My Political World

It is simply a matter of time until Obama secures the Democratic nomination for President. With the Clinton attack machine working overtime, can Obama bounce back? Exit polls in NC suggest that he can, but also that the attacks have limited the bounce.

The Clinton camp may have all but secured the White House for McCain. If Clinton was smart and pulled out months ago, Obama would have started the national Obama v. McCain debate. The Democratic side of that debate will not start until June as McCain lies in wait.

Now that it seems like we can finally all agree that the nomination has been decided, user dsantos got the ball rolling over in the forum on the next, big, political parlor game. Who is Obama going to pick as his VP?

dsantos offered a suggestion of Arizona governor Janet Napolitano. She certainly has a lot going for her. Executive experience; red state popularity; female reproductive organs. I think it'd be a strong choice that is a non-starter because of the near-certainty that McCain will carry his adopted home state and more glaring flaws in the Obama campaign.

What do you think? The most intersting question right now is whether or not Hillary Clinton will be considered. You should check out avowed Obama cultee Andrew Sullivan's case for a unity ticket if you haven't already. I'll run down a few of the contenders and their pros and cons after the jump.

Folks,

As you can probably see, we've made a few changes to the site and of course we have many more on the way. Here are the specific changes so far:

1. You can now post videos, hyperlinks, and pictures onto your blog. You can also do text-rich editing within the posts.

2. What used to be the "My Blog" tab is now called "Blog."  Within this tab you can now see other users blog entries and comment on them easier than before.

3. We've fixed the time module on the upper right hand side of the site so it corresponds to your profile settings.

4. We've slightly changed the sign-up process for users. You can click on Create Account on the log-in page to see it first hand.

We appreciate your patience moving forward as this site continues to take form and develop. As always, if you have questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to email us at Info@mypoliticalworld.com.

- MPW Team

"Tonight is the night the music died."
-Pat Buchanan

Tim Russert is reporting that Clinton has canceled her public events tomorrow. This interminable mess might be over. The damage is done, it was over two months ago, but even Clinton is going to be unable to twist the current reality.

Votes from Indiana's Lake County (within the Chicago media market and home to Gary, a presumed Obama stronghold) are finally trickling in. Obama could end this tonight.

Although the final arbiter of truth (Fox News) has yet to call the race in Indiana, it seems all but certain that Clinton's current lead will hold and the Democratic primary will continue through June 3.

Obama outperformed the polls (although not necessarily the expectations) in both states and will pad his already insurmountable lead in the popular vote and pledged delegate count with his considerable win in North Carolina. More importantly , he did not provide her the opportunity to declare any sort of momentum that might lead the only voters that still matter, superdelegates, to reconsider subverting democracy.

Unfortunately for Democrats, that isn't going to stop her and her minions from attempting to declare one. Expect to hear from every every Clinton lapdog with access to a microphone that Obama (foolishly) branded Indiana a "tiebreaker." The Clinton campaign now goes into desperation mode. How that will differ from the behavior of the last two month's, I have no idea, but it should terrify not just Obama supporters but Democrats as well.

For the record, I could have written every preceding word a week ago and felt comfortable they would still stand. There was no changing that this ridiculous charade was going to continue with every demographic and political issue long-ago settled.

I assume I'm six or seven scathing MadTV parodies behind the pop culture curve here, but this mash-up of Clinton's defining campaign moment and Tom Cruise's messianic ramblings floored and terrified me.

It puts the self-pitying narcissism at the core of her pivotal pre-New Hampshire allocation of tears in perspective.

Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3enFIPvnFg&NR=1

The Clinton campaign breaks out all their greatest hits in a closing ad taking Obama to task for his foolhardy embrace of "elite opinion" (a loose term that, in this context, correlates roughly with every sentient being who has looked at the gas tax issue for more than thirty seconds).

I'm really going to miss these types of ads for the 30 seconds between the primary and general that it will take McCain to redub them. Hillary as "The Fighter"? Check. Hillary as Tom Joad? Keep it coming. Use of signature Republican tactics and wedge issues? Well, you didn't think a black Marxist was going to lower your taxes did you?

My favorite part is the title and disappointed voice of the narrator. "We used to like you Barack. We really did. But then you had to go all swishy on us and condemn a universally rejected pander masquerading as policy."

