Politirazzi

By Lynne

McCain may not have been in the news as much as Obama this week, but I’m not so sure that the media Obama’s been getting is translating into any new votes.

McCain needs to focus on choosing his vice presidential running mate. That choice will have significant impact on his ability to peel Democrats away, keep Independents from voting for Obama or solidify conservative support.

As far as Obama — I’m hoping he takes another vacation, maybe does a little writing. Hey, he could do some more fundraising for his campaign now that he has broken his promise to accept public financing in the general.

Seriously, people are tired. We need a break. I’m in Chicago — Obamaland — helping get ready for the upcoming Green Party National Convention in July, and people are a lot more concerned about gas prices, and overcrowding on the Metra.

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Everyone remembers the story of Pandora's Box, right? Obama started out talking about the politics of hope but the cynic in me kept wondering when all the nasty stuff would start to flying around?

Gee, I guess the answer would be: Pennsylvania in April.

While Clinton's been taking a shot of whiskey, pandering to the crowd, Obama's been busy taking a few shots at Clinton.

My prediction: Clinton wins Pennsylvania by 4-6 percentage points.

The reason: Candidates who live in glass houses shouldn't go bowling.
— Lynne

How green is Sen. Hillary Clinton? (Bloomberg)

By Lynne

With the Pennsylvania primary falling on Earth Day, running as a “green” candidate makes a lot of sense. But every mainstream article pretty much says the same: Clinton and Obama are practically indistinguishable on the environment. According to Newsweek, both Democrats

“aim for a reduction of 80 percent (of carbon emissions) from 1990 levels by the year 2050, which most scientists think is the minimum necessary to head off the worst effects of climate change.”

Gee, policies to meet the bare minimum necessary. Change is really in the air ...

McCain even lays claim to some serious eco-cred (although it’s still not enough to make up for that ZERO score from the League of Conservation Voters). The Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 was the first climate change bill introduced to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it lost 55-43. A later version received even less support due to the addition of billions in taxpayer subsidies for the nuclear energy industry.

Speaking of which, want to hear a dirty secret? Nuclear industry executives and employees have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Obama and Clinton. Clinton is apparently agnostic on the issue, but with Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant just 24 miles north of NYC and millions of New Yorkers in the peak injury zone, I get nervous when McCain and Obama make supportive noises about nuclear power. And don’t get me started on the exploitation of indigenous lands for uranium mining, nuclear testing and radioactive waste dumping.

Enough of the doom and gloom (that’s so Al Gore 2000), it’s time for a green makeover.

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By Lynne

McCain is raising a fraction of the money that the Democratic Duo is pulling – maybe because his opponents are doing his job for him.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, 28% percent of Clinton supporters say they will vote for McCain if Obama wins the nomination, and 19% of Obama supporters will vote for McCain if Clinton gets the nod. And a whopping 16% will stay home and sulk if their preferred candidate isn’t on the general ballot.

But nothing in politics operates in a vacuum. If Al Gore is tapped as VP, maybe a chunk of those Democratic Deserters will return to the fold. If McCain chooses Mitt Romney as his VP, that might give pause to some party disloyalists. Or as much as they say it’s off the table, both Obama and Clinton are consummate politicians – if a joint ticket is needed to keep party members in the fold, then that’s what will happen.

Of course, crossover voting by Democrats is nothing new.

The reality is that the entire flap about the long primary season is nothing more than a ready-made excuse if the Democrats lose the White House for the third time in a row. Political infighting is already being floated as a scapegoat if McCain wins. Democratic Party spin-masters need to earn their big fat salaries, after all.

Remember 2000? They did an amazing job convincing their membership that Ralph Nader’s Green Party candidacy was to blame rather than the 12% of Florida Democrats who crossover voted for Republican George W. Bush. Hundreds of thousands in crossover votes - you do the math.

If Nader was truly the problem, the Democratic Party has been long aware of the solution: instant runoff voting (IRV). IRV allows voters to rank the candidates in order of preference: 1-2-3. If your first choice doesn’t have enough support to win, your vote is transferred to your second choice, and so on. No more “spoilers” or vote splitting. DNC chair Howard Dean is a supporter (as is McCain) and Obama introduced IRV legislation when he was in the Illinois Senate.

But the Democrats haven’t done anything in the last eight years to put IRV in place. They’ve been too busy rolling over for the Bush-Cheny administration, voting for a war in Iraq and Afghanistan, accepting donations from the very same corporations that are polluting our environment, and doing absolutely nothing to protect the 47 million Americans without health care.

Do I think the extended primary season will hurt the eventual Democratic nominee? Sure, but no more than the Democratic Party’s own record and lack of real leadership.

Be honest: Do you really care that Jimmy Carter kinda-sorta-almost endorsed Obama?

Even Carter couldn’t be bothered to make it official. Maybe he didn’t want to be yet another former Democratic president trying to inject his has-been self into the primary season (blog to Bill: go home and bake some cookies).

Or perhaps it was recognition that his endorsement wouldn’t make a peanut-sized bit of difference to Obama’s crucial youth vote. Didn’t Carter lose the presidency almost a decade before most of the 700,000 college students in Pennsylvania were even born?

As for the rest of those pesky superdelegates, they’re going to vote for whoever they think will win (hey, everyone likes to back a winner) or whoever they think will help them get re-elected or whoever they think will deliver the most pork to their district.

While she may not be a Skinny Bitch, Clinton was recently outed in Slate Magazine as an avid snacker of the soy-based meatless Boca Burgers. If Clinton is smart, she’ll ditch the pork and go after the millions of veggie voters in the US.

“Soy Hillary” may very well be her next campaign slogan.
— Lynne

By Lynne

Last year, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney left the Democratic party and decided to seek the Green party presidential nomination. Last month, Ralph Nader announced his fourth presidential run, his second as an Independent. Last week, former Senator Mike Gravel announced that he was leaving the Democratic party and seeking the Libertarian party nomination.

But the two-party system still has three main presidential candidates remaining, whose combined fundraising will make this the most expensive election campaign in history.

Frankly, I don't want any of them in charge.

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