WAKE UP, YOU OF THE "NEW DEMOCRATIC COALITION"

While Donna Brazile and her main man Barack Obama may think that Democrats can win presidential general elections with a coalition of The Creative ClassTM, AAs and the youth vote, I have very serious doubts that dumping other minorities, women and blue-collar whites is a sustainable strategy. After all, youth AGE and lacking another charismatic suit like Obama for a nominee, what guarantee is there that young people will continue to coalesce around a Democratic candidate in the future? The Creative ClassTM are process-oriented, not issues-oriented, and therefore not reliably Democratic (witness the way the Blogger Boyz have surrendered their progressive credentials during this primary season). AAs have long been a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, but they're never going to be much more than 10% of the total electorate.

I had lunch today with five other lifelong Democrats, two who have supported Obama, two for Hillary (me being one of them), one who has been unwilling to declare for either, and one who can't vote (a management consultant from Singapore who is still not a citizen, but leans Democratic). One still supports Obama but is "waffling," the other Obama supporter said she's now sick of him and the sexism and misogyny revealed by Obama's campaign and the media, and will vote for John McCain in the GE. We two Hillary supporters (one is male) are going down to the wire with her. The uncommitted said it's time for Hillary to leave the race, but he is highly skeptical of Obama and suggested he might vote down-ticket and abstain in the presidential vote (unless McCain chooses Romney for a running mate -- then he'll vote for McCain; he's from Massachusetts and thought Romney was a good governor). I took a vote, and found that of the six of us, FOUR believe John McCain will win the GE, one didn't have an opinion, and the sixth believed the Dems would unite around the nominee and squeak through to victory.

Not a good sign, Donna. Wise up. You need us. The party needs us. And we won't be there for it if party leaders and influencers continue to tell us they don't need us and/or that we're racists if we support Hillary instead of Barack.

THE POPULAR VOTE AND CAUCUSES

Talk Left has some interesting statistics.

Do you know that if 8,000 voters come out in Wyoming today to select their 13 delegates that means that 615 Wyomingians will be selecting a delegate to our national convention (8000 divided by 13.) By contrast, when 4.4 million Californians voted in their primary, they selected 370 delegates, which is to say 1 delegate for every 11,892 Californian who voted.

The will of the people? Please never mention that phrase again when discussing the pledged delegate count.

From the thread: "The total vote to total delegates is listed as 8553 Obama to 9289 Clinton." In other words, Clinton has had to garner 736 more votes for every delegate she's gotten than Obama has had to get for every delegate he's earned. Boy, that's some disadvantage.

On the popular vote --

Among self-identified Democrats:

Without Florida and Michigan: Hillary +588,000
With Florida: Hillary +820,000
With Florida and Michigan: Hillary +933,000

On another note, I can't believe we've let another four years go by without fixing the Electoral College.