Politics (mostly) Riff

A few news stories that I find interesting but not necessarily worth a full blog:

First, according to Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, the fight over seating the Michigan and Florida delegates has actually led superdelegates to support Obama. Mostly his piece is about how Clinton could use the issue to help define her role in the convention, or even the party as a whole, in a post-Hillary ticket. But he does say the effect will be limited because, at the end of the day, the people who make the decisions in the DNC don’t really feel sorry for Michigan and Florida, and view Clinton’s stance on it as somewhat hypocritical, given that she agreed the votes shouldn’t count last fall and her chair (Terry McAuliffe) held a similarly hard line against Michigan when he was running the DNC. It’s been so distasteful for some, that Simon Rosenberg of the New Democrat Network said it was “instrumental” in securing many of Obama’s superdelegate support.

Now, the New Democrat Network is a combination of a (527) group and a PAC, and that’s always dangerous. But Simon Rosenberg was a finalist for the DNC chair in 2004 before ceding the position and putting his support behind Dean, so he obviously has some high-powered information. It’s not surprising that the superdelegates didn’t put much weight on the role of Michigan and Florida when casting their decisions. One thing that has always confused me is Clinton keeps making public arguments out of the nuances of the nominating process, when her only hope now lies in the superdelegates. She can try to sway her supporters into believing that caucuses aren’t democratic or that Florida and Michigan Democrats did nothing wrong and shouldn’t be punished, or that we should only count the votes in a certain, convoluted way, but she’s had the delegate count lost for quite some time now and her campaign has admitted for the last couple of months that she would need strong superdelegate support to win the nomination. The problem is, these superdelegates are party insiders; they know how the system works, are (assumedly) very well informed of its developments, and have gotten their prestigious jobs from this process. It’s absurd to think they’ll bite into the propaganda just because the Clinton’s ask them to.

But to hear that it not only didn’t sway support to Clinton, but actually led to support for Obama, did take me aback. Evidently, they were just as insulted by the rhetoric as I have been.

In related news, Democrat Rules Committee Member, former chairman, and Clinton supporter Donald Fowler said that Obama could pretty much let Hillary have her way, within reason, without “threatening his postion.” In other words, a very powerful Clinton superdelegate admitted that Obama’s more or less got this locked up and Florida and Michigan cannot make a meaningful impact. “If he thinks he’s threatened, he won’t do it, and I don’t blame him. But unless something unusual happens between now and then, he will be in good shape.” Not only is the writing on the wall, but Peter Parker took its picture, printed it in the Daily Bugle, and it’s now on page 537 of your son’s high school history book.

To her credit, Clinton has done her part and laid off the rhetoric lately, apparently abandoning her “kitchen sink” strategy for one which, while ultimately ineffective (of course, so was the kitchen sink), should help make her case without damaging Obama for the general election. Yesterday she went so far as to express regret for saying that he won’t be able to win over “hard working Americans, white Americans.” In an interview with ABC News, she was told that Congressman Charles Rengel from New York called the remark “the dumbest thing you could have possibly said.” Clinton’s response? “Well, he’s probably right.”

Her only real argument for staying in the election seems to be that she’s “not a quitter,” and it would be wrong to leave before every state votes. This was pretty much Mike Huckabee’s argument before McCain won the nomination. As long as she continues to be more Huckabee than, let’s say, Hillary Clinton, this thing should end pretty smoothly.

Though Clinton supporters will have another “Obama’s sexist” log to throw on the fire. Evidently, Obama had to call a reporter and leave a voice mail (he’s been leaving a lot of voice mail recently) to say he’s sorry for calling her “sweetie.” This is really a non-story; I don’t know how many times a black woman has called me “honey.” I find it rather endearing. But since some of these Clinton supporters (in my belief, a very small but much too vocal minority) seem to want to find sexism in every thing about this nomination, I’m sure it will come up. Be forewarned. I guess I can’t seem to blame them too much. A person they thought was entitled to win the nomination lost, and of course that can’t be the candidate’s fault. Human nature. How can the Patriots lose the Super Bowl? Obviously they weren’t outplayed; the officials must have screwed up the timing, or something.

Finally, I would like to say something about fantasy baseball. I love fantasy sports. I’ve been in two leagues; I was the champion in my football league debut and took home the (digital) third place trophy in my baseball debut. And now I’m tearing up, absolutely shredding, my second baseball season. How good am I? Jake Peavy, one of my starting pitchers, was hit hard by the Cubs, giving up four runs in only four innings of work. Then Kerry Wood, one of my closers, gave up a run and let four people reach base in his only inning of work, which wasn’t even a save situation. And yet my lead against my poor opponent increased from 6-5 to 9-2. Last week I won 12-0 in the league’s only shutout of the year, and over the last two weeks my record was 22-2.

That, my friends, is a powerhouse.

Timing is Everything

Last night I was watching a losing campaign and starting to get a bit depressed (of course, I’m referring to the Cubbies), and I thought to myself; I wonder if Obama asked any superdelegates to hold off on publicly supporting them until tomorrow, to offset the expectedly large loss in West Virginia?

It seems like I was correct.

Before the sun came up today, Obama’s camp announced the support of two superdelegates, Rep. Peter Visclosky of Indiana and Democrats Abroad chair Christine Schon Marques. Later in the day, pro-choice group NARAL gave him their endorsement (I’m going to vote for Obama anyway).

And just about an hour ago it was announced that a very (un)important person endorsed him: John Edwards.

Let me tell you, John Edwards looked good standing next to Barack Obama. He looked like a VP standing next to his Commander-in-Chief. I’m not sure picking Edwards is the best move for a variety of reasons (mostly because he didn’t do much for Kerry), but I do thoroughly like him, and wouldn’t complain at all about seeing him in the White House come next January.

We’ll see what his endorsement does. He has seventeen to twenty delegates (depending on the source), which means his endorsement could potentially be a bigger prize than Hillary’s “big” (meaningless) win in West Virginia. More importantly, it could start a flood of superdelegates to Obama’s side.

Personally, I doubt that this will clinch the nomination. For example, I don’t think older women and “working-class” whites (I hate that term; I’m a college grad who makes more than $50,000, and I work harder now than when I was a poor, “uneducated” HR rep) won’t start flooding to him. But what people forget is that Clinton is winning this segment; not McCain. Just like the party rallied around McCain after he got the nomination, the Democrats will rally around Obama. The only reason there’s even a doubt is because Clinton is exploited it for political gain (though she’s said time and time and time again Obama will beat McCain). Nor do I think the flood will actually occur (not that it’s needed; there will continue to be a steady stream for the next three weeks, but he will have the necessary votes shortly after June 3, if not before). However, I do think it will sway a few delegates over and I find it hard to believe any of Edward’s delegates will come out for Clinton. Most importantly, it should push the endorsement of several unions to Obama’s corner, which will be big in the primary, if not in the general election (I have doubted a union’s ability to bring their members to an individual ticket for quite some time).

