Clinton right about something? - Edwards out?

Damn it. I hate when Hillary Clinton might be right. After all, now that I've come out as endorsing Barack Obama for president, I'm supposed to take his side in their little battles, but unfortunately, my greater obligation is to honesty.

Last night Hillary Clinton won the Florida Democratic primary. But, due to changes in the primary, and a battle with the party, the Democrats had earlier decided not to certify the primary or to seat any delegates from Florida, rendering the primary meaningless. All the candidates had agreed to this, and none actively campaigned in the sunshine state as a result.

Now that Clinton has won, she says she'll fight to have the Florida delegates seated, to which Obama is claiming that's not fair. Now, on the one hand, Obama is right; they had all agreed before the primary that it would yield no delegates and they campaigned (or didn't) accordingly. Changing the rules now, after the fact, just doesn't seem fair.

The problem is that it was a stupid decision to decertify the Florida primary in the first place. If I'm going to be intellectually honest with myself and my readers, continue maintaining that the restoration of democracy in the U.S. is my top priority, and ever post another "Carnival of the Decline of Democracy," I've got to stand up for the right of Florida's Democrats to have a say at their convention - even if it means that decision could hurt my candidate of choice.

Meanwhile John Edwards is expected to drop out of the Presidential race today, which is too bad. I like John Edwards, and I think if he continued to collect delegates he could play a big role in the Democratic convention in shaping the eventual ticket. He ran a good campaign, and is a decent guy - not easy traits for a lawyer and a politician.

Anyone but Hillary?

There are by now dozens of anti-Hillary Clinton web sites out there, with most of them run by Republicans with the presumption of her being the Democratic nominee. These sites tend to go beyond calm discussion of her policy positions into personal bashing, name calling, and threats. But there are a small, and I believe growing, number of anti-Hillary blogs and sites that come from the grassroots Democratic side.

These sites are a bit more shy about their approach, as they don't want to throw the election to whomever the Republican nominee ends up being, but they're equally terrified of a Hillary Clinton presidency. I can relate. These sites are generally talking about her support for the war, her support of the surveillance-security state, and her massive amounts of corporate lobbyist dollars.

As the media is sure to point out every five minutes, Clinton is leading in all the Democratic primary voter polls, with Barack Obama second, and John Edwards bringing up the rear (followed by all those other guys). Clinton is leading, but she hasn't won yet. And here's something to note: she could win the majority of the primaries, but not get the nomination.

How could that happen? The primaries don't choose the nominee; the Convention does. And, while some states give all their delegates to the winner of that state's primary, others send proportional numbers of delegates based on the actual primary results. And, once at the convention, delegates can switch candidates if there's no winner on the first ballot.

What got me thinking about this, and the possibility of a convention-time mutiny against the front-runner, is listening to John Edwards most recent comments about the two candidates leading him. Edwards is increasingly vocal about Senator Clinton's shortfalls, and increasingly praising of Senator Obama.

Check out this bit of Edwardsian prose, courtesy of NPR:

"The cause of ending poverty in America is a cause that's very central to what I want to do as president, and central to my life. ... And there is at least one other candidate on this stage who has also spoken, strongly and eloquently, about doing something about poverty in America, and it's Sen. [Barack] Obama [of Illinois], and I applaud him for having done that: I think our voices together are more powerful than our voices alone."

Here's my theory (hopeful thinking?): The new Edwards strategy is not to win very many primaries. He knows that ain't gonna happen. His strategy is simply to gather enough convention delegates to deny Clinton the nomination on the first ballot. He can then negotiate with Obama to decide what the Democratic ticket will be.

It's not a bad strategy, if I'm right. And it would make Edwards the ultimate "Anyone but Hillary" player. It might even make the convention worth watching again, rather than the canned speeches and predictable events they've been the last couple of decades.

Does anybody else think this is a possibility, or am I just crazy? How about the math? Does anybody have the figures on which states are winner-take-all, delegate-wise, and which are proportional?

Coulter: "Offensive remarks OK if they're not true!"

The story, if you haven't heard it by now, is that conservative "writer" Ann Coulter, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), said, "I was going to have a few comments about John Edwards but you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot.'"

But don't get upset, because she wasn't accusing the Democratic Presidential candidate of being a homosexual, nor was she implying anything negative about homosexuals by using that "f" word. It would only be insulting, according to Coulter, if Edwards really were gay.

The word I used has nothing to do with sexual preference. It is a schoolyard taunt, and unless you're going to announce here on national TV that John Edwards, married father of many children, is gay, it clearly had nothing to do with that. It's a schoolyard taunt.

You hear that? Coulter's use of an offensive term was not offensive because it wasn't true. It's only a harmless "taunt" meant to call somebody's masculinity into question and make implications about their sexual preferences by using negative stereotypes of a minority group.

Nothing offensive about it. Unless, of course, somebody else wants to out Edwards as really being gay. Come on... I double-dog dare you...

What Coulter is saying with this "apology" is that she'd gladly admit to making offensive anti-gay remarks if somebody will step forward with proof that John Edwards enjoys hot man-on-man action.

And this is the state of political discourse in America in 2007.