Edwards Endorses Obama

John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama for president Wednesday.

Edwards (and Giuliani) Quitting Presidential Race

CNN and The New York Times are reporting that John Edwards is going to drop out of the Presidental race today, and not endorse either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. The 2004 Vice Presidential nominee has not won a single primary contest, and his best finish was second in the kick-off Iowa caucuses. Edwards is set to give a speech in Louisiana today, the same place he kicked off his presidential bid well over a year ago. Still, it's surprising that he is dropping out before "Super Duper Tuesday" on February 5th when millions of Democratic voters have the opportunity to make their voices heard in the Presidential campaign. In fact, in California, I know that many people have already voted (by mail-in absentee ballot), and some of them have said they have voted for Edwards.

In other news, Rudy Giuliani (or 9iu11iani as DailyKos likes to call him) is dropping out of the race and endorsing John McCain, who won winner-takes-all the Florida primary ahead of Mitt Romney 36% to 31% wiht 9iu11iani a distant 3rd at 15%.

Three Reasons Why Clinton Won New Hampshire

Even in Turin, Italy the news of "Frontrunner" Hillary Clinton's astonishing win of the New Hampshire primary election on Tuesday has been jaw-dropping. On MyDD alumni Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller's new project OpenLeft, I posited these three reasons for her victory:

I think Clinton's win was due to (in order of relative importance on her making up the deficit)

3) Absentee ballots (some fraction of voters had voted for Clinton when he NH lead was huge prior to the Obama bounce from Iowa).

2) Lying white voters telling pollsters they would vote for Obama and then not being able to do it when they got to the polling booth. Heck, they even lied when they came out of the booth! (exit polls put the vote split at 39-39--Obama got 2 percentage points less--that's your lying deficit.)

1) Too Much (Polling) Info: all the polls saying that Clinton was going to lose big made NH voters (especially women and white voters) who would have voted for Obama decide that they could risk voting for Hillary. I think if we lived in a country (i.e. France) where publication of polling data within 72 hours of the election is illegal, Obama would have won.

Last time I checked the upcoming primary schedule Clinton was expected to do well in the Nevada caucuses (Jan 19), Obama should win South Carolina (Jan 26). Clinton should win the two states who have had their delgates stripped (Michigan Jan 15 and Florida Jan 26) and who knows what the heck will happen on "Tsunami Tuesday" February 5th. It is doubtful that Edwards will win everywhere, but he should have enough delegates to deny a majority to eith Clinton or Obama! One thing is clear, the race will very much still be alive by the time I get back to the United States on Friday January 18th.

Polls Show Close Race (on Both Sides)

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire is reporting that there is a Strategic Vision poll (+/- 4.5% margin of error, Dec. 26-27, 2007) which shows a completely deadlocked race in Iowa:

For Democrats, it's Obama at 30%, Clinton at 29% and Edwards at 28%.

For Republicans, it's Huckabee at 29%, Romney at 27%, Thompson at 15%; and McCain at 14%.

In addition, the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll also shows a statistical dead heat in Iowa on the Democratic side (Clinton 31%, Edwards 25%, Obama 22%) but on the Republican side Huckabee leads with 36%, Romney has 28%, Thompson 10%.

Mad Professah Endorses Barack Obama for President

You may have noticed that I have added the "I'm Voting For Barack Obama" icon to my blog.

I have decided that I will indeed be voting for Barack Obama in the February 5th California primary.

Hillary Clinton Releases Plan to Fight HIV/AIDS

Mad Professah has previously blogged about John Edwards' (here) and Barack Obama's (pdf) release of comprehensive plans to fight HIV/AIDS in response to the call for a National AIDS Strategy issued by over 100 HIV/AIDS public policy organizations earlier in the fall. Hillary Clinton yesterday became the third Presidential contender to release their national AIDS strategy.

However, blogger Sven over at My Silver State and Pam's House Blend has noticed a curious similiarity in all three released plans: none of them include the word condom!

It should be interesting to see what particpants in the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, Georgia this weekend have to say about that. Although Mad Professah is not going, I have a bunch of friends who are. I' staying in town and going to the Fusion LGBT POC Film Festival!

Do You Support A Presidential Candidate Without a National AIDS Plan?

Phill Wilson of Black AIDS Institute called my attention to a poll that AOL is running which asks respondentst to vote on whether they would support a Presidential candidate who does not have a National AIDS Strategy. Mad Professah had blogged previously about the proposed National AIDS Strategy that numerous groups have agreed to promote jointly last month.

To date, only Barack Obama and John Edwards have publicly released comprehensive national strategies to combat HIV/AIDS in the United States. Black AIDS Institute has analyzed Edwards' plan not not Obama's plan (which oddly enough doesn't seem to be easily found on his website). The Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton has not released a plan yet and as the days continue this is startingto look increasingly curious, especially for a candidate so closely linked with health care issues.

Don't you think that every Presidential candidate should have a National AIDS Strategy? Take the poll now!

