fight will have to be determined when the Democratic delegates meet to cast their votes in June. This brings to mind the question, “Does the system we have in place to nominate candidates actually work?”

Many Americans are not aware that the delegates “won” by a candidate following a primary are free to cast their vote any way that they deem to be appropriate.  As was the case in the 2000 election, unique circumstances shine light on the obscure nuances of our election process.  Unfortunately, these nuances tend to have the negative characteristic of appearing to exclude the masses from the election process.

I am as patriotic as the next guy, assuming the next guy is not a five star general, but I have a problem with the paralyzing stratification that is inherent to government.  The prospect of having a few thousand individuals decide who will be running for president leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  This taste is the same taste that we can all remember following the debacle with the Bush/Gore 2000 election.  That being said, I am a man of historical context, and I will not let the anomalies of the election process sour me on a system that has been around for hundreds of years.

I believe that the system we have in place, despite its problems, is a rather good one, and I will continue to put my faith in every vote that I cast. 

The great part about America is that we are all allowed to have an opinion.  I have let mine be heard, and now it is your chance.  Please leave a comment and let us all know what you think of the system the United States has in place for nominating candidates.

If you liked this story check out:  Obama’s Diverse Family Roots

 

Obama Looking to Deliver Knockout Blow to Clinton Campaign

Senator Barack Obama, presidential candidate from Illinois, has gained ground on rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, in a new Quinnipiac poll. This latest poll, out of Pennsylvania, has Obama picking up 3 points in the last 5 days. While Clinton still leads 55-44, her lead has been consistently shrinking over the last several weeks.

Pennsylvania is considered by many political strategists to be a make or break state for Clinton. The senator from New York trails Obama 1486 to 1629 in delegates as the Democratic Party closes in on a nominee with only a handful of states to go. The 158 Pennsylvanian delegates up for grabs on April 22, represent one of the largest groupings still to be claimed.

As a younger voter, I feel that the back and forth race for the Democratic nomination has given new life to the electoral process. I know, from talking to people in my age bracket (18-25), that interest in the outcome of this primary has increased political awareness within this group. This is no small feat given that this group has historically been apathetic towards politics all together.

It seems that younger voters rally around the idea that every vote counts. This campaign season has seen candidates pay more attention to individual needs and concerns than any other in recent history. This, of course, is due to the fact that candidates have been forced to go to each state individually and fight tooth and nail to get delegates. In years past, by this point in the campaign season, the fight for delegates has been academic with the nominee all but named.

America, as you all know, likes good games and close finishes. It appears that politics is no different. The matchup between Clinton and Obama has been a great one to watch, and I can’t wait, as I am sure many of you can’t, to see who emerges victorious in this epic slugfest. We will find out on April 22, in Pennsylvania, if Obama can deliver the knockout blow or if Clinton really is like Rocky and can stage a comeback for the ages.

Obama’s Diverse Family Roots

Roger Coehen of the New York Times gives us this wonderful Op-Ed piece Tuesday that dives into more detail about the family tree of Sen. Barack Obama.

Personally, I never knew that Obama’ father married four times and reared eight children, or that he has a brother who lives in China and studied Physics at Stanford.

Cohen makes the case that Obama needs to let out all of his potential baggage before the Republican base does during a potential presidential election versus John McCain.

The sad part, really, is that something one has know control over, like a parents failed marriage, could be considered a political liability. To be honest, even though I don’t agree with several of Obama’s policies the more I learn about him that is considered “negative” by pundits and politcos, it makes me like him even more.

In my opinion, America is ready for a candidate who is like them -an imperfect human. We are all searching for answers in this world, and people are sick of having someone tell them how to think like the Bush administration has done during the past seven years.

We want someone as our president who is a leader but also not willing to be afraid to admit when he (or she) is wrong. And in the past 48 hrs., Obama has showed us a humaness politics has never seen before. And we respect that.

The Life of Barack Obama

Check out this NY Times interactive about the life and milestones of Barack Obama.

Despite a week that has seen him deal non-stop with controversy and scandal, Obama still leads in delegates for the Democratic party nomination.

The April 6 Pennsylvania primary will truly inform us if voters have been influenced by Obama’s ties to a Chicago minister who made inflammatory comments about the U.S. days after Sept. 11, and Obama’s connection with Tony Rezko, a Chicago businessman facing federal charges.

Obama Pastor No Longer On Campaign Team

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose inflammatory remarks seven years ago about AIDS and Sept.11 became a liability to Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign this week, has been removed from his position on Obama’s African American Religious Leadership Committee, an Obama spokesperson said Friday.

