MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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HRC

The 'Numbers guy'

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That would be Carl Bialik, who examines the way numbers are used and abused in a blog at the Wall Street Journal, crunches the numbers post-Pennsylvania.

He does not in this post reach a earth-shattering conclusion different from conventional wisdom but it’s still an enjoyable read, especially when you consider he’s dealing in numbers.

The numbers do not favor Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cause. Unless you change the rules and make them all favor her. Even then, they bring only close enough for an almost tie.

(Jae C. Hong/Associated Press) Barack Obama on his campaign plane Wednesday.

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on a flight to Washington on Tuesday.

Her argument to the Superdelegates then, argument which she voiced in Pennsylvania, would be that she is best suited for the general election because Sen. Barack Obama is simply the kind of candidate Democrats nominate only to see them lose ignominiously in the general election.

So, overturn the results so far and give the nomination to her, even if she is trailing by all the measures by which you determine the party nominee.

She, for instance, is saying that results from caucuses should not count because they skew to Mr. Obama’s strength, which is organizing. I consider myself a political junkie and this is the first time I’ve heard this argument against the caucuses.

There’s a certain part of me that appreciates HRC’s win-at-all-cost mentality. For once, I don’t want to be virtuous. I want to see Democrats give Republicans a dose (maybe even more than that) of their own medicine.

I don’t know what Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, has to say about anything. I know he believes war is a good thing, that people need to get second jobs to deal with the declining economy and the credit crisis, and that he and the money bags he married are sitting on a mountain of wealth.

A debate between the Democratic Party nominee, Clinton or Obama, and this corrupt and unprincipled man should be a no-contest. HRC is a fighter. She’s more than demonstrated that? But, can she guarantee a win?

No. And, is it too much to want some grace and intelligence and brilliance, all of which Obama possesses in abundance (which Clinton does too, except for the grace part) in your nominee? And when you consider Obama already leads in the number of votes and delegates and by any other measure you want to use, why overturn that?

April 24, 2008
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'All by Myself'

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(Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Hillary Rodham Clinton at the airport in Scranton, Pa., after a campaign rally on Monday, a day before the Pennsylvania primary.

When I was young
I never needed anyone
And makin love was just for fun
Those days are gone

Livin alone
I think of all the friends I’ve known
But when I dial the telephone
Nobodys home

All by myself
Don’t wanna be
All by myself anymore
All by myself
Don’t wanna live
All by myself anymore

Hard to be sure
Some times I feel so insecure
And love so distant and obscure
Remains the cure

All by myself
Don’t wanna be
All by myself anymore
All by myself
Don’t wanna live
All by myself anymore

April 22, 2008
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Vintage New York Times

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Check out this story from The New York Times, circa 1916, about legendary Suffragette icon and former Rep. Jeannette Rankin, R-Mont., the first woman ever elected to Congress.

On the other hand, the language is not nearly as shocking as you find in the paper’s coverage of race.

April 9, 2008
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A headache . . .

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. . . is what I got after reading this convoluted article by Professor Akhil Reed Amar on how Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), and Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), could serve a co-presidents, or something like that.

But which should it be: Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton? In fact, voters in November could actually endorse both versions of the ticket—truly, two presidents for the price of one. How? The Constitution’s 25th Amendment allows for a new paradigm of political teamwork: The two Democratic candidates could publicly agree to take turns in the top slot.

Then, at some agreed upon point, the President would cede power to the vice-president and, with Congressional approval, become the vice-president. The same team would then run for re-election four years later and four years after that, after which one of them would have to drop out because they would have been elected president twice. The remaining person could then run for president on his her own power.

Akhil Reed Amar teaches constitutional law at Yale University and he wrote “America’s Constitution: A Biography.” He is also a winner of the American Bar Association’s 2006 Silver Gavel Award. He is, in other words, a very smart guy and he said this could be done.

Whether it should done is, of course, another matter entirely.

March 25, 2008
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John "There will be other wars" Mccain

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Master Sgt. Andy Dunaway/U.S. Air Force, via Associated Press. Senator John McCain at Baghdad’s airport on Sunday. The presidential candidate arrived in Iraq for meetings with Iraqi and American officials.

This should be an impossibility but slowly but surely you can see the swagger returning to Republicans.

They can sense that victory is now more than a possibility in November. After George W. Bush’s calamitous presidency, no Republicans should have a ghost-in-hell of a chance of coming close to the presidency.

But Democratcs are, seemingly, deadlocked. This does not help the Democrats in any way. But you’ll find no person in America more certain about McCain’s fitness to lead this nation than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He’s had “crossed the Commander-in-Chief threshold,” she famously said.

And then there’s the question of self-inflicted wounds in Florida and Michigan, Democrats’ racist rhetoric, visiting the alleged sins of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Sen. Barack Obama.

The Iraq war is five years old.

Hillary and McCain voted for it. No one would count Iraqi deaths, especially its civilian dead.

The shame of our nation.

March 17, 2008
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What must be said

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Transcript of Keith Olbermann’s March 12 “Special Comment” on Hillary Clinton’

s tactics against Barack Obama.

Finally, as promised, a special comment on the presidential campaign of the junior senator from New York. By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton and the senator’s mother and the senator’s brother were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty and the most anger. My gratitude to them is unbiding.

Also, I am not here endorsing Senator Obama`s nomination, nor suggesting in it is inevitable. Thus I have fought with myself over whether or not to say anything. Events insist.

Read More

March 14, 2008
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Pelosi speaks

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And what she has to say would not cheer Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY).

Asked about the possibility of the so-called “Dream Ticket” of Clinton sharing the ticket with Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL) in the fall, Pelosi said:

I think that the Clinton administration has fairly ruled that out by proclaiming that Senator McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama. I think that any, that ticket – either way – is impossible.

March 12, 2008
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A true nation

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I am losing hope.

For us as a country, whether we could ever truly become a nation. Will we always remain divided?

I know what the lure of history holds for Sen. Hillary Clinton, (D-NY). At one time I wanted it for her, too, that she becomes the first female president of the United States.

But Hillary Clinton’s message must be rejected now. Rejected not because she’s a woman, but because she is divisive and obsessed with power. Rejected because she has used racial fears to attract votes.

I know now she will get this nomination. I’m just waiting to see how.

Orlando Patterson, a professor of sociology at Harvard University, re-examines Sen. Clinton’s the “red phone” ad:

I have spent my life studying the pictures and symbols of racism and slavery, and when I saw the Clinton ad’s central image — innocent sleeping children and a mother in the middle of the night at risk of mortal danger — it brought to my mind scenes from the past. I couldn’t help but think of D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society. The danger implicit in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat.
* * *
Finally, Hillary Clinton appears, wearing a business suit at 3 a.m., answering the phone. The message: our loved ones are in grave danger and only Mrs. Clinton can save them. An Obama presidency would be dangerous — and not just because of his lack of experience. In my reading, the ad, in the insidious language of symbolism, says that Mr. Obama is himself the danger, the outsider within.

Did the message get through? Well, consider this: people who voted early went overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama; those who made up their minds during the three days after the ad was broadcast voted heavily for Mrs. Clinton.

March 11, 2008
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