John McCain and Mitt Romney

McCain and Romney primary battle

John McCain continues to be the comeback kid after his recent win in Florida. John McCain’s recent win in Florida surprised many republicans including John McCain and Rudy Giuliani as well as other GOP supporters. The Arizona senator is feeling pretty confident after he recently won New Hampshire and South Carolina after narrowly losing Michigan. Additional good news for John McCain aka: “The maverick” and “comeback kid” he recently received an endorsement from his former competitor former governor Rudy Giuliani. This endorcement helps push McCain's "political machine" even further along towards his road to success.

One of the biggest surprises about John McCain’s politicial machine is he was in debt to the sum of 4.5 million going into Florida’s primary. The senator was border line broke and had to rely on a line of credit at the end of 2007 to continue his campaign to be the GOP’s representative. Senator John McCain’s savvy debates and his moderate (although he’ll argue he’s a conservative) views have proved to be enough to gain 7 million dollars in January alone. John McCain’s win has helped him build up momentum by winning 3 primaries and his political machine has been on fire ever sense. However, John McCain still has a tuff fight on his hands as he continues onto Super Tuesday.

John McCain’s biggest adversary Mitt Romney has deep pockets and can stay in the fight for as long as he feels he still has a chance to win. This is obvious after Mitt Romneys frustrations when reviewing their previous debate where Senator John McCain accuses former governor Romney of wanting to pull troops out of Iraq and Mitt Romney’s reactions to Senator McCain’s statement. This attack tactic by Senator McCain is what several political pundits believe helped him beat Mitt Romney in Florida .This was obvious by the frustration of Mitt Romney during his debate at the Ronald Regan Presidential Library. However, many pundits believe John McCain will continue to press the issue that Mitt Romney wanted to pull of Iraq due to suggestions that John McCain could possibly lose ground if the debates move to anything related to money and the US economy. During the debate Mitt Romney was becoming frustrated and changed tactics and attacked Senator McCain accusing him of being more focused on liberal views rather than holding onto Republican values.

In an interesting turn of events Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled a news conference to throw his support to John McCain one week prior to California’s primary. This comes after the Governor previously said he would not endorse any primary candidate. This endorsement should help John McCain solidify his position as the Republicans candidate for the GOP nomination. John Mc Cain should do well as his popularity in California has seemed to rise according to polling data. California being a large state will help John McCain gain the delegates needed to push him out in front of Mitt Romney when it comes to adding up the delegates. Of course this also depends on how Mitt Romney does during Super Tuesday. John McCain has won 3 races and California offers 170 delegates deriving from 53 congressional districts for which only republicans can vote.

To summarize the fight to represent the GOP it all falls down to the ability to continue to raise money for John McCain along with Mitt Romney’s choice to continue to stay in the race if he loses a significant number of the delegates on Super Tuesday. It also depends on the amount of endorsements from state governors and senators supporting Mitt Romney and John McCain.

Super Tuesday

One of the benefits of being connected to the Internet politics is much easier to research while helping voters stay informed. Thus, with the Internet it makes it easier to explain while easily providing examples and links to support researched topics on politics such as the history behind “Super Tuesday”.

Super Tuesday received its name back in 1988 when southern states joined together to have their primaries or caucuses on the same day. The intention was to help parties save money while trying to expedite the decision process and preventing delays. This is beneficial for the parties and candidates to a point. However, a part of the focus of primaries and caucuses is the help the voter to get to know potential candidates before the national conventions and ultimately the presidential race.

The movement of a majority of the primaries to super Tuesday may save money for Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC). Unfortunately, the voters are losing out by not receiving face time from candidates because of the limited time between the Iowa Caucus and Super Tuesday. This forces candidates to skip states, rush through states and cities while focusing on specific groups such as minorities or unions.

