Obama Inches Closer To The Nomination

The West Virginia primary is now over, and Clinton is celebrating a huge win. So what does this mean? Has this win suddenly put Clinton back in the race? Hardly.

The only thing tonight means is that Obama is now 7 or 8 delegates closer to the Democratic nomination. According to CNN, Obama now has 1881 delegates (1599 pledged delegates and 282 superdelegates). Clinton has 1713 delegates (1440 pledged delegates and 273 superdelegates).

That means Obama is now within 144 delegates of having the nomination. All he needs is 30% of the remaining uncommitted delegates. Clinton still needs at least 312 delegates.

There are no other states that will give Clinton the 67% she achieved in West Virginia (and even that wouldn't be enough). She may win Kentucky next week, but it will be a lot closer than that. And Oregon also votes next week, which is most probably going to be won by Obama.

As I said last week, this race is really over. While Clinton exits in a blaze of glory, it is time for Obama to turn his attention to John McCain -- and that is exactly what he started to do yesterday.

Dems Stop ANWR Drilling Again

Since the Republicans came to power a few years ago, this country really hasn't had an energy policy that made sense. For the Republicans, energy policy means letting the big oil companies do whatever they want. Since Bush and Cheney, both oilmen, came to power they have single-mindedly pursued this policy -- even to the extent of starting an unnecessary war to provide access to Iraqi oil for their oil company buddies.

Another favorite pet project of the Republicans is to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to massive oil drilling. Bush has tried to get this done since coming to office. It doesn't seem to matter to the Bush and the Republicans that this would ruin one of our last pristine wilderness areas (and add to the carbon-based pollution ruining our planet).

This week they tried again to get it approved, and once again they were stopped by Democrats. Senate Democrats (joined by six sensible Republicans) killed the bill on a 56 to 42 vote.

This is just one more reason to elect solid majorities of Democrats this coming November. We need to keep the big oil companies out of ANWR, and we also need to develop a sensible and sustainable energy policy. The only way to do that is to give Democrats a working majority in the Senate, and put a Democrat in the White House.

For far too long we have paid lip service to finding alternate energy sources and more efficient technologies, while letting the oil companies set our energy policy. It is time to get serious.

Good News For Democrats

It is well-known that John McCain has some problems among the more conservative base of the Republican Party. Many right-wingers don't trust McCain and don't really consider him to be one of them, since he has deserted them on some issues like immigration. But he is the nominee, so it was expected that they would hold their noses and vote for him anyway.

But something happened yesterday that may change that. Former-Rep. Bob Barr announced that he is seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party to be their presidential candidate. Barr is a person that has much more credible conservative credentials than McCain.

All of a sudden it looks like those unhappy with McCain now have an alternative they can vote for. It is entirely plausible that Barr will be a spoiler for the Republican Party -- much like Nader has been for the Democrats in years past.

Barr still must win the Libertarian nomination, but I think he'll be able to do that. They really don't have anyone else running that has his name-recognition.

This makes things look even better for Obama in November.

Can The Panhandle Turn Blue ?

Those of us that live in the Texas Panhandle know it to be one of the reddest areas in the state. For years now, it has been almost impossible to be elected to anything in this area unless you identified yourself as a Republican. But does it have to be that way? Maybe not.

There are two demographic trends happening in the Panhandle and South Plains area, and these population trends could change West Texas from red to blue. These two trends are a declining population in many counties, and an emerging Hispanic majority in the area.

Except for Amarillo and Lubbock, almost all of the counties of the Panhandle and South Plains have a declining population. This is not new, but has been going on for decades. Especially in the smaller counties, young whites are moving away because jobs and other opportunities are disappearing. Many who leave for college or jobs simply don't come back.

Here are the top 10 counties in terms of population loss, and the percentage of that loss just in the period from 2000 through 2006:

King...19.4%

Kent...14.6%

Cochran...13.8%

Dickens...12.7%

Motley...10.5%

Castro...10.1%

Floyd...9.2%

Collingsworth...8.6%

Wheeler...8.1%

Sherman...7.8%

At the same time, Hispanic families are staying together in the area, and taking what jobs do exist such as the growing number of jobs on dairy farms. Add to this an influx of workers from south of the border, and you have Hispanic majorities beginning to emerge and grow stronger with each passing year.