See the ad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF48jPeZDsQ

Ben Smith at Politico and TNR's Noam Scheiber set the table for today's inevitably headache-inducing primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. Heading into yet another round of supposedly make-or-break contests, the polls and pundits indicate a split decision that prolongs this imaginary stalemate till, at least, June 3 when South Dakota and Montana cast the final votes.

This maddening equilibrium appears likely to evolve only if one of the candidates sweeps the day. If Obama can hold off a late run by Hillary in North Carolina and surge in Indiana, conventional wisdom (and remember that nothing whatsoever has happened counter to it) suggests that Clinton would have little choice but to bow out.

A Clinton sweep, on the other hand, would unleash all sorts of biblical chaos. Crack legal teams will emerge from hiding to wage an epic battle of the dark arts over the Clinton campaign's imminent deployment of the "nuclear option" to seat Florida and Michigan's delegates. You will develop a twitching sensation and mild rash in response to the words "superdelegate" and "electability." Terry McAuliffe will continue his uninterrupted construction of a conflicted, alternate reality, the cumulative weight of which will produce black hole-like conditions that claim the lives of two Fox News producers. In short, the race will continue as is.

Scheiber suggests that strongly pro-Obama early voting will provide a cushion to stave off a Clinton upset in North Carolina. Even if she pulls off what would be an undeniably shocking and meaningful win, Smith points out the unchanged reality:

“On Wednesday, 93.3 percent of the pledged delegates [3,036 of 3,253] will have been allocated,” said Matthew Seyfang, a former Democratic delegate counter. “Barring some truly bizarre turn of events, she has already lost the race for pledged delegates.”

When the going gets tough for your candidate or pet issue there is always the convient punching bag of the media. As a Barack Obama supporter I have found myself shaking my head in frustration as I listen to the pundits and experts, talking back to them as if they might respond. "Wright again!?! Elitist!?! Really, are you serious?" Anyone who follows politics has had these moments which usually end with a throwing up of the hands and placing blame on the "damn media". If only they could see the truth and not play into whoever's handbook is your sworn advesary, things would be right in the universe and we could start solving the problems. It's not the heat we can't stand, it's the design of the kitchen. As convienent as this accusation might be, it underscores a larger problem which noone wants to address, let alone a politician, because it screams elitism. The fact is Americans, for the most part, are illiterate.

Christian churches hold a significant leadership role in the NGO space in the U.S. and worldwide. To provide an incentive for giving to Christian churches, the federal and state tax code provides a tax deduction for contributions to churches as 501(c)(3) organizations. Can federal and state policymakers do more to provide Christians and those who admire the work of the church with an incentive to give more? Yes.

In the State of Arizona, the Legislature wisely provides a host of income tax credits for contributions to qualifying non-profit organizations. The tax credits are not for general contributions, but, rather, apply to contributions to non-profit organizations that educate children (preschool through high school) and assist the poor. These causes, which have been of interest to the church since Jesus' ministry, are worthy of favorable tax policy nationwide. To be sure, secular organizations will also benefit from nationwide adoption of this policy. To this, I say, "The more doing the work of God, the better."

I invite comments to this post with accounts of tax policy in other states that provides tax credits for contributions to non-profit organizations.

As a student who has recently experienced America's woeful educational system firsthand, I am profoundly indignant at the place the issue of education holds in national politics.

Increasing funding for education is one issue which almost everyone agrees to, irrespective of party affiliation. No one denies that our children are getting a truly sub-par education, and there is little question that the decline in the quality of education in the past few decades is at least partly responsible for our current economic troubles. Anywhere from 10 to 25% of teenagers don't even reach the end of high school before leaving school. American students finish consistently at the bottom of the list of developing countries in terms of math, science, geography and global awareness. A study by National Geographic found that over 50% of young people cannot name Sudan as being an African country, even though it is the largest country on that continent and the location of this century's worst genocide.

No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration's disastrous program, is extraordinarily detrimental to the system. The act uses stacks of standardized tests to identify the schools which perform well and those which perform badly. They then cut funding for the latter, which usually tend to be the ones most in need of aid in the first place.

Unfortunately, any congressman who votes against the No Child Left Behind act will never hear the end of it. How can you do such a thing? They will say, you are an evil person to leave our children behind!