I would say it should show some people who’s biggest strength seems to be denial that this thing really is over for Clinton. It seems like Clinton is staying around until June 3, at which point she will quickly drop out. It’s her own comments, as well as interviews with her staff, that lead me to this conclusion. This way she gets to take the high ground and say she made sure “every vote counts.” (Well, not every vote. Caucus states don’t count.) She will also get to claim the high ground when Florida and Michigan get some of their delegates seated (even Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe admits that “the rule is 50 percent.”). Of course, by that time it won’t matter.

I’ve gotten used to the fact that Obama has won the nomination, but this is pretty sweet. The only thing that would be better is if Gore endorses, and I would be surprised if that happens before the convention regardless of the outcome of the primary. Excuse me if I crow for a little while.

Now it’s the Cubs turn . . .

A little point of irony. I just heard on MSNBC that George W. Bush gave up golf for lent. No, just joking. But he did give up golf for the Iraq War. He said that “playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.” I wonder where he could have possibly gotten that idea?? Hmmm . . .

I guess he does listen to his father, after all.

Cubbies Sweep and Prior Weeps

Friday I said that Daryl Ward has been practically useless off the bench. Actually, as of Friday afternoon he was literally useless, as he had not had one hit in a pinch hit appearance.

Saturday, off the bench, he had an RBI single which scored Mark DeRosa (who’s been one of my better fantasy league pickups, but that’s another blog) which tied the game, and yesterday he hit a two run double which ended up being the winning hit in the final game of a series sweep against the Diamondbacks at Wrigley.

So you know, I’m taking full credit. You’re welcome.

Of course, the other side of that story is Ward pinch hit for Felix Pie. Now, I understand the theory is Pie has nothing left to prove in the minor leagues. Last year he hit .362 with a Bonds-esque .973 OPS, so that certainly seems to be the case. But if a guy can’t hit in the majors, he can’t hit in the majors. And this guy can’t hit in the majors. Meanwhile, Matt Murton is hitting .368 with a .870 OPS in Iowa, so it’s not like he has a hell of a lot to prove, either. But he can hit in the majors; he has a career .295 BA, which most people would think is pretty damn good. And even though his field work’s not as good as Pie’s, he’s not exactly Manny Ramirez or Adam Dunn, either (of course, they would argue that he’s not exactly Manny Ramirez or Adam Dunn, either).

Sean Gallagher had a great game in his first major league start (Zambrano was supposed to start but was held up because of an hour rain delay). He couldn’t make it past the fifth inning, but he has been a reliever for quite some time now so five innings at one go is asking a lot. Not sure I want him to stay in the starting five all year, but he certainly deserves another start or two to see what he can do, and if it seems to be just a fluke then hopefully Rich Hill will have his stuff together by then, or at least Sean Marshall will be ready to step in. And since the rotation includes Jason Marquis, it’s always good to have that one extra guy who can step in just in case.

In other news, Mark Prior is having shoulder problems again. According to the Chicago Tribune, the San Diego Padres (or as Mom would say, the South Dakota Padres) wanted him to be in a minor league rehab assignment by now. Instead, this is his second delay due to shoulder soreness, and he hasn’t even made it out of extended spring training yet. This is a familiar story. In case you don’t recall, last year he wanted to make the Cubs 25-man roster and start the season in the bigs. The Cubbies thought that wasn’t such a good idea, said he would start the season in the minors, and had him pitch in extended spring training. Of course, the Cubs were being complete jerks about the situation. He was fine, but there was nothing he could do because he was “just an employee.” “It’s up the Cubs if they want me,” he said bitterly, joking that he could be in the minor league Futures Game because he was going to pitch so well and show us all. He was shut down by the end of April, and hasn’t played in the majors or minors since.

What a loser.

Edward’s Isn’t Important; Race and Gender in 24 Hours

Evidently John Edwards is not a very important person. I know this, because he told me so.

In two interviews given today, on the Today Show with Matt Lauer and on Morning Joe, he downplayed his importance with, well, everybody. Stating several times that he doesn’t have much, if any, influence on either campaign’s strategy or who people are going to vote for, and claiming on both shows that “Barack Obama has done very well without John Edward’s endorsement” he quelled any hope that an endorsement would be forthcoming prior to a candidate being named. There seems to be a lot of speculation why, ranging from an ongoing feud between him and his lovely wife, Elizabeth, to a push for a vice president seat (again). His argument seems to be that it doesn’t matter much anyway, so why muddy up the waters.

It’s an argument that seems to be well shared. Much to the chagrin of the Obama campaign, many in the media report there are a number of potential supporters who have not sided with Obama because the race is going to be over soon enough anyway. To this end, Obama may have actually hurt his case by more or less declaring himself the presumptive nominee. It’s hard to go to the superdelegates and say “I need you to support me now to end this” when you’re telling the public the contest is over, even if there’s still a few more minutes left in the game. Why not just wait those extra few weeks? After all, better safe then sorry.

I’m not sure that Edwards has any ulterior motives to withholding an endorsement. There’s not really a “poverty czar” in the U.S., so a cabinet position is probably not going to be in the cards. And I highly doubt he’s going to be a finalist for any candidate’s veep. To be frank, Obama doesn’t need him. Obama has won over the majority of the crowd that Edwards could help him pull in; he does very well in the deep south and Edwards didn’t help Kerry bring in the “Mason-Dixon” states like Kentucky or North Carolina. And he wasn’t really an effective running mate for Kerry; many people in the Democrat party blamed him for Kerry’s loss because he did not fight hard for Kerry and seemed more interested in using his candidacy as a stepping stone to the Presidency than winning the 2004 campaign. Personally, I think this argument, and the same was given to Lieberman in 2000, has some merit, but the biggest problems of Kerry and Gore have more to do with bad Presidential candidates than bad V.P. choices (to say I think Gore would have been a terrific President is a bit of an understatement, but didn’t exactly run a flawless campaign). So it’s difficult to see either candidate opening up to him.

However, I do think Edwards is doing some political posturing. He does want to be important; by his admission he’s gotten a taste of what it’s like to not be, and is not putting it past Clinton to somehow squeak out the nomination. One thing the Clinton’s have made clear so far is their (mythical) administration is not going to be kind to the Obama supporters. So if Edwards does respect Hillary Clinton and also thinks she has even an outside chance of pulling an upset (and I do not doubt either claim), then it really doesn’t make any sense to endorse now.

