Despite the insane and mathematically challenged ramblings of some of my colleagues, Hillary Clinton is still losing, and badly. The end result of her marginal victories in Ohio, Texas, and some County which likes to think it is a state, on March 4th was a mere +6 net gain of delegates. Given that Obama was leading at the time by over 100 delegates, you’ll excuse me if I don’t see Hillary as a serious challenge to Obama’s lead. Add to that the fact that Obama won a +7 net gain of delegates in Wyoming and Mississippi, which not only erased her progress, but pushed her further under, and it is pretty clear that Hillary is getting into deeper and deeper delegate trouble.
Given Hillary’s continued failure to achieve any measure of real success in this primary, one cannot help but notice the extreme arrogance of her suggestion that Obama become her VP. Excuse me Hillary, but you are losing. You don’t get to offer the current front runner second place. Maybe expecting an ex-Republican state swapping hussy like Hillary to have some class is a bit too much to ask, but this kind of audacity manages to dive under even my low opinion of Hillary. It’s no wonder that black voters are turning from her in droves. She is basically asking Obama to move to the back of the Democratic bus.
This latest arrogant misstatement by Hillary just serves to further emphasize the fact that if the Democrats want a snowball’s chance in hell to win the 2008 election, they will need to give Obama the nomination. Hillary has shown us that she cares nothing for the will of the people, the democratic process, or even common decency. Top this off with the fact that she is despised and hated by a large portion of the body of Democratic voters, while McCain is actually pretty well liked by the same voters, and a Hillary vs. McCain match-up is a clear recipe for a Republican victory.
The 12 Angry Men Blog 
March 18, 2008 at 9:51 am
And this would be bad how? The last thing we need at this time are traditional Democratic taxing and economic policies. McCain at least has a record of avoiding major tax increases.
March 18, 2008 at 1:01 pm
McCain wouldn’t necessarily be a bad choice. I think I can actually vote for him with good conscience. But the last eight years have already shown us that Republicans are as bad, or worse, as Democrats when it comes to the economy.
Now I think McCain is more in line with traditional conservatives, but I expect him to toe the neo-con line if elected. Obama I have some hope would actually bring some success in some sorely needed areas.
March 18, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Ok, to me the biggest economic issue is reestablishing the dollar’s place against the world’s currencies, which probably has to start with some major policy changes domestically. If a McCain administration continues with the Bush policies, will that correct this crisis? Alternatively, do either of the Democrats have a good plan to attack this? I’m not sure of any candidate at this point.
March 18, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I’d say the far greater economic issue is the departure of important unskilled labor, the lending crisis which is threatening our entire financial structure, continued increase of our deficit/GDP ratio, unchallenged and unanswered threats to our agricultural sector from South America, and a housing crisis hitting America’s most needy.
March 19, 2008 at 9:09 am
Damn AM,
No wonder you like Obama. If you look at the labor statistics, you will find that the US created more jobs than were exported. In fact there is a developing trend that shows that US industries are rethinking the whole outsourcing thing (Quality issues among others) and looking to preserve certain areas, like tool and die machinists.
The lending crisis is an engineered crisis in the sense that financial engineering of swaps and derivatives are the major contributer to the problem. The liquidity crisis developed because fundamentally, banks no longer have a way to value the instruments that were created. While the packaging of subprime loans was the trigger, the real problem was the fine print in the swap contracts and CDOs. At best there is a trillion dollars of loan dollars out there and about 5-6 trillion of derivatives. Its the derivatives that is causing the problem. Oh and the Alt-A loans are a larger pool and we are going to have to do this all over again.
We have stupid agriculture policies that were created during the Dust Bowl to protect farmers from variances in nature but which have morphed into payouts for conglomerates. South America, Brazil especially, has essentially ripped off Monsanto for their Roundup soybean genotype. The Roundup Ready strain, a GMO, was replanted in Brazil without paying royalties. This seed delivers a 3-4X increase in yield. The US, even with the government subsidies not to plant, delivers the highest production rate in the world.
And finally, there are valid arguments on both sides for the deficit/GDP issue. This one is hard. But again, if Japan buys up half of California, its not like they are coming over and carving off a chunk of the continent and moving it to the Nipponese islands. The important thing to remember is that it is “inactivity” that is the killer. As long as money, or debt is circulating, then there is health in the markets. Remember that China has a very high saving rate — upwards of 25%. All that this has done is to convince depository institutions to lend money recklessly. China corporate loans are way into default. Makes the mortgage crisis look pathetically small.
March 19, 2008 at 9:22 am
I agree with Husker that strengthening the dollar should be a priority. We need to get a handle on inflation and this “core inflation” nonsense needs to stop. After all, we don’t have dollars and “core dollars” and most of people’s income now is going to gas and food — those non-core items.
Unless of course this weak dollar policy is some exceedingly clever plan to destroy our competition (China).
I believe that this is not necessarily Bush’s policy although he gets the credit/blame for everything that happens. Recently he made some statements regarding the strengthening of the dollar and was “clarified and amplified” back to the status quo weak dollar language. Bush has certain “strong values” he drives like Arab state democracy, but you can’t be strong in everything — it requires way too much thinking. So I would guess that there is another group, probably with tight ties to Wall Street given what the Fed is doing, that believes that a weak dollar is good. They are also probably pretty well isolated from the day-to-day expenses most Americans have to deal with.
McCain might support another group that is more concerned about inflation. Hard to tell. The problem is that Bush has not made a strong dollar his initiative. (yet). McCain might.