I'm still recovering from my 13+ hour shift yesterday as a poll clerk at Indiana's Elkhart County Osolo Precinct #67. The bad part was the malfunctioning air conditioning and the uncomfortable chairs. But the good part was the friendly co-workers (yes, even the Republicans, who were mostly the same folks I had worked with when I did this back in 2006), the incredible abundance of food provided, and of course, the excitement of just being a part of an important civic institution.
The turnout was amazing for a primary election, with over 700 ballots cast in a precinct with only about 1700 voters (and that's about 100 more registered voters than we had in 2006). And the number of voters choosing the Democratic ballot outnumbered those voting Republican by about four-to-one. Now, that isn't necessarily surprising, given that we had two hotly contested races for both president and governor on the Democratic ballot, and neither on the Republican side; but it's also true that Indiana state law forbids you from voting in a given party's primary "if the voter, at the last general election, voted for a majority of the regular nominees of [another] political party..." And I absofrigginlutely guarantee that the voters in our precinct didn't come out four-to-one for the Democrats in the last general election. Which basically means that I enabled massive violations of Indiana state law, though I had absolutely no authority to challenge anyone on this point (nor would I, even if I had such authority).
But make no mistake. I heard things.
Lots of things. And I can assure you that Rush Limbaugh's
"Operation Chaos" is having a
significant effect on the voting in areas dominated by dittoheads--more than enough to account for Hillary's 2% win in Indiana.
And that's the truly amazing thing. In a state like Indiana that should be right in HRC's wheelhouse, where she attacked Obama ruthlessly in her advertising and where the idiot media pundits still won't shut up about Rev. White and all his "scary" black parishioners, nonetheless she barely was able to squeak by with a win. She failed to win the precinct where I worked even though we had only a dozen or so black voters all day long. In fact, in Elkhart County, where the population is primarily white rednecks, Latinos and Amish/Mennonite, she was
trounced by Obama, 59%-41%. Meanwhile, Obama handily won North Carolina, giving him a substantial net gain for the day in both pledged delegates as well as the popular vote, thus placing the race for the nomination even further out of reach for Hillary.
For the first time, mainstream journalists like Tim Russert are coming out and admitting that
the nomination is effectively sealed for Obama. What does this mean for Hillary? Who knows. She canceled all of her scheduled talkshow appearances this morning, though I've heard conflicting reports as to the reason. Some claim she's going to Washington to try and strong-arm some more superdelegates before they start to defect en-masse. Others claim that she is meeting with her staff to genuinely question whether she should continue. I sincerely hope, for the sake of the party and the country, that it's the latter. And I never would have suggested this two months ago, but perhaps a joint ticket is precisely what is needed to heal the divisions within the party and move forward.
In another Indiana race, the Democratic nomination for governor went to former congresswoman Jill Long-Thompson by a razor-thin margin of less than 1%. Her opponent, Jim Schellinger,
has yet to officially concede the race, so hopefully this won't get ugly.
UPDATE: So much for hopes of resolution. Now clearly in clinical denial, Hillary
continues trying to resuscitate her campaign long after it has flatlined. Question: How the hell is it legal to
loan six million dollars to one's own campaign? Exactly how does the campaign pay her back when it's effectively defunct?