And I would certainly hesitate to say he is unimportant. Edwards was the only white male candidate who seriously contended for the Democratic nomination. Given the length of the race, that is really saying something. And I do believe an Edwards endorsement would make other superdelegates think long and hard about the candidate he gets behind, and may be enough to drag some other committed “uncommitteds” away from their faux-neutrality. Further, Edwards does have a very important role to play in the future if a democrat wins the Presidency. He may not get a cabinet position, but I think it would be an error for either candidate not to keep him close by in some sort of official advisory role. Especially through the nomination. Relying on a populist message doesn’t win a lot of elections in its own right, but having a populist surrogate doesn’t hurt anybody, either.

Not that there aren’t very good signs of who he’s leaning towards. On Morning Joe, he was asked if he would endorse the candidate he voted for in North Carolina’s primary. His response: “It’s highly likely.” He stood by the remark later in the program, after he said that it was “clearly likely” that Barack is going to be the nominee. So this really only leads to two conclusions: either he voted for Obama, or it’s highly likely he’s going to endorse the candidate that ends up losing, after she already lost.

Fortunately for Clinton, his endorsement doesn’t really mean that much.

I must say, Clinton has really gone off the deep end. I’m sure she’s more stressed out than she’s letting on. Her campaign aides are saying things like: “There is a profound sadness . . . I don’t think anyone sees that there’s a clear path to victory here.” Ouch.

But in justifying her own existence in a race which, to put it bluntly, she’s not going to win, she’s started to really lay it out on the line. And it ain’t pretty. Yesterday she said “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on . . . Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.” She did not speculate on why she’s losing if her coalition is so much stronger, nor did she explain why people who completed college or non-whites should not be insulted with the implication that we aren’t “hard working Americans.” The day before, she justified her continuation by claiming “Too many people have fought too hard to see a woman continue in this race, this history-making race, and I want everybody to understand that.”

So putting two and two together, I guess blacks will be too busy sitting on their lazy asses to go to the polls, while us “college folk” are too persnickety to vote, so only white women have really worked hard enough to get “their” candidate elected. Meanwhile, you’ve played the race card and the gender card in less time then it takes Jack Bauer to save the world. Wow. Congratulations on hitting a new low, there. (And that’s quite an accomplishment, as the Clintons could beat Hermes Conrad in a limbo contest.) Well, I guess when you’re losing on the issues, losing the popular vote, losing the delegate count, running out of cash, and no less than the American government itself treats your opponent like he’s a “rock star,” race and gender are all you’ve got left.

Another “Cubbie” Moment

Scott Eyre was activated from the DL today, which was a very important move because the Cubs desperately needed another bullpen lefty. So far all they’ve had out of the ‘pen was Sean Marshall, who used to be a starter and is much better suited to long closing roles than the “face one batter and you’re out” typically reserved for the lefties. As an added bonus, Scott Eyre can be one of the better left-handed relievers in the game, as evidence by his spotless second half 0.81 ERA (however, his final ERA was 4.13, so that should tell you something about his first half struggles). Eyre is one of my favorite players, so I love that he’s back. But there’s one thing about his return which completely baffles me.

Their response for finally getting a second lefty in the ‘pen is to send the first one down.

Marshall has played well this season. Not sparkling, but well. And they really need a long-reliever and a second left hander in that bullpen.

Now, maybe there is a method to their madness. Rich Hill was sent back to the minors because his pitching has so far taken the year off, and John Leiber got knocked around the park in his only substitute start to the tune of four home runs (in the second inning. Not by the second inning; in the second inning.) Leiber had done well out of the bullpen when they needed two or three innings to eat up, so I could definitely understand putting him back in the ‘pen and sending Marshall down to get his arm ready to start again. That would make sense.

Even so, the Cubs’ handling of the major league roster has been questionable, at best. They have an overcrowded outfield that includes Felix Pie, a guy who couldn’t hit a major league pitch with a cricket bat, while Reed Johnson and Ronny Cedeno chew sunflower seeds on the bench and career .295 hitter (and that’s in the big league, folks) Matt Murton shags fly balls in Iowa. There’s an obvious player to send back to the cornfields, but “Marshall” isn’t on the back of his jersey. Daryl Ward, who’s supposed to be their big bat coming of the bench, is hitting a measly .136, and the very few times he does get on base they have to waste another bench player to go run for him. So you have a player who can’t hit, another player who can’t hit, run, or field, and you’re sending one of your two lefty relievers down and keeping a solid hitter with decent speed in Iowa to rot.

As Bob Brenly would say, “Where’s the justice?”

Trouble at the Pump

I was trying to ignore Clinton. I really was. I figure, like it or not, this primary is pretty much in the books. And since Clinton is really just delaying the inevitable, why not just forget about her and focus on McCain? But her little “misadventure” at the gas station had me rolling, and I just couldn’t resist. (Besides, this gives me a chance to talk about him, as well.)

Not that she’s been the first democrat who’s had a bad photo op. Remember Kerry’s ridiculous hunting trip? I find it hard to understand why politicians don’t realize that they look much better in situations which look random and unscripted, and an obvious photo op trying to appear like a “commoner” is demeaning and pretentious. Maybe that’s why the Republican’s have the “average Joe” label; Bush looked right at home moving shrub. Like that’s actually what he wanted to do with his day. Okay, he looked like a dunce coming out of that fighter plane. But does it compare with Dukakis in the tank? Not even close (at least he used to be a pilot. And by “used to be” I mean by all accounts he showed up for training class at least two or three times.)

At any rate, Clinton pulls up to the gas station to talk about fighting the cost of gas, in a truck bigger than my house (a Ford F250) followed by six Suburbans, two squad cars, and an SUV (evidently completely unaware of the irony), and let the whole crowd know that while she hasn’t actually pumped gas in quite a while, or even really knew what the price was, she has “heard from a lot of people” that it is starting to get pretty bad.

“Sixty-three dollars,” she said while shaking her head, “for just about a half a tank of gas.” Yes, well, that’s what you get when you’re practically driving a Kenworth.

She also had a mishap with the coffee machine; we have those at our gas station and let me tell you, sometimes pushing that little button can be quite a harrowing experience. If anybody in her campaign has any sense at all, this will be the last we hear of her calling Obama “elitist.”

But Hillary Clinton made the stop so people would start talking about her gas tax holiday, so I’ll bite.