Hispanics now make up the majority in 11 West Texas counties at this time. These are the counties with their Hispanic and white populations:

Bailey...3387, 2970

Castro...3886, 3170

Cochran...1576, 1406

Crosby...3175, 2946

Dawson...7029, 5641

Deaf Smith...11,599, 6660

Floyd...3347, 3257

Hale...17,532, 16,526

Moore...10,638, 9320

Parmer...5383, 3947

Yoakum...3750, 3447

There is no reason to believe either of these trends won't continue. With each passing year, West Texas is going to grow more demographically similar to South Texas. There is no reason to believe they won't start to vote the same way also, especially if the Democrats did some serious organizing and registration. With a concerted effort, West Texas could turn blue even faster than most people think.

Now you may think that even with the smaller counties turning Hispanic, the larger cities such as Amarillo and Lubbock could keep the area red. Not necessarily.

Amarillo was 22% Hispanic and 6% African-American in the last census (and showed a 63.35% increase in Hispanics over the previous census). It would only take about 30-35% of whites to join these groups and vote Democrat to turn Amarillo blue (and it could be done with a good organizing and registration effort).

Lubbock is even closer than Amarillo. In the last census, Lubbock was 27.45% Hispanic and 8.66% African-American. It would take an even smaller percentage of whites to flip Lubbock. And remember, the Hispanic part of the population is going to grow even in the cities.

It may not happen this year, but the trends in the Panhandle and the South Plains will result in them going Democratic one of these days. With a little effort by Democrats, it could happen sooner rather than later -- but it will happen.

"Unity Ticket" Talk Coming From Clinton People

Since it became obvious to most people that Barack Obama will be the nominee for president of the Democratic Party, we have been hearing a lot of talk again about the "dream ticket" or "unity ticket". The idea is to have both Obama and Clinton on the ticket this Fall for the Democrats.

The news media has made it sound like this was a broad-based movement, but it turns out that is not really true. It turns out that most of this talk has sprung from a single group, VoteBoth. The leaders of VoteBoth all have clear ties to the Clinton campaign.

The group's founder is Adam Parkhomenko. Until recently, he was an employee of former Clinton campaign manager, Patty Solis Doyle. He also founded the Draft Hillary for President Committee in 2003.

The group's spokesman is Sam Arora. Arora has worked for both Clinton and her presidential campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe. The other three high-ranking members of the organization also have definite ties to Clinton.

The group was formed on April 8th, and its original mission was to convince people that Obama should be Clinton's vice-president. But since Clinton's recent defeat, they are now promoting the idea of getting her on the ticket as vice-president.

This definitely gives the impression that Clinton wants on the ticket any way she can get there. Although the group claims to be operating on its own, with their strong Clinton connections they would not be doing this if Clinton didn't want them to do it.

If Obama wants to pick Clinton for the ticket, that's okay. But he should not be pressured to do so. There are a lot of good people who he could choose as a running mate. I would advise him not to make any decision too soon. He should take his time, and choose a person who he can effectively work with and who will help him the most.

Maybe Clinton is that person, but that should be Obama's decision -- not the decision of VoteBoth or any other organization or person.

Amarillo Says NO To Smoking Ordinance

In many Texas cities, the city councils have imposed a smoking ban in all city businesses. Amarillo has taken a different path. The city commission decided that it should be up to the city's voters, and not just a couple of councilmen. So today, the citizens of Amarillo voted on whether they wanted to ban smoking or not.

For the second time in three years, they have voted against a smoking ordinance. It was a close vote, just as it was three years ago. The proposed ordinance was defeated by only 238 votes. Here are the vote totals:

Yes -- 8,163

No -- 8,401

The pro-ordinance faction spent quite a bit more on advertising that those opposed to the ordinance. They even ran quite a few television ads. But it looks like a majority of voters decided this was not a safety issue, but instead an issue of freedom. They decided this is something that each businessman must decide for himself.

Frankly, I don't think the ordinance is needed. Smoking is already banned in many buildings and restaurants, and is limited to a smoking section in others.

I'm sure the pro-ordinance people will bring this up again in a couple of years. This self-righteous group seems intent on forcing new rules on local businesses -- just another example of the encroaching "nanny state".

But for now, Amarillo voters have said NO.

