Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Let The Superdelegates Decide

Posted on March 31, 2008 by Mash

Throughout this race the Clinton campaign has maintained that the superdelegates should use their own judgment in deciding which candidate to back. Clinton has maintained that superdelegates are not beholden to the will of the people. Her thuggish backers have even tried to blackmail Speaker Pelosi and the DCCC – superdelegates – into backing Senator Clinton.

I agree. I think the superdelegates should decide this race. And they should decide it in favor of the candidate who is likely to actually win the presidency – Barack Obama.

As has been noted many times, Hillary Clinton cannot win the nomination. However, it appears that as long as there is a mathematical possibility that Clinton can get to the required number of delegates (2024), she will not drop out of the race. Therefore, the only way to end this race before it does further damage to the eventual Democratic nominee is for Barack Obama to get to the magic 2024 number. This is where the superdelegates have a role to play to prove to us un-super voters that they deserve their electoral capes.

Currently, the race stands at approximately 1412 pledged delegates for Barack Obama and 1251 pledged delegates for Hillary Clinton. With committed superdelegates factored in, Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 1627 to 1497. Ten races remain with the following delegate counts:

State	Delegates
Pennsylvania	158
Guam	4
Indiana	72
North Carolina	115
West Virginia	28
Kentucky	51
Oregon	52
Puerto Rico	55
Montana	16
South Dakota	15
TOTAL	566

If we project out the remaining 10 races all the way to the last primary on June 3rd, giving Hillary Clinton hefty winning margins in Pennsylvania, Guam, West Virginia and Kentucky, at the end of all the primaries Barack Obama will likely lead Hillary Clinton 1889 delegates to 1801 delegates as shown in the table below:

	Percentage	Barack Obama	Hillary Clinton
Delegate Won		1413	1251
Committed Superdelegates		214	246
Pennsylvania	40%-60%	63	95
Guam	55%-45%	2	2
Indiana	52%-48%	37	35
North Carolina	60%-40%	69	46
West Virginia	65%-35%	10	18
Kentucky	65%-35%	18	33
Oregon	52%-48%	27	25
Puerto Rico	65%-35%	19	36
Montana	55%-45%	9	7
South Dakota	55%-45%	8	7
Delegate Total		1889	1801
Delegates Target		2024	2024
Superdelegates Needed		135	223

There are currently 333 uncommitted superdelegates. To clinch the nomination, Barack Obama will need 135 uncommitted superdelegates to back him, that is 40% of the uncommited superdelegates. In other words, if at the end of the primaries on June 3rd 135 additional superdelegates commit to Barack Obama, this race is officially over.

To decisively end the race after the May 6th primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, Obama would have to pick up 226 superdelegates as shown in the table below:

	Percentage	Barack Obama	Hillary Clinton
Delegate Won		1413	1251
Committed Superdelegates		214	246
Pennsylvania	40%-60%	63	95
Guam	55%-45%	2	2
Indiana	52%-48%	37	35
North Carolina	60%-40%	69	46
Delegate Total		1798	1675
Delegates Target		2024	2024
Superdelegates Needed		226	349

However, it is quite plausible that after the remaining big states have voted by May 6th, having the extra 135 superdelegates will be more than sufficient. The writing will be written boldly on the wall, and even the most fervent funders of Hillary Clinton’s campaign will not want to throw away money on such a lost cause.

So, the magic number of superdelegates is probably around 135 for Barack Obama. If by May 6th he has reached this magic number, expect Hillary Clinton to concede soon thereafter.

Already the superdelegate endorsements for Barack Obama are rolling in, with Governor Bill Richardson, Senator Bob Casey, and Senator Amy Klobuchar adding to Obama’s total. There is now news that all 7 members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation are poised to endorse Barack Obama. The superdelegates are beginning to exercise that judgment Clinton keeps reminded them of. The final verdict is likely to come on or around May 6th.

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment

Dith Pran, September 27, 1942 – March 30, 2008

Posted on March 30, 2008 by Mash

Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg

Dith Pran, who survived the Killing Fields of Cambodia, has died today at the age of 65. Dith Pran was Sydney Schanberg’s photographer and journalistic partner in Cambodia. When Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, Schanberg was expelled from the country. Schanberg arranged for Dith Pran’s wife and children to be evacuated to the United States, but Pran stayed behind.

Dith Pran lived through the madness that the Khmer Rouge brought upon the Cambodian people – a forced de-education of the population and a genocide that took two million lives, one third of the country’s population. He escaped to Thailand in 1979 after the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia. Since coming to the United States after his escape, Dith Pran had worked tirelessly to spread awareness of the Cambodian genocide.

Dith Pran’s work remains unfinished. He worked to end the horrors he had suffered and witnessed.