This little gas tax vacation is meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. First of all, neither Clinton nor McCain are going to be President this summer. They’re both sitting there talking about this thing like it’s going to be their Presidential policy, even though they will take the oath of office (or watch Obama do so) four and a half months after the thing ends. Neither of them has the power, or more importantly the time, to shove this thing through Congress, and neither of them are going to attempt to do so. And Clinton really takes the cake, because she wants to offset the cost with an increased tax for oil companies. I’m not against windfall profit taxes for Chevron, but there’s not a chance in the world that gets through Congress this summer. And if it does, is there anybody who actually thinks Bush will sign it? (I actually heard that as a punchline in a Bill Engvall joke. “No, sir, Bush actually signed the tax hike for the oil companies. Here’s your sign!”)

But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, the vacation does pass Congress. What would be the effects? They both want to pass it so people won’t be so burdened by the added expense of gasoline. Well, this tax vacation would take effect from Memorial Day to Labor Day, which is thirteen weeks. Let’s say I have to fill up my sixteen gallon Taurus once a week (which I don’t. And since I drive from Chicago to Peoria and back every week I put about four hundred miles on the car a week; a sum which I’m guessing is a touch higher than the national average). The federal gas tax is 18.5 cents, so that would save me $38.48. Now, you could give that to me in a lump sum and I would barely even notice it. Spread out over the whole summer and I wouldn’t think you did anything for me at all.

Which it won’t. But it will do something to me.

This money is used to build our highway infrastructure. Road, bridges, tunnels, things like that. And this infrastructure is in severe need of help. So much so, that Popular Mechanics recently ran a cover story on it. And according to the Associated Press, the Highway Trust Fund, which helps build and upkeep the infrastructure and which gets about two thirds of its funding from this tax, is going to be in debt by 2009.

The U.S. Government’s Energy Information Administration predicts that the U.S. will use 9.4 million barrels a day of fuel this summer, which at 42 gallons per barrel equates to 394.8 million gallons of gas. Taxed at 18.5 cents per gallon, this tax holiday would remove over $73 million a day from our road’s infrastructure just when we need it the most. That’s well over $6.5 billion dollars.

So next time you’re driving down the highway ask yourself; is the deterioration of this road, and the decreased safety, increased travel headaches, and additional gas your car will burn as a result of it, worth about forty bucks this summer?

Didn’t think so.

Da Bears 2008 Draft: A Tedious Analysis

This was an important draft for the Bears. More important than most, if only because they needed a good showing to become a contender again in only the second season since they went to the Super Bowl. As I’ve stated before, the 2007-2008 offseason has been brutal for Chicago, and I thought they needed to acquire “one running back, one offensive tackle, one offensive guard, one wide receiver, and one strong safety.” And that was at a minimum.

Well, since I wrote that the Bears did sign a couple of wide receivers; Marty Booker, who I do believe will be a valuable addition to the team, though he no longer has the skill to solve their wide receiver problems, and Brandon Lloyd, who may make a play or two but whom I do not believe will have any kind of noticeable impact.

I had my doubts about Jerry Angelo’s ability to make the Bears a contender again out of this draft. I think the Bears are pretty good at drafting players. Certainly not the best, but formidable at worst. But their forte is not drafting stars (with a few notable exceptions). What they excel at is drafting solid role players. Get enough role players and you can win a lot of games with just a few premier players. But the Bears don’t need role players. They need starters. And I was doubtful of their ability to deliver.

It’s really impossible to tell how well they did one day after the draft. In all fairness, it’s practically impossible to tell one year after the draft, regardless of how well (or bad) the draft looked through that first year. But I will say that I’m pretty excited.

I honestly think the Bears had a reasonably intelligent draft. There were a few exceptions, but in all I think they did a good job of picking players that they needed. I’m not a big fan of the philosophy that teams should always draft the best player on the board. I always thought you should draft for need first. And it seems like the Bears did pass on better players at a couple of points because there was a player who filled a more pressing need. And that made me happy.

I was a little surprised that they didn’t draft a quarterback. Not disappointed, though. I know people always want to point the finger at Grossman, but there were several more important positions than quarterback in this draft. It doesn’t matter who you draft, especially in this years weak QB crop, if you don’t have a good line and you don’t have a running game, a rookie is just not going to make a difference.

Steve Young tends to disagree. He summed up the unintelligence of the national football press succinctly with this comment on why they should’ve picked Brian Brohm instead of Matt Forté.

“So they feel better about Rex Grossman than they do about Cedric Benson? They’re already giving up on (Benson).’’

Uh, yeah! In all fairness to Young, there are 31 other teams so he probably didn’t get to watch much Chicago football. And he’s a quarterback so he has an obvious bias. But it was an incredibly stupid remark. Grossman lead them to the Super Bowl. Benson sucks and doesn’t want to work hard to fix it. This is a no-brainer, dude.

Anyway, here we go. Pick by pick:

With the first round pick, the Bears took Vanderbilt offensive tackle Chris Williams at number fourteen. I love the fact that they took a left tackle with their first pick. I was ready to give up on next year, and possibly the whole organization, if they didn’t draft an offensive lineman in the first round, and left tackle made the most sense. As I’ve heard several times already (so I can’t take credit for this idea), it allows them to move Tait to right tackle, a position where he’s much better. So it’s almost like getting two starters for the price of one. By far the smartest thing they could have done.

However, I was a little surprised that they chose Williams. Only two offensive lineman had been taken to this point (number one pick Jake Long and twelve pick Ryan Clady) so they pretty much had their choice of the litter. Williams was the probably the most logical choice just because he was the best natural left tackle, and if Clady was still on the board my guess is they would have taken him. But Williams has had some injury issues, and the Bears have been burned by critical injuries pretty much every year but 2006 lately (and they still had their share in ’06). Many people say he’s too “finesse” to get the job done in the NFL, but he seems like a very intelligent player with talent to spare, and if he can stay healthy he should make an immediate impact from week one. But that little health caveat did set the tone for the whole draft, as the Bears almost seemed intent on sabotaging their team as they picked one injury-saddled player after another. If things work out they’ll look like geniuses for drafting players higher teams took passes on. If the 2010 team consists of twenty five or so Mike Browns, it may not have one Lovie Smith or Jerry Angelo.

In between the Bears first and second round pick the Steelers drafted Rashard Mendenhall. Everybody in Illinois felt gypped. I’m glad they didn’t spend the fourteenth pick on him, but would it have killed them to trade up just once? Just this one time?