Another View of the TTC Boondoggle

A friend in Arizona has just written a post about the Texas boondoggle known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. She understands that the TTC is not just a Texas problem, but will affect many other states. This is one of the best in-depth posts about the TTC that I have read. I urge you to go read it at Wild Chihuahuas.

The TTC will cut off many cities and towns along its route, will chew up millions of agricultural acres and remove them from tax rolls, will give our roadway to a foreign company that will get rich off charging tolls, and will help to make NAFTA an even bigger job-killer than it already is.

When you go to the polls this November, remember this Republican disaster known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. The best way to stop it is to elect a lot more Democrats on both the state and national level. If we don't stop this now, we will regret it in the future.

Court Says Halliburton And KBR Can Be Sued

Halliburton and KBR have just lost a decision in federal court that could cost them dearly. U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison ruled on Friday that one of their female employees can sue the companies. The companies were trying to force her to agree to binding arbitration, citing the contract signed when the woman was hired.

Back in 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones worked for KBR in Camp Hope in Baghdad. At that time, KBR was a subsidiary of Halliburton. Ms. Jones was living in a company-provided co-ed dorm, and suffered daily harrassment from some of the men living there.

On 07/28/05, Ms. Jones was drugged and raped by several firefighters working for KBR. She was then kidnapped and falsely imprisoned in a shipping container by KBR employees, so she couldn't report the crime. After being imprisoned for a day, an honest employee released her. To this day, none of the firefighters have been convicted of any crime.

Ms. Jones then filed suit in federal court against KBR and it's parent company, Halliburton. Lawyers for Halliburton and KBR filed their own suit, saying that Ms. Jones had signed a contract when she was hired that said disagreements between her and the company would be settled in private with binding arbitration. They contended the court had no juristiction because of the contract.

They were wrong. The judge agreed that matters such as salary must be handled in arbitration, but the rape, kidnapping and imprisonment went far beyond the terms of the contract. The judge gave Ms. Jones permission to proceed with her court case on those grounds.

Now, all of the charges will be aired in open court (as they should be). After they hear the horrible facts in this case, I'll bet a jury will be much more generous in their verdict than an arbitrator would have been.

I wish Ms. Jones and her attorney luck. She deserves every penny she can squeeze out of Halliburton and KBR.

Note To Obama - Don't Pick Clinton As Veep

Now that the Democratic campaign to pick a presidential nominee is as good as over, we can turn our attention to the choice for vice-president. Since last Tuesday night, the major media outlets seem to be pushing the "dream ticket" idea again. The idea of Obama and Clinton sharing the ticket.

I think that would be a terrible idea. For one thing, I don't think it would help Obama to be elected. The real Democrats supporting Clinton will be there in November anyway. And those racist "Reagan" Democrats she is so proud of, aren't going to vote for her in November anyway -- they never were. They only chose her in the primary because her opponent was a black man. The racist vote is going to McCain in November.

But that's OK, because the Democrats have a coalition that can win without them. This coalition is made up of party regulars, new voters, African-Americans, Hispanics, independents, unions members, older citizens and Naderites.

Frankly, I'm a little sick of hearing the Clintons play the race card anyway. She was doing it again yesterday, talking about how she's attracting the "white" working class. I'm beginning to think she's trying to sabotage Obama so she can run in 2012. If she does succeed in sabotaging the Obama campaign, she will find that a lot of people will have long memories, and her negatives will be even larger in 2012.

So who are the veep frontrunners? There are several, and any of them would make a better choice than Clinton. It all depends on what Obama wants to emphasize.

Does he want to shore up the "experience" factor? If so, then New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (pictured above) would be an excellent choice. He is one of the most talented and experienced politicians in America, AND he's from a swing state.

Does he want someone with security and defense credibility? Then the best choice would be General Wesley Clark. He has the experience and knowledge, and he appeals to voters across the political spectrum.

Does he want to appeal to swing state voters? Then Senator Webb of Virginia or Senator Bayh of Indiana would be good choices.

Does he want a woman on the ticket? Governor Sebelius of Kansas, Governor Napolitano of Arizona or Senator McCaskill of Missouri would be good choices. All are good campaigners who can appeal even to red state voters.

There is a wealth of talent in the Democratic Party to choose from. But let's forget this silly "dream ticket" idea. Obama needs to pick someone he likes and can work with. And someone who won't try to upstage him.

