IX: Obama’s Triumph of the Will: The 2008 Primaries 339Republican states where few Democrats vote. But the real culprit is the party’s stupid, self-
destructive nominating system, which has two major flaws. Since Feb. 19, seven states have voted.
Clinton has won four — Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island —building up a popular-vote
margin of 483,000. Yet her total gain in delegates was exactly five. In Texas, she won by more than
100,000 votes, but because of that state’s ridiculous rules, she actually came out five delegates
behind. How can that outcome possibly be fair? How can it possibly benefit the party? Wait, it gets
worse. Obama built up sizable margins in small states that Clinton was foolish enough to concede.
His delegate advantage in Idaho, Kansas and Louisiana — three states that will never vote
Democratic — was a total of 38. By contrast, Clinton handily won three large swing states —
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio. And yet, because of party rules, her combined marginal gain
amounted to 28 delegates. How can it make sense for Idaho, Kansas and Louisiana to have a bigger
impact on choosing the Democratic nominee than Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio? Add in the
exclusion of Florida and Michigan, two crucial states that favor Clinton, and there’s only one word
for the Democrats’ system: crazy. And Republicans are gleeful.” (Cokie and Steve Roberts:
“Democrats will have to overcome their own system,” May 6, 2008) Only by junking these rules
could the Democrats hope to make a permanent comeback in the party realignment process.
OBAMA AS A BURDEN FOR CANDIDATES DOWN THE TICKET
The North Carolina Republican Party released a television ad attacking Beth Perdue and Richard
Moore, two Democratic gubernatorial candidates in that state, because they had both endorsed
Obama, who was now labeled as “too extreme for North Carolina” with documentation featuring
the Wright “God damn America” rant. It was an ominous sign to Democratic superdelegates that
running on the same ticket with the now-tarnished Perfect Master might be highly detrimental to
their chances of winning an election. As a result of Obama’s reckless reliance on his left CIA, left
wing intelligence community network from Chicago, it was now evident that Democratic Party
candidates at all levels would go into the November election carrying an immense burden of public
opprobrium, suspicion, and resentment. The components of this burden had names: they were
Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, the rest of Obama’s gaggle of Weatherman
terrorist cronies, Antoin Rezko, Auchi, Richard Daley, Rod Blagojevich, and many more. The
burden included Obama’ s Bittergate slurs against the lifestyle of blue-collar working class voters,
the hissing venom of Michelle Obama’s self-centered and self-righteous fascistoid tirades, plus a
whole series of gaffes in which Obama appeared to be babbling in delirium as soon as he was
separated from his beloved Teleprompter and had to speak off the cuff. Even more ominous was
the fact that the Obama burden was likely soon to include that Michelle Obama “hate Whitey” tape,
which was reportedly being used by Karl Rove in private screenings to extract substantial
contributions from Republican moneybags and fatcats for Rove’s 527 groups. Most critical of all, it
was the scandal complex that centered around the names of Donald Young and Larry Sinclair which
had the obvious potentiality to bring Obama down even more rapidly than New York Governor
Eliot Spitzer had been destroyed.
More eloquent than any polls in mid-summer 2008 was the growing list of Democratic Party
elected officials who had taken the unusual step of openly and publicly telling Obama that they
were not interested in the vice presidency. The first was Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio, who
presided over the classic battleground state which had decided the 2004 election. Then there was
Mark Warner of Virginia, a popular former governor who could have given Obama some faint hope
of taking Virginia out of the GOP column. Warner wanted to keep running for senator. Another
categorical denial came in from Marine General James Jones, the former NATO commander, who