Obama leaves Trinity

Here’s some news that caught me by surprise.  Today, Obama announced that he was withdrawing his membership from his long-time church, Trinity United Church of Christ.

I have mixed feelings about this.  On one hand, I’m not one who particularly cares about religion in politics, so long as it doesn’t interfere with policy.  A politician’s religion is his or her prerogative, not the business of the public unless it interferes with his or her decision making.  Most of our Representatives are Christian of one sort or another, overrepresenting the United States’ religious majority of which I am not a part.

On the other hand, I was a bit saddened by the news.  A church represents part of a person’s social circle, and Obama and his family have been attending Trinity for quite some time now.  In withdrawing their membership, they are weakening some of their social bonds and the sad part is that this comes about for political reasons.

Now, I have watched Obama’s comments on this topic and while I agree that it was probably the best decision to make given the news coverage of every controversial remark made from the pulpit and the undue attention paid to church members, who are probably seeing Obama’s candidacy as much as a curse as they would see it as a blessing.

Of course, this brings me to another problem.  Whatever church Obama chooses to join next may suffer under the same curse that’s plaguing Trinity: overeager reporters looking to get a scoop on the most controversial part of the Obama candidacy so far:  his religious life.

In the end, this comes full circle, with an increased interest in the religious aspect of the race, I feel that I might get a bit irritated this election cycle as both an atheist and a secularist.  I can hope that this won’t be a big issue, but I doubt that my wishes will come true here.

Disgraceful

My thought of the responses coming from the Clinton partisans protesting at and outside the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting seems to be matched in by others: disgraceful

Here are four examples in three videos, which I saw all together in a Daily Kos diary by Delaware Dem, though have been posted by many others today as well:

Fortunately, I don’t think that these women even begin to represent mainstream opinion in the Democratic Party, but the shear thought of voting for a candidate so unlike your own over one that is quite similar seems downright bizarre. While I understand the frustration felt with the process, particularly in regard to Florida and Michigan, I do not understand why one would advocate against one’s own ideology and interests simply for the sake of protesting the primary procedure.

This election should be about far more than how the DNC deals with rule-breaking states. It’s about how we will deal with Iraq. It’s about how we will handle our ailing public education system. It’s about how we will handle healthcare in coming years. It’s about what the Supreme Court will look like in the decades to come. It’s about cleaning up the forclosure crisis. It’s about giving our children the best future possible, and petulantly proclaiming your support for a candidate with an outlook disagreeing with your own candidate over what amounts to 25 delegates, not nearly enough to change the outcome of this election is petty and stupid.

But most of all, it’s disgraceful.

The Four State Pledge and the RBC

In light of the RBC meeting today, I want to repost the text of the Four State Pledge that was signed by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd. I orginally posted it in September last year when all the candidates agreed that the Michigan and Florida primaries would not be treated as legitimate.

Dear Democratic Presidential Candidate:

Throughout 2005 and 2006, the  Democratic National Committee worked diligently to establish a presidential nominating calendar that would ensure victory for the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nominee, preserve the traditional role of retail politics early in the nominating process and to include the socioeconomic and ethnic diversity that makes this Party great.

In 2006, through a fair and open process conducted by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina were selected for the “pre-window.”  The calendar was approved by the full DNC over a year ago.  We are in agreement that the states chosen by our party reflect the energy and diversity of our great country and our party.

Recent actions by a few states could dismantle this thoughtful and deliberate effort by the DNC. Presidential campaigns, county chairs, elected officials, activists and the media have reached out and asked for our help in bringing this uncertainty (and potential chaos) to an end. Campaigns need to make major spending decisions.  County Chairs need to find precinct locations and precinct chairs.  Elected officials need to finalize election logistics.  As a party we owe it to these organizations and individuals to conduct a sensible and timely nominating process.

For the good of our party and our candidates, it is our desire to bring finality, predictability and common sense to the nominating calendar.  We ask you to accept the attached four state pledge, steeped in established DNC rules, by signing and sending the pledge form by Thursday, September 6, 2007, via email to South Carolina Chairwoman Carol Fowler at cfowler@scdp.org. Please also mail a hard copy to Chairwoman Fowler at SCDP, PO Box 5965, Columbia, SC 29250.

