So some folks want to know why I think McCain is going to have a turnout issue.* Here we have to go back in time a bit…
Your soundbite, if you like:
I’ll tell you the whole story of this primary in 100 words or less. Ready? Start the clock…NOW!
“Hillary Clinton voted for the war in 2002, which pissed off the Democratic base. They rallied behind Obama once he proved he was viable by winning Iowa. Clinton burned through all her money by Super Tuesday and had no plan for what to do if she lost. The schedule was so front-loaded that by March, there weren’t enough delegates in play for her to make a comeback. She tried to carry on as if there were still a chance, and the media indulged her so they wouldn’t run out of material. Then time ran out and here we are. Yay!”
Everything else is filler. Especially the chirping about the VP spot, which I will address below…
Be happy, folks.
Fifty years ago, the old man was sneaking into a segregated Bo Diddley show.
Tonight, the Democratic Party – the party of Bilbo and Eastland and Ross Barnett, of Leander Perez and Lester Maddox, the party of George Fucking Wallace – chose a black man to lead the charge.
He didn’t back into it, he didn’t stumble into it, he didn’t get the hookup – he had a plan, he stuck to it, he just kept grinding, and tonight, he’s the Democratic candidate for President of the United States.
This is a big night, people. Irrespective of who you’re pulling for in November – or who you’ve been pulling for the last six months – this is something to be proud of. We can get the knives back out tomorrow.
I was right – again.
The point is, Hillary Clinton has a couple of wins in decertified primaries. They mean a whole lot of nothing, because there won’t be any delegates awarded, and Obama is still sitting on more live delegates in hand – but inasmuch as they contribute to the sense that she will be X, they are valuable wins. But they will only contribute to that sense *IF* the results are presented in that matter.
I could be wrong, but I’m not.
Yes, delegates were actually awarded out of Florida and Michigan. In Florida they were apportioned according to the voting; in Michigan they were apportioned according to a deal cooked up by the Michigan Democratic Party which was subsequently endorsed by 2/3 of the DNC panel empowered to adjudicate the disposition of those delegates.
However, the net impact was, at most, a couple dozen delegates. Out of over 2000 needed to win. All the hue and cry over Michigan and Florida, at net, budged a hair over one percent of the totals. Ultimately, they do Hillary Clinton more harm than good, because back in January, everyone agreed that those were beauty contests rather than viable elections.
Now, with the brain trust of Wolfson and Davis and Penn and etc, they become the last link in a preposterous chain of events that says that if you count primary states only, assume no input from caucus states, count in Puerto Rico and other non-state entities, and assume that not one single person in Michigan would have voted for Obama, then you can almost show Team HRC with a larger popular vote count.
In our reality-based world, of course, you go for the nomination with the delegate-selection system you have, not the one you try to shat out halfway through the fifteenth round of the fight. Yes, caucuses were created to stimulate popular participation and build a base more inclined to activist participation, and superdelegates were created to counteract the influence of caucuses, and Iowa and New Hampshire get their special privileges because…because…shit, I got nothing. Nor does anyone else. At some point, the Dems will revert to a model like the GOPs, and the GOP will move closer to the Dem model to prevent what happened to them this year, and the lion will lie down with the porterhouse.
But until then, we have this, and Obama’s leading it fair and square. And aside from close personal friends and a few delusionals, Team HRC knows it. Even James Carville, the Clinton’s most loyal retainer, is talking about how Barack Obama “can and will” win in November.
Game over. Everything else is bookkeeping.
RIP Bo Diddley
I saw Bo Diddley once, the first time I went to City Stages, in 1990. I think it was Friday night, and I remember seeing Charles Barkley in the crowd packed into the park outside City Hall. If memory serves me right, Bo Diddley only played four songs, each of which took about 15 minutes and was full of all sorts of improvs and riffs and freestyle action that put every other rocker at the festival to shame, capping the whole thing with a burst of “The Star Spangled Banner” that made Hendrix look like a sophomore in the garage. And Bo Diddley was in his sixties at the time and still churning out an unmistakeable sound.
It’s not often that you and your dad were going to see the same artist at a similar age. The difference is, the old man was sneaking into Boutwell Auditorium for what was ostensibly a “race-only” show (i.e. decent white folks wouldn’t be caught dead) and I was crammed in a public park among 50,000 people of all ages and colors. So I guess that’s something.
Lazy Sunday, in bullet points
* Family’s always trying, isn’t it?
* In high school, when I was first coming to consciousness of sports, my fellows and I all supported the Detroit Pistons. Not only did we see ourselves as the academic-bowl version of the Motor City Bad Boys, we were thrilled to see the Lakers-Celtics monopoly broken. I say that by way of saying that for this year’s NBA finals, I am rooting for plague. Lots of it.
* I bought the oxblood DMs. The string on one of them broke almost immediately. I replaced it with a black lace out of my last East Coast pair of black 1460s, which I think is an appropriate passing of the torch and kinda punk besides. I doubt I will wear them that much – my black Solovairs are much easier to make work with my everyday wardrobe – but the important thing at this point is just to *have* them.
* Besides, you’ll never know when I’ll need to go back in time and pass as a pre-Two Tone skinhead. Along those lines, I now need a donkey jacket and a Lambretta. If you have either, please write in care of I Hate That Poser, Box L-7, Googleburg, CA.
* The new Fratellis single doesn’t sound that much like Costello Music did, although I do appreciate the driving piano throughout. It reminds me of something but I can’t put my finger on what.
* Who knew they were putting an IKEA factory in Danville VA?
* I finished second for the month in the online trivia competition I’m part of. That was almost entirely down to my missing two days – if you’d added two instances of my average score to the totals, I would have finished in first, handily. The moral of the story, as always, is that four-fifths of life consists of showing up for it.
• Vandy’s non-con schedule this year: at Miami (OH), home to Rice and Duke, and away at Wake. Conference home games are Carolina, Auburn, Florida and UT. If Big Six is going to happen this year, it’ll mean winning a few on the road – and of Ole Miss, Georgia, Mississippi State, and Kentucky, the best chance is that we somehow catch Georgia sleeping again. Not the sort of thing you want to hang your hopes on, especially given how many key Commodores just graduated. Still…only 89 days to go.
* My Buddy Vince Sez that if you’re looking for a new HDTV, jump on those Father’s Day sales in the next two weeks.
Finis.