Times Square blogging

This is the view from my hotel room on the 35th story of a luxury high-rise on Broadway. It's a comp room as a result of a project that I'm working on at this hotel all week. Nice view, eh?

Last night I fleetingly thought of throwing myself out the window in a moment of sheer desperation, but it passed. Plus, I could only open the window about five inches because they have those Eric Clapton baby guards on them. So I wasn't really tempted.

But the frustration remains, mostly at the Democratic party. I still can't believe that we're in a situation right now which will more than likely put a wacky old geezer in charge of our nation next January.

Why the hell didn't Al Gore run, like we all hoped he would? Instead, the very best our party could cough up are two very similar conservative Democrats, both of whom possess a blood-lust for the Oval Office that would embarrass Richard Nixon. Or Hubert Humphrey even.

And it's looking like we're in for a long and brutal process that will likely alienate nearly half the Democrats out there. Not to mention probably 70% of the unaffiliated voters and 100% of any moderate Republicans who might normally be tempted into voting for a true progressive candidate. Jesus!

Hey, I just noticed the window guards are only held in place with a couple of philips-head screws. Hmmm, I think my tool bag is around here somewhere...

We're in for months of hell

It could have ended tonight.

We could have had a de facto Democratic nominee.

Two stupid states could have stood up and ended this craziness. A big win by Obama in either Texas or Ohio tonight probably would have convinced Sen. Clinton to step aside.

But, no.

It ain't gonna happen. Not now. Not for a looonnng while.

The incredible irony about this is that 2008 was the year for us. The year when we had an absolute slam-fucking-dunk to take the White House. A sure thing. A piece o' cake. With cherries on top.

All we needed was a single candidate who was clean enough, and could string three or more words together in a cohesive sentence, and we'd be home free.

And what happens?

The Democrats managed to somehow cough up TWO candidates that have managed to split the electorate RIGHT DOWN THE GODDAMNED MIDDLE!

What this does is two-fold. First, we get another six weeks to SIX MONTHS of party infighting and sniping, which will give the Republicans ammunition for the general election; and second, it raises the likelihood of a brokered (and fractured) convention in August.

All of which will help ensure that the hand most likely to answer that stupid fucking phone at 3AM is going to be male, old, and liberally festooned with liver spots!

Is that his age?

You're not my friend

Jesus, if there's one thing that makes me want to spit, it's hearing John Sidney McCain the Third begin every other sentence with "my friends..."

Enough with the "my friends" bit, dipshit! I'm not your friend, I've never been your friend, and even if every single friend of mine burned to death in some tragically flammable coincidence, I'll STILL never be your friend! I don't care HOW many times you hopefully utter that sad, pathetic catch-phrase.

Oh, and I hate the way you say "Tally Bon" for Taliban and "Warshington" for Washington.

You're older than electricity and you dress funny.

And you smell like Polly Grip and Depends!

(Please vote for "ConnecticutBob.Com" for "Most Intellectual Blog 2008". Thank you, my friends.)

CNN shows image from my video

My version of Hillary's "3AM" video has gotten a lot of play over the last few days. Of course, that's a relative term; if I put up a video of a cat playing the piano I'd have about 100 times as many views. But for a political spoof ad, it's doing pretty good. Out of all 155 of my Youtube videos, this one is already in sixth place.

So it didn't come as any surprise when CNN featured a couple of clips from it as part of a story on parodies of Hillary's ad. First, they showed the title of the clip (above), and then they included the clip below, with the word "Jesus" blurred out. I kind of like the blurring; it makes my video even funnier, because the viewer is running all sorts of filthy words through their head as they try to guess what the word was!

They didn't credit me in the piece, but that's no surprise because they included clips from about a dozen videos. And by showing the title, some people will search Youtube for it and get it that way.

The CNN.com piece is viewable HERE.

And, just in case you missed it, here's my "3AM" video:

Diebold accidently reveals 2008 results

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election EarlyEvery so often The Onion hits one out of the ballpark.

Place your bets

Going into this week's primaries, Barack Obama is holding about a 100-delegate lead over Hillary Clinton, depending on whose scorecard you read.

I did an examination of the varying totals a while back. The amounts of pledged (won) delegates are solid, but the super delegates aren't required to honor any stated preference to a candidate. Even so, we can assume the majority of super delegates who have pledged to vote for a candidate probably won't change unless something major happens.

On Tuesday a total of 444 delegates will be in play, with each state awarding delegates based on districts won by the candidates.

Based on the latest trends, we see Hillary leading slightly in Ohio and overwhelmingly in Rhode Island, while Vermont is firmly in Barack's favor and Texas is basically a toss-up. Using the most recent polls and extrapolating the percentages into delegates, we can expect Clinton to get around 224 delegates and Obama 220. Of course, my calculations don't take district projections into account, so I'll probably be off somewhat.