Report Cards from the Logo/HRC Forum

1. Hillary Clinton. Hillary was clearly comfortable wth the setting and came across as well-informed and empathetic. She was very specific about what she wanted to do regarding state recognition of same sex couples: repeal Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Unfortunately there are only 2 sections of DOMA. I believe though Clinton was referring to the second half of DOMA which restricts any federal benefits currently provided to married couples from being provided to same-sex couples. She was more accurate and eloquent on the issue of the ban on openly gay or lesbian people serving in the United States Armed Forces. Grade A.
2. Barack Obama. Impressive, but not as polished as Hillary. Got visibly annoyed when repeatedly asked to defend his position on same-sex marriage. Grade A-.
3. Dennis Kucinich. The biggest surprise of the debate. Clearly the most progressive of the candidates, unabashedly so. Unfortunately has no chance of winning the nomination. Grade B+.
4. John Edwards.I thought he had the best answer to the inevitable same-sex marriage question when he described his intellectual and emotional understanding of how LGBT folk feel like when they are denied the freedom to marry, but he also reiterated that his position had not changed: he is still opposed to same-sex marriage. Grade B.
5. Mike Gravel. Has raised almost no money. I disagree with other bloggers who advocated for his inclusion in this event. Grade C.
6. Bill Richardson. When asked by Melissa Etheridge "Is homosexuality a choice?" the Governor responded "Yes, it is a choice." 'Nough said. When asked whether he would sign a marriage equality bill into law if provided one by the New Mexico state legislature he refused to answer the question! Grade F.

A Cacophony of Candidates In Town Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the LOGO/HRC Democratic Presidential forum known as Visible Vote '08 in Los Angeles (Studio City, actually). As Mad Professah mentioned a few weeks ago, this is not a debate, but actually a series of sequential appearances by presidential candidates who will respond to questions from a panel of journalists, celebrities, and activists. The order of appearance is Senator Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards, Senator Christopher Dodd ("scheduling conflict"), Congressmember Dennis Kucinich, former Senator Mike Gravel, Governor Bill Richardson and last but not least Senator Hillary Clinton.

With all these presidential candidates in town, I have been trying to think of the correct collective noun to describe a collection of presidential candidates. There are some lovely examples of peculiar collective nouns in the English language, like "an exultation of larks, a pride of lions, a cete of badgers and a convocation of eagles. I like the word "cacophony" but this was after I rejected "cluster" (influenced by The Daily Show's Clusterf@#ck to the Whitehouse) and "bevy." What word would you pick for the collective noun to describe a group of politicians?

At least three of the leading Democratic presidential candidates are having much-discussed fundraising events associated with the first ever LGBT-specific presidential forum in Boystown West Hollywood and other areas. Hillary Clinton's is $50 (or $1000 if you want real face time with the candidate) at The Abbey), Barack Obama's is $250 at Arena (managed by the same company that runs The Abbey!) while John Edwards is $15 at Republic Restaurant, across the street from Barack's (hoping for spill-over?). Mad Professah will definitely be at the Barack Obama event (You can RSVP by donating here) and may stop by the Edwards event also.

LGBT Blogging bigwigs Rod McCollum (Rod 2.0) and Pam Spaulding will be in town for the event. Pam will be live-blogging the debate for Pam's House Blend.

Democrats Likely To Win Presidency If Bush Remains Unpopular

Today's Los Angeles Times has an op-ed by political reporter Ronald Brownstein ("Bush the Albatross") which repeats an argument Mad Professah has been echoing since last November: The Democrats have the upper hand in winning back the White House in 2008 due to the unpopularity of the current Republican president in particular and of Republicans in general. Happily, in his well-written (excellent topic sentences!) column Mr. Brownstein uses actual polling data and historical analysis of presidential results to bolster his claim:

Bush won't be on the ballot in 2008, of course, but throughout American history, outgoing presidents have cast a long shadow over the campaign to succeed them. And when a departing president has been as unpopular as Bush is now, his party has usually lost the White House in the next election.

[...]

In the elections to replace departing presidents, weakness seems more contagious than strength. Outgoing presidents with a high job approval rating haven't always succeeded in passing on the White House to their chosen candidates. Ronald Reagan did in 1988, but, in two nail-biting contests, Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 and Bill Clinton in 2000 could not. [Though MadProfessah and others would argue that Gore did win the presidential election in 2000, but did not get inaugurated.]

[...]

Voters dissatisfied with a departing president typically want change. And they usually believe the opposition party will deliver more change than the president's. The most recent elections to replace retiring two-term presidents — Reagan in 1988 and Clinton in 2000 — help us quantify that instinct. In each case, media exit polls found that the same share — 88% — of voters who disapproved of the retiring president's job performance voted against his party's nominee, George H. W. Bush in 1988 and Al Gore in 2000. By contrast, about four-fifths of voters who approved of the outgoing president's performance voted for his party's nominee each time.

Those are ominous numbers for Republicans today. On the day of the election to succeed them, both Reagan and Clinton enjoyed approval ratings just over 55%, with about 40% of voters disapproving. In last week's Gallup/USA Today poll, Bush's approval rating stood at just 29%, with 66% disapproving. If voters divide as they did in 1988 and 2000, and Bush's ratings do not improve, that would translate into a 2008 Democratic landslide. That's why Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz says flatly, "There is no way any Republican can win the presidential election next year if Bush's approval rating remains anywhere near where it is now."

HRC and LOGO TV Partner To Air Presidential Forum on LGBT Issues

The LGBT blogosphere (Pam's House Blend, Bloggernista, Joe.My.God, Towleroad, etc) is buzzing about the news reports that the Human Rights Campaign and Viacom's LGBT cable channel Logo are joining forces to put together and broadcast a presidential forum specifically devoted to LGBT issues. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Christopher Dodd have all confirmed their attendance.

In light of the recent stories circulating about his use of the Spanish pejorative maricón (faggot), Mad Professah would not be surprised to see Vice President-wannabe Bill Richardson also attend the event also.

Hopefully, since it will be taped in Studio City, CA on August 8 at HD Vision Studios (according to Pride Depot) maybe MadProfessah can wangle an invite! Stay tuned!