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.

There was almost no coverage of the Republican Pennsylvania primary, for the very good reason that THEIR nomination had been wrapped up since March and obvious since January 29. But what commentary there was, was cautiously optimistic for Democrats.

(I've never bothered to post at dailykos before, so here's a bit of background:  I'm in my mid twenties and have lived in Pennsylvania for my entire life.  For several years I had delivered pizzas to McMansions in which I installed the hardwood floors years before.  I've never gone to college and I now work as a software developer.)

This past April, I voted in a Democratic presidential primary for the first time.  I've been a registered Democrat since only 2007, when I switched party affiliation in order to vote for Michael Nutter for mayor in the Philadelphia municipal Democratic primary.  Prior to that, I'd been registered as "non-partisan" and voted in general elections since 2004, while largely ignoring local and state politics.

Quinnipiac. 4/23-29. Registered voters. MoE 2.6% in Florida, 2.9% in Ohio, and 2.5% in Pennsylvania. (No trend lines)

Clinton has a +5 advantage in Pennsylvania, +11 in Ohio, and +9 in Florida. I actually have a hard time believe that Obama is this competitive in Florida. Given that Obama is going through perhaps the worst two weeks of his candidacy right now, the fact that he runs even with McCain in Florida is shocking.

Pennsylvania looks fine for both candidates, better than would be expected given its been a dead-even state for a while now. And Ohio? Of these numbers, those have to be the most worrying for Obama. While his path to the nomination doesn't necessarily have to run through Ohio, taking the state would make single-handedly slay McCain given that the 71-year-old Republican seriously threatens only one Kerry state versus Obama -- New Hampshire.

With Clinton at the top of the ticket, McCain threatens the Kerry states of Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Michigan (49 electoral votes), which make Florida and Ohio (47) that much more critical to win the White House. Both the Obama and Clinton paths feature serious potential pitfalls. I still prefer Obama's, especially if -- as Q tells us -- Florida is truly in play.

Pennsylvania wants to join the legion of states that think protecting marriage means limiting it to certain consenting adults of the opposite sex.

"No union other than a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage or the functional equivalent of marriage by the commonwealth."

This week I am once again candidate oriented. Somewhat coincidentally I focused this week mainly on women. There are some particularly great women running in Alaska, and locally in Wisconsin that I want to introduce you all to. And I continue to try and keep my focus on what's going on state by state as up to date as possible. Interestingly, Georgia, Virginia and Pennsylvania are now the three states after California and New York where I have the most readers. Pretty good diversity of readership I think. I keep thinking I should cut back on the states I try to cover, but next week I may be adding Ohio!

This week's newsletter below.

This is a good video.... albeit it's from April 3. Here's an unedited exchange between a FOX News producer flunkie Porter Berry and Father Pfleger, friend of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

This has nothing to do with race, god, guns, abortion, or anything Wright said, that's a list of excuses. It's about strategy. It was the predominately Black urban areas Obama didn't do well enough in that killed him. Another diarist pointed out he did better in rural areas than he expected to. Democrats win PA with a proportionally larger turnout in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia than in rural areas. Obama didn't get the proportionally larger turnout in urban areas he needed; that cost him the primary and will cost him the general.

Only Pennsylvanians can win Pennsylvania. We were fighting a 3 way battle here; Obama's people, his supporters in PA who are used to running things, and Hillary's lead. We've won this state by fighting the Republicans with everything we have; we know how to win here, it takes 110%, and we can't do it without autonomy and unconditional support from National. Applying a bit of cultural relativism here would go a long way; we already know how to win here.  Don't tell us to do something else and be surprised whey you lose. You can never win PA doing things your way, but we can win it for you if you let us do things right, and play by our rules.

You might be forgiven for thinking that Hillary Clinton's 9.1% majority in the Pennsylvania primary popular vote meant a gain in the overall nomination contest. As we shall see, this is not the case.

Quick Summary:

A) If this contest were a 100 lap race, Obama would be on lap 92, more than 9 laps ahead of Hillary with less than 8 to go.

B) HC is 4.4% further behind than before PA.  Just to stay the same as pre-PA, HC would have needed at least +18 delegates instead of +10.

C) North Carolina is predicted to be a win for BO. However, even if it becomes a draw, HC would still need to win all other pledged delegate contests by a margin of +60% for a clear pledged delegate majority.

D) Based on the latest polls for remaining contests, HC would still need more than 200 out of the 300 or so remaining superdelegates to reach a clear majority (with or without with FL & MI).

Full details of how the numbers were calculated below:

The last 4 months have been exciting and rewarding to travel around the 5th district campaigning.  I've learned a lot about the district, the people and myself in the process.  It all came to a climax on Tuesday, April 22nd as the voters in the 5th district went to the polls to select who would be the 2 remaining candidates to continue on to the November 4th general election.

From a personal standpoint, I learned that in politics, the best thing you can do is plan your strategy and stay the course.  You have to be honest with the people, explain where you stand on the issues important to the people you want to represent and trust their instincts when they go to the polls.

I saw something, a sort of trivial aside in today's New York Times story on Obama's Indiana strategy that got me thinking. Here it is:

For the last year, advisers had been reluctant to highlight him playing basketball, thinking it could raise racial stereotypes or make him look less serious. But in Indiana, where basketball is sacrosanct, Mr. Obama scored four baskets and his team won the 20-minute game, a far better showing than his much-derided bowling outing in Pennsylvania.