Obama

Dang, I’ve accumulated quite a bit of material worth commenting on during the craziness of the past few weeks.   Some of the more interesting articles include:

• Redstate referenced an article in the Telegraph entitled “The Great Oil Bubble Has Burst”.  While Redstate seems inclined to play up the influence of off-shore drilling expectations in the recent rationalization of oil prices, the more complete story seems to be the free market coming back into balance.  Yes, the markets seem to reflect expectation of new supplies, and global economic slowing is shifting expectations of demand, and these shifts in turn seem to end the incentive to dance the contango. 
     
  However, I do notice that both articles also fail to touch on expectations of the US Dollar strengthening / Euro weakening impacting dollar-denominated oil futures contracts, as well as China presumably ending its massive stockpiling of diesel fuel for Olympics power-generation.

  It’ll be interesting to see where  the new oil/fuel price equilibrium emerges.  It’s a little odd that I’d ever be happy over gas and heating oil prices locally dropping below $3.90 – a year ago that would have been an unsettling price to think about.  Hopefully planners and venture capitalists will continue to see the market potential of alternative power sources (wind, solar, non-food-based-ethanol) enough to justify further development of such technology.
   

• You may have heard that the Olympics are on. NBC apparently racked up record ratings, which annoys me since it will only support that network’s practice of tainting the games (and its ceremonies) with inane, fluffy chatter.   You’d think that with the advent of digital multicasting, there would at least be some move to provide a commentator-less soundtrack, as well as additional coverage of some of the less-popular (but more interesting) sports.
   
• Tyson Foods drew some flack in Nashville media for one provision in its recently announced 5-year contract at a Shelbyville processing plant – workers will no longer receive Labor Day as a paid day off, instead picking up Eid al-Fitr, the end of the month of Ramadan.  The fuss seems to be focused around the appearance of sacrificing an American holiday for an Islamic one.  
   
  However, not much seems to be made of approximately 60% of staff at the plant being Somali (and presumably Muslim)…and that not much work would be done that day anyway.  It seems like a rather practical approach to maximize plant efficiency while being sensitive to workers’ wishes.   It’s similar to how even the most secular institutions in the U.S. observe Christmas Day.
   
• The Dems reportedly have reached the necessary compromises to draft a platform for the ’08 election season.  I’m hoping to have time to look through it more carefully later, but I can observe now that quickly searching for the word “insurance” and skimming through the results makes me feel oh-so-loved, and causes me to wonder if I should be searching for “bread and circus” as well.
   
• And finally, while I might feel unloved by the Dems due to my association with the “evil” insurance industry, I still can’t help but compliment the Obama camp for seemingly almost mastering the art of media hype.   The current example of this is was the invitation broadcast far and wide for a text message alert when Barack’s veep choice (presumably Bayh) is announced (presumably in the next day or two).

Whew!  And now, it’s time for me to head back into the salt mine….

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that Obama and McCain have started to beat upon one another on various dimensions of the issues of taxation and Social Security.

Annoyingly, real life has prevented me from offering my €0.02 worth until now.

Oversimplifying, the discussion seems to be focused around Obama’s various plans to increase taxes on individuals earning more than $250,000 year, both through income/capital gains taxes, as well as Social Security payroll taxes.   McCain is publicly calling for making the Bush tax cuts permanent, reining in spending, and promising to work across the aisle on Social Security reform.

A few thoughts come to my mind:

• A hat tip goes in Obama’s general direction for daring to broach the subject of Social Security.  It takes political chutzpah to touch such a sensitive subject on the campaign trail and daring to make a specific proposal, and I respect Obama for having done so.  It’d be nice if McCain would offer some specific ideas, rather than just railing against the hit to the $250k+ income crowd.
   
• Having said that, I can’t help but wonder if anyone’s thought through the potential implications to the economy of imposing such a potentially large shock to the super-affluent crowd.  Granted, such folks are already making plans for the lapsing of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2011, but I do wonder about unintended consequences of major, short-notice changes to tax law.
   
• I am disappointed that so much of the public debate seems solely focused on the tax side of the equation.  Surely I’m not the only person concerned about the unsustainability of our current spending spree.  Yet I don’t think I’ve heard much discussion on just what the two candidates are thinking of doing about that problem, other than bickering over tax policy.

This afternoon, Hillary was overheard to say that she’d be willing to accept a nomination for Vice-President.

That statement got me to thinking:  What if McCain tapped Hillary for the number two slot?

Even though they differ in politics, McCain and Hillary are good buddies.  I’d bet that Hillary could draw enough support to deny Obama the win.  

Would McCain and Hillary want to win badly enough to set aside their political differences, and share a ticket to maximize their odds of winning, I wonder.

I doubt it…but it’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?

Seen on the AP wire:

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois sealed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of becoming the nation’s first black president.[...]

