I’ve been stuck in the hospital for the past four days with plenty of time to watch television. As I ingest more politics than usual I am becoming intensely irritated at the tone of all messaging coming from Team Obama. It started at the inauguration speech where Obama used this historic occasion to slam his predecessor in front of the entire world with direct and subtle insults and references to the past eight years. Classy. This theme is still alive and well, someone apparently forgot to tell the White House that it’s okay to look forward now; Bush and Cheney have moved out. If you listen to Obama, Biden or the “PC Guy” press secretary you will hear repeated “past eight years” references. Team Obama is still campaigning.
Here’s an example: Just this morning, during the confirmation of Eric Holder (don’t get me started), Joe Biden said something like “There is no room for politics in this position. We are returning to an era where ideology is not part of the process.” This is a classic Bidenism: In the same sentence he contradicts himself. By using the phrase “returning to…” Biden slammed thee Bush administration by implying that ideology was the rule. This is patently false, and it’s an emotional stab that the left is quite fond of. (I will insert the actual quote once I find the text, I watched it live).
I could easily gather more samples of this, but my point is that Mr. Hope and Change needs to get the message out to his people that divisive statements, reminders of the previous administration, and overall insults are NOT what he campaigned on. It helped him win, but for God’s sake take a clue from your supporters and MOVE ON. Look forward. Try to bring the country together instead of driving the parties further apart. You won, try to have some class.
After watching the debates and then the reactions of ‘independents’ on various networks I am convinced that the mindless masses will put Obama into the White House. After all, our society now more than ever has become about flash over substance, image over content. Obama is handsome, has a great smile and can read a teleprompter like no other. McCain is an old white man with damaged shoulders that makes him look even older. Obama is smooth like Billy D. Williams, McCain is fiesty like Ross Perot. Today’s youth of America care more about who gets punked, who sleeps with who and whether or not Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O will survive their next bout with stupidity. Where have our priorities gone?
So I did the most basic of research this weekend to see how this all unfolded. CNN has a nice graphic that shows how the Primaries unfolded by date and state. Scroll down a bit and click on the date January 15. You willsee that Romney was ahead and Huckabee was in second place. On January 19 McCain moved into second place. Maine did what it could to help out and pushed Romney into a tie, and then Florida reared it’s ugly, humid head and stunk the place up. All of those military retirees jumped on the “war hero” bandwagon and voted for McCain. So did all of the Mormon haters. This pushed McCain out front.
Super Tuesday sealed the deal. Why? Because Huckabee stuck around too long. Despite having less than 1/3 of the delegates of Romney or McCain, he stuck around like that last guest after a long party at your house, or the third wheel at a bar. He cannibalized the party like Perot and Nader. And he had the gall to stick around even longer to rub it in.
Below is a map of the states that voted for McCain (yellow) and Huckabee (light blue).
Looking at the map above we can thank the south, the tri-state northeast, California and Florida for the mess we are in.
The table below shows how the McCain/Huckabee Super Tuesday states voted. You can see many instances where if you split the votes from states that Huckabee votes evenly between McCain and Romney that Romney would have won, CA, GA, MO and TN become statistical ties and Romney would have won VA. We’ll never know the actual percentage of Huck votes that would have gone to McCain or Romney. But it would have been a true race instead of a diluted political mess.
Why did Huckabee stick around so long? He had the very vocal support of the far right of the Conservative spectrum. Like sharks, they could smell blood and thought that a victory was possible. Steadfast, inflexible single-issue voters slapped on their Pro-Life buttons and ingored the fact that we were at war and in the midst of serious economic issues. Of all the candidates, Romney was the only one that had a clue about money and the economy. He made himself into a billioaire, leads a company, ran a state and fixed corruption in the Olympics. Yet the right thought Huckabee was the answer, and old milatary folks felt it was McCain’s turn to lead. Thank you for your service, and thank you for not seeing the bigger picture. Now that much of your retirement is gone are you thinking you made a mistake during the primaries?
So to the voters in the swing states I’ve described here I respectfully offer a heart-felt “F” YOU. Enjoy the Obamanation we are about to suffer through for the next four years. Here’s what it will look like:
The Next Four Years
