I had a good conversation with Misters Eric Munoz and Joshua Sklarsky last night (leave it to Sklarsky to get back to campus and immediately jump into a political discussion) revolving around the 2008 primaries. One interesting point that we got to dealt with the potential chaos surrounding the Democratic National Convention, courtesy of John Edwards and superdelegates:
- Edwards isn't a fool for staying in the race. He brings a new face to the debates, carries his own reasonable views that should be expressed, and is still garnering acceptable support. Furthermore, with his wife battling cancer, he may have to hang up his political career after this. Why not go all out until the very end?
- Consider: If Florida and Michigan stay out of it, unpledged superdelegates make up about 20% of the delegates at the convention. Let's say that Edwards continues his pattern and ends up with 15% of pledged delegates, which would give him 12% overall. Now assume that Obama and Clinton end up more or less tied, with 34% of total delegates each. Got it? Good.
- A candidate needs a majority of delegates to win the nomination, so the two frontrunners wouldn't have anything locked up by August. However, note the 12% from Edwards and the 20% of the supers that are up in the air. Capturing this massive 32% of the delegates could give either of the three a victory.
- Yes, I said either. This group could give one of the frontrunners all they need to win, OR they could magically (but unlikely) side with Edwards and create a three-way tie. I'm not sure how that would be resolved, but I'm pretty sure it would be hell.
So here's a different thought. What if the national party had been gearing up to give the nomination to Hillary in 2008, but Obama came and screwed things up? That would explain the fierce fighting from the Clinton camp and the initial rush of superdelegates to the former first lady. But with the recent Kennedy endorsements, perhaps advocates of the initial plan are finally breaking ranks.
Now for a few notes on the Republican side. The Romney/McCain battle is pretty amusing. Romney said today that he wouldn't accept being McCain's VP because he doesn't want to work with a president who doesn't know anything about the economy. A state governor telling a US senator that he's clueless on a national issue? Good grief...they must be taking a page from the Democrats' drama. Also, Rudy Giuliani looks ready to lose in Florida, which is incredibly funny, being that he based his entire campaign on it. His managers deserve to be shot.
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The weblog's been overrun with political nonsense; it has been, after all, a pretty salient topic. But do not despair! A soon as Spring Training games begin, baseball discussion will come back in full force! For example:
Rumor has it that Erik Bedard is on the verge of being traded to the Mariners. Reports claiming this as pure fact came out last night, but apparently were debunked by the players involved and team execs today. I hope this goes through, though--getting rid of both Bedard and Tejada will make playing the O's a lot less painful. And as soon as Brian Roberts goes on the DL, the nuisance will be completely eradicated.
On a totally different note, I'm a little disgusted that a movie like Meet the Spartans ruled at box offices this weekend. Either we really have gotten that dumb as a society or the movie market isn't too hot at the moment. I'm praying for the latter.
This headline makes me happy:
Bush prepares final State of the Union address
But I'll leave you on this note:
"It is time now for a new generation of change. It is time now for Barack Obama" ~ Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
