This isn't so much a diary entry to set the world on fire, but a sincere question to the Democrats who came into the voting booth Tuesday, voted for Clinton, and set in your minds you will rather go through four more years of the same ole same because a black man could take the highest office in the land. I don't know what to think really. I mean, I've been through West Virginia and always thought it was one of the more amazing states to go through. I also thought the people of W. Virginia were not based on sterotype, but a deeply caring, hard working type of folk.

  So when I heard an interview from Good Morning America with the same talking points about Obama (i.e., "he's Muslum, he'll put whites into slavery, etc.) I am both stunned and amazed. These are our fellow Democrats? These are the representatives of the party of change? I'm VERY scared especially with this campaign. My one question I have to those in the state is one which can't get out of my head:

"Is this what you think of us?"

Hard evidence of racism in the Democratic primary.

I was on record as saying before the election that I thought that Obama might lose by 50 or even 60 points.  I was probably basing that judgment on the same thing Bill Clinton was when he said that: a look at how the counties bordering West Virginia voted.

I've looked at those counties again to come up with a quick and dirty analysis of the election that I think has not yet appeared elsewhere.  The results are actually pretty stark.  The bottom line: Obama didn’t do nearly as poorly relative to Hillary as the vote totals of bordering counties would suggest – he did better than the states that voted for Hillary (in March and April) would suggest, and worse than the ones voting for him (in February) would suggest.

But the main story may be that in the half of the border counties where Obama's vote share dropped relative to their neighbors who had already voted -- but Hillary's generally didn't rise.  In the other half, Hillary's vote share dropped -- but Obama's generally didn't rise.

The reason for that is that a share of the anti-Barack vote has now moved to John Edwards.  People know it's over -- and Hillary isn't their protest vote anymore.

Unity is the Key in 2008:  As I've been meeting with people since the primary election, I can tell that Democratic voters in the 5th district are unifying behind our campaign and identifying with our message.  Before the primary election, I felt certain if the Democratic candidates made our campaigns about the important issues and trusted the voters to make their choice on election day, it would be easy for Democrats to unite behind the winner for the general election campaign.

After watching geriatric nuns get turned away from the polls in Indiana last week, because they lacked a photo ID, one would think that the movement for voter ID laws might be slowed down.  Apparently, not in Pennsylvania:

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Indiana's law requiring voters to present photo identification, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe wants to enact the same kind of law in Pennsylvania.

...

But Mr. Metcalfe said his bill is needed "in order to bar corrupt politicians, special interests and any other integrity-deficient individuals from executing unfair, criminal influence at the ballot box."

Never mind the lack of proof of such voter fraud.

This Pennsylvania Mayor is a Democrat.

In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this way: "Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don't know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on him.

"No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office."

To paraphrase dawnt, is this welcome in our Democratic Party?  

One of the most specious arguments we've heard some of the Democratic strategists make is that Obama is weaker in Ohio and Pennsylvania than Clinton is simply because Clinton defeated him there.

So like everyone else I've been following the Obama-Clinton election almost in a catatonic state as of late. I consider myself more of an electoral junkie than a policy wonk. However, from time to time I'll find a policy issue I like to really hone in on and dissect. I just read a New Republic article on "balancing union interests with ecological necessity" that really piqued my interest and wanted to write about it from my perspective.

http://www.tnr.com/...

I started to think about this from my perspective as how I became a progressive Dem and hence my diary was born.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

~First two stanzas of Maya Angelou’s "Still I Rise"

I am an extremely political person.  I love watching election returns, and hoping against hope that my candidate will come out the victor.  I am physically unable, as many are, to be impartial when it comes to such matters.  

We've all been hearing more and more and seeing it in the polls that Obama is having trouble winning the white working class vote lately. The latest salvo of states has been Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and the next one will be in West Virginia.

These states are the most important because of their location and an even distribution of blacks and minorities in their states. But wait a minute. Didn't Obama win Idaho, an all white state full of white working class voters?

Um.  Hi guys.  I've been lurking around here since Winter 2006, but never really felt the need to write a diary.  Until now, I guess.  I don't have any breaking news.  I don't have any primary banter.

But I am kind of pissed off...

