Pennsylvania calls it for Clinton

Hillary beat out Obama by 10%, and the Democratic party lurches ever closer to a brokered-convention. My co-worker, a diehard conservative, is hoping for Hillary to run as an independent. I'm hoping we emerge with the best possible person in office. I don't know who that is out of the three candidates running. A complaint I've been hearing about Obama is that his not going on the attack enough is seen as a sign of weakness. I don't know how much of that is spin and how much is accurate. But it does make a certain amount of sense. People might not have a clear idea of what they would expect him to do, but they'll probably know it when they see it. I respect that Obama is trying to take the high road, and analysts have said that Clinton loses popularity more when she goes negative than Obama does as the result of her attacks, so I think her strategy still isn't working (and if that isn't reflected in certain races, it is reflected in the donation race).\

On to John McCain, who is in the enviable position of building his brand while his opponents spend all their time attacking each other. I really wish he wasn't trying to use technicalities regarding campaign finance. I'm not wild about the legislation in the first place, but his name's on it. If he's looking for loopholes, that's the sign of a bad bill. That said, I don't think that it's an easily enough to understand issue that people will be motivated. I'm unclear on the nitty-gritty specifics myself. It's certainly not the saddle that a possible anti-American pastor or lying about being under sniper attack is, and that gives him a good position in the fall. His number one drawback, I believe, is age. I don't think that people will hold it against him, I just think that when the campaigning is tough, he might have some fatigue issues.

We shall see, it'll be an exciting fall. And whoever ends up in office, they have a lot of work ahead of them. A falling dollar, falling housing market, sorting out immigration, and that's all inside in the house! Looking outside, we have a very chaotic and volatile world, that still has grand amounts of potential. One thing I don't want to see is the country thinking that the President is the person outside of ourselves who can "make it all better". We need to be the ones who make our lives better and our world better. The Presidency is a job interview. Policy decisions need to be made, but they need to be made with our input and with us holding the elected officials accountable.