Remembering Senator Edward M. Kennedy

At two o’clock this morning I was woken by nearly half a dozen text messages. The reason: the ‘Lion of the Senate’, Senator Edward M. Kennedy had passed away.

In his 47 years in the Senate, he never failed to defend the poor, the downtrodden, and the underrepresented. When it was asked, ‘who among the 80 will stand up for the 20?’ his answer never failed to be ‘I will’. He championed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. He delivered peace in Northern Ireland, multiple minimum wage increases, greater education funding, and healthcare for our nation’s poorest children through SCHIP.

As Democrats, as Liberals, we are nothing if not the party of Senator Kennedy. He embodied the core value that power should always be wielded in defense of the weak. That we should always strive for a more just society. One where every child has an equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of the wealth of their parents. A country where African Americans and Latino Americans can apply for jobs or purchase homes on equal footing with white American. A nation where blue collar workers have a meaningful right to unionize and a living wage for a day’s hard work. A society where those with disabilities have equal access to public buildings and a fair shot at a good education and a solid job.

His life’s work wasn’t about freebies, it wasn’t about hand-outs. It was about giving people a fair shake. His legacy was about reversing the historical tide of oppression. The people he fought for were not weak, but our system made them weak. He never saw a day where that could not be said, but he inspired a generation of public servants and I hold it as an article of faith, that because of his work, we will one day see a country of true social justice.

When eulogizing Bobby Kennedy, he said “my brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried stop it”. Our country, indeed our world, is a better place today because we can say the same of him. So even though the Senator has passed on, the dream that is America, will never die. It is greater than any of us.

Will Be Back Soon

Watercooler Politics will return next Sunday. Have a great week!

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I’m sorry I haven’t been posting in a while. Things will get back to normal. The Weekly Filibuster comes on at 10pm as always.
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West Virginia Raises a Few Doubts

Following Senator Obama’s 41 point loss in West Virginia, the media was widely circulating doubts about his electability. After all, the blue collar, white, rural, religious, Appalachia voters of West Virginia are representative of the Regan Democrats that decide the elections in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio.

However, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Former Senator Edwards endorsed Obama just in time for the evening news. Thus, after less than one day, the news cycle swung back to pro-Obama coverage and talk of the West Virginia landslide was pushed to the background.

Many Democrats are correct to point out that Hilary Clinton is quite possibly the more electable candidate because of her appeal to Regan Democrats that will be crucial in Ohio and Pennsylvania during the general election.

However, in exit polling, two in ten white, West Virginian voters admitted that race was an important consideration in their decision. Presumably some people were influenced by race but were embarrassed to admit it. So, let’s assume that 3 in ten voters (using the conservative assumption that only about 1/3 of racists are self-conscious) voted for Clinton because Obama is African-American and the landslide (although not the loss) was caused by race. I choose to discard the issue of electability because I don’t believe that the Democratic Party should choose to be intimidated by the idea that an African American can’t be elected President. Also, most Democrats voted for Obama and I believe that the process should be democratic.

House Republicans in Trouble

Since the landslide congressional election of 2006, 3 special elections for US House seats have occurred. After a Republican loss in Mississippi, the Republicans are 0-3.  In Mississippi’s conservative 1st district, Travis Childers, a Democrat, won election by 8%. This wasn’t for a lack of effort by the NRCC who spent over $1 million dollars in the district and convinced Vice President Cheney to visit.

If Republicans can’t win in traditionally conservative districts even with a spending advantage that they will not come close to achieving in the fall, then the party is in for another 2006. This is demonstrated by the fact that the DCCC has $35.4 million on hand to the NRCC’s $6.4 million.

Although the NRCC has to raise a lot more than they have been, House Republican’s problems do not stop at fundraising. This election shows that they have to change their message to fit with the economic troubles of the nation if they hope to minimize their losses this fall.

Clinton Plan Aims to Disenfranchise

Senator Clinton and her surrogates have begun to promote the idea that super delegates should cast their vote for the candidate with the highest number of votes (as opposed to pledged delegates) at the end of the race. While this sounds like the most democratic and fair approach it is actually an attempt to disenfranchise some Obama supporters.

The amount of people who vote at caucuses is significantly less than the number of people who vote in primary states when taken as a percent of the total population. This means that millions of voters from the caucus states would be significantly underrepresented.

Her plan would also count Michigan and Florida even thought the DNC rules state that, because they moved their primary dates up, they cannot count. This would be unfair because Senator Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan. This would give Senator Clinton an advantage of several million votes that would be unrepresentative of the actual will of Michigan voters.

The committed delegates are not like delegates to the electoral college, they are distributed proportionally to the vote in the state. Contrary to what self-interested politicians spend their days telling you, the current system is the most fair and democratic one that is available to the party at this point in the election.

West Virginia Will Embarrass Obama

West Virginia will embarrass Obama. West Virginian democrats are exactly the type of Regan-democrats that Senator Obama has failed to appeal to throughout his campaign. These are the democrats who consistently say in exit polling that if Clinton isn’t the nominee, they’ll vote for McCain.

There is little doubt that West Virginia, and Kentucky next week, will be highly embarrassing for Senator Obama who has just claimed presumptive-nominee status. These losses will highlight the fact that the Senator needs to work on his appeal to blue-collar, white, religious, Regan democrats who will likely decide the election in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

It won’t hurt Obama too badly to lose their votes now, but come November, he can’t win without them.

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Bush Requests $500 Million for Mexico

President Bush has asked Congress to appropriate $500 million in aid to Mexico in an emergency appropriations bill. The bill is currently in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Secretary Rice claims that the funds are necessary to supply training, transportation and equipment to Mexican troops for their efforts in stopping narcotics trafficking into the United States.

What?! Mexico has notoriously ignored its northern border and they’ve given us little indication that they’re going to deploy more soldiers to the region. The Mexican military currently has an active duty force of 183,700 men and women. The Mexican- American border is 1951.7 miles long. What that boils down to is that even if Mexico abandoned its sizable commitment to patrolling its southern border, and to regional military bases, they could not adequately cover the US-Mexico border.

With myriad dilapidated inner-city and rural schools, massive budget deficits, two expensive wars, and a failing social security program, can’t the Bush Administration find a better way to spend $500 million dollars? Isn’t funding Mexico’s military the job of the Mexican government anyways?

Obama to Declare Victory

The Obama campaign has announced that it will declare victory on May 20th regardless of Senator Clinton’s plans to continue the race. This seems to be the first step in a transition to the General Election for Senator Obama.

Although, Obama is only 34 delegates away from capturing a majority of the pledged delegates, Senator Clinton could still win. When she began losing after Super Tuesday, her campaign shifted messages from being about her ability to be President “on day one” to messages about how she was fighting for average Americans. Since the message shift, her campaign has done exceptionally well, with the exception of Tuesday night.

She can make the argument to Super Delegates that she is winning over Regan Democrats who will turn right around and vote for McCain instead of Obama if the party doesn’t nominate her. While her base probably is more valuable to the Democratic party than Senator Obama’s is, Super Delegates are unlikely to support someone who did not win a majority of the votes.