Wright, Obama’s longtime spiritual adviser and pastor at the Trinity Unity Church in Chicago, made comments blaming the U.S. for Sept. 11 during a sermon just days after the terrorist attacks. The news media began airing this sermon, and another in which Wright says the U.S. government brought AIDS into the black community, since rival Sen. Hilary Clinton accused the media of bias.

Obama said he wasn’t present at the Sept. 11 sermon and quickly denounced Wright’s comments earlier this week.

“If I had heard any of these statements, I probably would have walked up and I probably would have told Reverend Wright that they were wrong,” Obama, 46, told CNN.

Wright’s Sept. 11 comments have been getting major airplay on YouTube. During the sermon, he says America is getting what it deserves, including: “”Not God Bless America. God Damn America.”

Despite winning the Mississippi primary and increasing his delegate lead against Clinton, it has been a rough week for Obama. Not only has the senator dealt with Wright’s inflammatory remarks, but it also became known this week that indicted business man Tony Rezko contributed more money to Obama’s campaign than originally thought.

We will probably not see the full effects of this weeks controversy until April, when Democrats in Pennsylvania will go to the polls and choose their nominee for president. If Obama wins Pennsylvania, he will come away with a dominant lead in the delegate count. Meanwhile, if Clinton is victorious she can make a strong argument the controversy surrounding Obama is too great to defeat Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.

The Governor’s Girl

The New York Times has identified the high-priced prostitute who met former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer for a “rendezvous” at a Manhattan hotel room on Feb. 13.

Ashley Alexandra Dupre is believed to be Kristen, a girl paid $1,000 by the Emperor’s Club V.I.P. escort service to meet at a Mayflower hotel room in Washington with “Client 9,” the alleged alias of Spitzer.

Spitzer stepped down as governor during a press conference on Wednesday.

According to Dupree’s MySpace profile, she moved to New York City from her home in New Jersey at 17 to pursue a music career. Her written profile also states that she comes from a broken home and suffered from drug abuse.

In an interview with the Times, Dupree said she hasn’t had any sleep since the scandal broke on Monday and that she “doesn’t want to be thought of as a monster.”

Her musical influences are her brother, Mary J. Blige, Madonna and Amy Winehouse, according to her MySpace page.

Google OK, Fed’s Lend Send Stocks Soaring

The announcement on Tuesday that the FTC will allow Google’s acquisition of its online ad-serving vendor DoubleClick sent both the Nadaq and Dow Jones Industrial soaring.

The news that the Federal Reserve will pump $200 billion into the financial system to shore up banks battered by mortgage- related losses also helped a U.S. stock rally that was the highest in five years.

Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo Co, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America -all savings and loan institutions hit hard by the mortgage crisis- were all up after Tuesday’s announcements.

All major tech stocks rose based on the Google news, which saw its shares go up 5.2 percent to $435.04.

The internet giant’s stock had been hit hard this year and is still down significantly from a high of  $747.24.

Obama Wins Wyoming Caucuses

Senator Barack Obama won the Wyoming caucuses Saturday and picked up seven more delegates to widen his lead over Sen. Hilary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination.

Obama won two-thirds of the vote in Wyoming, which has a total of 12 delegates. Clinton will receive five delegates from the state.

Supporters of Obama are hailing the Wyoming victory as another indicator that America wants him to represent the Democratic Party against Republican candidate Sen. John McCain in the November presidential election. Meanwhile, Clinton supporters say the nearly even split in delegates keeps her campaign alive and well.

Clinton Campaign Roars Back

Sen. Hilary Clinton was the big winner in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries, winning the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio and also claiming Rhode Island. Rival, Sen. Barack Obama, won the Vermont primary.
Clinton needed to win both Texas and Ohio to get her campaign back on track after Obama won 12 straight contests since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5. With her victories in hand, Clinton told supporters in Ohio that her campaign was back and better than ever.
“”You know what they say,” Clinton said. “As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Well, this nation’s coming back and so is this campaign.”
We can all expect a long campaign between Clinton and Obama that probably won’t end until the Democratic National Convention in August.

Obama and McCain Inch Closer to Victory

Sen. Barack Obama is set to make it 12 straight victories against Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton as the NY Times is projecting him the winner of the Vermont primary.
Sen. John McCain is the projected winner of the Republican contest in Vermont, the first of four primaries to conclude Tuesday night.
The biggest prizes -Texas and Ohio- will be decided later this evening and have been called a must win for Clinton in order to slow the momentum of a surging Obama, who has taken a lead in national polls during his winning streak.
Officials in all four states holding primaries today said they are seeing record voter turnout on the Democratic side.
“Best I can tell it’s a tsunami of voters,” Gerry Birnberg, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, told the Times.