Can’t Anybody in this Country Count?

One would think that a presidential candidate with ten state primaries to go who has already won enough votes to win states representing 149,473,880 Americans would have a pretty good shot at being nominated. But not according to the representatives of Barack Obama, who has won enough votes to win states representing only 91,845,377 Americans. We have the corporate-owned national media campaigning to have Hillary Clinton drop out of the race when she has already won primaries and caucuses in states representing 263 electoral votes—just eight short of the total needed for election. And we still have states and territories with a total of 65,160,821 Americans still waiting to cast votes in primaries and caucuses! Is Barack going to win states representing 92 percent of the 65 million people left in order to even tie for voter representation? Have I got a deal for you…

  Yes, folks, I know that Barack has won quite a few small states in caucuses so he has picked up a majority of delegates in most of the small states. But the caucuses mean virtually nothing in actually counting “real” votes. In 20 Super Tuesday “contests” caucuses drew only six percent of eligible voters. In Washington state Barack won twice as many delegates as Hillary—but only 1.3 percent of the state’s registered voters bothered to vote! What did this “landslide” mean? Not a damn thing! Primaries at least averaged a turnout of 29 percent of registered voters so those votes actually mean something.
  In the Minnesota Democratic caucus, as an example, Barack scored 139,972 votes to Hillary’s 72,007—but Barack captured only 4.5 percent of the registered voters! It isn’t even a good poll. And caucuses are notorious for being screwed up, disorganized “Chinese fire drills” (Excuse me, Asians, for using an old Marine Corps expression). When something was really SNAFUed in the Corps it brought up visions of people running around like chickens missing heads, gurgling loudly and watching the sky for falling birds.

What Happens When You See Your Boss In Another Caucus Group?

  I have always thought that a democracy must depend on the secret ballot. Dictators and political organizers hate secret ballots because they contain surprises and they cannot watch and threaten the voter when he goes into the booth. In most caucuses you must stand around in groups in areas designated by somebody so you can be counted. If you go to a caucus and see your pompous Limbaugh-like boss stand in a group that is opposed to every political thought of yours, can you be intimidated? What if your liberal wife joins the punk rockers and long hairs in the corner where your mistress is while you join the new pink-and-green-tie country club set?

  What if your caucus was set for 11:30 to 1:00 p.m. in Las Vegas but that was exactly in the middle of your shift as a blackjack dealer? Sorry, take a pay cut, lie about illness, or kiss your vote goodbye. Most caucuses are set for very short periods of time. The Iowa caucuses, as an example, are usually held at night and last for only a couple of hours. Did Mitt Romney really spend over $40 million for Iowa caucus votes? Of course, that is not as bad as Rudy Giuliani spending $48 million for getting one delegate for the Republican nomination….Why not just pay people to vote for you like congressmen do?

  What if you are working out of town that day? What if you are getting your butt shot at in Iraq or Afghanistan? There are no absentee ballots for a caucus that I know of. Caucuses simply disenfranchise many voters. All primaries accept absentee ballots.

  An article by StarTribune reporter Kathryn Pearson (2/10/08) outlined many of the problems encountered in the Minnesota caucus mess. Although only ten percent of the eligible voters in Minnesota turned up at caucuses, the political parties were not prepared for the turnout—in a state that sets records for turnout in general elections.
  Ms. Pearson’s caucus ran out of ballots so she voted in the open on a piece of yellow construction paper “stolen” from a school classroom. The ballot counters all wore T-shirts proclaiming the same candidate. Hardly a neutral atmosphere! The caucuses were held between 6:30 and 8:00 p.m., thus excluding workers with afternoon shifts and students with evening classes. Further, long waiting lines and inadequate parking almost totally eliminated the elderly from voting. And in some areas of the Twin Cities people do not like to leave their homes at night.

When A Hockey Rink Is Converted To A Library

  Let’s take a look at some of the caucus victories and defeats of Barack and Hillary.