The recent events has each parties political machine speeding along and “Super Tuesday” (February 5th) could potentially be renamed surprise Tuesday due to previous wins by Senator Clinton, former Governor Mitt Romney, Senator John McCain, and the Iowa Caucus win by Mike Huckabee. The current race is so hectic that some websites are calling it Tsunami Tuesday. However, with "Internet politics" and blogs Super Tuesday could become even more hectic and make history if Rudy Giuliani wins the Florida primary. In that event, this would leave the republicans in their financial backers in a quandary about who they should support.

Although the GOP is having their own identity crisis they are not alone. The race between Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton is proving to be as entertaining as any other Super Tuesday since former President Clinton had his trial and tribulations to eventually win. It is even more interesting with the popularity of the Internet politics is easily referenced by an abundant amount of blogs and RSS Feeds.

Super Tuesday being February 5th:

24 states will be conducting their primary or caucus. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, **Idaho, Illinois, **Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, **New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia. ** Democrat caucuses only***

Feb. 1: Maine

Feb. 9: Kansas, Louisiana, Washington
Feb. 12: District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia
Feb. 19: Wisconsin
March 4: Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont
March 11: Mississippi
May 6: Indiana, North Carolina
May 13: Nebraska
May 17: Hawaii
May 20: Kentucky, Oregon
May 27: Idaho
June 3: South Dakota

To view dates along with the specific number of delegates please visit Wikipedia

Nevada Caucus Politics

The importance of the Nevada Caucus

How important is the Nevada Caucus to both the Democrats and Re publican's Political Machine? It is important, but not as important or valued as it is to media pollsters and the importance to build confidence among certain candidates. The reason the pollsters are interested is because of the roller coaster ride the media and pollsters are receiving. The first surprises being the Iowa Caucus win by Mike Huckabee. The second surprise is the win for Hillary Clinton and John McCain in New Hampshire. All three wins were a surprise to the candidates as well as the media. With McCain losing Michigan to Mitt Romney it’s almost considered a crap shoot for Nevada and South Carolina? The pollsters have been wrong and they need some stability in the primary race to establish credibility. The primaries have been so unpredictable international politics and politicians are refraining from commenting and making early alliances due to the fact it’s still any body’s race.

January 19th and Nevada play an important role in helping create stability among the primary and the Political Machine. The turnout for Nevada is expected to be large because of minorities and the involvement of Nevada’s largest labor union representing Culinary Workers Union (Casino) supporting these minorities with about 60,000 supporters and service employees with 17,500 members supporting Obama.

About the Nevada Caucus
Delegates are elected at the town or precinct-level (in larger cities) caucuses attend their desired party's county conventions. There voters elect delegates to the state conventions. From this step those voters at the Nevada conventions elect the delegates to the national conventions. It should also be reinforced that delegates at county, state and national conventions are not required or legally bound to continue to support the candidate they pledged to support at the caucus level or at a lower level convention (county for instance).

Voters in the Republican caucus must have been registered for at least 30 days before the Iowa caucus. So in order to be eligible to vote in the Republican the Republican voter had to be registered in December. Democratic Party rules differ from the GOP. They allow Republicans, Independents and previously unregistered persons to register as Democratic anytime up until the day of the caucus.

A downside to the caucus system is the absence of secret ballot voting and having to declare their candidate in public, along with the confusion and lack of understanding regarding caucus system by many potential voters. Although caucuses are not a secret as voting in a traditional primary the people of Nevada can expect to create some excitement by participating in a caucus rather than the traditional primary. The fact is the caucus induces more energy but is one of the more confusing processes of the political machine no matter which state has a caucus.

Michigan Primary

About Michigan's Primary:

Michigan’s’ Primary was changed recently and moved to a date earlier than Feb 5th the proverbial “Super Tuesday”. Michigan’s Primary (open primary) will now occur on January 15th. This change has provoked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to blacklist Michigan’s primary. Michigan has been told not to bother sending its 156 Democratic National Convention delegates to Denver, where hotel rooms have been taken away. Both Republicans and Democrats lost delegates as a punishment for moving up Michigan's presidential primary to Jan. 15. This is yet another game in the political machine and politics.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) told Michigan Republicans that they would lose half of their nominating delegates at their convention. The Democratic National Committee said Florida and Michigan would have to forfeit their delegates at the convention for moving their primaries before February 5. The Democratic candidates responded by supporting the DNC by vowing not to campaign in Michigan and Florida during the primary. Republican candidates continue to visit and run ads in Michigan.

