Category Archives: Thinking

Today's the Day

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8:00 PM Western Time (Midnight in the East, 0400 GMT)

It appears to have happened: NBC, ABC, CNN have all declared Senator Obama as our next president. The polls have just closed on the West Coast and the Obama support has been strong enough to declare California, Oregon, and Washington for Obama. It also appears that my home state of Virginia will go for Obama. I’m watching the celebration from Grant Park in Chicago and it’s jubilation. As an aside, we haven’t seen the McCain headquarters as they are in the Phoenix Biltmore and it’s closed to the public. No more need be said.

OK, maybe more can be said. It’s been a long 8 years for many of us and President Elect Obama has a great deal of cleaning up to do. He will certainly need our prayers in the years ahead. Whatever has been said about the “color barrier” this is a historic moment and years from now I’ll remember this moment. But more than that, I believe he is the man who will best be able to reunite our country.

6:00 PM Western Time (9:00 in the East, and 0200 GMT)

Every hour brings new states that have closed their polls, and things continue to look up for Sen. Obama. NBC has 175 Electoral Votes for him and 76 for Sen. McCain. He appears to have some downticket momentum. John Warner (R-Va.) retired and it has gone to Democrat Mark Warner (no relation). That wasn’t a surprise but it was a surprise to see that incumbent Senator John Sununu (R-NH) was defeated by Jean Shaheen and incumbent Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) has been defeated by Kay Hagan. We’re a long way off from this, but there is an outside chance that the Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate.

That’s important because of the role of the filibuster in the Senate. Any Senator can block discussion or a vote on any bill simply by taking the podium and not giving it up. It takes a vote of at least 60 senators for “cloture” to end the filibuster. The Democrats currently have a majority if the Senate but they don’t have 60 seats and the Republicans have been able to effectively block a great deal of progress. Assuming Sen. Obama wins, if he has a 60 seat majority in the Senate, he will have a tremendous opportunity to move us beyond the Bush years.

4:45 PM Western Time (7:45 in the East, and 2345 GMT)

Well it’s already started: as I write this Kentucky and South Carolina have gone for Sen. McCain and Vermont for Sen. Obama. None of these were surprises, though perhaps if South Carolina had gone for Obama, the race would pretty much have been over by now. As of now, McCain is ahead 16 electoral votes to 3 (at this point I’m watching NBC; other networks have different totals).

1:30 PM Western Time (4:30 PM in the East, and 2130 GMT)
OK, so at long last it’s here: Election Day 2008. My countdown clock goes until January 20, 2009 because that’s how much longer President Bush is in office. Sometime within the next few hours we’ll know who the President Elect is, but he won’t take office for another 76 days.

In the next several hours I’ll be making some changes on my web page. Primarily I’ll be removing the names of the candidates running for President. Keeping track of this has turned into a bit of a nightmare and I have only myself to blame. At the beginning of the primary season I hoped to list not only the major candidates of the major parties, but anyone I could find who announced candidacy for President. At first it wasn’t too bad as I was able to find most of what I wanted from Google or Wikipedia. It became more complicated when candidates would lose their primary and announce that they had either switched to another party or decided to run as independents. It also became clear that some of these candidates weren’t putting in much effort as there were no changes in the web pages over the course of the race. In any case, after tonight nobody is running for president in 2008.

I’m planning to keep most of the other boxes on the left side of the page. I’ll probably get rid of the Bert and Ernie terror alert level; it was a parody of the White House’s color coded terror alert level and I don’t know anyone who keeps track of that now.

I’ve been keeping track of the US combat deaths in Iraq with a counter I downloaded from antiwar.com. It doesn’t look like we’ll be out of there anytime soon and I’m inclined to keep it there as long as our troops are there. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find a counter for deaths in Afghanistan; if I do I’ll add it. There are counters who attempt to keep track of deaths of US civilian contractors and Iraqi civilians but the Bush administration has been successful in keeping that information private and the counters aren’t very accurate.

As long as I’m housecleaning I’m making some changes on the right column too. Primarily I’ll be getting rid of some of the personal blogs that either no longer exist or now require permission to read.

I’m going to write several times during the night as the voting comes in. Right now there isn’t much as the first polls don’t even close for another 2 1/2 hours.