Barack won the North Dakota caucus and garnered 12 delegates to Hillary’s 5, but both of them pulled only 19,102 Democrats to the polls when about 112,000 Democrats voted in the last presidential election. North Dakota has over 495,300 eligible voters. So Barack won North Dakota. Big deal. Let Barack do the hokey-pokey. Democrats in ND will win the next presidential election when Ralph Englestad Arena is converted to a library on the UND campus.

In the Washington state caucus Barack got 52 delegates to Hillary’s 26 but only 30,500 voted out of over 5 million eligible voters. Do the math. Does this vote mean much? In Wyoming caucuses Barack got 7 delegates and Hillary 5. Both totaled 8,000 votes—out of 403,095 possible voters. We all know that the Democrats will win a presidential election in Wyoming when Dick Cheney gives his Halliburton money to Wyoming’s Head Start program and the Wyoming Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.

  In that great Republican state of Idaho Barack “swept” the delegate battle 15-3. Slightly over 20,000 Dems voted in the caucuses out of a possible 1.1 million voters. Do you think Barack has any chance of carrying Idaho in a presidential election? The state is filled with religious nuts, hermits, and American patriot “platoons.” The hills don’t resound with music—only gunfire.

Barack also came out ahead of Hillary in most of the primaries in the southern states with strong minorities of black voters. But the Republicans have been carrying those states with the “Nixon strategy” of scaring the hell out of poor whites and Southern Baptists with the promise that blacks are going to take over the “guvimint” if you don’t vote Republican. I don’t see this idea changing in the next election cycle. The Democrats will have a shot at winning in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisana, Kentucky, and Texas only when the Ku Kluxers, the Harlem Globetrotters, and Mississippi rednecks sit around the campfire feeding it with their confederate flags and singing “Kumbaya” and “We Shall Overcome” while the Georgians eat their crackers laced with pot.

What Is More Important In Winning A Presidential Election?

  The Barack partisans keep saying that Barack has won more states, thus he is more “electable.” That is certifiable BS. If we count the states with the smallest population it takes 19 of them, many of them “won” by Barack, to match California, population 36,553,215 (2007 estimate). Hillary won the California primary handily. And many of the smaller states Barack has “won” will be in the Republican camp regardless of what the Democrats do. Even if John McCain dies a week before the election, Democrats can’t win Alaska, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, Montana, and Nebraska.

  The Democrats have to win the big states in order to beat McCain—and they have to win the big population centers in those states. Hillary won the Ohio primary while Barack was losing 83 of the 88 counties in the state. Although Barack leads in delegate count and is slightly ahead in total vote, he has won in states with only 193 electoral votes compared to 263 for Hillary. That’s what superdelegates are for. They are supposed to determine who will be the best candidate to win the general election. I think Barack is beginning to crack. Some of his latest campaigning in Pennsylvania has reached the ludicrous state. Refusing to sample chocolate in a candy factory and bowling a terrific 37 with national media cameras zeroed in? Whew!

  What do the Democrats do with the criminal states of Michigan and Florida that committed voter felony by moving their primary dates? Well, folks, you were idiotic enough to get your briefs and bloomers in a twist by giving in to Iowa and New Hampshire in the first place. Those two states are as representative of the country as Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton are to the Little Sisters of the Poor Nunnery. It’s the election, stupid! Count them as Floridians and Michiganners voted. After all the two states have 38.2 million people within their borders. They ain’t Guam. They have over 12 percent of the total U.S. population. Hillary “won” each state by getting 55 percent of the vote. Barack got 45 percent in Florida and 40 percent in Michigan under “other.” Neither campaigned in those states.

  A new poll out today puts Hillary above McCain in three big states: Ohio, Florida, and Michigan. She’s ahead of Barack in Pennsylvania by 11 points. Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania add up to 63 electoral votes. A Pennsylvania win would put Hillary at 290. Delegates: by 2016 Barack might know something about government.

  Voting men should take these two changes in punctuation to heart as recorded in the book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”:
          1. “A woman, without her man, is nothing.”
          2. “A woman: without her, man is nothing.”

  I think Hillary can win the whole thing.