We appreciate your consideration of this pledge which brings order to the presidential nominating calendar.  We look forward to focusing on electing a President, rather than selecting dates.  If you or your staff has any questions, please contact any of the four State Party Chairs or Executive Directors.

Thank you,

Senator Tom Harkin                   Governor Chet Culver                

Chair Scott Brennan, Iowa Dem. Party

Senator Harry Reid

Chair Jill Derby, Nevada State Democratic Party

Chair Ray Buckley, New Hampshire Dem. Party

Congressman Jim Clyburn

Chair Carol Fowler, South Carolina Dem. Party

Four State Pledge Letter 2008

Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina

August 31, 2007

WHEREAS,  Over a year ago, the Democratic National Committee established a 2008 nominating calendar;

WHEREAS, this calendar honors the racial, ethnic, economic and geographic diversity of our party and our country;

WHEREAS, the DNC also honored the traditional role of retail politics early in the nominating process, to insure that money alone will not determine our presidential nominee;

WHEREAS, it is the desire of Presidential campaigns, the DNC, the states and the American people to bring finality, predictability and common sense to the nominating calendar.

THEREFORE, I _______________, Democratic Candidate for President, pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus  before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as “campaigning” is defined by rules and regulations of the DNC.

___________________________                       __________
John/Jane Doe, Doe for President                         DATE

My logo

On a whim, I decided to create a logo for myself and this site. 孟柏民 (pinyin: Mèng Bómín) is my Chinese name, the name of this blog, and the name I use as a commenter elsewhere.

I haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to use it yet, though I’ve made 孟 my avatar here. I’ll probably change the banner image at the top of the blog to something including it and I may put it in the corners of future maps that I make.

May 20 map update

Cross-posted at Daily Kos

With just two states left, I decided to make this map update a little different.  One of the major flaws of my past maps has been that it treats all counties equally, when some counties clearly have more voters than others.  So, to give a better idea of where the voters are, I´ve darkened areas where voters are sparse and brightened areas where they are dense (in number, not intellectually).

The result better reflects the actual pattern of voters across the country:

However, there are several caveats, as I will detail below.

This is the color scale:

Red is Clinton, green is Edwards, and blue is Obama.  I have color swapped versions of most of these maps at the bottom of the post.

75,000 in Portland

In a story that has not hit the major presses, Barack Obama just drew a mind blowing 75,000 person crowd in Portland today:

Update:

You can see photos from people at the event here and here, as well as here

New blog template and updated Maps page

I’ve decided to change my blog template so that I can fit 500px wide images in posts, which has allowed me to fit the “medium” size images from Flickr, which is what I use to host my maps.  So, now it is much easier to post the maps, and I’ve updated the maps page.  Hopefully, this summer, I can make this blog a relevant place to keep my maps rather than simply relying on Daily Kos.

Obama-Edwards 2008?

I am not typically one to engage the tea leaf analysis I see a lot in our national media, but I’m about to do it now.  I watched the Edwards endorsement today and one of the striking things I noticed when watching was a pose that Obama and Edwards made when Edwards took to the stage, which is the first image on the Obama campaign blog:

I have to wonder why they chose to do that pose.  It looks kind of like a convention nomination pose.  And if I wasn’t tea leafy enough, the file name of the original image was ObamaEdwards1.jpg.  Of course, this was probably the work of one of the campaign’s Internet staff, not some sort of cryptic hint that Edwards would be the Demcratic Party’s Vice Presidential nominee for the second time running.

Off that topic, perhaps I should find a new blog template so that I don’t have to shrink images that are only 500 pixels across like the above image and my maps (that’s part of the reason I haven’t maintained the maps on this site).

And on the topic of maps, my latest version is here.

Progress of the Democratic and Republican contests

I created some maps showing the progress of both the Democratic and Republican contests and posted them on Daily Kos.  Here they are:

Republican

Democratic