Politics and Soccer

A couple of good quotes I heard from Keith Olbermann recently.

"We as citizens must at some point ignore partisanship, not that we may prosper as a nation, but that merely we may function as a nation."

"You Are Campaigning As If Barack Obama Were The Democrat And You Were The Republican" - (video below)



On a little tangent, gonna talk about a soccer player from Stevens who graduated and is playing professionally in Cyprus. Unfortunately I only really got to see him play here for a year but when I did he simply played like the field was his to dominate and that he did. Nick "Niko" Gkionis was a center back for the Stevens Ducks from 2003 to 2006 and was named a first-team All-American by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America his senior year. He also sent me a link to the 35-second preview for a soccer mix-tape that he has been working on and I have that embedded below. I can't wait for the entire thing to be released. He has also been working in conjunction with Brian Granata of Stevens Athletics to provide an inside look at life on the road and life as a professional soccer player through a weekly blog entitled “Beyond the Pond.” His most recent post is from yesterday, make sure to go take a look.

Is Hilary Clinton A Muslim?

Awesome clip of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert discussing the issue of Senator Clinton's middle name.





It is just amazing how those two shows can continue to put out amazing shows just from the news alone on a daily basis. Simply Amazing.

Clinton: Still No Congratulations For Obama

Interesting piece of article on CNN earlier. Now with Obama getting the delegate lead even when you factor in the super delegate votes, you certainly should not expect any congratulations now until the race is done.

EL PASO, Texas (CNN) – For the second election night in a row, Hillary Clinton failed to acknowledge or congratulate Barack Obama after he won the day in dominating fashion.

On Tuesday in El Paso, hours after Virginia had been called for Obama, she stuck to her “Texas campaign kickoff” message and did not stray from an energetic, Lone Star-themed stump speech. She did mention Obama by name, only to chide his health care plan.

On Saturday night in Richmond, Virginia, Clinton spoke to a crowd of thousands at the state’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, but she ignored Obama’s quartet of blowout primary and caucus wins that day as well (Obama also won the Maine caucuses the next day).

The courtesy of conceding a primary or caucus loss — and then congratulating your opponent — is by no means required. But it has become standard practice during campaign season.

Clinton congratulated Obama and John Edwards after their first and second place finishes in the Iowa caucuses. Obama returned the favor in New Hampshire, saying Clinton “did an outstanding job.” That courtesy continued through the early states.

But as the race has shifted to a delegate chase with dozens of states in play around the country, the notion of congratulating one’s opponent seems, for Clinton, to have fallen by the wayside.

– CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

Key Dates to look out for: State (Delegates)

March 4: Ohio (161) and Texas (228) Primaries
April 22: Pennsylvania (188)
May 6: North Carolina (134)

Those are the last four states left with triple digit delegates left and with the total difference still barely in double digits, I expect March 4 to be crucial. Obama needs to make inroads in Texas and certainly this momentum will help.

To think it is February 13th now and people expected this race to be over after over a month ago following Iowa and New Hampshire. How crucial would Florida and Michigan primaries be, had they not decided to defy party rules and push their primaries before the February 5th deadline... The world will never know.

Updated: Super Duper Tuesday

Barack Obama leads in the delegates that have been voted by ACTUAL VOTERS!!

The only reason Hilary Clinton is leading is because of the Superdelegates where she has an extra 87 delegates to boost her. What can you do when the system is designed to favor those who are in it and makes it very difficult for any one from outside to come in.

Super Duper Tuesday

(paraphrased from an email sent to a friend overseas summarizing Super Tuesday)

So the night started off interestingly early with Obama picking up Georgia with like 88% of the black vote and he only lost the white vote like 60-40. Clinton quickly replied with wins in new Jersey and new York both by 15 points. Obama won his state by 32 points. Obama picked up quality wins in Missouri, Connecticut and Kansas but Clinton has California, Massachusetts and Arizona to battle back.