However, they did draft a running back with their second round pick, Matt Forté from Tulane. I’m not sure I ever watched a Tulane football game before, but he seems like a solid pick. Keeping with the “if he stays healthy” motive, he does have some health concerns, but is extremely versatile. Part of the Bears offensive problems last year wasn’t just that the running game couldn’t get going, it was that the running backs couldn’t do anything else right when they weren’t carrying the ball. Cedric Benson can’t catch and doesn’t seem interested in blocking at all (though in fairness he doesn’t really seem interested in doing much other than collecting money. He would have been a great first round pick . . . for the IRS). Adrian Peterson is a better blocker but certainly not an every down back and can’t catch. And Garrett Wolfe seems like a great player but is too small to block and not elusive enough to play a majority of snaps. So teams pretty much don’t have to worry about the backfield.

Forté should give them reason to worry. He is not an elusive back, but the Bears don’t require one for their offense. Their offense is based upon a tough, between the tackles, downhill running back. But Forté was an excellent blocker and receiver in college, essentially giving them another lineman and an extra option in case things go south in a hurry. And I heard he can sell the fake handoff very well. Jerry Angelo isn’t making any bold predictions about him being a “special back” (thank goodness), but does seem to think he can play three downs. I would still like to see da Bears make a real effort to sign Shaun Alexander, but if he’s right, and if both Williams and he stay healthy, the offense will improve immediately.

With the seventh pick in the third round, they chose Williams’ teammate, wide receiver Earl Bennett. Like Forté, he was projected to go much lower in the third round. His big knock against him is his lack of athleticism and speed, which would certainly seem to be crucial in the NFL. He was very successful in college, but many questioned whether he would be able to get enough separation at the pro level to be a solid wide receiver. NFL.com did project the Bears would pick a WR at this spot, but they thought it would be a speedy deep threat to take the place of Bernard Berrian.

Bernard Berrian was overpaid by Minnesota (even though I said his loss would “cripple the Bears”). But he was much better than anything the Bears are going to get in the third round, especially in the short term. But the Bears biggest problem is not the deep pass. Grossman and Orton both have strong arms, and Devin Hester and Mark Bradley can beat most corners deep. Their biggest problem in the passing game was, by far, a lack of a possession receiver who would force the cornerbacks to play inside, take the attention of a linebacker or two, and give Rashied Davis room to roam. They did a good job of buffering that problem with the addition of Marty Booker, but they still needed help. Bennett may not be a player who would be all the team needs, but when combined with Marty Booker he seems like a player who can make an immediate impact. Despite a lack of speed, he utilized excellent route-running, instincts, and catching abilities to become the SEC’s career leader in receptions . . . without playing his senior year.
Here’s what Sprint’s NFL Mobile has to say about the 70^th player chosen in the draft: “Often characterized as one of the 2008 draft’s top possession receivers, Bennet shows too much wiggle and strength in breaking tackles after the catch to be lumped into this category.” Pretty hard not to be excited by that.

Suddenly I feel a lot better about the Bear’s offense.

Unfortunately, the good-fuzzy feeling came to a screeching halt. The Bears had a second third round pick twenty spots later, which they used on Arkansas defensive tackle Marcus Harrison. I understand why they felt the need to draft a defensive tackle. This position, which two years ago looked like one of the finest collections of players ever assembled for one team, has been in constant flux. Tank Johnson was in so much trouble the Bears finally released him, Dusty Dvoracek was being counted on and promptly got hurt, and Tommie Harris, one of the best tackles in the league, never really fully recovered from his season-ending injury in 2006. So it certainly makes sense to add some depth here. But it didn’t make any sense at all to do it with this guy. He seems talented enough; if ability was all he was drafted for he probably would have gone in the first half of the second round. But he started with one strike against him, as many felt he didn’t always play as hard as he should have. And then he started getting hurt (surprise, surprise). In 2006 he hurt his knee and had a concussion, and in 2007 he injured his ACL. Soon after his ACL injury he was arrested for possession of marijuana and ecstasy.

I don’t want to be judgmental. Certainly there are worse things than being caught with these two relatively minor drugs, as Pacman Jones can attest. But some would question the sanity of a person trying to add depth to a position plagued by injuries and legal problems by drafting someone who’s been hurt and in trouble with the law.

With their fourth round pick, Chicago picked up Craig Steltz with the 120^th pick in the draft. I would have preferred they take a safety with their previous pick, as strong safety is a mess and Mike Brown can’t seem to get through a full season. But only two safeties were chosen between Harrison and Steltz, so I guess Angelo thought it wouldn’t matter too much to wait an extra pick. Steltz does seem like a solid player; he was a finalist for the Jim Thorpe award, and played for LSU so he went up against some pretty stout offenses. His college career showed a knack for being in the right place at the right time; he intercepted six passes last year and in 2006 became the first player in LSU’s prestigious history to intercept a pass in four straight games. He also had a sack and five tackles for losses last year, so he can be used as an extra rusher if the need arises.

I was optimistic that Adam Archuletta would play well for the Bears last year, and he didn’t. It was probably one of the biggest reasons why the defense was so bad. With the Tampa-2 defense, if you don’t have solid safeties the “bend but don’t break” defense turns into allowing one first down after another. It does bother me that someone both Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo were so high on could be such a mistake; we’ve come to expect that somewhat on offense but defense is supposed to be the strength of the ball club. Hopefully they did a better job of analyzing Steltz or it will be a long season for the Bears defense.

With their first sixth round pick, the Bears chose corner back Zackary Bowman out of Nebraska. Another pick I don’t understand at all. First, corner back is one of the Bears’ best positions. They have two starters who have become perennial Pro-Bowl candidates in Nathan Vasher and Charles Tillman, Daniel Manning could be a starter on most teams, Trumaine McBride is a prospect any team would be proud to have, and Corey Graham is very solid on special teams and looks like he might end up being a pretty decent CB in his own right. So I’m not sure exactly what they want to do with Bowman. And he’s yet another player with injury problems (for those of you keeping track at home, this is the fourth out of six players). In the last two years he’s had a torn ACL, ruptured right patella tendon, and a hamstring injury. The Bears have been very good at using these types of picks to bolster one of the league’s best special teams units. My only thought is that was the purpose of this pick. Otherwise it seems to be more or less a wasted pick to me (of course, that’s what we thought of Trumaine McBride and Corey Graham).

Their next pick pretty much falls into the same category. With the 158^th pick, and their second of the round, they chose Michigan State tight end Kellen Davis. The Bears already have one of the best tight end combinations in Desmond Clark and future star Greg Olsen. And even though Kellen Davis is a large, strong individual with a lot of natural skill, he’s not very fast and has poor work ethic. This pick just screams “return blocker” to me.