In Michigan’s the Democratic Party's ballot, you will notice four of the party's candidates do not appear on the primary ballot, this includes candidates John Edwards and Barrack Obama. The candidates voluntarily withdrew from Michigan's primary. As it stands Michigan is unofficially down to 59 delegates to send to the DNC. However, Hillary Clinton has stuck it out and remains on Michigan’s ballot. The unofficial reason for the primary change is because Michigan is experiencing what many consider a one state recession and by moving the primary Michigan hopes to gain more influence in the selection of the next presidential candidate while bringing national attention to Michigan’s economic struggles.

Michigan’s manufacturing struggles and economic downturn forces the state to become even more involved and bring focus on International politics and policies. Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the nation (7.4%) and citizens are moving out of Michigan in record numbers while Michigan’s Wayne County (Detroit) experiences the difficulty in exporting vehicles and watching plant closures continue to hurt Michigan. Michigan’s Wayne County is also starting to lead the nation in home foreclosures and Democrats have chosen to ignore over 1 million voters in this particular county over “primary politics”. Since the change of Michigan’s primary, their hopes of shifting focus on international politics and trade issues may have back fired and Michigan could lose some of its voice and media exposure although this is unlikely.

Since Michigan has been black listed on the democratic side voters of Michigan can enjoy not being bombarded by ads, calls or flyers to support the democrats other than Hillary Clinton who again went against party politics and continues to run ads. Since a majority of democratic candidates have chosen to pull their names off Michigan’s primary there is a big push to vote uncommitted with uncommitted currently rating at 33% according to an Epic MRA poll as of 1/12/08 . So, either democrats vote for Hillary Clinton or they vote uncommitted.

The Democratic political machine in Michigan should be furious, The reason being Republicans such as McCain and Romney are taking out ads and talking to Michigan voters while providing the “we feel your pain speech’ while Mitt continues to talk about his dad and his roots in Michigan although he moved away. Furthermore, on a national level Democrats were poised to win overwhelming in the presidential race as they did in the previous congressional races. However, it may be slipping as the Iraq war loses steam and financial worries start to take precedence. A prime example is the GOP is slamming Michigan with ads and Democrats are losing out on face time.

Michigan’s political machine has retooled and changed primary dates, this will likely benefit Michigan in the future but not until 2012-13. However, if Michigan voters don’t express their disapproval for the DNC and RNC black listing, Michigan may see a repeat in the next presidential election after 2009. In the end the only people to immediately benefit from Michigan’s primary change is the Republican’s, Independents and most likely Hillary Clinton.

New Hampshire Primary

The New Hampshire Primary is important cog in the political machine because it is the second event which gives the country a view of who are the top contenders for their parties’ presidential nomination. It is common for New Hampshire to reflect what the people of Iowa vote for. However, this is not always the case as is in the recent polls for Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain.

There are two main types of primaries in the political machine, open or closed, which dictates who is eligible to vote in the primary. . In an open primary, on the other hand, a registered voter can vote in either primary regardless of party membership. However, the voter cannot participate in more than one primary. A third less common type of primary, the blanket primary, allows registered voters to participate in all primaries.
In primary politics, closed primaries a registered voter may vote only in the election for the party with which that voter is affiliated or registered as (Democrat, Republican, Green parties). A voter registered as Democrat can vote only in the Democratic primary and a Republican can vote only in the Republican primary.

