Life is a State of Mind

Erci and Kate went to the Vintage Virginia Wine Festival with me today. We had some spectacular tastings of James River and Horton and Valhalla wines, then we got drenched in rain. I mean soaked through to our nickers and such that everything in our bags and purses was soaked right through. At one point the event coordinators were attempting to evacuate the site due to lightning and a tornado watch, but most attendees simple refused to understand the announcements. We got out before the mud got too high, though it took a while for the wines we’d bought to show up at the “will call” booth. Erci lost enough core body temperature that it took a long soak in the hot tub at home to get her back to normal. Of course, as soon as we left the site, the weather cleared up some.

Many thanks to Johnny for inviting us out to the event. He reports he found a Meteor wine called Firefly that tasted quite good, though we left before we found it to try ourselves. John, you rock!

We brought home:
Vino Curioso Chardontage 2007 (crisp white blend)
Vino Curioso 954 2006 (full bodied red blend)
James River Cellars 2006 Montpelier (surprisingly good blush with dry after notes)
James River Cellars 2006 Hanover White (yummy dry white)
James River Cellars 2006 Chambourcin (fantastic port-like blend, wow)
Wish we’d had time to snag Valhalla’s Cabernet Sauvignon, and Row Ten (white), and Horton’s wines (where we got soaked the first time).

We chased that with a wonderful house warming party in Centreville with friends. Pleasantly tired and mellow.

According to the following trackers of Democratic nomination delegates, Barack Obama has reached 1984, which means that if he gets the expected 41 pledged from Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana; he’ll be at 2025. Of course, there is a strong possibility that the goalpost will have been moved by the rules committee meeting tomorrow, but this is getting close to being over, and we can start the next race without a break.

Trackers:
DailyKos
DemConWatch
Wikipedia

I am fairly certain that the source for those three trackers is the same or that one or two are using the other - because they have pretty consistently reported the same numbers. So take this with a grain of salt.

I have been using RCP for my count, because they report in the middle of the pack… but for weeks they have reported the same numbers as DemConWatch and Wikipedia; but about 12-24 hours later (after more thorough confirmations I assume). Perhaps that will happen today, but for now they report Obama having 1980 delegates.

Another bit of positive news, Michelle Obama outdraws Bush and McCain in Arizona! Know hope.

So I am getting 3-5 calls a day on my cell phone that are caller-id blocked. I have a strict policy that I let such calls go to voicemail. If you need to hide your identity from me when you call, you can talk to my voicemail and not me in person. Problem is, the call rate has gotten annoying and I cannot figure out how to set my phone/service to ignore caller-id blocked calls and let them go straight to voicemail.

I am using Nextel and an i580 phone.

If getting such a feature requires that I switch, I am willing to do it. Can anyone report that they have this feature now? If so - please let me know the service and the phone model so I can duplicate.

I am hoping such a feature is built into the iPhone, since I want one of those anyway - and this would be the tipping point… but I’ll consider any phone that works and ignores incoming calls where caller-id is blocked.

It is baffling and amazing to me that this candidate is the best that the Republican party can offer us in 2008!

While I have virtually no respect for Senator John McCain, I also realize that he was the best of the bunch of losers that the Republicans tried to foist off on us. Only Governor Mitt Romney really has anywhere near the same level of experience, and I trusted him no more than I trusted Bill Clinton in 1992. How about some real conservative candidates?

Sunday is the last day it will be open to the public. They are having a party on Memorial Day, and then you must find another nearby Hard Times for your chilli-fix. Rumors are that the company/person who owns all the property where Hard Times is located is doubling the rents and squeezing businesses out. I do not know if that is true, but it has certainly happened before (my favorite Afghan place, Bamyan, was forced out a few years ago when their rent was doubled suddenly).

My arteries will probably be healthier, but I’ll miss regular bowls of Texas Dry, and half-priced Burger Mondays.
You do all know that the perfect seven course meal is a bowl of chilli and a six-pack, right?

No compromise that allows the FL and MI super delegates full votes is acceptable to me.

The voters of each state are responsible for their governors and state legislatures. Even if Republican controlled legislatures foisted this off on the Democratic parties in those states, the Democrats 1) had it coming for letting Republicans win and 2) they had an opportunity to stop that in both states and failed to do so. I have some sympathy for them, but you learn from the small pains of life. They can freely vote their will in November and try to fix this crazy nomination process next time.

The super delegates from these two states get even less sympathy from me. They were the leadership entrusted with preventing this from happening. They failed to do so, they should not get seated even if a compromise is reached for voted on and pledged delegates.

Clinton’s gambit of slyly leaving herself on the ballot in Michigan and subversively campaigning in Florida even after lying to the other candidates and the DNC should not go unpunished. She tried to pull a fast one, if she’d gotten away with it - more power to her, but she did not. Rewarding her dishonesty and tricky behavior now is unacceptable to the millions of us who played by the rules, wether we like them or not. In fact, if she does not like the rules she agreed to, let her run as an independent candidate in November, I am sure she will get more votes than McCain even without Democratic Party support.