Now, he rests. Rest in peace.

Posted in Human Rights | 4 Comments

James Carville Has Jumped The Shark

Posted on March 27, 2008 by Mash

Tonight on CNN’s Larry King Live James Carville continued his attack on Governor Bill Richardson. He called Richardson "disloyal" for endorsing Barack Obama. And he named names. When asked to explain he said that he would provide initials of people who had told him that Richardson agreed to endorse Hillary Clinton. Then, inexplicably, he named three names – not initials – of people who supposedly had been assured by Richardson that he supported Hillary Clinton. Two of the names he rattled off were Haim Saban and Alan Patricof.

If the names sound familiar, they should. Saban and Patricof were two of the big Hillary Clinton donors who yesterday sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatening to cut off funds to the DCCC unless Madame Speaker reconsidered her stance on superdelegates. They demanded that Nancy Pelosi withdraw her opinion that the superdelegates should not vote against the will of the people. It was political blackmail of the most arrogant kind.

It is notable that not only Carville, but Hillary Clinton’s biggest financial backers, are also going after Bill Richardson so hard. It is also notable that Carville is continuing to repeat his attacks on Richardson. It is perhaps a sign of how much the Richardson endorsement has hurt the Clinton campaign. The fear must be that other superdelegates are ready to follow Richardson’s lead and endorse Obama. The public attacks on Richardson may be a shot across the bow of any superdelegates ready to jump ship to Obama. Carville’s act of desperation suggests that the fear of being abandoned by superdelegates is not just theoretical, but real.

However, it may already be too late. Carville’s latest television meltdown, along with the Clinton donors’ ill-advised public shakedown attempt, demonstrates how much the Clinton campaign has lost the plot. James Carville, once formidable in the 1990s, now just looks bitter and desperate. He has clearly jumped the shark. And so has Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Expect some more prominent superdelegate endorsements for Obama in the near future.

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments

Remembering A Forgotten Genocide

Posted on March 26, 2008 by Mash

Today marks 37 years of independence for a tiny country I love, a country that gave me birth before it was itself born, a country founded on the belief that freedom is precious and worth dying for, a country of brave martyrs and brave survivors, a country of unfulfilled promises called Bangladesh.

Thirty seven years ago today the Pakistan army and their Islamist allies launched a campaign of genocide against 75 million of its own citizens. The army was intent on massacring into submission 75 million Bengalis who had committed a singularly unforgivable crime. Months earlier the Bengalis had gone to the polls and voted for a candidate of their choice to become the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. The Pakistan army responded to the vote with a genocide. In the name of "God and a united Pakistan" the killing began.

In the end, the Pakistan army failed in its purpose. Nine months later, an army that had engaged in the killing of millions of its citizens surrendered in humiliation to the Indian army and Bangladeshi freedom fighters. An army that was so adept in machine gunning unarmed civilians proved to be no match for men and women who could shoot back.

A new nation was born. But at great cost. Up to three million Bengalis were killed in nine months of genocide. Two hundred thousand to four hundred thousand Bengali women were raped. Ten million refugees had fled to India. Cities were devastated, villages had been razed, and the new country’s intellectual class had been massacred in a last minute frenzy of madness.

I was a child during the genocide of Bangladesh. I am one of the lucky ones – I survived. But I have been haunted all my life by memories of those who did not. I am haunted by watching the hopes of those who fought so bravely for the ideals of democracy, for freedom to speak without fear of persecution, for freedom from relgious bigotry, for freedom from poverty, dashed repeatedly over the last three decades. I have watched the Islamists who were apparently defeated in 1971 come creeping back into the Bangladeshi political mainstream. I have watched the cottage industry of genocide denial grow in Bangladesh. I have watched as family members of the millions killed have pleaded in vain for some measure of justice. I have watched known genocide perpetrators live as free men in Bangladesh, in the United States and United Kingdom. I have been again and again let down by successive American governments that pay lip service against genocide after the fact but do nothing to prevent them. I have had to witness the top American diplomat in Bangladesh have tea with a leading Islamist and known perpetrator of genocide.

I have grown weary and my hair is graying. The child that lived through the genocide is now a grown man. In the years to come, the generation that lived through the genocide will be gone forever. Gone will be the eyewitnesses to one of history’s most brutal killing sprees.

So we collect our stories and collect every fragment of documentation we can find. We want to leave for our children the memory of what our fathers and mothers fought and died for. We want to leave for the world the memory of a genocide that the world should never forget.

Today my good friend and fellow blogger Rezwan has launched a website to collect what needs to be collected. Bangladesh Genocide Archive has been launched as a platform to collect together in one place on the Internet the available documentation on the genocide perpetrated on the people of Bangladesh in 1971. For our children and for the world.