Old Men Dream

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No, the subject of this post does not acknowledge the fact that my gray hair and beard allow me to order from the senior’s menu at Coco’s Restaurant and Denny’s without being asked if I qualify.

Old Men Dream is the title of the book I’m currently reading. It was written by and old and dear friend, Pete Fullerton. If you’re of a certain age you may remember him as the bass guitarist of the 1960s folk group We Five. I first met Pete and his family in 1983 when I was a student at St. Patrick’s Seminary. After some hesitation I got involved in the Youth Ministry Program at St. William’s and St. Nicholas’ Catholic Churches in Los Altos, California. The two parishes combined and hired Greg Kremer as the Youth Minister. Pete and his wife Sue were an integral part of the ministry and I soon became friends with them and their 5 children. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 years.

When I first met Pete and Sue he was working for Lockheed and doing some charity work as he had time. A few years later they made the decision that Pete would devote his full time to the charity, Truck of Love. They do incredible work and I’ve been blessed to be able to support it; please check out their website. In 1997 after much prayer and discussion, Pete decided he wanted to live as a homeless person for a few months; Old Men Dream is his chronicle of this experience. Pete has always been a deeply spiritual man and he took the name “Old Man” from the Biblical Book of Joel: “Old men shall dream dreams and young men shall see visions.” As I read this book I’m finding that it’s surfacing all sorts of memories, and thoughts about his journey. Here they are in no particular order, save the order that they come out of my brain:

  • I’ve always been amazed at the simple courage Pete shows. We all claim to believe that God will take care of us and has our back, but Pete lives like he believes it. I’m ashamed to admit how much time and energy I spend making sure my stuff is safe. There is a point in his book where he is robbed of a few dollars and some food; it’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but when you’re living on the lowest rung it doesn’t take much to be devastating. Rather than act with anger or seeking revenge Pete reflects on what he can learn from this and how he can use this experience. There is a unique cruelty in the homeless from stealing from each other but other homeless people provide the easiest, and perhaps the only reasonable targets.
  • I can’t even begin to list all the thing Pete has taught me but the lesson I use the most is this: everyone has eyes and I try to look everyone in the eye, no matter the encounter. Think it’s obvious? OK, next time you’re at a restaurant and the server reaches around you to remove your empty plate (so he can wash it), see how deliberate you have to be to see what he looks like. I try to pick up the plate and hand it to him; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. If Pete were a priest he would excellent at hearing confessions because he has the ability to extend his trust and love within the first few words.
  • This is related to the previous point, but he has the gift to make anyone feel important. I’ve done some work with the homeless and I know that for many of them the most crushing part of life isn’t hunger but loneliness. I find much the same in hospice. Just today one of my patients joked that several people don’t call her anymore because they assume she must be dead by now. Many patients feel the crush of loneliness because they are too sick to go out, but are also not visited as often because they are seen as “not quite as alive as the rest of us.” This is particularly true with people who suffer from Alzheimer’s or other dementia. They can’t carry on a conversation anymore and may not be the person we once knew, but they still have not lost their need for connection.

More later, I’m sure. If you want to buy the book, it’s available only through the Truck of Love website.

Presidential Candidate Shuffle

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OK, several months ago I started keeping track of who is running for President this year. I wanted to list not only the Republican and Democratic major candidates, but (to the best of my ability) anyone who is running. Simply put, this has appeared to have gotten away from me.

Republican Party Since I started this, John McCain has appeared to have wrapped up the Republican nomination. His major opponents have withdrawn and endorsed him but this hasn’t stopped some of the other candidates. I’ve removed their webpages; Alan Keyes moved to the Constitution Party but he lost the nomination there too.

Democratic Party Conventional wisdom has Barack Obama winning the nomination though it appears that Hillary Clinton is not entirely out of the race. It’s a close call but I’ve left both of them on.

Constitution Party This is where Alan Keyes went when he realized he wasn’t going to win the Republican nomination. They held their nomination on April 26th in Kansas City and nominated Chuck Baldwin. I’ve removed all candidates from the party except Chuck.

Green Party Their convention is scheduled for July 10th to 14th in Chicago. So far the frontrunners are Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader. They are so much ahead of the other candidates that I’m listing only them.

Libertarian Party They will hold their convention later this month in Denver. On their website they list the top four candidates: Bob Barr, Wayne Root, Daniel Imperato, and Michael Jingozian. I’ve removed the other candidates.

