Obama's 2002 speech

Obama supporters deliver his October, 2002 speech. One week later, the House and Senate (including Senators Clinton and McCain) voted to authorise the war in Iraq.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not – we will not – travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

If that's inexperience, I hope he's as inexperienced today as he was in 2002.

Paths to the nomination

An article on DailyKos covers how Obama can win the nomination. I'll update this with the follow up article on Clinton's path.

More election questions

Two more questions:

1. Why does texas have a ballot vote (primary) and a caucus (public voting???)?

2. What's the path to the democratic nom being confirmed? (e.g. how many primaries are left, what's the idiot's quick guide to these 'superdelegates')

Apparently they call it the "Texas two-step" in Texas. One of the guys who helped create it explains it.

For the super-delegates a bunch of people have gotten together to track them using MediaWiki. Their site is at superdelegates.org and it looks like their research will matter more and more since neither candidate has a realistic possibility of getting the correct number of pledged delegates.

Openleft.org is a good site for poll watching and some good thoughts on the nomination process. Last night's wrap up post covered a lot of issues.

Election question

As the Democratic Presidential nomination battle drags on, more people are paying attention. For two decades or more, the nomination was decided pretty quickly and people tuning in now don't understand the rules. Plus I live in Ireland and the US election system is by definition foreign to most of my friends here. So I'll try to answer questions as best I know them starting with:

According to the beeb, Hilary has 16 states and 1391 delegates. Barack has 24 states and 1477 delegates. So what counts more, the number of states or the total number of deleages? And what exactly is a delegate?

There's a convention in August to choose the Democratic presidential candidate. Each state[0] right now is coming up with the delegates they'll be sending to that convention - the number of delegates each state sends is in proportion to its population. Most of those delegates are elected - they're called pledged delegates. They are chosen based on which candidate they pledge to support. About 20% of delegates are super delegates. They are state party chairs, Democratic House and Senate members and other higher office holders. They're all elected; they've won their position through an election. But they are not elected to vote for a specific candidate at the convention. Each delegate - pledged and super - has a vote[1] and there are around ~4,000 delegates. So to win the nomination you need to get over ~2,000 delegate votes. All delegates are free agents once the convention starts. On the first vote pledged delegates usually vote who they're elected to vote for, but if a nominee isn't chosen on the first vote they can vote for whoever they want. So, your question: delegates matter; states do not. But delegate counts are all approximate right now. Not normally an issue, but in a close election it's a huge issue. For instance any accurate count of Obama's pledged delegate count should end in .5 - he won 5 Dems Abroad delegates last month. Many news organisations are opaque in their delegate counts - merging who they think super delegates will vote for with pledged delegate totals. And pledged delegate totals are not final either - the Iowa caucus which was the first step in this process finalises it's delegation to the convention on March 15th. Kevin [0] the 50 actual states; US territories like Guam, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico; Washington DC and lastly Democrats Abroad. [1] Not all delegates get a single vote. Democrats Abroad delegates get half a vote. I think we're it though. And the half vote isn't done to be mean - we only have 11 votes and it's a way to give more folks overseas a chance to participate.

Sebelius to endorse Obama

I've had this secret desire for an Obama/Sebelius ticket for 2008 for several months. As Governor of Kansas, Sebelius has been very successful in moving Kansas in a sane direction. So news that she's likely to endorse Obama just after she gives the national Democratic response to Bush's State of the Union speech sounds pretty awesome to me.

The numbers on South Carolina

The Democratic Primary in SC is over and Obama won as expected. More interesting is who voted for him. The following posts cover the beginnings of the post-election analysis:

• Daily Kos: More numbers, A Few Random Observations on the Early Exit Poll Data, South Carolina Results Thread #4 (the final thread).
• Open Left: South Carolina Results: Obama Wins Huge, Some Campaign Observations, The Magic Number: 1,471.
• CNN: SC results page.

There are positive signs. More voters for the Dems than the GOP (though the weather was better for the Dem primary). Obama got more votes than the top two GOP candidates combined and Hillary was only barely beaten by McCain. Obama continues to draw out youth voters. I'm leaning towards Obama and as usual his speech was inspiring. He was also endorsed by JFK's daughter in a well-written NY Times Op-Ed.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

We'll see if he can pull it off. He's won every primary so far - at least in terms of delegates - but in reality he has an uphill road to the nomination as the diary at openleft above pointed out.

US Senate Races

So it seems there are 35 Senate races this year. Wikipedia has a nice breakdown of the 2008 Senate races. 2006 was a good year for Democrats in Congress. Democrats made gains in the Senate even though they had more seats to defend. This year Republicans have more seats to defend and their national Senate re-election committee is way behind the Democrats in fund-raising .

The REAL Ireland Caucus (er, Primary)

Damien Mulley mentions a site called the Ireland Caucus where Irish people can vote for the next US President. While I think it's an interesting idea, it's a shame he didn't mention that there will be an actual primary (for the first time it won't be a caucus) on February 5th through the 12th for US citizens in Ireland. There's a long explanation how to vote here, but the summary is this:

Our primary will be held from the 5th to the 12th of February. The polling station will be set up at O'Neill's Pub on Suffolk Street from about 10am until late. Other than that though if people cannot make it in person, internet and fax voting will be available. Anybody who votes will have to be a member of Democrats Abroad Ireland by January 31st just so we can verify them.

Make sure you register at Democrats Abroad by the 31st and make sure to vote! Remember to register for the general election in November here - this will also allow you to vote in state's Senate and Congressional primaries later this year.