Last week was the 5th Annniversary of Bush's idiotic "Mission Accomplished" moment. And John McCain tried defending Bush, blaming it on the Navy. This led to a considerable amount of attention on John McCain's own suggestion that we should stay in the Iraq Quagmire for 100 years. Howard Dean in particular slammed McCain for his willingness to sacrifice American soldiers for oil profits for 100 years. Poor John McCain didn't like having people pick on him, so John "wimp" McCain began whining and complaining about it. Well, Mr. McCain, if you can't take criticism of a stupid policy, how the hell are you going to stand up to al-Qaeda? Oh, yeah...just like Bush you plan on wasting time, money, and lives in Iraq for 100 years rather than actually fighting al-Qaeda, the people who attacked us.

One more reason for the GOP not to be overly enthusiastic about their prospects in PA. this November:

Same-sex marriage ban likely dead in Pa. Senate
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG -- A bill that would amend the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage is in a deep coma and is probably dead, at least for the rest of this session.

Faced with staunch opposition to the measure in the Democrat-controlled House, the main sponsor, Sen. Michael Brubaker, R-Lancaster, asked the Senate last evening to table the bill indefinitely, and it agreed.

That almost certainly means it won't be acted on in the 2007-08 session, which ends Nov. 30. Mr. Brubaker said he's not giving up on the bill, though he didn't say when he might push for it again.

http://www.post-gazette.com/...

more

Tonight Barack Obama gave a fantastic speech. But one part really stood out to me.

So don't ever forget that this election is not about me, or any candidate. Don't ever forget that this campaign is about you-- about your hopes, about your dreams, about your struggles, about securing your portion of the American Dream.

In the end that's really what this campaign is about. It's about us. Together. Together over 1,500,000 of us have taken ownership of this campaign and donated. We have made this campaign about us not about the special interests and there same old Washington games. Today the people of North Carolina and Indiana rejected the same old Washington distractions. They rejected the same old Washington gimmicks. They sent a strong message.

Now we need to send another huge message by showing our support by Obama. In other words, DONATING. We can start to wrap this nomination up and give us strong momentum going into the general election. We can send a message.

As we move the campaign from Democratic primary to general election mode, I am going to make some changes to the weekly progress report.  Over the last few months I've used this weekly report give updates on the events we've participated in over the past week.   I'll continue to keep you informed on where we're at and what we're doing but I'm going to provide comment on issues of interest to the citizens of the 5th district.   We'll also keep you updated on what is going on inside the campaign.

By now, most of my friends and family know that I am a supporter of Senator Obama.  But prior to my involvement with Senator Obama, I was a typical voter - I voted, but that was about it. I was never really involved. Then I came across his 2004 nominating speech.  I was amazed.  I ordered "The Audacity of Hope" and when it came, started to read it right away.  In the prologue of the book, Senator Obama tells of a media consultant who was encouraging him to run for statewide office in Illinois. The meeting had been scheduled for late September, 2001.

From "The Audacity of Hope," by Barack Obama.

“You realize, don’ t you, that the political dynamics have changed, he said, picking at his salad. “What do you mean?”, I asked, knowing full well what he meant. We both looked down at the newspaper beside him. There, on the front page, was a picture of Osama bin Laden. “Hell of a thing, isn’t it? he said, shaking his head. “Really bad luck. You can’t change your name, of course, Voters are suspicious of that sort of thing.”

Another night of worry for planet, politics, poor innocent horses and general life stuff.  So, "And now for something completely different."

Spring is returning slowly here at 1850 feet in the Pines of Western Monroe County, PA. Last week we had stunning purple finches, male and female. Today we have quite a few bright yellow goldfinches for the first time this year, hanging upside down on the Nyjer thistle feeder.  We are also being visited by two gorgeous male rose-breasted grosbeaks, a female evening grosbeak with her new blue-green bill, and just now a female ruby-throated hummingbird sipping at the purple petunia planter.  Oh, yes, and yesterday we saw a bumble bee.

This week was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. It also was the fifth aniversary of Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech. This aniversary was unique in that for the first time the Bush administration has admitted that the banner was a huge mistake...though John McCain blamed it on the military, excusing Bush for the fiasco. The Republicans are finally acknowledgig the dismal failure of "Mission Accomplished" but refuse to take the blame. Typical. Absolutely typical. Republicans wouldn't know responsibility if it bit them in the ass.