finknottle

Heck, he's still sitting on almost $6 million in donations that he chose not to spend when the race was in question. As noted in the recent Washington Post article, he has about 10 family members still drawing paychecks from his campaign, and he's got a lot of book tour - err, campaign stops - to fund, but with November looming he needs to find a way to blow through the rest of the peoples money. A big convention party is a good start.

I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree. The problem is that the bottom 60% essentially pays no taxes now. The bottom 50% of those households who filed with a positive adjusted gross income (66 million households) had an average federal tax rate of 2.98% in 2005. There's not much to cut there, despite Obama's promises, and you are not going to stimulate spending or saving by reducing it. But I do agree with the perscription - cutting the payroll tax. That's a flat tax that impacts job creation. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

You should look into India. The oil companies are state owned. While the cost of oil doubled for them in the past year, political pressures have prevented them from raising the prices (which - I think - are about the same as ours at the pump, but their processing costs are much higher). The result is that they have run out of capital and are facing insolvancy. The government is struggling with the question of a massive bailout. Unfoirtunately, a huge cash infusion won't solve the underlying problem, since the political pressure won't allow for an increase of more than 10%. If we nationalize oil, we expose pricing to political pressure, and divorce people's behavior from real world supply and demand. We'll get bigger SUV's and bigger tax bills to match.

By all means! I'm an ordinary guy who had the forsight to invest in energy stocks. Why should I be screwed, when I took a big risk in the aftermeth of Enron? It is ironic that people complain about the growing economic divide in this country. And yet we discourage the transition from a labour-based society to an ownership society by looking to raid capital gains and windfall profits whenever the going gets tough...

How is outlawing murder working out for you? Or speeding? Would you get rid of laws that people can get around? Is it complete success or nothing?

We need Ron Paul to save the Constitution!!! Too bad he's busy doing book tours on the 5 million in campaign contributions that, oddly, he chose not to spend when it was still a race. But heck, he hasn't dropped out so he can keep using the money as long as he call's it a campaign event!

There's been rumors on right-wing blogs of a video of Michele Obama saying some inflammatory Wright-type stuff. They've been wondering why it still hasn't been released. Maybe it does exist, and Clinton has been waiting for it too. Only now the republican camp has decided that they would much rather face Obama, and want to wait until he has secured the nomination at the convention before dropping the bombshell.

The issue isn't whether she was really hurt or not. Sue for 10k or a million, who cares - pay the money and the problem goes away. The issue is hit and run. If he really was the driver, and she really was hit and he knew it and left the scene anyway, he's doing time even if she's fine.

So why didn't Obama take his name off of the Florida ballot?

A subtle and frequently distorted point. The candidates agreed to not campaign, and publically agreed to support the DNC. They did *not* go on record as saying they agreed with the particular judgement. That's just common sense, politically. You don't make enemies unneccessarily and paint yourself into a corner.

First, it wasn't against party rules at all, and Kucinich was on the ballot too. Edwards and Obama pulled out as a tactical move, believing at the time that front-runner Clinton would have little to gain by winning and everything to lose by falling to 'undecided.' Their prominant backers in the state, including Rep John Conyers, publically called for their supporters to vote undecided. As for the revote in Florida, I believe Clinton backers came up with the money. The effort was torpedoed by Obama supporters on the grounds that mailing ballots would disenfranchise those voters who were not home in the summer.

So shouldn't you reserve your ire for the media?

It's called taking a responsible moderate position. Even the most ardent gun supporter finds issues on which to vote no, and the most ardent gun-control politician will find positions on which to say guns are acceptable. Or are you saying you cannot be in favor of guns unless you believe they cannot be prohibited under any circumstances? Would a gun control advocate who voted yes to allow collectors to keep guns under lock and key also be a hypocrite? What does that say about Obama's nay vote? Is he for gun control or against it?

The Obama smear-machine-if-it-were-another-candidate strikes again!

You're making no sense. Explain the sword please?

I think it's time we try again with another great unifier, short on divisive specifics and long on feel-goodism.

