Today, May 19, 2008 is a good day to look back at how little has changed in the last 90 days.   90 days ago today February 19, 2008 the race for the democratic nomination ended.  The race was finalized with a 60 to 40 delegate win by Barack Obama in Wisconsin.  Everything that has transpired since that day when Sen. Obama expanded his pledged delegate lead to 171 (1216 vs. 1045) has been an exercise in feeding the media monster while placating Sen. Clinton and her supporters.   *90 days later, the lead has changed by 4 pledged delegates*.  Sen. Obama leads (1610 to 1443) a difference of 167 delegates.    No matter how many nights of manufactured drama we enjoyed, the only question after March 19th was how big a margin and how would it end.      I'm not sure how much the two campaigns have spend in the last 90 days but feel it's safe to say those 4  delegates are the most expensive in history,  I'm guessing about
$ 45,000,000 each.    

Ok, I saw this over at KOS and though it was so funny I would post it here.  I will give fair warning, it makes fun of both our democratic candidates so if you don't have a sense of humor, save yourself the angst and don't watch!

First for context here is the NBA commercial.

Now the democratic nomination snark.  I think it's pretty funny, YMMV.  

Don't go all misogynist on me either, it's just satire.  

As I visit MyDD each day I read diary after diary which seem to ignore reality and attempted to diminish or damage our nominee Sen. Obama.  

They have titles like.  
     XYZ is Clinton Country!
     See you in Denver!!
     Is Obama Ready To Quit?
     Should Hillary Make Obama Her VP?
     Don't Give Up, Don't Ever Give UP
     Obama Is Unelectable!
     Hillary Leads In Popular Vote!
     It's The Electoral Math!
     No Michigan/Florida No Peace!

After reading these posts it almost made sense, just like college cheerleaders keep cheering for their team even after it appears they can't win.   (Don't accuse me of being sexist, I said college on purpose since the teams are 50/50 men and women)   It made sense because we all know you don't give up in the middle of a game, not while there is time on the clock right?

Then it hit me.  We've Been Using The Wrong Analogy

I was watching fox soccer channel as they were reviewing the season results.  It was a review of both the top of the table (that's what they call season record rankings) and the bottom.  In English soccer the bottom few teams in each league get "relegated ", a relegated team gets bumped out of their current  League down to the next level league.  If a team finishes in the top 3 of the lower league you get to move up to the Premier league.   This year was particularly interesting because unlike many previous years the "relegation" decisions were not finalized until the final game.  At mid season everyone thought Fullham was going to be relegated based on their record.  The mistake folks made was they called it too soon.  At mid season there were enough games left that when Fullham changed their fortunes and started winning they were had enough games left to avoid relegation.  

How does this relate to the current democratic nomination battle?  Simple, it isn't a game it's a season and people have been using the wrong analogy.  In a game, until the last moment you can always come back.  A freak play, a blown save, one last magical play and you can come back in a game.  In a season, once the gap between you and the leader is greater than the number of matches left, you can no longer win.   Each week in this nomination battle is a game within the season not part of a continuous game.  
It's not the game (KY, SD, OR,) it's the season that's over.

It's time to start playing for draft picks and the future.  

Not much of a diary but as I was cruising the blogs I came across a Clinton "blogger" conference call.  I started listening to the call and who do I hear but our local celebrity Alegre.   She said she was going to take her two children to the May 31 DNC meeting to share her views.  Now here is the kicker, she sounded like a normal, even nice person.   It was obvious she has a lot of emotional energy invested in this process but it was a very sincere caring passion.  I often think she goes over the top in her post but after getting a chance to hear her actually talking to Sen. Clinton I have a different, better view of her.  Still over the top but a a sincere over the top.  

Meat of the conversation, Talking Points.

1. Popular Vote
   
2. Electoral College Vote
   
3. FL/MI Votes
   
4. Party Unity in the end
   
5. Email Address for video, talking points and anything else they need. (Chelsea is a popular subject of video's bloggers want more)
   
6. Ooops lost the Senator off the call near the end.  

Back in 1999 a young up and coming state Senator made the bold or foolish move of challenging a local legend.  Bobby Rush a former Black Panther, 4 term congressman and former Alderman was a odds on favorite to retain his seat.  During the campaine season Bobby Rush suffered a family tragedy, his son was murdered causing the young challenger to put his campaign on hold.

The short story is Rush won in a two to one landslide 60% to 31%.  

After review of the numerous threads outlining people who have had their ability to rate stripped there is a common point of contact.  The "Bob Johnson thread" (who IMHO was a true loss to the quality of content here).  I'm not sure what the mechanics are but it would appear that everyone (or most) who recced Bob's thread (that was taken down from the rec list then later put back up) have had their ability to rate removed. In light of the mass account action taken for simply recommending a well written diary I have a few suggestions going forward and an observation.  

1.  No more mass privilege stripping  

2.  Restore privilege without prejudice.

3. No more heat of the moment banning.  

4. No more banning for diaries you simply disagree with rather than those which break the TOS.  

5.  Include explanation to account e-mail for any actions taken against account, explaining why.

Pragmatic observation

This being a thriving "Clinton Only" site has a half life of about 3 weeks. It might be time to pivot to a more inclusive view and propagation of content.  The only way to accomplish more balanced discussion is to stop the practice of weighing the content through the use of selective recommend ability.  

I hope you take this opportunity to recognize some potential bad habits that have been practiced recently and reintroduce the  ability for users to have fair political discourse without one group having disproportionate editorial power.  

Thanks in advance

*Update Note* Thanks duende for a link to the content in question http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/1/25143/93090/754/506723

There is no way to deny the facts; yesterday in West Virginia was a significant win for Sen. Clinton.   As an Obama supporter up till now I have taken solace in the often reported "leaked" Obama projection spreadsheet. Following this spreadsheet for the last three months has helped keep from letting the highs get to high or the lows too low.  No projections can be expected to be 100% correct but this 2/6/2008 sheet has been amazingly close, until last night.  The Obama camp had originally projected a 43/55 loss and didn't come close. The events yesterday while minimal in impact to the delegate fight were significant at least in timing, a perfect proving ground for Sen. Clinton's recent central argument.

Often perceptions are repeated over and over until they seem to become reality.  A good example would be the 9/11=Iraq=War meme which lead to your current situation in Iraq.  After the fact some curious fact finder will uncover the truth, much to everyones surprise.   There has been a often repeated perception that Sen. Clinton has been the recipient of unfair, even biased questions during the debates against Sen. Obama.   Despite my feelings that those perceptions were incorrect I never did the work to find out the truth, so could not defend my perception.  luckily someone has decided to find truth. In a interesting article posted at the Huffington Post the 1v1 debates are broken down and analyzed.  

Here is a quick teaser.  

 ABC asked the most scandal questions, and both ABC and NBC devoted only half of their questions to policy issues. The CNN debates were dramatically more policy-focused

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/20 /debate-analysis-abc-asked_n_97599.html

More interesting observations;

Clinton actually had it much rougher at CNN's earlier one-on-one debate in Hollywood. That was the only debate of the four where Clinton was asked a scandal question while Obama was not. Moreover, Clinton faced three questions on her initial support for the Iraq war ("Why can't you just say right now that that vote was a mistake?"), one question about Sen. Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama, and another on the perception of a Bush-Clinton dynasty ("How can you be an agent of change when we have had the same two families in the White House for the last 30 years?").

And finally this observation..

Barack Obama has received the overwhelming majority of scandal questions over the course of the four debates, by a margin of 17 to 4

So what do you think, does the perception match reality?