Republican Pandering In Texas

It looks like the Republicans in Texas are starting to feel the heat in this election year. Two separate polls have now shown that Democratic senate candidate Rick Noriega is only 4 point behind the incumbent, "Box Turtle" John Cornyn (and Cornyn is polling less than 50% in both polls). In addition, the polls show that John McCain is not doing much better, and may actually be beatable in this reddest of states.

Couple this with the huge turnout in the Democratic primary in Texas this year, and you have Republican candidates all over the state running scared. It's no longer a matter of whether Democrats will make gains in this year's election, but only of how big those gains will be. Will Texas go from red to purple, or will it go all the way to blue?

The favorite Republican tactic of fearmongering doesn't seem to be working this year -- guess they've gone to that well once too often. So now they're falling back on an old stand-by -- pandering to voter greed.

State Comptroller Combs announced earlier this week that it looks like Texas will have about a $10.7 billion surplus. Speaker Craddick believes it may be $3 or $4 billion larger than that. So the Republicans, led by our inept governor Rick Perry, are now starting to talk about further tax cuts (for the rich probably) or even cash rebates.

What they won't tell you is that the surplus exists because they have been unwilling to fully fund the things that are desperately needed in Texas. We have a surplus because they refuse to:

- fully fund and extend the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

- give our schools all the money they need (especially in poor areas).

- allot enough money to repair our roads and bridges and build new ones (they'd rather build toll roads and give them away to foreign companies).

- pay our state employees a decent wage (with the possible exception of Mississippi and Oklahoma, our employees are among the lowest paid in the nation).

- create treatment and diversion programs for drug and alcohol abusers, so we can get them out of our overcrowded prisons.

- give our colleges and universities enough money to keep the cost to students low enough so everyone who wants to can get a college education.

These are just a few of the problem areas where that money is needed. But don't expect Republicans to act to solve any of these problems. They're far too busy pandering to voters to stay in power.

The funny part is, if they had acted earlier to solve these problems, they wouldn't have to be pandering now.

Doing The Delegate Math

I have one commenter on this site who seems convinced that Clinton still has a chance to win the Democratic nomination. He even saw her crushing defeat Tuesday night as giving her momentum. I believe his exact words were, "Um, she won Indiana! Newsflash! On to West Virginia!What is the latest a nominee has ever lost a primary election?"

I seriously doubt I can change his mind, and he has the right to his opinion, no matter how wrong I may think he is. But he did get me to thinking -- exactly what chance does she have? So I decided to do a little delegate math.

I have decided to use the numbers provided by CNN. The numbers are really close on other sites, but I had to pick one and CNN has done a pretty good job of keeping up with the delegate selections and superdelegate preferences.

Let's start by looking at pledged delegates. Currently, Obama has 1588 pledged delegates and Clinton has 1419 pledged delegates. This gives Obama a lead of 169 pledged delegates.

The pledged delegates remaining out are as follows: West Virginia (28), Kentucky (51), Oregon (52), Montana (18), South Dakota (15) and Puerto Rico (55). That's a total of 219 pledged delegates that are yet to be chosen. To pull even with Obama, Clinton needs 169 plus half of the rest -- that's 194 or 88.6% of the outstanding delegates.

That just isn't happening under any scenario. So lets throw in the superdelegates who have made their preference known (since Clinton still has a small lead in superdelegates). Obama has 257 superdelegates, which gives him 1845 total delegates. Clinton has 267 superdelegates, giving her 1686 total delegates.

That gives Obama a lead of 159 total delegates. To pull even with Obama in total delegates, Clinton would need to win 189 of the unpicked pledged delegates, or 86.3%. Once again, I don't think anyone believes that can happen. It's going to take a lot of superdelegates for Clinton to win.

So what does Obama need to win? Obama has 1845 delegates and needs 2025 to win. That means he just needs 180 more delegates to put him over the top. Let's say he can win 50% of the outstanding delegates, or 109 delegates. That puts him at 1954 delegates, and he would only need 71 of the 271 remaining superdelegates. That's easily within his reach.

But lets say he does really poorly from here on out and only gets 40% of the remaining delegates, or 87 delegates. That would give him 1932 delegates, and he would only need 93 of the 271 superdelegates (34.3%).