The other parties (Socialist, Prohibition) don’t appear to have conventions, or at least have chosen their candidates by acclimation. Independent candidates, by definition, don’t need to be nominated and I’ve left them alone.

Stay tuned, and let me know if I’ve made any errors.

They Are Not Making This Easy For Me (but that's OK)

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On the left side of this blog I’ve tried to keep track of two things: (1) Who is running for President and (2) How many delegates are committed in the Democrat’s race. John McCain has already wrapped up the Republican nomination and the other parties don’t have the primaries.

In terms of who is running, that is getting a little complicated. I periodically try to click on the links to make sure all the candidates are still running. Especially with the independent candidates I get the feeling there isn’t much going on. The pages don’t seem to be updated much but no pages have gone down and nobody has announced pulling out of the race. The one change is that there does seem to be some party hopping. Mike Gravel began the race as a Democrat but has switched to the Libertarian party. On the other side of the aisle, Alan Keyes has announced that he has left the Republican Party but I’m not sure where he is going. Since he is still running for President I’ll keep him with the Republicans until he announces where he is going. Also, Bob Barr has announced that he is thinking of running as a Libertarian but hasn’t decided. I’ll include him if/when he decides to run.

The delegate race is the same mess it’s been all along. I’ve removed the delegate count for the Republicans since there’s no longer a race. Almost every news outlet counts superdelegates who have committed to a candidate; I haven’t since they don’t need to commit until the convention and can change their minds.

It’s not the easiest thing in the world to keep up with this, but I have to confess that I’m loving it. Frankly, it’s democracy in action and I think the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) would be pleased to see it.

And the Delegate Winner Is…

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I’ve had great fun (right) trying to follow the delegate count in the election. After a fair amount of searching I decided to keep track of the pledged delegates only, knowing that the superdelegates don’t need to make their choice until the convention. I set up a table to show where each candidate was awarded delegates according to state. I also put a link on the left side of the page. I’ll keep keeping track.

It's Not Easy Being Green (OK, You Had to Know This Was Coming)

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Last August I wrote that I had heard from the John Bootie campaign thanking me for having a link to his website. I always think it’s a feather in my cap to see that anyone is actually reading this blog, even if it’s someone I disagree with (like John). A few days ago I heard from Matt Cleveland of the Green Party. He asked me to update the web page for Jesse Johnson which I gladly did. He also asked me to add a link to his page. He is providing web access to anyone who is running for office under the Green banner.

I had mixed emotions when I first looked at his site; he’s pretty angry with the Democratic Party for some actions that have prevented some Green candidates from having the access they need. I’m one of those Democrats who still harbors some resentment toward Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. But in fairness I’ve included links on my page for candidates I don’t like, and so I’m including this. If you’re someone who resonates with the Green platform and you’re interested in making a difference, contact Matt. He’s being pretty generous with bandwidth and I commend him.

From Super Tuesday to the Potomac Primaries, and Why Is the Delegate Count So Confusing?

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It’s now a week since Super Tuesday and it appears that the nomination picture is slowly coming into focus. On the Republican side Mitt Romney dropped out of the race; that made some sense as he and Mike Huckabee appeared to be splitting the social conservative vote. Interestingly enough his exit speech talked primarily about Iraq and the War on Terror which was never a major part of his campaign.

This has essentially paved the way for John McCain who is now the presumptive nominee of his party. You would think this would be good news for the GOP but it isn’t. Long simmering hatred of John McCain has boiled over, especially with Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. I have to confess I don’t know much about what they are saying as I don’t have the stomach to listen or read very much.

I’m still trying to keep track of the delegates. It’s become dramatically more difficult and complicated than I thought. I’m writing this before we have the results of the Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. primaries, and as I write (for example), NPR gives Barack Obama 994 pledged delegates and 160 super delegates (for a total of 1,154). CNN gives him 1,181; MSNBC gives him 958. Finally Fox News gives him 1,154. Perhaps the best irony is that Fox News and NPR are the only organizations who agree.

I’m using NPR numbers simply because NPR is the news organization where I get most of my news. Right now I’m attempting to keep track of delegates using an Excel spreadsheet. It’s a good way of keeping track but this type of spreadsheet doesn’t translate well into html or xml. In future days I’m hoping to translate these numbers into a table that I can post.

