Well, I said when I took the leap of faith to believe a politician that I might be eating a heaping pile of BBQ crow but I at least thought it would be a year or so after the election. Not So!

Obama's endorsement of the FISA bill ranks right up there with finding out there is no Santa Clause and the girl you have a crush on just wanting to be friends.

I should never question my own black hearted cynicism. It's always right. There is no God, everyone is out for themselves, and everything that feels good, tastes good, or is at all fun will kill you. America is fucked and there's nothing left to do but ride it into the grave.

I got a solicitation for a contribution from the Obama campaign today. Here's the letter I sent back in the pre-paid envelope:

Obama Folks,

I can't tell you how excited and energized I was to campaign and financially support Obama after the primary win. I truly believed he was the real deal and have been promoting him at every opportunity.

You can not fathom how crushed I am to see him sell out his constituency and his country to the Telecom industry and the Bush administration. When he needed conscientious Americans to win the primary, he vowed support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. I believed him when he said this and was proud to support him.

Now that it is time to actually be a leader rather than make speeches about leadership, Obama has chosen to cast his lot with the criminals and aid and abet the cover up of the undeniably illegal and unconstitutional spying on Americans orchestrated by the Bush administration with the shameful compliance of congress.

Obama uses McCain language to try to justify his betrayal, "My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."

I thought that we were going to stop using fear to pander to the electorate. Now the big scary terrorists make it imperative that we gut our constitutional protections and dismantle our free society. It astounds me that this blatant Republican rhetoric is coming from the mouth of Barak Obama.

Obama can't plead ignorance. He taught constitutional law. He knows the fourth amendment. He knows the damage he is doing.

All voters aren't stupid and uninformed. Some of us read. We even read the bill. We know that he is lying about the contents.

The current spin is that this is Obama's courageous stand against the netroots. No, it is Obama's craven capitulation to the lobbying of the Telecoms and to the Bush administration. Nothing courageous about it. I long for the day when a Democrat deems it more important to stand up against Bush rather than the ACLU.

So don't ask me for any more money or support. I plan to make all contributions and devote all my energies that I had planned to give to Obama back in the brief time when I still believed to the many organizations cropping up to run challenges to the corrupt and spineless Democrats and to fight for the constitution and the rule of law regardless of whether it's against George Bush or Barak Obama.

Oh, and for the record, "Yes, you could have".

Mike Baker

216-291-XXXX (pre-tapped)

(*** Note to the Telecom spies: That was just a joke! This is a humor site!)

I will finally be able to take some pride again in being American. This will replace the horrific shame and embarrassment I now feel. Fuck you flag lapel pin wearing, magnetic car ribbon plastic patriots! We have illegally invaded a sovereign country and decimated it, destroyed our legal standing in the world by dumping the foundation of a civilized nation; habeas corpus, instituted Soviet style secret prisons and kidnapped people off the streets of foreign countries to be tortured in them, thrown out the separation of powers and made congress and the judiciary subservient to the executive branch, and humiliated ourselves in the international community by parading a drooling, inept, inarticulate frat boy as our national leader. If you are not embarrassed and ashamed, you are incapable of these defining human characteristics and should seek counseling for your blossoming sociopathic tendencies.

I have watched both Democratic candidates in their debates and their campaigns. Whoever wins fairly, I will vote for them in September. Either will be a capable president and a vast improvement over the current situation. Neither of them is insane, delusional, hear voices, or think they’ve been appointed by God. A vast improvement!

That said, I’m endorsing Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.

First, why I’m not supporting Hillary.

Hillary did not have the personal conviction to oppose the war at the outset. Her opposition did not materialize until the vast majority of Americans opposed it and it was politically safe. This is a pattern. Hillary calculates how her positions will play in the political field before she endorses them. This is not a leader. Her pandering is capsulated for me in the fact that she voted for an amendment to the constitution to ban flag burning. A fifth grader should have a better understanding of the constitution than to think this doesn’t eviscerate the first amendment.

