You Get What You Vote For...As Well as the Consequences When You Don't

Nevada held its primary two days ago. Voter turnout, statewide, was 20%.

What do you suppose it might take for Americans to understand the criticality of their involvement in their world?

Let's see. I guess these little matters didn't do it:

Our children, and others' children, dying needlessly in Iraq,

People from here and away being held against their will and without recourse in Guantanamo,

The inalienable right of habeas corpus now alienated,

Gas resting at $4 a gallon while oil companies roar with laughter,

Countries around the world having passed the stage of incredulity at a president supremely ill-suited for power,

An education system bound inexorably toward the voucher system as No Child Left Behind creeps to its goal,

Larger and larger swaths of the population joining the ranks of the homeless,

Veterans neglected by an administration that is incapable of understanding the lifelong debt owed to the individuals who offered up their lives for lies,

Americans now left with no alternatives in the political process as the parties have become indistinguishable in their corruptness, self-aggrandizement, and heedless pursuit of their own private agendas,

More and more species of wildlife and tracts of land tossed off the preservation lists,

Crime after crime committed by public officials who sneer at the idea of answering to the citizens who put them there...

And no wonder they sneer. They know their careening, crashing, cataclysmic foray through the Constitution, our pocketbooks, our wildlands, and our honor will never be halted when 20% of the populace votes.

It's All About the Money After All, Isn't It, Senator Obama?

I don't mean to keep harping on facts about Senator Obama, but...oh, yes I do. No use trying to skew my intentions as anything else, like someone else we all know...whose name starts with O.

I'm harping because now is the time to do it. If blogs such as mine do harp on the facts, then others will harp, and the circle will widen, and perhaps, just perhaps, real change will win out in time to eclipse Senator Obama's fake Change.

We are all quite aware of the sea tide of superdelegates that washed onto Senator Obama's shores following Senator Clinton's capitulation to what appeared to be a foregone conclusion. What was really foregone was the trail of money that led up to it.

Did you know that a non-partisan study showed that presidential candidates who gave the most money to superdelegates secured those superdelegate votes 82% of the time?

Senator Obama knew that little statistic. And he had the funds to make it a reality.

Did you know that in 2007 Hope Pac, Senator Obama's political action committee, gave out $299,000, compared to the non-existent amount given out by Senator Clinton?

Did you know that as of the end of March 2008, Senator Obama's PAC had given three times more ($711,000) to superdelegates than Senator Clinton ($236,000)?

Do you remember the mantra drilled into us by all who would see the nomination go to Obama: 'The superdelegates MUST vote in accordance with the popular vote and that vote is unarguably with the senator from Illinois”...?

Here are some facts I hope you'll all pass on, and, like widening circles in a global pond, may these facts speak volumes to the foregone conclusion.

All the following superdelegates endorsed Obama. I attach the monies received and the vote percentages in their states, not a one in accordance with the endorsement and every one defying the mantra.

Rep. Porter (NH)
$11,500 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
NH vote: Clinton 39%, Obama 37%

Rep. Hill (IN)
$12,500 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
IN vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 49%

Rep. Bingamon (NM)
$4,200 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
NM vote: Clinton 49%, Obama 48%

Sen. Lautenberg (NJ)
$9,500 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
NJ vote: Clinton 54%, Obama 44%

Rep. Klein (FL)
$11,000 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
FL vote: Clinton 50%, Obama 33%

Rep. Donnelly (IN)
$7,500 received from Obama
$0 received from Clinton
IN vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 49%

Rep. McNerney (CA)
$5,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%

Rep. Altmire (PA)
$10,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
PA vote: Clinton 55%, Obama 45%

Rep. Tsongas (MA)
$5,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
MA vote: Clinton 56%, Obama 41%

Rep. Cardoza (CA)
$4,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%

Rep. Giffords (AZ)
$9,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
AZ vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 42%

Rep. Costa (CA)
$4,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%

Now we all know that had Senator Clinton had the same kind of funds to bestow, she'd have spread the wealth, too. Yes, she took money from lobbyists. Yes, she accepted money from corporate giants many of us might find distasteful. And yes, she is no innocent when it comes to the influence of money in campaigns. But I never heard her claim to be doing anything beyond working within the system as it's regrettably grown to be.

Senator Obama, however, has billed himself as the Candidate for Change. He has promised us Change We Can Believe In. He has built his case to the American public on A New Kind of Politics and A New Way of Doing Business in our capitol.

Sounds like the same ol' slimy dealings to me.