The math tells us that Obama is just too close to the finish line for Clinton to have a chance -- even if she does really well in the remaining few contests. I know this won't change the mind of my die-hard Clinton supporter, but it should ease the minds of a lot of Obama supporters.

As I said yesterday, this race is over. The Democratic Party is going to nominate a black man for president. I am very proud of the party. As an older guy, I was afraid I wouldn't live to see that happen.

A Great Night For Obama !

After Clinton's win in Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago, it looked to some like her campaign might have a chance. If you tossed in the vote in Michigan and Florida, you could make the case that although Obama was leading in delegates, Clinton was leading in popular vote. She was hoping to couple that with a big win in Indiana and a close vote in North Carolina to convince superdelegates that she was more electable.

But last night ended that hope, and may have effectively ended the campaign for Clinton. Obama scored a huge win in North Carolina. He scored a 14 point victory and extended his delegate lead. He will get at least 13 more delegates from that state than Clinton will get.

At the same time, Clinton was unable to score a big victory in Indiana. As I write this, there is only a 16,000 vote lead for Clinton out of more than a million votes cast. There are still votes to be counted, and it now looks like whoever wins will do so by less than 5,000 votes. No matter who wins, Indiana has to be considered a draw, especially in delegates (which is the only thing that really matters).

Clinton gave her "all the way to the convention" speech last night, but this has to be considered a crushing defeat for her. In fact, she has cancelled her morning appearances on the network news shows. She will be meeting with her superdelegates today.

Obama now has at least 1818 delegates to Clinton's 1669 according to CNN. That gives him a lead of around 149 delegates. He only needs 207 more delegates to reach the magic number of 2025.

For all intents and purposes, this race is now over.

UPDATE - For what it's worth, MSNBC has declared Clinton the winner in Indiana.

Noriega Closing The Gap On Cornyn

I have to admit, this took me a bit by surprise. I've believed for several months that Democrats have an excellent campaigner and a great candidate in Rick Noriega, but the real campaign hasn't even started yet. Traditionally, campaigns don't kick into high gear until after the state convention.

Noriega hasn't even been able to run any commercials, and doesn't have anywhere near the money or name-recognition of his incumbent opponent. Additionally, with the presidential nominating race sucking up all the media attention, the senate race has not received much coverage. But even with all these things working against him, Noriega has been able to pull to within a few points of Cornyn.

According to the latest Rasmussen poll on the Texas senate race, Noriega is now only four points behind. The poll gives Cornyn 47% and Noriega 43%. Those are incredibly good numbers for Noriega at this point in the campaign!

This should worry the hell out of Cornyn. At this point, before the serious campaigning has really started, it doesn't look good for an incumbent to be polling less than 50%.

I think there are two things at work here. First, Cornyn is not a really popular senator and has not distinguished himself with the poor job he has done. Second, the public is really disappointed in the terrible job the Republicans have done for the last few years.

Even in a state as red as Texas, it looks like people are ready to give Democrats serious consideration. If Democrats can get all the people who voted in their primary back to the polls in November, Rick Noriega will be the next senator from Texas.

But it won't be easy. Cornyn has a lot of money, and he'll be willing to spend it to keep his job. This would be a great time to help Noriega out financially. Even if you can only give $10 or $20 dollars, please do it. Every dollar matters.

Rick can win this thing with a little help from us!

Can The Police Investigate Themselves ?

The Los Angeles Police Department has just released some rather disturbing statistics. It seems that they had 320 accusations of racial profiling lodged against them in 2007. After investigating these charges, they found that not a single one of them was true. 252 of the cases were dismissed as unfounded. The others were dismissed because of "insufficient evidence".

It's amazing enough that not a single one of the charges was found justified, but it reaches the level of incredible when you consider that 2007 was the sixth year in a row that not a single case was to be found justified. Considering the past reputation of the LAPD, is it even remotely possible that the findings are correct?

The truth is that there are bad apples in even the best department. It is just the nature of the job, and the impossibility of weeding out all "bad apples" in the hiring process.

The LAPD, like all organizations that deal with people from a position of power, needs to have an outside investigative agency dealing with departmental accusations. The lesson to be learned here is that no organization does a decent job of investigating itself.

No department is perfect, no matter what the statistics say.