I really hate the Super Delegate system where the party establishment has votes on who to give the delegates (look at attached picture below). Based on total voting delegates only! Clinton has a lead of 475 to 451 (only up by 24 delegates) but if you add super delegates 668 to 557 (lead goes up to 111)*. Gives Hilary quite the boost.

So the democratic race goes on with states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas still to vote all of them have triple digit delegates so we’ll see.

*note: numbers subject to change as more districts report numbers.

For the republicans, McCain kind of kicked butt but Huckabee surprised me picking up several states (WVA, TEN, ARK, ALA)… they are talking about a McCain / Huckabee ticket which is quite scary for America…

Super Tuesday - Weekend Polling

I apologize for the brevity of my diary; however, I think the results speak for themselves. Zogby has some pretty surprising results in his latest polls, which are to be released tomorrow.

Both parties have staged tight, seesawing battles for the nominations for November's presidential election. Clinton, the New York senator, and Obama split the first four Democratic contests -- Obama won Iowa and South Carolina, while Clinton won New Hampshire and Nevada.

In California, the poll found Obama led Clinton by 45 percent to 41 percent, with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points. Clinton held statistically insignificant 1-point leads on Obama in New Jersey and Missouri, well within the margin of error of 3.4 percentage points in both surveys.

It would be an extraordinary feat to see Obama come within 1 point of Hillary in New Jersey, considering that it's her backyard. Hillary also had a huge lead in Missouri just over a week ago, but now it seems that it has evaporated into thin air.

Furthermore, Obama appears to be consolidating his lead in Georgia.

Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, has a comfortable 20-point lead in Georgia fueled by a more than 3-to-1 advantage over Clinton among black voters.

From the polling results, we can ascertain that this race is precipitously shifting in favor of Obama.

Update: Many people are criticizing Zogby and some of their criticisms may be fair. however, the Field Poll will be coming out tomorrow and it will also show that the race in California is a dead heat, thus corroborating the results of Zogby's poll that shows a dramatic shift towards Obama.

Taken from Daily Kos.

A Reason To Believe?

After Barack Obama recorded the largest victory in this very early primary season in South Carolina, now is there a reason to believe in this race again? With a resounding 55% of the votes from nearly half a million Democratic voters from which there were around 75% support from African American voters but only 35% of non-African American voters. Now with two belts on completely different ends of the spectrum... Iowa - rather large White population to South Carolina with its large Black population.

Now there is a Florida primary next Tuesday which carries no delegates and outside of Hilary Clinton, no major Democratic candidate had even campaigned there. So expect a Clinton win there setting up a super heavyweight match up come Super Tuesday of monumental proportions.

Now the wait is on for February 5th, which is in a week and a half...

Nevada Caucuses

Let me just summarize what happened in Nevada...

- Hilary Clinton won the popular vote (51%-45%)
- Barack Obama picked up more delegates (13-12)
- Mitt Romney picked up a crucial victory
- Ron Paul finished 2nd with 14% of the votes

- I do not understand why Rudy Guiliani is still in the race
- I do not understand why Fred Thompson is still in the race
- I will excluse Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich because they are both lunatics

Umm... What Happened?

Chris Matthews on MSNBC is still trying to figure out what just happened tonight. What underlying factor played a role in all of these polls being incorrect and not just by a few points here or there, but 10-15 points. Was it race that played a factor where a predominantly White state told pollsters they would support Obama but when they went in to vote... they, as I had originally thought, that Americans just are not ready to support an Black man...

Congratulations to the Clinton camp who have certainly found a second wind early on where it seemed like she was dead in the water. I am certain this puts the African American vote in South Carolina up in the air whether they will go back to supporting the Clintons or can they support "one of their own".

Now there are talks about a union nomination that Obama was supposed to get from Nevada is being put on hold which could have devastating repercussions to the campaign but as we found out tonight, it is way to early to announce anything. As of today, less than one half of one percent of the American electorate has voted... why not give the other people some say as well before jump on a nominee.

P.S. up to day four now on the MIA amigo

By The Way...

Obama has opened up a double digit lead on Hilary in New Hampshire with the primary just two days away. Just thought I would throw that out there.