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dcoffee’s journal

Clinton beats 'none of the above' barely

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There was a primary in Michigan Yesterday. Republicans chose Romney, and Democrats chose Clinton. But unlike Romney who is fighting for his life to stay viable by winning something, Clinton had no serious opposition. For some reason Michigan doesn't get any electoral votes in the Democratic primary this year, so few of the other democrats bothered to get on the ballot. Kucinich got about 4% of the vote.

But mostly, this primary was Hillary vs 'Not Hillary'. And that actually made the results pretty interesting. Hillary won by 15%, meaning about 40% of people would rather vote for 'Nobody' than vote for Hillary.

According to this election and the exit polls Hillary's supporters are people who are over 45, uneducated, poor, white, and female. The biggest difference was among blacks 70% voted for anybody but Hillary, the next biggest difference was among people under 30.

You can read a brief analysis here
and see the exit polls here


If Hillary is the nominee, I am worried that we might end up with another Republican in the whitehouse. She will inspire the Republicans to come out and vote against her, and the Democrats won't bother voting at all.

The Democrats fail because they don't get people up off the couch. People don't vote because they don't see anyone worth supporting. They don't trust either of the 2 politicians in the presidential race. They don't think anything will change. Democrats and Republicans are part of the same corrupt system, and their campaign promises are a bunch of crap. So why bother to vote.

Democrats are supposed to be the party of the people, and the republicans are supposed to be the party of the wealthy. But the people don't vote, cause the democrats sound like republicans. And the republicans do vote, because they are protecting their assets. Meanwhile the candidates are just rephrasing the same BS and trying to be a better salesman to those ambiguous people who haven't made up their mind yet.

If a candidate stood up for the middle class, and spoke honestly, there would be no contest. We need someone honest and confident who can stand up for single-payer healthcare. And when someone shouts 'socialized medicine', tell them to take their HMO and shove it, because there's no such thing, and they are trying to scare you with bogymen.

Democrats usually try to steal voters from the republicans, by acting like republicans. The presidential race is usually a competition for the middle. Instead Democrats should inspire people to get off the couch, go to the voting booth, and demand to have their voices heard.

Clinton is not that candidate. If she gets the nomination, November will be too close to call, most Americans will stay home, and I will be voting for a third party again.

I'd like to see an Obama Edwards ticket, with Kucinich, Biden, and Dodd, as secretary of something in the cabinet.

I am excited by Obama. he gets young people to vote, and he gets record numbers of people out to the polls, and because he has that popular support he doesen't need to sell out to make money for his campaign as much as other people.

I'm a registered Democrat this year, and I will be voting in the primary on February 5th. This is my way of pretending we have a runoff election. Depending on the nomination, I might go back to being Green real quick.



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💬 8 comments

  1. jason ·

    "Democrats are supposed to be the party of the people, and the republicans are supposed to be the party of the wealthy."

    I guess it depends on who you call "wealthy" I suppose.

  2. james ·

    ya, I would disagree with your assessment of who votes for who. The poorest states in the country (Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, etc) and those with the least corporate interest (Kansas, Nebraska, etc) overwhelmingly vote for the GOP.

    And Clinton is not a Republican and she will bring people out to vote for her in droves. Look at Iowa and New Hampshire. Both had record turn out. It is as likely that people will come out in November for her as they have in January.

    Edwards wont be Obama or Clinton's VP pick either. Clinton would gain way more with Obama as her VP and Obama needs someone with defence experience. Biden is more likely to get on Obama's ticket than Edwards.

  3. zobar ·

    Edwards & Obama explicitly pulled out of the Michigan race because of this early-primary kerfuffle. Michigan and Florida moved their primaries up without permission and will lose all their Democratic delegates and half their Republican delegates at the conventions (South Carolina has also lost half its Republican delegates). Edwards & Obama are spending their money where it will matter in a material way, letting Clinton, Kucinich, and Uncommitted vie for the moral victory in Michigan and Florida.