The process clearly needs to be fixed, and BEFORE the next election cycle starts. To do nothing after this fiasco would be…

Oh wait, it would be the American Way. For we still have done nothing about the theft of the 2000 election nor the 2004 election.

Obama did better in Oregon than expected (+30 rather than the expected +28 delegates). Clinton did better in Kentucky than expected (+37 rather than the expected +28-31 delegates).

According to RCP that brings us to:

Update: I updated the table to match final counts from last night.
Note that DemConWatch has 3 more pledged for Obama and 1 more pledged for Clinton than RCP, not sure why.

Careful analysis by Poblano projects that Obama will probably add another 41 and Clinton will add another 45 pledged delegates from Puerto Rico (June 1st), South Dakota, and Montana (both June 3rd). Since my own poll watching and the leaked spreadsheet also agree, let’s treat it as likely, give or take a few delegates.

That means that Obama only needs enough super delegate endorsements between now and those last few primary elections to get to 1984 total (2025 minus the expected 41).

According to RCP that means he only needs 27 more super delegate endorsements to win the nomination. At this point, with 212 uncommitted, I consider that to be very likely. The beautiful fact is that if at least 27 super delegates endorse Obama, but no more than 68 do; then it will not be a super delegate’s endorsement, but a pledged delegate vote won in one of the three remaining primaries that puts Obama over the top.

That would be elegant and beautiful. So watch the total delegates column for Obama; if he gets to 1984 this nomination will be over on June 3rd, and it will have been nice to give every eligible state and territory the chance to vote. For the ever hopeful, Clinton only needs to get to 1980 to achieve the same thing (because she is projected to squeeze a few more delegates out of Puerto Rico than he is). To get to 1980, she’d need 205 super delegate endorsements between now and June 1st…. still possible, but highly unlikely.

Maryland voters in the 4th Congressional District will get to vote in a special election on June 17th, 2008. You can register to vote, and still vote on the 17th so long as you register on or before 9:00pm May 30th. Go register if you live in Maryland’s 4th CD.

Per Maryland’s State Board of Elections, your choices in this Special Election are:

• Donna Edwards (D)
• Peter James, (R)
• Thibeaux Lincecum, (L)

Not sure if you live in MD-04? Don’t fret, it is really crazy and no one can figure it out without looking on a map or checking the databases…

Medium sized map of MD-04 and a funny shaped district.

I have already contributed a small amount to “Byrne for Congress” to help her win the Democratic Nomination and the 11th congressional district of Virginia. The 11th will almost certainly go to the Democratic winner of the primary on June 10th. Incumbent Republican Tom Davis is retiring, so there is no incumbent advantage. The district has been trending more and more Democratic for a long time.

Leslie Byrne won the district solidly in 2005 against Bill Bolling (R) for the office of Lt Governor (he narrowly won state-wide, but she crushed him by 10 points in the 11th district). She has been the congresswoman of the 11th before they redistricted it from her. She is an excellent candidate and leader and would represent the 11th far, far better than Gerry Connolly.

Connolly has not really been against the Iraq War until it became politically expedient for him recently. Connolly has a few too many ties to the military-industrial complex and big business to honestly represent common working people of the 11th district. Connolly was not willing to come out and endorse Obama nor Webb until it became clear that those were winning propositions for his own campaign. Connolly only last November won the election to be the Fairfax County Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, and he should give a little time to Fairfax County before using that office to launch his own political interests.

Byrne has been against the Iraq War from the beginning, she helped get Webb to run for senate. She is not currently in any office at all, and this one should be hers. No one has worked harder for the people of the 11th district for over a decade, not even incumbent Tom Davis (for whom the office is and was popularity trophy).

I have been updating a spreadsheet with delegate and super delegate counts, and projections, and poll data of the remaining states and territories; and for the last couple of weeks RealClearPolitics has been reporting different numbers than DemConWatch pretty consistently.

According to RCP, Obama only needs 117 more delegates to win; but according to DemConWatch he needs 113. Both delegate tracking sites agree that Clinton needs 306 delegates to win.

Tomorrow, Hillary Clinton will likely pick up between 28 and 34 delegates from Kentucky and between 23 and 24 from Oregon (51-58 total). Barack Obama will pick up between 17 and 23 from Kentucky and between 28 and 29 from Oregon (45-52 total). Neither will have enough delegates to declare victory, but Obama will only need between 65 and 72 per RCP and between 61 and 68 per DCW. Clinton would still need around 250 to win. There are something like 222 uncommitted super delegates. It will still be possible for her to win (that remains possible because Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota still have 189 pledged delegates to commit).

This still looks like it will not be complete until the first week of June, and Obama is drawing staggeringly large crowds when he speaks publicly.

Update: Today RCP updated it’s numbers and they are closer to DCW now, 112 or 110 depending on which one you follow.