Good God, Is It Over Yet?

Pennsylvania votes today...only 7,426 more days to go...is it over yet?

Sorry to Disagree With You Geraldine

Geraldine Ferraro chimes in about the 2008 race:

"I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against," she said. "For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.

"I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he's going to be able to put an end to partisanship," Ferraro said, clearly annoyed. "Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship - that's the way our country is."

Uh, if Obama were white, he'd already be President. And I cannot speak from experience or a position of moral authority, but I do think there are millions of African-American men who will say, categorically, that being an African-American man in today's United States of America is a lot of things, but "lucky" just ain't one of them. Partisanship isn't going away--but no one can escape the fact that, like it or not, the Clintons are a lightning rod for partisanship.

And here's how lucky Obama really is:

In comments typical of his xenophobic and hateful record, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) recently told a local Iowa radio station that al Qaeda would “be dancing in the middle of the streets” if Barack Obama were elected President “because of his middle name.” He said terrorists “will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict.”

Yeah--that Obama. Lucky guy.

This is What We Mean By Better Democrats

Tough primary race in Maryland's 4th today:

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - One of the most watched races in Maryland outside the presidential primary is in the Fourth Congressional District, where Democratic U.S. Rep. Albert Wynn is trying to fend off another challenge from Donna Edwards.

After losing by just 3 percentage points in 2006, Edwards is back, hoping to achieve the rare feat of unseating an incumbent in a primary election. The eight-term incumbent defeated Edwards by a little more than 2,000 votes out of more than 82,000 voters, News4's Tracee Wilkins reported.

If Wynn loses, he would be the first incumbent to fall this primary season, though only one other state, Illinois, has included congressional races with its presidential primary elections so far.

We need to see more of these "Democrats" like Wynn either driven from the party or forced to reform their ways. I've seen video of his "supporters" assaulting people and this constitutes the best case against Wynn, as told by the Baltimore Sun:

To put it bluntly, Mr. Wynn, an eight-term congressman, is an embarrassment to his Prince George's County-based district, the state and the Democratic Party. And his past - his machine-style bossism, dirty politics and political bullying - is catching up with him.

In 2006, he sent out a flier implying he had won endorsements from some unions that hadn't endorsed him.

That same year, two of his supporters physically harassed one of Ms. Edwards' campaign volunteers.

This cycle, he filmed a political ad fashioned to look like a news reporter had caught him randomly on the street for an interview, when in fact the ad was staged by his campaign.

And then last week, Mr. Wynn, who is a lawyer, filed a completely bogus Federal Election Commission complaint that charges Ms. Edwards with violating election law. As The Sun has reported, the complaint is so slapdash that it doesn't even bother to cite specific election law provisions.

All of these electoral shenanigans are designed to mask Mr. Wynn's real problem: his voting record, which reflects contempt for voters in his district and the opinions of many Marylanders.

He voted in October 2002 for President Bush's Iraq war resolution. In 2004, Mr. Wynn voted for Vice President Dick Cheney's energy proposal, even though every other member of Maryland's House delegation, including both Republicans, voted nay.

He has accepted more than $200,000 in campaign contributions from banks and lending institutions, and, not surprisingly, voted in 2005 for a Bush administration-backed bankruptcy "reform" bill with punitive provisions for working-class borrowers.

So, yes. The rallying cry is always "better Democrats, please." Nobody around here is blind, you know.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Unbelievable--good government seems to be making a comeback:

U.S. House - District 4 - Dem Primary
Maryland - 68 of 173 Precincts Reporting - 39%
Name Party Votes Vote %
Edwards , Donna Dem 19,810 59%
Wynn , Al (i) Dem 12,161 36%

Let's hope this holds...Wynn's defeat would be huge for Congressional politics.

UPDATE II - PALE RIDER

Victory for the progressive movement--Wynn goes down in flaming defeat. Hoyer and Pelosi get a wake-up call.

Obama Wins South Carolina

It wasn't even close...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - NBC News declared Sen. Barack Obama as the projected winner in South Carolina's Democratic primary.

Obama won South Carolina by a substantial margin, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in second and John Edwards third, NBC reported.

Obama was projected to rout Clinton in the racially charged primary, regaining campaign momentum in the prelude to a Feb. 5 coast-to-coast competition for more than 1,600 Democratic National Convention delegates.

A third-place finish for Edwards would come as a sharp setback in the state where he was born and scored a primary victory in his first presidential campaign four years ago.

Landslide margins among black voters fueled Obama's lead, allowing him to overcome the edge that Clinton and Edwards had among whites in the state. Black women turned out in particularly large numbers. Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, got a quarter of the white vote while Clinton and Edwards split the rest.

The victory was Obama's first since he won the kickoff Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, scored an upset in the New Hampshire primary a few days later. They split the Nevada caucuses, she winning the turnout race, he gaining a one-delegate margin. In an historic race, she hopes to become the first woman to occupy the White House, and Obama is the strongest black contender in history.

The South Carolina primary marked the end of the first phase of the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, a series of single-state contests that winnowed the field, conferred co-front-runner status on Clinton and Obama but had relatively few delegates at stake.

THIS Democratic Primary Voter would now like to see less talk about personal issues, and more talk about substantive issues. The media be damned--if this doesn't send a wakeup call to all camps that they better leave the mudslinging behind and start talking about issues that matter to voters, the end result is going to be a further fracturing of the Democratic Party.

One thing I do not want to see is the 50 state strategy thrown under the bus. Today showed that a whole lot of voters in a red state are willing to come out and vote for a Democrat. Is anyone paying attention?

They'd better be.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Tonight, Obama got almost 300,000 votes. In a "red" state.

Last week, McCain and Huckabee combined got less than that.

Wow.

And then there were three...

The New York Times is reporting that Bill Richardson is dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination.

As you all know, he has been my candidate, because I want him in the next administration in some capacity. His resume is too damned good to pass up. Governor, Congressman, Diplomat, Energy Secretary...

If experience was what we were looking for, he would be the winner of every contest, standing up.

Good luck, Bill.

Hillary, it looks like you're my girl.