An interesting look at the numbers

Slate recently ran a very interesting article on the delegate breakdown between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I especially like the subhead, “Can we please stop pretending she has a plausible chance to win the nomination?” With all the bad press Obama’s been getting for his ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as well as Hillary’s win in Pennsylvania, I really did think that she was pulling ahead in receiving the nomination.

Many political pundits have pointed out that they think one of the candidates must drop out soon to maintain order and unity within the party. It strikes me as an odd process; obviously both candidates are competitive and have good reason for staying in the race at this point, so it’s strange to expect one of them to drop out.

But if the goal is to oust the Republican party from the White House, I would have to agree that it’s probably better for someone to drop out. Undecided voters must be turned off watching Obama and Clinton go at it while John McCain can sit by and watch from the corner.

When will one of these candidates do what’s best for the party and step aside? I’m guessing not too soon. If John McCain is the country’s next president, I’m going to look back on this time and wonder why the Democrats were unwilling to save themselves.

Cut me, Mick.

As I’ve said before, I’m not a very politically-minded person. As such, it excites me most when politicians make poorly conceived movie references in their speeches. In case you haven’t heard, though I’m not sure how that’s possible, Hillary Clinton recently spent some time in Philadelphia drawing parallels between herself and the city’s number one son, Rocky Balboa.

So what exactly is Hillary trying to say? As most people have pointed out, though he fights valiantly and goes the distance against a much more skilled opponent, Rocky loses his bout against Apollo Creed (pictured left) in the 1976 classic. If Hillary is Rocky, then Barack Obama is obviously supposed to be Apollo Creed. That makes sense, considering he’s a much more skilled orator. Or maybe she’s talking about Rocky III, in which case Barack Obama would be Clubber Lang (pictured right).

Or maybe she’s saying that she’ll never give up against the Republicans, in which case John McCain would be Clubber Lang. Then I’m sure we’d see this from Obama and Clinton when they inevitably team up to defeat evil. The point is that her reference was just plain silly. Are the people of Philadelphia really going to be wooed by a movie reference? Then again, they do have a statue of Rocky in the city. And he’s not even a real person.

Good ‘ol Bill O’Reilly

I was flipping through television channels tonight when I stopped on Fox News, which was airing The O’Reilly Factor. I usually don’t watch O’Reilly, but sometimes I’ll tune in for a moment to see if he says anything particularly nutty, which he often does. He had Bernard Goldberg on the show, who was addressing the media’s former love affair with Barack Obama following the popular SNL skit. Here is a transcript of part of his appearance (thank God for the DVR).

A few serious journalists were mentioning a while back that the media was in love with Barack Obama. On this very show, for two months now, we’ve been talking about precisely that. And I made the point, more than once, that when political analysts talk about how they get a thrill running up their leg when they hear Barack Obama speak, there’s a problem.

But it didn’t matter as long as the mainstream media was concerned. They are not introspective, and they didn’t care. They live in a comfy liberal-elite bubble, and inside that bubble they can go for a day, a week, a month, a year, they can go a lifetime and never run into anybody who disagrees with them.

But then here comes Saturday Night Live to puncture that bubble, because Saturday Night Live has a reputation, whether it’s true or not, it has a reputation for being a hip, cool show. Hip and cool are two things most reporters are not.

So Saturday Night Live, a comedy show, gives the mainstream media permission to throw away their Obama pom-poms and start to act like real reporters and journalists. In a way, it’s really pathetic that it takes a comedy show to embarrass the media, and to get them to change their ways. It really is pathetic.

While Goldberg certainly makes a good point, I’m unsure whether his purpose is to make that point, or to backhandedly slap the other major news networks. What confuses me is when he takes issue with political commentators saying that they are moved by Obama’s speeches. Is it really unethical to state, on-air, that Obama is a good speaker? Political commentary is just that: commentary. I think few people would argue with the idea that Obama is a good speaker. By nature, it seems to me that the arena of political analysis is biased. As an analyst, you’re giving viewers your interpretation of political events.

The media’s treatment of Obama and Clinton has been well documented in two recent reports from the Center for Media and Public Affairs. They can be found here and here. But does this treatment really reflect a preference for Obama as a candidate? Is it impossible that there’s simply less to scrutinize? I don’t know.

The comments in this blog are interesting, because they reflect what seems like a common sentiment on the Internet, that major news organizations are intentionally trying to control the opinions of the public for malicious or particularly nefarious purposes. It’s like hearing people talk about government conspiracy theories. Most people will agree that some news outlets are more liberal, while others are more conservative. And while similar stories will have a more liberal or conservative perspective depending on the publisher, to imply malicious intent has always struck me as silly. Fox News gets a lot of flack for this on the internet. Digg is a good place to start.

But kudos to Fox News for having the most issue-oriented election coverage.

What I think I know… and what I don’t

In Tuesday’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Hillary once again said that she wished she could take back her 2002 vote on Iraq.  

 

I’ll admit that this is a concept I just don’t understand.  Clinton refers to her vote as “sincere,” but says that she “would not have voted that way again.”  What exactly does that mean?  

 

I always thought that a person makes a thoughtful, well-made decision based on the summation of their knowledge in a given moment.  If this model is true, then it is impossible for any decision to occur differently.  This isn’t a denial of free will, but an understanding that hindsight is a luxury of the future.

 

Clinton’s comment that she “would not have voted that way again,” is in actuality a logical fallacy.  At that point in time, considering what she knew – or at least what she thought she knew –  Hillary could make no other decision.  To imply that she could have made a different decision is to deny the butterfly effect (sensitive dependence on initial conditions).

 

In my opinion, Hillary’s logical looniness isn’t necessarily her fault.  She’s simply reacting, as people do, to what is happening around her.  Democrats pour praise upon Obama for voting against the war in Iraq as if he knew what would come to pass.  As it is impossible to tell future, Obama’s vote is, at best, a guess.  He had a 50% chance, based on a yes or no vote, to come out looking like a genius. 

 

It’s similar to a football coach calling a 2-point conversion following a touchdown.  If it works, the coach is a genius; if not, he is a buffoon.  Any amount of variables can indicate to the a coach the probability of success, but none of those calculations have any affect on the actual outcome of the play.

 

What does this say about the nature of making decisions?   

A different feeling

When it comes to politics, I generally find it hard to feel anything other than apathy. I find it almost impossible to shake the feeling that politicians are simply saying what I want to hear.

Barack Obama makes me feel differently, which is why I voted for him in the Arizona primary. To put it simply: the guy is inspiring. He’s more inspiring than any president or presidential candidate I can remember (granted, that isn’t many).

Following a defeat in New Hampshire primary, Obama gave a speech to his supporters, assuring them that the country was ready for change (Note that this video has been edited together with other footage). It’s easy to understand the reasoning for such a positive speech at this point in the campaign, as he’d just won the Iowa caucus days before. This fact, however, doesn’t make his speech any less powerful.

I’ve never been excited about a politician before.

I guess there’s a first time for everything.

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