May 05 2008
Gas War
Remember the gas wars? For you young-uns, that was when competing gas stations would lower their prices to entice you to purchase their gasoline rather than their competitor’s. Ah, the good old days.
It seems was have a gas war of sorts going on in Indiana and North Carolina tonight. Those two states hold their presidential primaries tomorrow and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are arguing over Mrs. Clinton’s (and John McCain’s) silly plan to suspend the federal gasoline tax for three months. (It will never happen, and wouldn’t really help anyone if it did, but it makes for good politics. There really are no other issues we should be talking about, are there?)
They are both running “final argument” ads in those states tonight.
I’m predicting that nothing much will really be decided tomorrow. The two candidates are likely to split the states and, with the way Democrats apportion delegates, will end up with roughly the same number of pledged delegates.
Hillary Clinton is not going to become the Democratic nominee without a whole lot of old-fashioned back-room wheeling and dealing politics. The Democratic party will be destroyed in the process. The problem is that she just doesn’t care.
The good people of Indiana and North Carolina could end this thing tomorrow. If Barack Obama walks away with convincing victories in both states it should become abundantly clear, even to Hillary Clinton, that she has no shot at the nomination. Please, let it be so. It really is getting to be time for Senator Obama to begin focusing his attention on handing John McCain and the Republicans the humiliating defeat in November they have earned and so richly deserve.
Really.
6 Responses to “Gas War”
And if Clinton comes away with victories…will you insist that Obama quit?
No, because Senator Obama will still be leading in both pledged delegates and the popular vote. It doesn’t make much sense to ask the leader to quit the race.
I’ve read where people who claim to know about these things have calculated that Mrs. Clinton needs to win all the remaining primaries with at least 70% of the vote in each in order to draw even with Mr. Obama at this point. I somehow doubt that is going to happen.
I suppose you’re right about pledged delegates…if you don’t count two very populous states.
That are crucial to winning the general election.
Which is the real goal…remember?
btw…check that popular vote count again.
@jay : You know, y’all really need to quite whinging about Florida and Michigan. They agreed to the rules; then they broke the rules. They knew what would happen if they broke the rules, and they did it anyway. None of the candidates campaigned in either of those states. Hillary’s was the only name on the ballot in Michigan. Her campaign agreed that those states would not count until she won them (out of name recognition only) and then all of a sudden they wanted them to count. The voters in FL and MI are screaming like this is all Howard Dean’s fault. It isn’t. They need to be pointing their fingers at their own state party leaders.
And, I suppose, if you use Hillary Math, you might say she is now leading in the popular vote. Problem is, nobody is using Hillary Math except Hillary.
I remember when gas was less than a dollar. I could take 20 dollars, fill up my take, and go out and have fast food, when I was in high school in the early 90’s.
Nobody except the ones who vote. Though the power brokers might not seat the delegates, the ones who voted still count, which makes Clinton the leader in the popular vote. What is it about Democrats that settle for 2nd place with the people?
BTW…why did Dean take a stand on two states but allowed a couple of others to count that did the same thing?