Let me spell it out. The first amendment protects speech. Demonstrations are speech. Flag burning is a demonstration of political anger. If a law was passed that outlawed flag burning, as a patriotic American I would feel compelled to burn the flag every Fourth of July to express my outrage at the destruction of the first amendment. Can you see the speech?

Hillary is not stupid and she knows better. She is willing to sell out a concept as fundamental as free speech in order to curry favor with right wing idiots.

Oh, and one more reason: Bill. I don’t want that lying, skirt chasing hillbilly anywhere near the White House again. Great job the first time except for the ending, but there’s no more good to come of it.

Now to Obama.

The major complaint from the Clinton camp seems to be he’s an empty suit with no experience. It’s a valid point on some levels but not a deal breaker in my mind. I trust in someone who I feel is intelligent and honest to gather the resources to lead the country. Nothing except being the president is sufficient experience to be the president. Hillary mocks his charisma and inspirational qualities as if they’re of no consequence. When I think of the qualities that separate the great presidents from the good ones, being inspirational is at the top of the list.

I went to see the man speak. To sum him up in one word: smooth. This is Paul Newman smooth. This is Sydney Poitier smooth. This is a charm that makes everyone else in the room look silly and shallow. It’s a composite of acute awareness, a generous sense of humor, a complete absence of any feelings of superiority, and a hyper-dignity, a quality I’ve only seen in black people.

Martin Luther King had it. Thurgood Marshall had it. Paul Robeson, Ruby Dee, Maya Angelou, Desmond Tu Tu, Nelson Mandela. It’s a sense that this person is above the pettiness of racism and class-ism and the small superficial divisions that define us. It’s a feeling that this is a big person connected to the big picture and deserves respect. It’s powerful stuff.

I picture him speaking to the international community representing America. I believe the distrust, anger and hatred toward us that Bush has so catastrophically cultivated will quickly melt away. Our image in the world is largely a product of the personality of our leader. We will be able to point to Obama and proudly say, “No, what you saw in the past was wrong. We’re like that guy.” He seems to blend gracefully with the world community instead of clumsily and offensively attacking it.

Obama runs his campaign with the street smarts of a community organizer. He empowers people at every level to contribute to the campaign on their own without supervision. It’s been wildly successful. That’s the model he sees for America. The president, the government, the authorities can not fix America. Only Americans can fix America. It will take a fundamental shift in values to achieve real change and that only comes through inspiration. I’m old enough to have seen how the black pride movement united people and gave them the strength to overcome the Jim Crow era. It was a fundamental shift in the way black people viewed themselves inspired by charismatic leaders that allowed the change to happen. I saw the anti-war movement of the sixties move an entrenched power structure. They were inspired by grass roots leaders and musicians to commit themselves to a social cause. The women’s rights movement, the gay rights movement, the labor movement. All were the result of inspired grass roots Americans taking responsibility for their own progress. That’s the only way real change happens and that’s what Obama offers that Clinton does not.

A cynic is a person who’s lost hope. I thought I was a cynic. I am a skeptic, a complainer, disheartened, angry, embarrassed, ashamed, and nearly beaten down at this point in my life. But something in me still believes America could work, that there’s some hope that things can be fixed and we can be good people again. I’ll be the first to admit that two years from now I could be cursing this guy and feel every bit as betrayed as I do with Pelosi and Reid and Rockefeller and all the snakes in Democrat clothing.

But right now, Obama seems the only shot a fixing what’s really wrong. I’m taking it.

No one knows how to deal with it. The skin has been ripped off the process and the guts are spilling everywhere. Pollsters can’t poll, pundits can’t pundit, and organizers can’t organize. It’s a big giant cluster fuck with the fate of the world in the balance. What could be more entertaining?

Relax. To understand this process you first need to go back to the most fundamental law of all politics, voters vote in groups. Whether it’s factions, ethnicities, or advocacy groups, Americans need a herd. It’s a pick-a-lemming society. Pollsters make their living by inventing these boxes and then tracking how many of you jump into them at any given time.