The Bears did not have a sixth round draft pick, but did take five – five – out of the seventh round. Most of these seem to be prospects for depth, which is pretty much the going assumption even if you don’t know anything about them. Ervin Baldwin is a defensive end from Michigan State who is very fast and played very well in the Big Ten. However, many feel he is too small to fight against the NFL’s O-lineman in the trenches. Look for him to be used primarily on passing downs and try to use his speed to run around the corner to get to the quarterback.

Chester Adams is a guard from Georgia who can also play tackle. Probably selected for this versatility, he’s small and doesn’t always play with passion. I’m a little disappointed that this was the only guard they drafted.

Joey LaRocque is an outside linebacker from Oregon who was an integral part of their rushing defense. He thinks of himself as a sideline-to-sideline linebacker, but lacks the top speed necessary to excel with that skill in the NFL. The Chicago Tribune thinks this was a special teams pick.

Kirk Barton is an offensive tackle from Ohio State, the fightin’ Buckeyes! He started all four years of college; pretty impressive when considering two of those four teams went to the BCS Championship Bowl. He’s more of a pass blocker than a run blocker and apparently didn’t have great combine numbers but makes up for it with heart and toughness. Another one of the Bear’s injury gambles, a surgically repaired knee probably kept him from going higher. Sprint’s NFL Mobile thinks he “will challenge for playing time early in his NFL career, if the opportunity arises.” For being taken at such a low pick, he has the potential to be a real steal for the Bears. I’m excited about this pick.

Finally, the Bears last pick was Marcus Monk from Arkansas. A large, strong wide receiver, he starred in the SEC but is relatively slow and had some knee injuries, which almost kept him from being drafted. However, he could be a valuable addition as a specialty player in the red zone. He may not make a name for himself in the NFL, but he’ll probably be on a highlight reel or two before his days are done. A very solid pickup for the fifth to last person drafted.

For the 10,000th Time!!

There have been a lot of things to discuss recently, but nary any time to discuss them. I desperately wanted to point out the unfair treatment given to Obama’s “bitter” remark. I don’t think he meant to apply it universally to the lower socio-economic class, but growing up in and among the American proletariat I can personally attest to accuracy of his claim on a somewhat limited scope.

I also thought the criticism given to Bush for planning on attending the opening ceremonies of the Olympics was quite unfair. I certainly think the U.S. should take a hard line against China’s treatment of workers and their citizens in general, but the Olympics isn’t exactly the best forum to do so. Both parties have supported trade agreements with China which not only allowed, but actually enabled, such violations of human rights, and for either party to insist on such a meaningless protest while refusing to discuss foreign policy which would actually change the situation is damn hypocritical.

McCain said some stupid things, Hillary Clinton is complaining about Obama complaining about the media after she has spent the better part of twenty years doing the same, and Jerry Angelo decided that the best way to cure da Bear’s ills is to swap out their best offensive player for a couple of average receivers and take a hard line on their best player since Walter Payton (pay the Lurch! This isn’t rocket science, just pay the guy! He’s Brian freakin’ Urlacher for cryin’ out loud!!)

But today I have something much grander to discuss. Forget the fluttering importance of something as trivial as the Presidential election, something truly historic has just occurred.

The Chicago Cubs have won their 10,000^th game.

The Cubs won their 10,000^th game in the same city they won their 9,000^th, Denver Colorado, in a 10^th inning (one for every thousand wins) affair against the Rockies.

Nobody said it would be easy.

Fittingly, Kerry Wood, the Cubs most storied and tenured player, was the victor. Typical of his ebb-and-flow career, he was awarded that distinction only because he blew the save in the bottom of the ninth inning. But he is on my fantasy team so it worked out fairly well for me.

Despite their loveable loser label, the Cubs are actually the only team in the major leagues to never have a franchise record below .500. That is to say, the Cubs are the only team in the major leagues to have a winning record throughout their entire existence. Their first victory was in 1876 against Louisville (?), and they went on to win the first League Championship. They become only the second team to reach 10,000 victories, behind the New York/San Francisco Giants. The Giants have won 119 more games than the Cubs, but the Cubs are pretty good this year and the Giants are terrible, so we may catch up to them eventually.

The only team to lose 10,000 games is the Philadelphia Phillies. Jon Lieber, who gave up a home run which almost cost the Cubs the game today, was also part of the Phillies team to carry that dubious distinction.

The history does not stop there, either. It was Lou Pinella’s 100^th win with the Cubbies, which isn’t really extraordinary but the roundness of the number is interesting. But it did give Lou Pinella his 1,619^th career win as a manager, moving him into a tie with Ralph Houk for 14^th all-time.

The Cubs just won their 15^th game of the season, placing their record at a solid 15-6. Since 1908, this is only the fourth time they’ve started that well. The other years were 1937 (went to the World Series), 1969 (lost the pennant to the Miracle Mets, but came close) and 1975 (terrible record that year). Today was the sixth victory in a row, and the previous four were not even close. They won all the games by at least six runs, and the last time they won four games in a row by at least six runs was . . . 1886. 122 years ago.

It happened exactly one week before the 25^th anniversary of Lee Elia’s famous rant against Cubs fans, which I mention only because the rant is kinda funny, even if it is extremely offensive (“85% of the world’s working, the other fifteen come out here!”)

Of course, it’s been 100 years since our last World Series victory, which is about the only stat most people know. It’s also the stat they point to when they make their firm proclamation that the Cubs will surely suck, because they always do. (People don’t seem to care they won the division last year, or went to the playoffs three times in the last ten years, which is pretty respectable in baseball. But on the flip side, most people who stake that claim don’t actually know a lot about the game.)

Here’s hoping the Cubs end that little piece of history this October.

On the same date the Cubs won their 10,000^th franchise victory, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death, George Washington moved into the first executive mansion (in New York), the U.S. Army Reserve was created, James Earl Ray and Boris Yeltsin died, Hank Aaron hit his first major league home run, and “Sticky Fingers” was released, featuring a real, working zipper on the album cover (Mick Jagger was wearing underwear). People born on April 23 included William Shakespeare, Sir William Penn, Max Planck, James Buchanan, Stephen Douglas, and Michael Moore.

Why Clinton’s “Big” Win Isn’t So Big After All.

Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania. She won it big. It’s a huge, “tide-turning” victory that is going to be big trouble for Obama and is breathing new life into Clinton’s campaign. It’s the first victory in the new day of the 2008 Democrat Primary, one that will certainly spell defeat for Obama and continue the Clinton legacy.

That will be the story for the next two weeks out of the Clinton camp, and the press will be remiss not to give it some legitimacy.

But if you take Pennsylvania out of the microcosm the Clinton camp wants to keep it in, and put it in the larger picture, it’s not too difficult to see why it doesn’t change a whole lot at all.

