ConservativeINC

Say it ain’t so. Barack “Change” Obama is literally buying the votes of superdelegates. Oh, and so is Hillary “Third Term for Bill” Clinton.

Story from The Boston Globe:

Many of the superdelegates who could well decide the Democratic presidential nominee have already been plied with campaign contributions by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new study shows.

“While it would be unseemly for the candidates to hand out thousands of dollars to primary voters, or to the delegates pledged to represent the will of those voters, elected officials serving as superdelegates have received about $890,000 from Obama and Clinton in the form of campaign contributions over the last three years,” the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reported today.

About half the 800 superdelegates — elected officials, party leaders, and others — have committed to either Clinton or Obama, though they can change their minds until the convention.

Obama’s political action committee has doled out more than $694,000 to superdelegates since 2005, the study found, and of the 81 who had announced their support for Obama, 34 had received donations totaling $228,000.

Clinton’s political action committee has distributed about $195,000 to superdelegates, and only 13 of the 109 who had announced for her have received money, totaling about $95,000.

No one really thought Obama was different - did they? BigT

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Alleged, of course. According to The Smoking Gun he sent illicit images of children to a San Francisco dominatrix and, guess what, she told the cops.

Now, if this were a conservative talk show host everyone in the MSM would be out saying that this guy is a hypocrite and that this is incontrovertible truth that the right is morally bankrupt. But this guy is a former priest turned Bush-hater, so my guess is we won’t hear much about him in the future.

FEBRUARY 15–When radio talk show host Bernie Ward was arrested last year on child pornography charges, his lawyers downplayed the federal rap, saying that his client was merely doing research for a book when he accessed and distributed illicit images. But police reports indicate that Ward, a 56-year-old former Catholic priest, began a graphic online correspondence with a San Francisco-area dominatrix who used the name “Sexfairy” and called cops when Ward sent her a lewd digital image featuring a topless woman, a nude boy, and a young girl. According to the Oakdale Police Department reports, copies of which you’ll find below, the woman, Linda Figueiredo, informed investigators that she never told Ward of a desire to “see or hear about sexual activities among minors.” The documents note that in his 2004-05 instant message exchanges with the 33-year-old Figueiredo, Ward, using the alias “Vincentlio,” made reference “that he might be sexually abusing minors” or allowing them to “engage in sexual acts in his presence.” As first reported by San Francisco’s ABC7, armed with the explicit IM exchanges and the image received by the woman, investigators obtained a search warrant for Ward’s AOL account, which yielded other alleged photos of child pornography. Several of those images, an investigator noted, “depicted children engaged in or simulating sexual acts with adults or other children.” The minors seen in the photos were between four and 17 years old, according to a police estimate. The photographs resulted in Ward’s indictment last year on three federal felony counts. Currently free on $250,000 bail, Ward was fired last December from his job at KGO Radio, where he built a reputation as an outspoken liberal voice and harsh critic of the Bush administration.

If this guy did what he is accused of then he deserves to burn. BigT

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Everyone is abuzz about a “change” in America (what that change is I don’t know but it’s going to change!). These people are passionate about politics now and about the future of America. They have hope and are able to dream again.

Unfortunately for them, this is all just a dream. Senator Obama is still going to lose to Senator Clinton. I’m sorry to all of you impassioned Obama-philes, but politics is politics and there is a definite monarchy here.

To tell you the truth, I was beginning to think that Obama actually had a chance - well, for about a second I thought that. But then I read a column written by Rich Galen over at mullings.com which woke me up from my momentary loss of sanity. Here it is:

# In the Democratic Party there are 796 “Super Delegates.” These are men and women who are delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver by virtue of their position, not because they were elected in primary or chosen in a party caucus.

# Officially, within the Democratic National Committee rules they are known as “Party Leaders and Elected Officials” (PLEOs) but Super Delegates stuck. PLEOs did not.

# Mullpal Lanny Davis has reminded us that Super Delegates were never intended to be pledged to one candidate, but were the insiders who could undo a bad decision by those pesky voters in primaries and caucuses.

# Yesterday, Mr. Davis (with whom I have appeared as a sparring partner many times over the past decade) pointed out that in an earlier age Democratic Party insiders chose as the Party’s nominee Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, and John F. Kennedy.

[Picture from the observer.com]

# As we pointed out here on Wednesday, Barack Obama - following Tuesday’s “Potomac Primary” has assumed the lead in the actual delegate count.

# The way the delegates are awarded in these Democratic primarie, unless one candidate gets 80% of the votes the awards tend to be 54% to 46% one way or the other.

# Thus, according to CNN’s count, Barak Obama has 1,096 elected delegates (of the 2,025 needed) while Hillary Clinton has 977 - 119 fewer and that ration isn’t likely to change much.

# While Super Delegates have no requirement to support any candidate prior to the opening of the Convention, CNN reports Obama has the pledged support of 157 and Clinton has 234 closing the gap between them to only 42 delegates.

# As there are 796 Super Delegates and only 391 have pledge to support one of the candidates, that leaves 405 Super Delegates sitting around waiting for offers.

# So long as Hillary Clinton stays inside of 405 delegates, the Supers can turn the tide.

# But, they won’t just swoop onto the floor and wrest the nomination away from Obama because that would cause a riot in Denver. Here’s what they will do:

You may remember that Michigan and Florida were stripped of their delegates because they ignored the DNC dictum that thou shalt not have a primary election earlier than February 5.

They did and Hillary won both.

The Clintons will arrange for their Super Delegates to reach down to the elected delegates who are members of the Rules and/or Credentials Committees over whom they have some control (If you are a sitting Democratic US Senator or Governor and you call an elected delegate from your state, that elected delegate will take your call).

The Super Delegates will instruct the elected delegates on those committees to seat delegations from Florida and Michigan proportionate to the votes Obama and Clinton received.

# I guarantee you that the proportions will be just enough to give the nomination to Hillary.

# And

1. The Clintons will be able to claim they had nothing to do with it.

2. The Supers will be able to claim they were just doing their jobs by not disenfranchising voters in two crucial states.

3. Just as you read, it is so complex that no one will be able to explain it in the required 12 seconds on television.

# Sending Lanny Davis out yesterday to begin the process of inoculating Democrats against Super Delegate skullduggery is only the first step. Between now and August there will be a constant drumbeat that Michigan and Florida cannot be shut out and the Clintonistas will be working the phones to be certain everyone knows their role.

# Or else.

As an aside to all of this horse race stuff - I think it is rather sad that individuals look to a politician for hope. No politician has ever made an average person successful. Obama talks a good talk - but that’s all. BigT

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