OPINION . Slant

That's the Ticket

Teaming up might be the Democrats' only way out.

Published: Apr 30, 2008

Thanks to you, Pennsylvania, Barack Obama has a bit of a problem. Despite a huge cash advantage and a lead in pledged delegates, Hillary Clinton is turning out to be a stage-five clinger whose candidacy gains plausibility with every victory. He needs to either quickly stop her momentum or resign himself to a potential floor fight at the convention in August.

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Clinton's Pennsylvania victory obliterated Obama's last chance to end this thing before June. And now the talking heads are atwitter about Obama's weakness, while the McCain camp is positively giddy. For the Republicans this must be like when Iraq and Iran went to war in 1980 — enemies bloodying and expending their treasure and time on each other rather than the common enemy.

Some of the blame can be allotted to the media, particularly the execrable ABC-run debate in Philadelphia, where the moderators spent time attacking Obama over trivialities and recycling right-wing myths about his patriotism. Maybe they should have their next debate in front of the editors of Little Green Footballs. At least then we'll know where the questions are coming from.

Obama supporters would have you believe that his loss in Pa. is meaningless since he's still in the lead. But it really means that a majority of Pennsylvanians prefer Clinton even after a nonstop Obama ad blitz and a month of pressure from commentators and party elders for her to withdraw from the race. The primary results have to make even Obama's biggest supporters nervous about his strength in the general election, when he will face tactics even more ruthless than those deployed by Team Clinton.

The Obama camp shouldn't necessarily blame Clinton for their predicament. While her campaign has been negative lately, she shouldn't be skewered for the crime of staying in a race she still could win according to the party's own rules. The mess must be laid at the feet of the DNC and its long string of embarrassing decisions this season, from the decision to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates to the mind-numbingly convoluted primary structure that led to this stalemate in the first place.



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At this point, there's no clear solution unless Obama stops the bleeding in Indiana and North Carolina. If Clinton continues to eat into his delegate and popular vote leads with the determination of five-time Wing Bowl Champ Bill Simmons, she will sneak into the convention with at least a moderately plausible argument for her candidacy. If she manages to have the Florida and Michigan delegations seated, she might have the popular vote and the delegate lead — albeit in a controversial manner.

Even if her argument is plausible, a successful push by Clinton for the superdelegates would be disastrous for the Democratic party. If a small percentage of Obama supporters feel betrayed enough to stay home on Election Day rather than vote for Clinton, it could throw the election to John McCain — whose inexplicable popularity will be a challenge for either Democrat anyway.

The ultimate nightmare for the party would be for Clinton to lead in the popular vote and Obama to lead in delegates going into the convention — this would throw the election to the superdelegates and leave one side's supporters tremendously bitter at precisely the moment the party needs to unify.

Perhaps a joint ticket is the only way out of this dilemma. Maybe in order to beat McCain, these two candidates must continue clinging to each other all the way through November.

David Faris is a frequent Slant contributor.

Comments

Does America want to elect any Democrat? The average American is appalled at the ever escalating price of gasoline/transportation costs and the impact that these costs are having on the family budget. Further, as we're well aware, transportation costs ripple through the entire American economy on every essential commodity that we're required to purchase such as food. The latter being accentuated by an erroneous emphasis on an inefficient petroleum substitute, ethanol, which actually inhibits our attempts to achieve higher mileage standards. In an America with POTENTIALLY vast energy resources, why have we allowed ourselves to become willing victims of cartel energy piracy from highly unstable, unfriendly fanatical regimes, from whom we now import a substantial segment of our petroleum needs? Imports which continuously drain wealth from America in the form of an unfavorable balance of trade; and, conversely flow petro-dollars into the coffers of Islamofacists and others who would destroy America given the opportunity. Were it not for America's dependence on these Middle-East petroleum imports, we could conveniently extricate ourselves from this cauldron of fanaticism; and, allow the fanatics to wallow in their self imposed misery and virulent hatred for Western culture.

The fundamental question is WHO do we blame for this self-imposed dilemma?

America originated nuclear power; and yet, we produce only 20% of our domestic electrical energy from the nuclear option while countries such as France produce 78%, and have programmed significantly more, dramatically reducing their dependence on fossil fuels. The safety issue on nuclear power is a non-sequitur given the hundreds of thousands of operating hours on U.S. Naval nuclear propulsion systems without incident. But yet, LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS in our society THAT COMPRISE A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF THE BASE OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY have for 30yrs. managed to bring America's nuclear industry to a standstill.

Our Nation possesses an abundance of untapped petroleum reserves off our coastlines; in the Alaskan wilderness; and, in the form of hi-quality shale oil in the Rocky Mountain region where we have the equivalent of ten(10) Saudi Arabia's in recoverable reserves. And yet, we have permitted LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS to inhibit our access to such deposits. The incredible irony is that the CHICOM are exploring for oil 45miles South of Key West, while we have prohibited ourselves from exploiting the same resources. Had Bill Clinton not vetoed the Republican controlled Senate approval of drilling in ANWAR, exploration which has been previously proven to be beneficial to the Alaskan Caribou herds, we would have had an additional one million barrels of domestic oil production on-line TODAY; and, a concurrent reduction in the at-pump price of gasoline of $1/gallon. Further, there is an inherent synergy to be exploited between Nuclear Power and Shale Oil Extraction. Concurrently, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama, ensconced in their own vision of scuttling fossil fuels, have both pledged to confiscate the profits of America's Energy Companies. A move that would cripple our capacity to explore/develop additional petroleum reserves; greatly exacerbate our dependence on foreign sources; and, dramatically further increase the price of fuel at the pump.