Obama sealed his nomination based on primary elections, state Democratic caucuses and delegates’ public declarations as well as support from 22 delegates and "superdelegates" who privately confirmed their intentions to The Associated Press. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination at the convention in Denver this summer.

From what I understand, reaction from the Clinton campaign was:

"I’m melting!"

(Yes, I know that’s horribly unfair of me.  But, while I respect the Clintons’ skill as politicians, that doesn’t mean I like Hillary.)

So, this is it.  South Dakota and Montana have their primaries today, bringing primary season to a close.

In a normal year, this wouldn’t be a noteworthy landmark.  But this year… pundits, professional and amateur, have been waiting to be able to breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s a shame I’m going to be in meetings all day.   There’s an expectation that a steady trickle of superdelegate endorsements will be made today and tomorrow.  I’ve got to believe that someone (probably the Obama campaign) will have a running tally going, so that the blogosphere can melt down when he clinches the nomination, this evening or tomorrow.

Seen at the Washington Post’s "The Trail" blog:

One thing about superdelegates is they can change their minds.

Even though I do not want to see a Democratic monopoly on power in Washington next year (all D’s is almost as bad as all R’s, in my opinion), it’s just about time to put the nominating campaign to bed, and quit the intraparty squabbling.

While a floor fight in Denver would be entertaining to watch, it’s bad political business.

If Hillary wants to sway some superdelegates, the thing she ought to be doing now is plastering all the superdelegates (especially the uncommitted ones) with clear, cogent arguments about how she would be more electable than Obama.   It should be short, concise, and not rely on funny numbers (like the spurious popular vote argument).

For example, consider the latest tallies at electoral-vote.com:

• Obama 276, McCain 238, 24 tied
• Clinton 327, McCain 194, 17 tied

That’s a pretty decent argument to make, I think.

I would rather not see Hillary get the nod…but the game she’s playing is not fair.   There are better, stronger arguments available to her, if she’d like to come across as the voice of reason rather than a sore loser.

I have CSPAN on as I type, after having sweet-talked the remote away from my wife.

Looking at the "every vote counts" protest, I’m still left to wonder — whatever happened to belief in the fairness of playing by the same set of rules?

Seen in the New York Times:

Democratic Party lawyers have determined that no more than half the delegates from Florida and Michigan can be seated at the party’s August convention, dealing a blow to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s efforts to seat the full delegations from those states.[...]

In asking that the full delegations from these states be seated, Mrs. Clinton hopes to narrow Senator Barack Obama’s delegate edge and make the case that by including the votes from these states, she will have more of the popular vote in the nominating contests, an assertion that has come under some dispute. But the legal analysis, based on party rules and contained in a 38-page memo to the committee, says the committee can either seat only 50 percent of the delegates or seat them all but give them only half a vote, which amounts to the same thing.

Letting Michigan and Florida delegates cast half-votes, the same sort of penalty that’s being imposed by the GOP for the states’ decision to have their primaries so ridiculously early, is actually the most sensible compromise in my mind, if only because it’s half way between “the rules are the rules” and the strategic folly of not seating the delegations from two potentially large swing states.

The rules committee is meeting Saturday, and the pundits think a decision will be made that day.  Personally, I think it would be more strategically appropriate to withhold a ruling until late next week — after the final primaries have been held, and undeclared superdelegates have an opportunity to chime in.

The way Obama’s been collecting superdelegates recently, if the rules committee postponed their decision, it’s entirely possible that the outcome of the primary season could be cleanly settled, without having to touch the question of Florida and Michigan.   If that were the case, any decision could be rendered moot, allowing for easier compromise.

With the potential of a 31 May ruling…well, the Dems have a shot at looking more like their nominee is being determined by party bigwigs in the (admittedly semi-transparent) back room….an image the D’s should be shying away from, unless they really are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Last week, I posted my back-of-the-envelope arithmetic to double-check the sanity of Hillary’s delegate math.

In case anyone’s interested, here is an update to that reckoning:

Last week, the “% unpledged Hillary needs to win” figures were 80%, 56%, and 64%.

If Hillary could pull off an bigger rout of Obama than is expected — say by getting a margin of victory beyond 225,000 — she would have a better claim to winning the popular vote.

However, it looks like she hasn’t gained much traction with that argument among the superdelegates, so far.  That bodes ill for her candidacy, since in the end, it’s the delegate count that matters.

Well, another primary night has come and gone.  Hillary gets congratulations for winning Kentucky, Obama gets congratulations for winning Oregon, and Hillary gets congratulations again for her creative arithmetic and her tenacity for vowing to stay in the race until the final primary.

One happy thought — in two weeks the primary season will be over….and perhaps sometime in the next 3½ months we might reach a definitive answer on who the Dems’ nominee might be.