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Riding to my rescue was one of Huffington Post's own commenters, who not only suggested I write a pro-Hillary article, but also outlined what I should say in it. I thought the idea had merit, but instead of just swiping his idea and writing my own words around it, I offered him the opportunity to write it himself.
All hope is not lost, though. Because the House passed a version of the bill which did not include the retroactive amnesty for lawbreaking telecommunications companies. Because the Senate bill is different, it now goes to conference committee. What gets voted out of committee will be voted on again by both the House and Senate. It's a slim reed to cling to at this point, but hopefully House Democrats will stand firm against Bush and the GOP.
Democrats in Michigan and Florida need to vote again. It's as simple as that. Because it is the only fair thing to do. People are already shouting "Unfair!" about the situation, from many directions. Most of them are right, or at least have a valid point. The only way to resolve this mess is to go back to square one and do it all over. Because while it's not the best outcome for every faction, it is the only truly fair way to handle the situation as it stands now.
And one more thing to drive a wedge between McCain and his party -- both Clinton and Obama should begin questioning John McCain's position on torture. This backs him into a corner, because he's (obviously, and with good reason) against it, but his base feels differently about it. Forcing him to talk about it, after the Bush administration this week admitted that it had waterboarded prisoners, is an excellent way to weaken him even further with the GOP base right now.
Our party is now pretty equally divided between myself and Senator Clinton. The race is about tied. We are obviously the two strongest candidates this party has to offer to win the White House in 2008. We both have our relative strengths, and much of the electorate is genuinely conflicted over who to select in the voting booth. Some say this is fracturing our party, but I don't believe that is true. The Republican Party is divided because of antipathy among their different factions for their various candidates -- but I'm proud to say that our party is conflicted over who is the best between two very good choices.
So I would like to take this opportunity to offer Senator Clinton the Vice Presidential spot on the Democratic ticket, should I be nominated for President. Should she be nominated, and should she offer the same to me, I am publicly saying I would accept that as well. I think both of us should get behind the idea of a 'dream ticket' right here on this stage. I challenge my opponent to do the same.
Having said that, I have to say I did pretty good picking Super Tuesday winners. But since I do this rarely, I'll get to the winner tote board in a minute, as I'd like to review my writing on the presidential race in general. If you just want to see the numbers, scroll down to the end of this article.
If you could spend $50 million of someone else's money to save your job, would you?
I suspect most people would answer "yes" to that. Actually, that's not true -- I suspect most people would say "Forget the job, can I just have the 50 million dollars?"
This means we return to our "pick the primary winners" series, for what could be the last time. One program note: because of the tidal wave of primaries tomorrow, the rules for picking winners need a little revision. Because there are so many states voting tomorrow, because there are effectively only two candidates left on the Democratic side, and because most of the Republican contests are "winner take all" as far as delegates go; I will only be selecting the winner for each party and each state today. Sorry Mitt, but silver and gold just don't count for much anymore.
This column is dedicated to the idea that Democrats can learn to use talking points as effectively as Republicans often do. This idea annoys many who feel that Democrats using talking points is degrading, and stoops to Republican tactics; a position I don't agree with, but still respect. But sometimes even I have to take Democrats to task for not backing up such talking points with action, or at the very least a plan of action.
As the field of candidates from both parties narrows, it is now possible to talk of the possible matchups in November in a single column.
But before I get into this candidate versus that, I would like to point out one more interesting thing about this year's election. It's a footnote, really, but an interesting one nonetheless: there's a large chance that this year will be only the third time Americans have elected a sitting senator. There's been a sort of "curse of the Senate" hanging over presidential candidates ever since JFK became the second to make the leap. While this isn't as exciting as electing the first black or woman to the White House, it will be one more reason this year's election isn't exactly like the others. By my figuring, there's a 75% chance we'll have a senator moving to the Oval Office next year.