On the Democratic side, the biggest and most obvious choice one has to make is between genitalia and skin color. This dilemma is hitting black women hardest. Sure you’re a Democrat, but are you a Vagi-crat or a Pigme-crat? N.O.W. in Illinois has vehemently labeled anyone who chooses Obama as a misogynistic pimp, while the media declares that any non-white voter who chooses Hillary is a sellout. Genitals / pigment?… genitals / pigment?... what’s a wanna-be-politcally-correct voter to do??? Luckily I won’t have to make this decision. As a white male progressive, I don’t think I’m allowed to vote in this primary.

On the Dark side there’s a triple dilemma. Do you go with the scrappy rebel who courageously bucks party orthodoxy by embracing every abhorrent disaster that the present administration has plagued us with? Or do you go with the folksy, common, everyday billionaire and his magic underwear who’s footing his campaign bill from his piggy bank? Or do you join the Jesu-tards and follow the invisible hand of god as he delivers the candidate who can make women subservient and bring back stoning?

All of this (except for the invisible hand of god) is predictable through the careful analysis of voting patterns broken down by demographics. There can never be enough minute analysis. (The root of the word analysis is anal!) Pollsters create demographics by reducing the miracle of the complex rational human being to a single attribute and grouping populations accordingly.

Here are some examples.

Education:

Barak Obama finds support among the college educated while Hillary appeals more to the high school graduate or below.

Similarly, McCain is embraced by those with college degrees while Romney takes the high school graduate vote. Huckabee’s support comes mostly from those home schooled by Appalachian pig farmers.

Economics:

Obama is the choice of the affluent, those with incomes above $75,000 although he has strong support among those below $75,000. Hillary has a stronger support among the lower economic strata but has a healthy support base among the affluent.

McCain is more of a populist and gets broad support among the lower economic strata. Not surprisingly, billionaire Romney enjoys the affluent support. Huckabee does very well with people who have more than a $1,000 outstanding credit at the Piggly Wiggly.

Race and Gender:

Obama takes the lion’s share of the black vote but is doing surprisingly well among white male voters. He seems to be weakest among women and Latinos. Hillary gets her most support from women across the race spectrum but has an almost three to one lead over Obama among Latinos.

McCain draws his greatest support from grumpy old rich white men while Romney relies heavily on grumpy old rich white men. Huckabee’s support is almost entirely grumpy old poor white insane men and their subservient wives.

The primary system is comprised of a hodgepodge of caucuses, direct votes, delegates, super delegates, apportioned delegates, and winner-take-all states. It’s designed to keep the public confused and marginalized. The simplest description is that each state holds a primary (caucus or vote) in order to award delegates (apportioned or winner-take-all) to the candidates leading up to the convention. The candidate with the most delegates wins. The threshold for locking up the Democratic nomination is 2,025, for Republicans it’s 1,191. Sounds simple? Well, throw in the fact that 40% of all Democratic delegates are SUPER delegates. (WTF??). Super delegates are elected officials, rich guys, famous guys, whatever, who get to cast a vote that counts just as much as an apportioned delegate for whoever the hell they feel like. No restrictions. This assures that the ruling elite get to pick this year’s lemming regardless of your stinkin’ vote! Democracy! Iraq, how can you stand the wait?

So what can we learn from Super Tuesday? If you analyzed the demographics state by state, it was easy to predict the outcome and there were very few surprises, except of course for the invisible hand of god making Huckabee look like he has a snowball’s chance for another week. Huckabee won Georgia, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. So the biggest thing I personally got out of Super Tuesday is a real good map of places I NEVER want to go.

Here’s my advice for the future. We’ve been reacting out of fear for the last 8 years and the results may have permanently broken America. You need to sack up! Stop being pussies! Republicans and Dems alike will go to the “Muslims want to eat your children!” crap as a last resort to make you toe the line. Don’t fall for it! Muslims are mostly nice people who are getting a bad rap because of a few crazies. It’s like you can’t judge all Christians by Fred Phelps.

That said, don’t be stupid! If you hear someone yell “Allah Akbar!” run like hell! It’s the same if you’re black and you hear “Yeeee Haaawww!” or if your white and your hear… well, any sound whatsoever.