America has the largest reserves of coal in the world; and, a full 50% of our domestic electrical energy generation is dependent on this resource; and yet, LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS continuously attempt to restrict the use of these coal reserves; and, to impede attempts to develop technologies/facilities for the gasification of coal. Bill Clinton struck a major blow to America's accessible coal reserves when he unilaterally, over the objection of State officials, placed the Red Hills of Utah with an estimated Four(4) Trillion $s worth of high quality coal assets off-limits. Fearful of mass protests, Clinton wouldn't even go to Utah to announce his heinous restriction; but, rather chose to make his proclamation from the relative security of Arizona. Clinton's actions represented a major financial windfall for his Riady Bros. bankrollers who were in competition with Utah to sell their Indonesian coal holdings to the CHICOM. Ever wonder why Clinton refuses to release the Donor list for his "Foundation"!

Even our Hydro-Electric potential has been brought to a standstill by LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS over such nonsense as the Snail-Darter. Water resources which could as well now be playing a major role in mitigating the effects of the drought that has recently griped the SouthEast.

Much of the hype over fossil fuels has again been exploited by LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS over the mythical impact of MAN MADE CO2 emissions on Global Warming. Such proclamations totally disregard the complete lack of correlation between recorded atmospheric CO2 levels and recorded Global temperatures. On Earth as on Mars, where no controversy of Man Made Global Warming factors exist, surface temperature variations precisely track the recorded fluctuations in Solar irradiance. Ask our self-inflicted dyslexic friend, Al Gore, to explain these two recorded contradictions to his Man Made Global Warming hype. The silence is deafening Albert!

Imposition of overly burdensome regulatory criteria and an application morass principally sponsored by LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS, have made the expense and reduced profitability of investing in additional refinery installations prohibitive. The inevitable result being that corporations for many years have shunned such capital projects creating a restrictive "choke point" in the availability of gasoline products. This "choke point" where refineries are continuously required to operate at peak capacities makes the availability/distribution of refined products within our Nation readily vulnerable to supply disruptions. Further, the dictated multiple blends of gasoline, frequently multiple blends within the same metropolis, have seriously complicated and inflated the time factor in the refinery task.

To be certain, we CAN and we MUST achieve total energy independence; but, our Nation can only extricate ourselves from this self imposed dilemma by a broad-based, comprehensive NATIONAL ENERGY STRATEGY that BLENDS all of the elements of: conservation; major increases in transportation efficiencies, such as increased mileage standards; exploitation of our indigenous petroleum resources; a significant expansion of our refinery facilities; major investments in nuclear energy; supplementation of our electrical grid with solar, wind, geo-thermal, and hydro technologies; and, a major investment in Research and Development to bring a Hydrogen and Fusion based economy to fruition. Unfortunately, to dig ourselves out of this self-created coffin-corner will require TIME. Time which simply means that, in the interim, we must protect our access to unstable Middle East suppliers until we bring our own assets on line. The latter exigency which could readily be scuttled by the Cut-And-Run crowd on Iraq. The regional chaos which would be precipitated by Iran subsequent to a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq would make the current cost-escalation in energy supplies from the Middle East seem like the Golden Age of Yesteryear by comparison; and, most certainly would induce a much wider conflict/conflagration. The myopia of the Left on these circumstances is astounding. As history has repeatedly taught with grim consequences, PEACE and STABILITY are won only THRU STRENGTH; and, NOT THRU the nebulous psychosis of HOPE.

The ability of a LEFT-WING minority, that has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to whiplash the Democrat Party, to dictate such onerous/debilitating restrictions in the energy sector of the American economy has been made possible ONLY by the passive acceptance of these militant's demands by the more rational majority of the American electorate. The RATIONAL MAJORITY: that believes in the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution; that is proud of our Country; that daily expresses such pride by the furling of an American flag on their property, or the wearing of an American Flag lapel pin on their chest; that proudly places their hand over their heart at the singing of our National Anthem while even shedding a tear or two; that is unashamed to actively recognize the Judeo/Christian heritage of America; that believe that Judges should NOT legislate from the bench; and, that proudly proclaims the unparallel contribution of America to the protection and sustenance of democratic values throughout the pages of world history, as opposed to LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS that believe America to be the greatest EVIL in the world. As the Pope so eloquently proclaimed on his recent visit to our homeland, "God Bless America".

The task then for the RATIONAL MAJORITY in our Nation is SIMPLY to recognize the SOURCE that sustains and provides the base of support for the LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS in our society; and, to undertake a decisive role at the ballot box to isolate and relegate these FRINGE ELEMENTS THAT COMPRISE A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF THE BASE OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY to a decibel level that is barely audible. ANY TIME you vote for a Democrat, ANY DEMOCRAT, you're unmistakably multiplying the capacity of these LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS to continue to promote their radical agenda, and to bring our Nation to its knees. A circumstance that no external power ever could have accomplished.

The ability to restore our Nation's status; and, to sustain this Sacred Land that the RATIONAL MAJORITY so proudly calls AMERICA, resides in your hands at the ballot box.

GREG NEUBECK
by Greg Neubeck on May 2nd 2008 8:53 PM

Greg the sense that I'm getting from your response is that LEFT-WING FRINGE ELEMENTS may be responsible for some of our problems. I'll be sure to check into it.
by David Faris on May 3rd 2008 8:04 PM



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