To explain further differences in the political machine voters are eligible to vote in the primary, there are differences in whether the ballot lists candidate or delegate names. The presidential preference primary is a direct vote for a specific candidate. The voter chooses the candidate by name. The second method is more indirect, giving the voter a choice among delegate names rather than candidate names. As in the caucus, delegates voice support for a particular candidate or remain uncommitted

The New Hampshire Primary is a closed primary. Votes can only be cast to for the part which the voter is registered. Hence, a voter registered as a Republican choosing to participate In the New Hampshire Primary must vote in the Republican Primary. Likewise, a Democrat choosing to participate must vote in the Democratic party. However, because New Hampshire allows people who are independent to choose either party it could easily be considered as an open primary based on the independents option to vote.

In a current update regarding the current 2008 New Hampshire the political machine plugs along as we see a surprise surge as Senator Clinton narrowly ousts Senator Obama. This surprise comes to both Democratic presidential candidates and shows how for whatever polling is being conducted he voters have the ultimate voice and decision in both primaries and in the interest of national politics. In yet another surprise Republicans watched as the Huckabee falls to third place and John McCain is seen as the comeback kid after receiving the most votes in the New Hampshire Republican Primary.

Iowa Caucus

About the Iowa Caucus

How is Iowa used in the Political Machine? The politicians use the caucus to measure their status among Middle America. This is the beginning of how presidential hopefuls will represent themselves among international politics as well as local and party line politics.

How Does the Iowa caucus work?

The caucus is a closed group of people or realistically a political party coming together in a closed meeting to select candidates or decide on policy. The caucus should not be confused with the Primary where the candidate is actually selected to represent their party. The Iowa caucus is considered the first step in the presidential nomination for Democrats and Republicans. This is not because Iowa is really important, it’s because Iowa is first in the series of caucuses.

Why is Iowa considered Important by the media and potential presidential candidates? Iowa is deemed as important because it’s the first state in the union to conduct a caucus and it’s considered the first real challenges candidates will face. Iowa is also considered a state that equally represents American on a majority of the views on both sides’ of political lines. Additionally, Iowa is the first state to start the caucus. Thus, Iowa receives most of the attention. This is also considered a preliminary view of who the individual parties will select to represent them in running for president. So, Hence, January 3rd brings a lot of interests for prior speculations among media and political consultants.

Democratic Process when in Caucus for Iowa

In the Democratic caucuses party officials in each county split the county into groups by either precinct or legislative districts. There are currently 99 counties in Iowa. These groups can be hosted at schools fire stations, or even an individuals home. The whole point is to create a group where the attendants have a minimum of 15%-25 of attendees if another group is present and has less than 15% they must either join another group or stand out. Iowa always holds their caucus on January 3rd. During the democratic caucus supporters write their names and the names of the candidates they have chosen to support on the cards. Next, the cards will be added to the number of people supporting a candidate in the first round. If that candidate doesn’t get the 15 percent of votes to be considered viable, the cards won’t be used further. Individual supports not in the 15% percentile may reallocate their support to another candidate or group. Hence, candidates vie for support of people that are not in a particular group in hopes of increasing their margin or percentage of people supporting their run for presidency.

Republican Process when in Caucus for Iowa

In the Republican caucuses, each voter casts his or her vote by secret ballot. Voters are given sheets of paper without the candidate names printed on them. Voters begin by listening to other people campaigning for a particular candidate. This again is done by caucus participants, after the voters have made their choice they write it down and the information is provided to the Republican Party. Iowa republicans total the results at all 99 precincts then in turn they notify people of the media of the results. The results are calculated and reported to the state party which provides the results to the media.

A Delegate from each precinct caucus is sent on to the county convention. In turn, the county convention chooses delegates to the District Convention, which makes the selection of delegates to the State Convention. So, in actuality it is the Republican state convention, not the precinct caucuses, which ultimately selects delegates to the Republicans National Convention in Iowa. The media usually allocates delegates by estimating county convention results. However, delegates are officially unbound from the precinct caucus. It should be noted as a part of the democratic caucus there is no way to vote anonymously. Voters may request what could be considered as a sort of absentee ballot, which is commonly referred to as a preference card. A preference card may be issued if the voter has to work or can’t attend because of a disability or health reasons or other legitimate reasons. To be a responsible voter we must research and understand the game of the Political Machine