Mapping the Democratic Primaries and Caucuses

Key

In this sucker here, Obama support is blue, Clinton red, and Edwards green.

Snagged from Daily Kos post pre WV. Link & more maps aqui

just like Hil's campaign does. My county is blue, I can actually pick it out on the map.

What a joke she has become. She is obviously a fan of Soviet-style elections.

Yet I support Lavendar marriage.

is California, supposedly so red for Clinton. Edwards quit the race only days before the primary--and many voters didn't know this-- leaving the choice of frontrunners as Clinton (lots of momentum at the time) and Obama, just gathering steam. MANY Edwards voters would have gone to Obama on the war issue, had they known about Edwards withdrawal. Clinton has not apologized for her vote for the war. Edwards has, and has made up for it with other strong, anti-corporate positions. Obama opposed the war early and publicly (although he has voted for funding as a Senator elected after the war vote). Obama was not that well-known at that moment. People were just learning about him, and that he had opposed the war.

Nor was the war issue all that well defined among the candidates, except for Kucinich, and, by the CA primary (Super Tuesday), it was clear that, for whatever reason--possibly mostly corporate news monopoly marginalization of Kucinich--he couldn't draw enough votes to make any kind of impact on the other candidates (let alone to win). (In other words, it wasn't a Eugene McCarthy-RFK situation where votes for McCarthy clearly were a "message to RFK" to keep his word on stopping the Vietnam War; everybody knew Bobby would win the CA primary in 1968, but McCarthy drew substantial votes for his strong antiwar stance.) The war was the main issue for my family members, as it is for many Americas. But we didn't want to waste our votes (which a vote for Kucinich would have done, at that time). We wanted to support the one MOST LIKELY to end the war, AND the one with a chance to win and/or a chance to influence the pro-war frontrunner (Hillary). We decided on Edwards. And my family members almost voted for Edwards, but because I'm up on the news, I was able to give them the last minute news (I mean, their Absentee Ballots were in their hands when I called) that Edwards had withdrawn, and that a vote for Edwards would also be wasted. My family members therefore voted for Obama, on the war issue.

Pre-election polls showed, roughly, Clinton 40%, Obama 40%, Edwards 20%. Edwards ended up with 10% of the CA primary vote--mostly voters who hadn't gotten the word. Most of those votes would have gone to Obama, in my opinion (supported by the Field poll). And that considerably changes the CA primary picture--and the colors on this map. It would have put Clinton and Obama about even in CA delegate count. Obama had all the momentum just before the vote (according to the Field poll). If Edwards had dropped out earlier (gaining Obama's votes in the mail-in ballot part of the election), or if word had gotten to more voters in time, CA would be much bluer. Also, I'm absolutely certain that, if the primary were held today, Obama would win big.

How many other areas and states would be different, as things evolved in the campaign? Clinton has done some pretty abrasive and divisive, and very alienating, things. That her chief campaign adviser Mark Penn was a paid agent of a foreign government, Colombia, with one of the worst human rights records in the world, while Hillary herself was claiming to be against the Colombia "free trade" deal, was not known. Clinton pandering to uneducated white voters--in what could easily be perceived as a racist strategy--was not known. Hillary's various gaffes--in including her contempt for grass roots political activists (a lot of them in California)--was not known.

I think we really need to rewrite the map of the U.S. in our minds, erasing this division between Clinton and Obama--figure most Clinton voters will vote for the Democrat (Obama), and work toward that goal, with all states in play. There is no state that is "safe" for Republicans this year, I don't care what the numbers say right now in any particular state or area. We are going to see an entirely different picture in a few months, with Democrats and independents (and even some Republicans) uniting behind Obama, and a landslide Democratic year, with nearly every state blue.

A much more pertinent and useful map would be one showing vote counting transparency on a scale of 0 to 100. Many states would get about a 2. That is very, very worrisome. Some would get zero. Some would get a 3. Non-transparent vote counting, run on "trade secret" code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations is, in fact, my biggest concern. I think what they may do with this power, this year, is let Obama win but shave his mandate, and perhaps give him a difficult Congress, like the current one, which, until the recent vote on war funding, was 60-70% pro-war, while the American people are the opposite--60-70% anti-war--a very unrepresentative Congress. Obama will be hampered in addressing the ENORMOUS problems the Bush Junta has created. Then, with a dirty trick--say, like the one Reagan pulled in 1980, negotiating with the Iranians to not release U.S. hostages until after the election, so Reagan could beat Carter--the election theft industry could get into high gear and Diebold Jeb Bush, or anybody they wanted (Hitler II?) into the White in 2012. Game over. End of American democracy.

If we don't fix this problem, and restore 100% transparency to our vote counting system, we are wide open to this kind of peril.