It's Super Tuesday...

[jsbowden]

Which means pretty much nothing to me here in the Commonwealth of VA. I don't register a party affiliation because I don't vote a straight party ticket. If VA doesn't have open primaries, the decision is made for me, and even if we do, I still doubt I'll bother with the primaries. I've never done so in the past and I see no reason to start now.

The real question, which no one has asked, is whether this "Super" Tuesday is a Superhero or a Supervillain!

Now, I know people don't like her, but I'm hoping for Hillary. I like the Clintons. Yeah yeah, Obama's all "Hey, I'm the young guy here, not tainted by Washington! I have audacious hope! And my father's dreams!"

I live in Washington. If this man thinks he can transcend DC politics by fiat, he's about to learn a hard lesson. The Democrats will love him and hold him and pet him and probably not call him George (only thanks to Dubya's eight year reign of incompetence, but who knows, perhaps Steinbeck will prevail in the end!) all the way to the White House. Then the real fun begins. Congress will make him their bitch if he doesn't understand how to play ball on the Hill, and quite frankly, the junior senator from Illinois only has a taste of what's really involved in DC power politics. It'll be fun to watch at least. Assuming the Republicans don't tear him apart between now and November.

The thing I give to the Clintons where politics are concerned is that they know the game inside and out, they know how to win, and they aren't afraid to do whatever it takes to do it. I also happen to think she's smart and capable, that she knew about Lewinsky and didn't care (or even encouraged it, but in America today, that's just not a thing the general populace would find acceptable), and that yeah, she's a bit hawkish on foreign policy, but I'm okay with that too.

In the end, I'm okay with Obama or Clinton. Really, McCain is insane, but he's scarily, the least insane of the Republican potentials, and that says just how far the party has fallen.

The VA primary is an afterthought, unless Clinton and Obama come out of today still closely tied for convention delegates, which I don't see happening. Today, someone wins, and someone goes home.

Comments

[publius1.livejournal.com]

I'll be perfectly happy with Hillary Clinton as my nominee, but today will not decide that.

Matt is correct; there will be split delegates this Super Tuesday, and neither major Democratic candidate will have nearly enough delegates to win outright; we are looking at a brokered convention, which makes Edwards' decision to drop out prior to Super Tuesday especially bizarre.

Bobama and Billary -- both fantastic candidates. I'll be happy for either. You're being rather unfair about Obama, but we'll see.

[cmseward.livejournal.com]

Why is John McCain considered the scary Republican candidate? From what I've seen, he seems to be the most sane out of all of them. (Honest question, I have seen him described thus in a lot of places, so I'm willing to take that opinion as valid, I just don't geddit.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_constantine/]

I'm leaning ever-so-slightly towards Obama. Joe Klein had an article in this week's Time about how Bill has taken a much larger role since Hillary got smacked down a few times in the early primaries, and how he needs to back off from his image as co-candidate. That's a valid concern there.

Obama has got this whole "same old people doing the same old things" schtick that might galvanize (the mostly left-leaning) younger people to vote, and Republicans hate Hillary so much that her winning the Primary might galvanize more right-leaning people to vote.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Look up his voting record (a google search will come up with ..rather more than you want to know). He plays the maverick and yes, does pick some fights with his party, but when it comes down to basic party principles, he is a very very solid Republican.

I don't like it when someone who pretended to blunt, "Straight talk" goes so far off the rails just to become President. It scares me, too.

[blueingenue.livejournal.com]

Obama's got the audacity of reaching for the Grand Puba get-up before paying his dues. If he remains untainted by Washington after a few more years, that will be impressive. OTOH, this candidate was rolled off-the-scale on INT, CHA, and maybe even WIS (the premature presidential bid is questionable), so maybe he can tangle with the players with higher XP.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Though Clinton clearly has higher STA and a pet with a lot of STR...

Ok, I'm stopping this now!

[jrolsma.livejournal.com]

From a strictly anecdotal position, this primary has brought people out of the woodwork. Turnout in NM (one of the super-duper primary states - not that they mention it on the news at all) was pretty impressive from my perspective[1].

Love them or hate them, both candidates bring out strong feelings.

[1] That would be from standing in line waiting to vote. I wanted to vote for Edwards, but someone out there hates me too much to let that happen.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

If it comes down to Hillary vs Huckabee or Romney, I cry and vote John Stewart (with cthulu for VP), or stay home. If it comes down to Obama vs McCain, I have to actually do some work to decide which set of pros outweighs which set of cons.

I am middle leaning, with positions on both sides. If it's Hillary vs McCain, I will be motivated. I like Bill, as a person. I disagree with his political actions, but I like him. Him being involved in the campaign isn't a problem for me, except as it reflects a dynasty, and a certain amount of arrogance. We've already seen, the Bush dynasty has been bad, let's not make that mistake again.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Hey, in Virginia they were calling the election board asking why they couldn't vote yesterday, and our election isn't even scheduled till next week. It's an important primary.