The word among the press (and to Clinton’s credit, I highly doubt this would have materialized into much more than the word among the press) is that a five point victory would have spelled the virtual end to the Clinton campaign. The “magic number”, given by people whom I fully respect (most notably Tim Russert), was about eight points, give or take a point or two. Anything over that is a resounding victory for Clinton, anything under was a resounding defeat.

Of course, Clinton won by ten.

This is certainly disappointing to the Obama camp, but I doubt they’ll lose much sleep over it. At the end of the day he still has a commanding lead. And despite the spin coming out of Clinton, she still has a long way to go before meaningfully cutting into it.

The problem is ten points doesn’t actually do much. She has gained ten delegates so far, with eighteen left to designate. When all the delegates are awarded, she can expect to win an estimated fifteen or sixteen total. Not that this gain is not meaningless. But even after you include a net gain of sixteen delegates, Obama will still be leading the pledged delegate count by an even 150. This is bad news, because out of the remaining contests there are only 258 delegates left. To break even, she would have to win 204 of those remaining delegates. Obviously that’s not going to happen. It’s not even quasi-realistic.

And it’s doubtful that this advantage will even be around longer than two weeks, when the next primaries occur. Right now Obama is enjoying a fifteen point lead in the polls in North Carolina. If he wins by that margin, according to Slate’s Online Delegate Calculator, he will win 17 delegates. So this “huge” victory will be negated in a state with less than 75% of the total delegates Pennsylvania has. And the gains she made in the popular vote (a little over 200,000 votes) will be cut into significantly, as well. Meanwhile, Indiana is still a very close race. Clinton is leading the polls right now by two points, which will net her only two delegates. So in two weeks the delegates she won last night at best would be a net of only a few (I’d say her netting ten is a stretch of imagination) and at worst she could be losing by even more than she was last night (which isn’t a stretch at all, though Obama picking up a net of ten isn’t much more realistic than Hillary doing so).

We’ve been down this road before. Remember her “game-changing” wins in Ohio and Texas? You know, the ones where Clinton only came out ahead by two delegates and even after you included her win in Rhode Island on the same night Obama had made up for her net gain within a week in Wyoming and Mississippi? Where did that get her? Exactly where she started. By the next big primary, in Pennsylvania, the general consensus, even out of her own camp, was she had to win in order to stay viable.

Except there was a big difference back then. Notably, there were a few more primaries, one other big race, and she was still operating in the black. Now she’s pretty much down to Indiana, and her campaign is operating with a $10 million deficit (Obama has $40 million in the bank, by the way). She needed a huge victory. And instead she got the same thing she got last time she had a “big” victory; a nice talking point but little to nothing in the way of delegates or popular votes to take home.

Of course, her campaign has more or less given up on winning the delegate vote, anyway. So maybe it’s a little unfair to say that, just because she’s losing in the manner by which both major political parties use to determine their candidate, it actually means she’s losing. Ultimately, the Clinton campaign is going to try and persuade enough superdelegates with the argument that she’s the more electable candidate.

Ultimately, Clinton’s victory (as it impacts her ability to receive the nomination) is three fold. First, one of the big arguments coming from Clinton is that Democrats need states like Pennsylvania to win the general election. Her victory here seems to prove her case that she’s the most electable in the general election because she can carry these states. But the argument that since Obama lost Pennsylvania to Clinton means he’ll lose it to McCain is specious. First, it’s not sensible to think that all the people who voted for Clinton are going to defect to McCain. As the drama in the GOP nomination pointed out, as soon as one candidate is picked, the party will rally around them. Clinton admitted that herself. But more to the point, Pennsylvania is a closed primary, which means independents don’t get to vote. And left-leaning Republicans don’t get to vote. Much has been made of the turnout in the Pennsylvania. Which is good; it was a record turnout and that’s something both candidates should be proud of. Over 2.3 million people cast votes in the primary last night. But over 5.7 million people voted in the general election in 2004. Bush, who lost the state, received almost half a million more votes than the total Democrats who voted in the primary. Only about 40% of the total populace voted last night, and many of those were first time voters (ever, not just in the primary) who everybody agrees Obama received the majority of. So Obama has a lot of room to make up votes by November, and millions of voters who didn’t participate last night to work with.

Secondly, it cuts into Obama’s popular vote lead. This dent in Obama’s lead should be lessened by the vote in North Carolina. At this point he’s winning by over 500,000 votes, which is a lot with only nine contests left (especially considering there are some small contests in those nine). But of course, she argues that this lead is even less if you count Florida, and even less still if you count Florida and Michigan. In fact, if you count both those states, then Hillary Clinton is actually leading by just under 122,000 votes. But Obama has a pretty good counter for that argument. First, I would expect him to make up that 122,000 margin by the end of the campaign. But right now those vote totals aren’t counting the caucus states of Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington. Since Clinton is the “every vote should count” candidate, I’m sure she has no problem counting the vote totals in those states. If those votes are counted, he’s still winning by just under 195,000 votes. And if you don’t count the Michigan’s votes, since he wasn’t on the ballot there won’t be a lot of people outside the Clinton camp that do, he’s still winning by over 300,000 votes. So the popular vote is not really in Clinton’s favor unless she counts two states she agreed not to count when she thought her nomination is inevitable, and ignores four states with caucuses, three of which just happened to lose.

The final big talking point to the superdelegates is that Obama can’t “finish her off.” If he’s such a great candidate, she will ask, than how come he can’t wrap up the nomination? Again, Obama can argue that if she’s such a great candidate, why can’t she make any meaningful impact when she’s winning these supposedly game-changing contests? It also places emphasis on certain contests. She argues that he can’t win because he narrowly lost in Texas and lost by ten in Ohio and Pennsylvania. But the argument ignores the huge inroads Obama made in those two states (gaining over ten points in both) and also places the burden of Obama winning in states which the Clinton camp thought was an inevitable victory for her, without placing any pressure on her to win in states which Obama had an even moderate lead (which she has been unable to do, save New Hampshire. Remember New Hampshire? That was like, forty five states ago.)

So all of these arguments have their faults. And as evidence, the very morning after Clinton’s “game-changing” victory, Obama picked up yet another superdelegate.

