Seth Warren

The Democratic Convention starts next week, from Monday the 25^th through Thursday the 28^th. The mainstream media would have us believe that Barack Obama has the nomination sewn up, however, those of us who have actually read the rules know this to be untrue. There is no nominee until the votes are cast and unpledged delegate endorsements don't count until that time. Until then, there is still time to lean on Democratic leaders to nominate Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic Party standard-bearer going into the general election.

So, superdelegates, it's up to you; Ed Rendell is voting for Hillary, will the rest of you do the right thing and follow suit? Or, you could all keep going down your current path and try to force us to settle for Barack Obama, which will lead to a humiliating defeat at the hands of John McCain, the most boring republican since Bob Dole. Your choice, superdelegates.

I have been giving my DJ rig a work-out in preparation for a couple of weddings I've been booked for, scanning my political "blogroll" in-between song transitions. From that, I managed to yank a link to an editorial published today in the New York Sun. The jist: what if Obama keeps sinking like a stone in the polls and the superdelegates grow a spine and act on the buyer's remorse they must surely be feeling? An except:

Mr. McCain is running roughly even in the polls with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Mr. Obama, a time when he is supposed to be way ahead. In early August of 1988, Governor Dukakis was ahead of Vice President Bush by a wide margin. In early August of 2004, Senator Kerry was ahead of President Bush. If Mr. Obama doesn't have a big lead now, it could get pretty ugly for the Democrats as November approaches, the theory goes.

It will only get worse when Messrs. McCain and Obama face off in presidential debates. The public will discover that Mr. Obama, notwithstanding his reputation as a silver-tongued orator, is not that good a debater — which explains why he did his best to dodge debate invitations from Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain. Feature Mr. Obama's flubbering on the outbreak of war between Russia and Georgia.

Is all this enough to prompt Democratic super-delegates to re-think their allegiance to Mr. Obama and hand the nomination to Senator Clinton? If you count Michigan, Mrs. Clinton won the reported popular vote in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, 17.8 million to 17.5 million, and won many of the hotly contested big battleground states that the Democrats need to win in November — Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, New York, New Jersey, Florida. She won Massachusetts even after Senators Kennedy and Kerry endorsed Mr. Obama.

Take away the delegates Mr. Obama has by virtue of the endorsement of Senator Edwards, who has newly admitted deceiving the electorate about the adultery he committed while his wife lay stricken with cancer, and the delegate gap is even narrower. Even Mr. Obama doesn't have enough delegates to win the nomination without the super-delegates, so there wouldn't be anything terribly exceptional about the super-delegates putting her rather than him over the top.

I predict that, should events unfold with no change in their current path, the Democrats will lose in an embarrassing landslide this November. While small-minded and petty individuals will try to blame Hillary Clinton, the truth they will refuse to admit is that the fault will lie squarely on the shoulders of Barack Obama and the superdelegates who shoved him into the position of "presumptive nominee."

There were two proposed ammendements to the Democratic Platform, numbered 93 and 102 which directly addressed voting issues in regards to the Democratic Primary. Ammendment 93 would have made it so that caucuses were scrapped in favour of primaries while ammendment 102 stated that there would be no geographical preferences giving one state a disproportionate delegate advantage over another. Both of these ammendments were struck down on a technicality (ruled out of order) - the only ammendments to suffer this fate - as not being under the juristiction of the Platform Committee. The Chair claimed that such matters were the domain of the Rules Committee.

This is neither a good day for the Democratic Party or Democracy. If the voice of the people is not to be heard, what matters the rest of the platform?

Freedom Corner is a monument at the intersections of Crawford Street and Centre Avenue in Pittsburgh. It was at this location where Democratic Committee Chairman Howard Dean decided to make his Western Pennsylvania stop for his "Register for Change" tour, in support of the candidacy of Barack Obama.

I decided to attend, not so much because I felt I would be convinced to support the presumptive democratic nominee, but because I wished to speak with Howard Dean directly and also I wanted to know if any other PUMAs would show up. Initially, everyone whom I spoke to seemed to be on the Obama bandwagon. For the sake of peace in the neighbourhood, I merely told anyone who asked that I was undecided.

As Dean began speaking, I noticed people holding signs outside of the barrier which had been erected to separate the event from the rest of the world. Upon them in marker were messages such as, "18 Million Voices Silenced" and "Uphold the Constitution." I knew immediately that these were the people I wanted to be speaking to, and went over to chat with them for the duration of Dean's speech. Frankly, I doubt I missed much by not tuning in to what Dean was saying as the overall message was the same spiel that party officials have been trying to convince us of since Hillary was kicked to the curb: we are a party united and we are going to win this! If only...

After Dean was done speaking, I positioned myself to "buttonhole" him. I waited patiently as he spoke to what seemed like every media outlet in the region. When they were done getting sound and video clips from him, I called out, "Chairman Dean!"

Shaking his hand, I told him that I wished to implore him to push primary election reform. At that point, I was expecting him to blow me off with a quick, "okay, sure" and move on, however, I was pleasantly surprised when he asked, "what would you like to see changed?"

I told him that the caucuses should be scraped in favour of closed primaries for all states. All of these primaries should be tallied as one person to one vote - no exceptions (this means that delegate counts would not be inflated for certain areas based on demographics). He agreed with me about ending the caucuses in favour of primaries, but said that he believed that thoroughly closed primaries were a bad idea; while I believe that only registered Democrats should be allowed to vote in Democratic primaries, Dean favours allowing independents/decline to state voters a voice as well (albeit, members of other parties would not be allowed to vote in Democratic Primaries unless they changed their registration beforehand).

Overall, I found Howard Dean quite personable and was impressed that he allowed me the one on one time to speak my mind about something I'm sure he's been hearing from at least some people at every campaign stop. It was a very good gesture on his part and hopefully we will actually see some reform in the process. Still, I remain unimpressed and unmoved regarding Obama. As such...

PARTY UNITY MY ASS!

This is a film currently in production about how Barack Obama stole the Democratic nomination:

PARTY UNITY MY ASS!

When I registered as a Democrat nearly a decade ago, my mother said that I had only done it to annoy her (she is - or was - a registered republican). I don't know if I said or thought it (I don't recall being smacked, so it was probably a thought), but my retort was, "no - that's merely frosting." In 1998, when I turned 18 and mailed in my voter registration for St. Lawrence County in Northern New York, Bill Clinton was in his second term. I barely remember Ronald Reagan - he's more of a symbol to me than anything else - but I did remember the Bush I years and how upset I was over the Gulf War. Most of my political "experience" was via what I had read in history textbooks, but what stuck with me was this: throughout history, good things happened when Democrats and progressives were in office (i.e.: Franklin Roosevelt) while bad things happened when republicans and conservatives were in office (i.e.: Richard Nixon).