But is it really? How many pioneers of medicine can you name without looking them up? The first open-heart surgeon, or brain surgeon? I think people quickly forget them and move on. A new cure doesn't change the way that we look at the world, and that - ultimately - is what it's all about. The first airplane flew in 1903. Planes would remain a toy of the rich for the next 30 years. In 1906 the first immunization for Tuberculsis, or 'consumption,' was developed. At that time it was endemic among the poor, responsible for about one death in 5. Within 20 years serious inroads in prevention had been made around the world. I'm willing to bet that you know the guys who flew, but have never heard of the pioneers of Tuberculsis. For that matter, I bet you don't know the first open-heart surgeon, or the discoverers of lupus or malaria , but can still name several astronauts, and an early astronomer or two.

Onward and upward, lest you turn inward and stagnate. It is the story of civilization. Personally, Mars would not be my first choice either - I think the priority should be a permanent presence in space with self-sustainability a serious objective. But inspiration only is enough to justify. How do you feel about the moon landings? Do you think we would have been better off had that money been added to Johnsons War on Poverty or turned into tax cuts? Or would we be just where we are today but without the memories? Consider the pryamids. Do you think they should not have been built? Would giving the workers all that time off as a holidy have been better than the thousands of years we have gained in which millions have been enspired, from the school child in China to the archeologist in Germany, to the Egyption on the street who can look on his history with pride? And what about Michaelangelo's Sistene Chapel? Should the Pope have taken the money and spent it instead on opening up on yet another church serving the poor?

Why bother with funding education at all? We could take that money and spend it all on social services. If you think that is too draconian, then how about just eliminating programs like history, music, arts, sports, and disability programs. No need to inspire people, just stick with the three R's in subjects that matter.

Not a solid predictor, but far from useless, especially with the prospect of a fight looming at the convention. As long as the Obama camp argues that his candidacy puts traditionally red states in play, and the Clinton camp argues that she will carry the large battleground states, I think it makes sense to look at how the electoral map shakes out in terms of what is in play with each candidate.

Me neither. I'm just crunching the numbers as reported - the most recent poll has McCain up only by 1 over Obama, but up 7 over Clinton. I have no explanation.

Now that we have current state-by-state polling, I took the most recent poll for each state and computed the electoral outcome for each matchup. In a McCain-Obama contest, McCain wins by 40 electoral votes. In a McCain-Clinton contest, Clinton either loses to McCain by 2 electoral votes or wins by 18 (depending on Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes, where they are in a dead heat.) Here are the differences between what Obama and Clinton carry: Obama loses Arkansas handily, Clinton wins it handily. (6 delegates) Obama narrowly wins Colorado (9), Clinton loses it handily. Obama loses Florida (27) handily, Clinton wins it narrowly. Obama wins Iowa handily (7), Clinton loses it handily. Obama loses Missouri handily (11), Clinton wins it narrowly. Obama wins NH narrowly (4), Clinton loses it handily. This one suprised me. Obama loses Ohio narrowly (20), Clinton wins it handily. Obama loses WV (5) handily, Clinton wins it narrowly. Obama wins Wisconsin (10) narrowly, Clinton and McCain are tied. The key differences IMO are Florida and Ohio. On paper these results heavily favor Clinton. But Obama puts a few more states in play, such as Texas where he only narrowly loses but Clinton loses handily. So what I did was separate the states into those where a candidate has a lock (polling 6% or higher) and those which are effectively in play. This gives a slight edge to Obama. McCain: 190 Obama: 199 In play: 149 McCain: 209 Clinton: 190 In play: 139 (My apologies for not including Ron Paul. The Media told me not to.)

'The States' are local politicians who are aligned with one camp or another. There was money - Obama's people raised numerous objections in Florida against any revote arguing (I don't remember the details) that absentee ballots would disenfranchise voters etc.

Yeah, don't let my defense of NASA in this thread mislead you - I'm attacking national priorities, not defending NASA's administration. I think they are hide-bound, risk-averse, and aggravatingly monopolistic. The need to be encouraging the opening up of space, not defending their turf.

The first batch of numbers are my best guess based on the numbers out there. The second batch are what I think would happen with a few breaks in her favor. (Obviously, things might equally break in Obama's favor.) I wanted to keep the estimation separate from the what-if speculation. Basically I'm predicting that she will just pull ahead in the popular vote (without MI or FL), but it is quite possible that she could wind up 100-200k ahead (or 100-200k behind).