We are currently working on creating a page dedicated to Job listings on the Hill and in the private sector. In the meantime you can find job openings by going to the forum tab and scrolling down to the jobs area. Job openings will be updated as soon as the MPW team receives information. If you have a job listing please email info@mypoliticalworld.com

MPW Team

As a student in the University of Texas at Brownsville, I look across the Resaca’s or oxbows in my campus and see the fight is tight, especially at the tip of Texas. As we look into the past history of Texas, it will not only change its political landscape, but as well as our geographical gains from our wars of the Texas Revolution and the Mexican American war. Instead of gaining land we will lose land back to Mexico. Is it the fact that this Border Wall, the Visas, the Passports, that we seem to gain for national security is nothing more than the facet of losing our privilege rights as Americans?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, thanks for visiting our website. We're glad to have you here. As you can probably tell, the site is still under construction and needs some tweaking. In the next few weeks we're going to be adding a lot to the site, making it look more professional and easier to use. For example:

1. A new forum area will replace the existing forum area

2. You'll have the ability to post videos and pictures on your blogs

3. An area to post jobs and resumes will come online

4. Profiles of over 700 hill staffers will be uploaded in a Wikipedia-type format

In the meantime, we appreciate your patience as this thing comes along. Of course we'd love to hear from you and get your thoughts on how site can be improved. You can contact us through the link at the bottom of the page or just email us at Info@mypoliticalworld.com. We’re looking forward to having everyone on the site and getting to know everyone.

Best,
Ted

Nothing has changed or will change the fact that Hillary Clinton is not going to be president. Either she loses to Obama (or mercifully concedes since by any reasonable outlook she has already lost) or she causes the Democratic Party to implode in advance of a McCain landslide.

That being said, it's interesting to see consequential endorsements still coming her way. North Carolina Governor Mike Easley gave her a huge boost Tuesday with his backing (and superdelegate vote). While polls are noticeably tightening, realistically, nothing is going to win her North Carolina at this stage.

If she does win, however, the race is radically changed- specifically in the sense that it would become an actual race- and Mike Easley will be getting slobbered with national attention. He only needs to look to Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida to see how you can become a heavyweight overnight with the right endorsement at the right time.

Make no mistake that the Clintons promised him something big. Evan Bayh is supposed to be handing her Indiana on the same day and has been auditioning as her number two since he himself dropped out, so vice president is probably out of the question. A cabinet position? Maybe. It doesn't matter. In the unlikely event she wins, he is going to be cited as a major force. He will probably never see a better opportunity to inflate his political profile.

If on the other hand he backs Obama, Obama simply continues coasting to what was a preordained victory and Easley can grab a ticket to wait behind all the other blue governors in red states on Obama's radar (Sebelius in Kansas, Kaine in Virginia, Napolitano in Arizona). He gains no political capital from Obama.

Between the resurgence of the dreaded -Gate suffix (Bittergate? Seriously?) and all the plays on Reverend Jeremiah Wright's name, I thought it was worth throwing an entry into the increasingly competitive "worst headline" race.

The two controversies have been reinforcing each other, so, hopefully, Obama's denunciation of his former pastor will lead to the emergence of a new set of bad puns to perfectly encapsulate political news for us.

The reviews have been good so far, but I don't see how this ever goes away entirely for Obama. Wright is actively working to sabotage Obama's campaign. He will continue saying crazy things, and the media will continue broadcasting and "analyzing" them ("so does this mean Obama hates America or just white people?").

Whatever the timing or root cause, Wright has become a full blown lunatic . On some level, this helps Obama by giving him a constant foil to play off of in his endless quest to prove he is not an America-hating socialist.

How can undecided voters not have serious questions about Obama's judgment though? The new friend of Louis Farrakhan and proponent of the AIDS-as-government-weapon myth is irrevocably tied to Obama in the pages of his books and the photos of his wedding. As Wright discredits himself, it becomes potentially more disconcerting that Obama affiliated himself with such an unstable man the first place.

Noam Scheiber at the New Republic proposes a solution the Obama campaign no doubt is pushing: absolution from former Trinity Church member, shaper of free will, and erstwhile Obama savior, Oprah. http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/04/29/where-s-opra...

Barack Obama is in serious, serious trouble. His ill-advised comments at a fundraiser in, of all places, San Francisco were the final, decisive bullet point needed for the GOP to assemble an effective, negative caricature of him to promote for the next six months (continue reading...)

I see that some users are beginning to find their way to our site...awesome news and thanks for joining. I promise you won't regret it.

When you're on the site, you'll probably notice that the server is slow and abort messages keep showing up on your screen. We're fixing these problems right now and it should be cleared up by the end of the week. So please just bear with us as we continue to debug and get this guy-going. Growing pains suck, but they'll be fixed soon.