Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

SUPERDELEGATES

There's been a lot of this kind of horseshit spread around recently:

This is not a negotiable position. If the Democratic Party does not
nominate the candidate for POTUS that the majority (or plurality) of its
participants in primaries and caucuses want it to nominate, then I will quit the
Democratic Party. If you think this is somehow rejecting the rules and bylaws of
the Democratic Party, you are wrong. The fact is that there is nothing in the
bylaws of the Democratic Party that dictate how super delegates should vote at
the Democratic national convention. In the absence of any legal dictation of how
they should vote, I will hold them to the principles that make me a Democrat: as
the democratic institution through which internal disputes of the American
center-left are resolved. If the Democratic Party fails to respect those
principles, and their "super" delegates nominate someone for POTUS other than
the person who received the most support during Democratic primaries and
caucuses, then I fail to see any reason to continue participating in the
Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party is not a democratic institution, then
to hell with the Democratic Party.

I need to get this down before the entire campaign changes, because it seems to do so overnight, these days: Superdelegates have been a part of the Democratic party primary system for a long time. Since the 1980s, I believe. Hillary and Bill didn't think it up all on their own.

You need 2000-odd delegates to win the nomination. They can be regular delegates. They can be superdelegates. The winner will have a mix -- mathematically, I think the winner has to have both.

If Hillary is behind in regular delgates and gets enough superdelegates to win, she wins. Period. If she's ahead in regular delegates, and Obama gets put over the top by supers, he wins. Period. Either one could happen. Do you know what they call a candidate in that situation? The nominee. There is no legitimate way to resolve it otherwise.

Is it ideal? Does it make people feel warm and fuzzy about all those votes they just cast? Does it validate all those nights spent watching MSNBC waiting for primary/caucus results? Does it reflect a pure form of direct democracy? No on all counts.

But those are the rules. They may be bad, stupid rules, but they are the rules. They were in place long before this cycle. For whatever reason, the rulemakers deliberately eliminated direct democracy from the process. They gave a great deal of power to these 700-800 party apparatchiks -- who may be idiots, hacks, or Joe Lieberman -- and this time, they may just be asked to exercise that power. They will probably decide the winner.

Maybe that's stupid, but that's how you win the Democratic nomination. posted by Carlton at 10:51 PM

GREG

I think Greg wants me to acknowledge his official disapproval of Senator Clinton. Duly noted. I would like to acknowledge the fact that he seems to have successfully procreated.

Views on Clinton: Boo!

Procreation: Yay! posted by Carlton at 5:35 PM

posted by Carlton at 5:24 PM

CREDIT CARDS: YOUR ENEMY OR YOUR WORST ENEMY?

You have a credit card. If you carry a balance they charge you -- buying with your card is essentially the same as taking out a short-term, high-interest loan. In accounting terms, this loan is a debt to you, and a credit to the issuer of the card. But they wouldn't seem as friendly if you called them "debt cards."

If you miss a payment, or don't pay the entire minimum, the issuer of the card takes a couple of nasty steps. One of them is almost certainly jacking up your already-high interest rate (11% if you are lucky) to usurious levels (up to near 30%). That hurts, but it's your fault. You messed up.

In the past few years, some issuers have been using a different set of criteria as an excuse to raise your rates. They have access to all your financial information (how did THAT happen, anyway) -- if you miss a payment on another card, or a utility bill, or a decline in your FICO score, suddenly you become a dangerous credit risk, and they "have" to jack you. That's even though you never missed a payment on your account with them. Bastards. At least it makes a certain kind of sense; you did something that changes your profile as a customer.

Now we've reached the next phase: They raise your rates just because they want more of your money.

Credit-card issuers have drawn fire for jacking up interest rates on
cardholders who aren't behind on payments, but whose credit score has fallen for
another reason. Now, some consumers complain, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC - News) is hiking rates based on no apparent deterioration in their credit scores at all.
. . .
What's striking is how arbitrary the Bank of America rate increases appear,
credit industry experts say . . . Bank of America appears to be taking an
even more aggressive stance because, beyond credit scores, it is using
internal criteria that aren't available to consumers. That makes the
reason for the rate increase even more opaque. "Congress has faulted credit-card
companies for lack of transparency in raising rates," says William Ryan, a
financial industry analyst at Portales Partners, a New York-based research firm.
"Bank of America is bringing it to a new level."

If BoA gets away with this, expect every other issuer to follow in lockstep. So pay off those cards. posted by Carlton at 12:36 PM

WOW!

Super Tuesday was . . . oh, you know. The very idea that we would have two excellent, indestructible candidates, and that they would be in a statistical TIE at this point is just awesome. Howard Dean came out the other day and said that, if this went on too much longer, they'd have to work out "an arrangement" betwen the two candidates -- and I assume he means a Clinton/Obama ticket, because she's not backing out any other way. But who knows, really?
(Just to restate: I'm for Hillary, but I'd vote for Obama if it came to that.)

Contrary to what some say (that's the Fox News straw man "some", erected just so I can knock him down), I think this battle is a wonderful thing for the Democrats. How excited are people about this race? Very. I mean, the primary here in Virginia is going to be significant, for once. After every one, you hear stories of lines around the block before the polls open, and shortages of ballots (not a good thing in itself, but a sign). Democrats are fired up. Let it go on for a while.

Republicans are busy booing their presumptive nominee . . .

In his speech before CPAC, McCain noted that he has faced strong criticism
within his party for some of his political stands. He noted that his support of
a failed immigration bill that would eventually allow undocumented immigrants to
get citizenship was not popular with everyone.
Apparently, McCain's stand still evokes bitter feelings within the party as the conservative crowd began to boo the Republican frontrunner when he spoke about immigration.

. . . and I'm laughing my ass off. Sure, they'll eventually realize that they have no other choice but to get behind hin, and they will. But will they have the full-throated bloodlust of the 2008 Democrat? Will McCain raise over $7 million in two days, as BOTH Hills and Obama did this week? I don't think so.

(And yes, I know about the loan. We have yet to see how that shapes up.) posted by Carlton at 10:26 PM

EQUI-TASTIC!

Just a link to a very cogent (it seems to me) discussion of equity and various types of home financing, from the excellent Irvine Housing Blog. With charts!

I read it all the time, and you should too. It's where I got this!




posted by Carlton at 10:24 PM