I did see yet another new way to view the primary season on Morning Joe (which I was unfortunate enough to wake up to. I really, really don’t like Joe Scarborough, and need to remember to set my DVR to switch to Cartoon Network in the mornings. The Mr. Men Show is the best children’s program since Sesame Street.) After she said that “this is an election, where people get to choose” (well, the superdelegates get to choose, the people just get to keep it close enough to let them), she told us we need to look “at the election backwards.” This really gets to the root of why I’m not worried about the superdelegates. Obama is going to get to point at the primary and say “look, I won the most states, the most delegates, the most popular votes. And I’ve been able to win in states with open primaries, illustrating that I am better at bringing in independents to the party.” Clinton, meanwhile, will be saying, “But if you don’t count the small states, and don’t count the caucus states, and don’t count the red states, and place more emphasis on certain large states, and then look at it all backwards, I’m obviously the winner!! After all, this is an election, where [certain] people get to choose!” Give me a break.

The win wasn’t wholly unimportant. It does give her a reason to continue the race, when a loss would have made her sticking around very, very unpopular. But if this was football game, then she’d be down by two touchdowns late in the fourth quarter, and she just scored a field goal. It helped, but she’s still down by two scores.

Why 2008 Should Be the Superdelegates’ Last Run

One thing that has absolutely amazed me lately is how Hillary Clinton is making herself out to be the “democratic” nominee because Obama allegedly doesn’t want to count the votes in Florida or Michigan and doesn’t want to finish the primary season because he’s afraid when all the votes are counted Hillary could win.

The problem with this assertion, of course, is when all the votes are counted it’s extremely unlikely that Clinton will be winning the popular vote, virtually impossible that she will be winning the delegate vote, and mathematically impossible that she will be winning the state count. So for the past six weeks she’s been working on a campaign to get the Democrat superdelegates to overturn the results of the primary.

I’m trying to figure out how that’s the “democratic” candidate. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

The whole idea of superdelegates seems very, for a lack of a better term, Republican to me. It’s essentially based upon the idea that the people don’t always pick a good candidate. According to Wikipedia (and how could an encyclopedia which anybody can edit possibly be wrong?), superdelegates were created in response to changes made to the Democrat Party nominee process which, get this, actually made the “composition of the convention less subject to control by party leaders and more responsive to the votes cast during the campaign for the nomination.” The party elders thought this weakened the ticket of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter (I’m not sure which Carter ticket was weakened; the one when he won or the one when he was the incumbent). The superdelegates were enacted in 1982 to help the Democrats create more viable tickets to beat the Republicans. The “new and improved” system promptly lost the next two elections. In fact, the only state the Democrats carried in the 1984 election was Minnesota (home to future U.S. Senator Al Franken). And the only Democrat to become President since that time was impeached. So common sense would say this system doesn’t work too well, right?

In fairness, you can’t pin the problems of the Democrat Party on the superdelegate system. While the superdelegates did get to flex their muscle almost immediately, choosing Walter Mondale over Gary Hart in 1984, the perception that they decided this election is not exactly accurate. Mondale was leading in popular vote and was only about 40 votes shy of clinching the nomination, so it’s not like they overturned the results of the primary. And other than 1984 they haven’t even had the chance to do so, as the winning candidate had clinched the nomination before the convention.

Until this year.

It is very unlikely that Obama will get the 1025 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination. He probably will be down by quite a bit more than 40, as well. Which means Clinton will be trying her damndest to get them to overturn the will of the people. Her primary argument will be that she’s more electable, as evidence that she has won the “important” states. (That’s another funny thing about Clinton’s claim she’s the more democratic candidate. The only states that seem to count are the ones she wins.) Clinton also says she should be the nominee because she’s won more states with closed primaries. I’m not quite sure how her claim that Obama wins only because of independent voters somehow makes her more electable in a populace where a third of the voters are independent, but there’s a lot about Clinton I don’t understand. Like her St. Patrick’s Day scarf.

I’m not worried about the superdelegates, to be honest. Since Super Tuesday, Obama has been winning at least one or two a week, while Clinton is at a net loss (she did pick up four this week, according to MSNBC). He has turned her 100+ lead from at most 30 (according to MSNBC) to at least 12 (according to the NY Times). I don’t think that she has any chance of convincing enough superdelegates to her side unless she wins the popular vote, which would be disappointing but at least it would make the decision somewhat legitimate.

It’s also not likely to happen. Despite her claims to the contrary, the popular vote is not favorable to her. She’s losing by over 700,000 votes. She’s not going to make that up. And that’s if you don’t count the caucus states. And even if you count Florida she’s losing by over 400,000 votes. If you count Florida and Hillary’s Michigan votes, and if you say Obama only gets 85% of the “Uncommitted” votes in Michigan (which is an insanely pro-Hillary assumption), and if you don’t count the votes in the caucus states, Hillary would be losing by 296,261 votes. Not so bad in early February, but this is April and there are only ten contests left (and that’s a lot of “ifs”). She won’t make that up. Her only real hope to win the popular vote is to somehow count Florida and Michigan without a revote, as Obama’s name was not on the Michigan ballot. Either that or win out by unrealistic margins.

But even if Obama wins enough superdelegates to win the nomination, and he will, why should the party of the people, as I think the Democrats are, use such an elitist method to determine the nominee? Doesn’t this play into the Republican’s claims that the Democrats are, in fact, the party of elites? Say what you will about the Republicans, but voters decided to nominate John McCain and even though the party was not particularly fond of the idea, their will was granted. How could Hillary Clinton possibly defend her nomination when McCain asks why, when after thirty million people voted to chose a victor, it ended up being decided by 800 individuals, some of whom don’t even hold an elected office? By saying if you crunch the number just right, she only lost by less than one percent of the popular vote?

How can the party that feels victimized when five individuals overturned the will of the people just eight years ago now overturn the will of the voters for a mere few hundred? Is this irony lost on the Clintons? Or do they just not care? This should not be the party of the Clintons. This should be the party of Al Gore. The Clintons have been embroiled in so much scandal they actually use it as a reason to vote against Obama (“At least you know all the terrible stuff we did!! We can’t even find any real good dirt on Obama! Is that the type of person you want elected??”) Meanwhile, Al Gore wins a Nobel Peace Prize. And yet some would ignore the lessons of Gore and strip the right of their own people to determine the leader of this country for the second time in three election cycles.

The rules are the rules, and it’s too late to change them for this election cycle. But I don’t think anybody can argue that all this talk about the superdelegates this year has been good for the Democrat’s image. Thomas Jefferson once said that a government should “consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous.” That definition of a republic does not lend itself well to the final vote being merely a suggestion for a committee of one quarter of one one-thousandth of the total population to follow at their discretion. It’s time for the party created by Thomas Jefferson to elect their President by the criteria he established. Or it’s time to give way to a party that will.

As for me, I will not spit in the eye of the voting public just for the “honor” of four more years of the Clinton/Bush oligarchy.