Speaking of the delegate count, I’ve been doing some reading about why this is so confusing. Earlier I talked about how some places are using projections. I’m also learning a great deal about super delegates and uncommitted delegates. The best explanation I’ve heard is from the NPR show Fresh Air on January 31st. Terry Gross interviewed David Rohde from Duke University. Here is a synopsis of some of his points:

  • Several of the candidates who have since dropped out of the campaign had delegates. At the conventions those delegates can still vote for their candidate but don’t have to. They are essentially now free agents and can change their votes at will
  • The states of Florida and Michigan moved their primaries to January against the wishes of their parties. The Democrats say they will refuse to seat any delegates from those states and the Republicans will only seat half of them. That is what they are saying now but there is nothing to stop them from changing their minds and seating those delegates. That could prove to be a nightmare as several candidates didn’t campaign in those states
  • Of the delegates at the convention, the Democratic Party has designated 796 (20% of the total) as “super delegates.” They are senior members of the Democratic National Committee, current, and former office holders. Bill Clinton, by the way, is a super delegate. We can assume he will vote for Hillary and several of these politician have endorsed a candidate but nobody is bound to anyone until the convention.
  • In the Republican Party there are also super delegates, but each state can also allocate delegates who are uncommitted, regardless of who wins the primary or caucus.

Had enough? OK, this puts me at odds with many of my friends, but I love all this chaos and complication. It makes for a more interesting race. Hang on, we’ve got months of this stuff.

Florida's Half Primary

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I’m writing this 3 1/2 hours after the polls have closed in Florida. This only matters to the Republicans as the Democratic primary doesn’t count (Florida, like Michigan, pushed their primary up so soon that the Democratic Party is refusing to seat their delegates. Hillary won the most votes in the primary but it really doesn’t matter in the all-important delegate chase. In the Republican primary John McCain edged out Mitt Romney and won all 57 delegates in the winner take all contest. I’ve updated the delegate count on the left side the page. It’s assumed that Rudy Giuliani will drop out of the race but he hasn’t conceded on his web page and I’ll wait for that.

I don’t normally watch the CBS Evening News but we had it on tonight and Katie Couric did an interesting story. She asked this question of each of the candidates: “If you were elected president, what is the one book other than the Bible you would think is essential to have along?” Here is how they answered (I have included only the book title and author, and not their explanations; also, I put them in the same order as Katie):

  • John McCain: Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
  • Barack Obama: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • Mitt Romney: John Adams by David McCollough
  • Mike Huckabee: Whatever Happened to the Human Race by Francis Schaefer
  • John Edwards: The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone
  • Hillary Clinton: The Federalist Papers
  • Rudy Giuliani: The Federalist Papers

Of the 6 books listed, I’ve only fully read two: Team of Rivals and John Adams but The Federalist Papers is on my list.

If It's the 26th It Must Be South Carolina

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I’m watching the results of the Democratic primary in South Carolina and it appears it was a good day for Barack Obama and his campaign. The big loser today is Hillary Clinton who barely beat John Edwards. It appears that part of the reason for the big Obama win was a backlash against Hillary and especially her husband Bill for going negative. I hope that’s true because it may lead to a decrease in negative campaigning.

I continue to get frustrated looking at the delegate counts, but have (perhaps) found a place that agrees with my math and doesn’t include projections. If you look at the MSNBC page it has the same numbers as me.

Thinking wistfully about this time next year

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Exactly one year from today we will be inaugurating a new President. It’s been a long 7 years and the White House’s next occupant will have a great deal of healing and repairing to do. The country feels to me like she’s ready for a new direction and I know I am.

I’ve updated the delegate numbers after yesterday’s primaries in Nevada and South Carolina. As I’ve said I’m depending on NPR for my numbers. Today I looked at some of the stuff CNN had and their numbers are different than mine. I’m not sure where they get their numbers from except that it appears that at least some of them are projections based on expectations. They have this disclaimer on their page: “Delegate Total shows CNN’s total current delegate estimate for each candidate, including pledged delegates and superdelegates, and may include delegates not accounted for in the summation of the current delegate counts listed by state. ” At this point I feel more comfortable with NPR’s stuff over CNN’s