A result like that could be a disaster for Clinton. She needs a significant victory in the delegates to stay viable, something like 300 to 144. Or even 280 to 164. Anything less than about a 100 delegate net gain would keep Obama firmly in the lead, and we'll start hearing calls for Clinton to drop out of the race for the sake of the party's chances in November.

Looking ahead, the Democrats only have a few big states left. Obama will probably split delegates with Clinton in Saturday's Wyoming caucus (18 delegates) and win heavily in next Tuesday's Mississippi primary (40 delegates), and then there's another chance for Clinton to gain, in the Pennsylvania primary (188 delegates).

The problem is, can the party tolerate this bitter contest continuing for at least another six weeks, since the Pennsylvania primary isn't scheduled until April 22nd?

Then we have Indiana and North Carolina (218 total) on May 6th and a handful of smaller contests after that which equal roughly 274 delegates. But if it goes that long, we'll absolutely see it go to the convention in late August, where the super delegates will in effect be appointing the nominee. Also, the question of Michigan and Florida will come back to haunt the party.

And that would be the worst possible scenario.

I know what I'd like to see happen on Tuesday. A decisive victory by Obama, something like 270-174. That would probably be enough to generate widespread calls for Clinton to throw in the towel.

And then we can start working on how to beat John Sidney McCain III in November.

Matt Drudge is a dick

OK, I know I'm not going out on a limb here. We all know this guy is an "attention whore".

And, just to prevent my remarks from being misconstrued; yes, I literally mean that Matt Drudge has sex with complete strangers in exchange for attention!

There. I said it. I don't want to get into one of those ridiculous "Hillary pimping out Chelsea" controversies, so I'll admit it right up front.

Plus, he can kiss my ass.

Never the less, he really proved what a dick he is by amplifying some vague rumors that Prince what's-his-face was deployed in Afghanistan. Now, I don't really give a shit about the British royals. In fact, I think they serve beautifully as a warning against breeding within too small a population to support genetic diversity. But even that retarded-looking ginger kid deserved the opportunity to serve his country in anonymity.

But Matt Drudge took it upon himself to break the "story" and thus endanger the prince and his fellow soldiers.

How can he possibly justify doing that? This isn't a Monica Lewinsky story. It has nothing to do with politics, especially American politics. This is simply an example of Drudge's relentless quest for publicity and notoriety.

The entire British media, a motley collection of ruffians and rapscallions, managed to keep their attention-whoring traps shut about this. An Australian paper ran a little mention of it, but it wasn't picked up. One or two other sources possibly mentioned it in passing. Nothing ever came from these whispers.

But leave it to Ol' Sourpuss to ruin things for everyone!

If he had revealed the name and location of a famous American in Afghanistan, can you imagine the uproar we'd hear from everyone in the media? But for some reason, this Inspector Gadget resembling idiot is getting a pass.

Well, not from ME he doesn't! What he did was inexcusable and undoubtedly criminal. There's no justifiable reason to endanger someone simply for the fleeting publicity of an international story.

Let me make something clear, Matt Drudge; this isn't a fucking game, you moron! This is people's LIVES!

Hillary scores laughs on SNL

Hillary Clinton appeared on Saturday Night Live last night. She did a great job, which may help diffuse the growing trend of portraying her as "shrill". She looked relaxed and seemed to enjoy the bit.

With every vote critical in this week's Ohio and Texas primaries, we'll see if this might translate into the difference she needs to hold off Barack Obama.

The clip below might disappear shortly, as NBC has already pulled clips from Youtube. If it does, then simply google "Hillary SNL video" and you'll probably find it somewhere.

Understanding the "Texas Two-step"

This Tuesday brings the last big swarm of Democratic primaries. After that, we'll see mostly single state primaries such as Wyoming (Mar 8), Mississippi (Mar 11), Pennsylvania (Apr 22), and stragglers going into May including Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oregon. But this coming Tuesday will be the last large grouping of delegates awarded, a total of 444.

Texas has a traditional system using a mix of primary and caucuses for their delegates. First, they have a standard primary which uses a direct ratio of votes to delegates to account for 126 delegates. Early voting started a while back, and ends Tuesday evening.

Then, starting at 7PM Tuesday, the state Democrats will hold caucuses to determine the remaining 67 delegates. So they base 2/3 of the delegates on Primary votes, and 1/3 on Caucus votes.

Plus, there's a rather intricate system involved in awarding the caucus delegates, as depicted in the graphic above. (Click to enlarge it)

Already there's concern about the limited sizes of the caucus places, which may result in smaller turnouts or caucus-goers being turned away. This might work in Clinton's favor, since Obama seems to do better in caucuses. DailyKos is on top of the situation with this story.