    - Z

  4. james ·

    It is also important to note that Clinton did not campaign in Michigan, as as no one will in Florida. So, no one had any reason to go out and vote democrat. So, Clinton's victory there was nothing but a publicly funded opinion poll with a ginormous margin of error.

    If it hurt anyone it was John McCain. Democrats and independents should have forgot about the Dem primary and gone out to vote for their GOP flavor of choice, which should have been McCain. Instead, Romney beat the snot out of McCain in a state McCain handily won in 2000.

    Keep tuned for the now three ring circus in the GOP primary.

  5. dcoffee ·

    You're right that a lot of people vote for the GOP, and many of them are poor. But those people are voting against their best interests.

    I'm amazed that Republicans can call the inheritance tax the "Death Tax" and get poor blue collar people to rally against it. Like they're about to inherit a 2 million dollar estate, anything less is not taxed at all.

    And they swallow their $300 check from Bush's tax cut, while the wealthy pack away millions.

    Personally I'm sick of hearing about taxes. "It's not the government's money, it's my money" well if you're making $300 per week, you're probably paying more for health insurance, than you are paying in taxes. And the top 1% in this country are getting more loopholes and tax breaks than you can count.

    Republicans are the party of big business, they use wedge issues to get wider support, but their policies are for the wealthy elite. Democrats, have been going along with it, and that's their biggest problem.

  6. joshua ·

    I have to admit it frosts me when I hear people say that poor people voting for the GOP is "voting against their best interests." As if low taxes, strong national defense and keeping America's best interest in mind with our foreign policies have no place in determining who to vote for. That is an absolutely ludicrous statement when you get right down to it. Democrats have long taken the poor vote for granted - its an utter fallacy to suggest that the party of the poor is the Democratic Party when for the past 35 years the Democrats have largely IGNORED the poor on the federal level. The Dems have loooooonnnngg been eating their lunch from food made back in FDR's days.

    As for the inheritance tax - that is not the government's money and never was, pure and simple. The inheritance tax is simply robbing Peter to give to Paul - at least theoretically. Ultimately the government will do whatever it wants with the money, which is why the whole thing is an utter scam. The idea that its a crime to be rich, and therefore when you die you have to give away 40% of your estate to artificially create some sort of social equivalence is silly to me.

    Finally, w/respect to the primaries. Romney won in a state he spent time in as a kid when his dad was Governor. I would have been surprised had he not won. At this point, and things may change so I may have to revise this statement - if Hillary wins the nomination the Republicans will keep the White House, and if Obama wins the nomination he'll go through and take it all in November. AFAIC its as simple as that. If Obama were wise enough to pick Joe Biden as a running mate that might tip the scale for me in his favor. I don't like any of the GOP candidates really.

  7. metalpeter ·

    I have heard somewhere "the republican party is the party of bad ideas, and the Democrats is the party of no ideas". I do find that is true a lot of the time. One thing you have to give to the republicans is they are much better at the political process. i don't think we will ever have some address "The Middle Class". The reason is that as much as a good idea that it is, there won't be a middle class person running for office. It takes so much money to run for office that you have to be rich or have rich backers. If you where middle class and had those rich backers then you would owe them stuff when you got into office so there isn't much of a way for you to reform anything. Not to mention If you tried during your campain all your backers would leave. The way people run for office needs to change so more qualified people can run. I don't think it will happen. I think that there is this elitism that politicans want for them selves. Hey if any hero can run then there is no job security and also if the local union leader can run then you lose your power over the people.

  8. jason ·

    The reason why Michigan had no delegates up for grabs is because they dared to move their primary date up previous to Super Tuesday, against the wishes of the DLC.

    There are too many thoughts to go one by one, but suffice it to say I agree with some, disagree with some. One thing I do want to talk about is the poor, which will just have to come in journal form.

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