New Hampshire And So, Where Are We Now?

At 92% we have Clinton 39%, Obama 36%, Edwards 17%, Richardson 5% and there doesn't seem to be any shift trend. I have a hard time getting much from a 3% margin in a state as small as NH, it just isn't that many votes and virtually meaningless for delegate apportioning. It seems to have great meaning to the media, Hillary is now a come back phenom. Polling is looking stupid as an evaluator, one week ago she was the lock, a few days ago she was history, and now a narrow victory. If it has meaning regarding Obama, it is that she ain't dead.

With this miserable finish something is malfunctioning for Edwards, and it isn't just the media neglect. I'm not sure what it is. There ought to be some connection with his message, an awful lot of people are not doing all that well out of this economy.

Where did Obama's campaign go wrong? Maybe it didn't so much go wrong as Indie votes went on the Republican side. Media has sent that message, that McCain got their votes. If that has anything to do with reality, those voters would never have considered Obama, so Indie analysis was all wet to start with - in NH. Really, it's only a few votes from a dead heat in a state that's a bit different from the rest of the US.

Hillary is not going to suffer big defeats as long as the "experience" card works, people buy that nonsense as a) true and b) meaningful. The truth of the experience mantra is that she has no more elected experience than Obama and as an activist less than Obama or Edwards (yes, trial work counts for something). If it were meaningful in a real context, she should have gotten out when Richardson got in - she's an absolute amateur next to him. As a President, in coming experience has not proved to be of any particular use, in fact. We've had good and bad "amateurs." Lincoln stands out as great with little experience in office and there's nothing polite to be said for GeorgeII.

Voters are an odd lot, what sells often has nothing to do with their own interests. I am willing to state plainly that the economic elite is not going to get shoved away from the table; what the fight really is about is how many and what sized crumbs they let fall from their table. One tenth of one percent of the population controls 90% of the economy, they get 90% of what this economy makes in a year and 99.9% of us get to fight over that remaining 10%. In even simpler terms, that 0.1% make more in one year than the entire bottom 30% make in that same year. Thirty million wage earners make less than three hundred thousand capitalists, that's a heck of a lot of zeros, folks. Here's a news flash, it hasn't been this way since the days of the Robber Barons, and it's nearing being worse now, than then. So, if you're not one of those folks or darn near one, what should your vote be about? If everything else is nearly even, who speaks to that?

Just how bad is it? Here's the "right" side of the vote on S 256 "Bankruptcy Bill"

NAYs ---25
Akaka (D-HI) Boxer (D-CA) Cantwell (D-WA) Corzine (D-NJ) Dayton (D-MN) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA) Harkin (D-IA) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (D-CT) Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA) Obama (D-IL) Reed (D-RI) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sarbanes (D-MD) Schumer (D-NY) Wyden (D-OR)

Clinton (D-NY) NOT VOTING maybe somebody ought to ask her if it seemed important??? All Democratic opposition to one of the most draconian economic measures passed in modern times, but not all Democrats. You really need to think about this, really, really think. This is a class warfare bill, plain and simple.

If anyone makes a case that there's something wrong with the disparity of wealth in this country the Republicans and their Democratic allies talk about class warfare - taking from the productive. That's funny, really; if you make a thing - you're not one of the productive. From their definition the people who actually build a house are leeches on the system, all that labor is not productive while clipping stock coupons is. If you're feeling like you've missed something, let me be very simple, lots of money is productive, sweat isn't.

Some folks are talking about how well things will work out with a Democratic President and a real useful majority in Congress. I doubt it. If you elect a President who likes the way the economic system is set up that tells every pol that doing things the same way is just fine. The folks out here in the world might disagree afterwards, but that won't be how they voted. Up until Ronald Reagan some pretty fair sized crumbs reached the floor for the rest of us, but that was quite awhile ago and bad habits are hard to change. Especially hard when the voters don't seem to get it. Oh well, I'm pretty sure birds, children, and voters are easily distracted by bright baubles.