GOP Delegation Candidates Listed At Link Above

The identity of those who have filed to run as delegates to the PA GOP delegation to the Republican National Convention is now available at a link above.  You can also click here.

There are 167 names.  Only 62 delegates are elected.  That means there’s some competition, especially in congressional districts 3,7,11,15,18, and 19, where there’s more than three people running for each delegate slot, on average.

That’s Erie, the suburbs southeast of Philadelphia, the Poconos, Allentown, the Pittsburgh suburbs west to the Ohio border, and York/Gettysburg.  If you can find a common denominator to those districts, fill me in.  Are some of those folks supporters of Ron Paul?  Hopefully there’s more going on than a competition to win an invitation to party in lovely Minnesota.

Also, if you’re one of those delegates and want to tell me who you support, and how those you hope to represent can get in touch with you, please e-mail me at karlub at yahoo dot com.

As I mention elsewhere, I will fill you in on the presidential preference of each delegate candidate as I learn them, and also hope to include their contact information.  I will also indicate which of them are the endorsed candidates of the party.

PA Democratic Superdelegate Status Update Above

Thanks to the ever indispensable Josh at The Morning Call a full list of Pennsylvania’s democratic super-delegates can be found at a page accessed with a link above.  Or here, if you’re lazy.

Also to appear there will be the names of all people running to be uncommitted delegates in the Pennsylvania GOP delegation. Remember, they are not legally bound in any way to vote for anyone in particular, and they have to be elected in the April primary.  The deadline to hand in signatures to appear on the ballot was today.  No biggie if you missed it.  You can always run a write-in campaign if you want, which with a little effort you could conceivably win.  I may go ahead and do that myself if my nominated delegate– Skip Brion– categorically refuses to consider a protest vote.

That presidential primary vote which will also appear on the ballot in April is just a meaningless distraction, remember.

In addition to the names of the people running, I will also post contact information if I can find it.  After all, the average voter is allegedly supposed to know who these delegates support.  So I might as well help y’all find out!

Washington State GOP: Your Vote Doesn’t Matter, And We Might Not Count It Anyway

There’s some unhappy republican voters in Washington State.  You see, the state party decided to call John McCain the winner of their caucus before they actually bothered counting all the votes.  Funnily, these caucus votes don’t actually bind anyone to do anything anyway.

Here’s a link here to an e-mail sent to the folks at NRO laying it out.  Basically, what seems to have happened is the folks in more rural areas mail in their votes to HQ in Seattle.  They called McCain the winner before these votes showed up, so they only counted about 87% of the total votes, even though it was rather close.

Money sentences from the e-mail the disgruntled Washington GOP caucus-goer sent to NRO include:

“So my question to the party was whether or not we should have even shown up to caucus? … It is this kind of treatment by the party establishment that has fueled the suspicions of the grass roots folk such as me. … And for what it is worth, my precinct did not include ONE McCain vote.  And we were not counted by Luke Esser?”

I for one think Luke could have gone the extra mile and actually counted your votes, sir.  Take comfort in this, though:  At least they have highlighted the absurdity of your meaningless caucus vote by giving it the due diligence its legal status merits.

Besides, at least they counted some of them!  Here in Pennsylvania the state GOP endorsed McCain before anyone anywhere voted for anything.

Meet Jason Rae: Democratic Superdelegate from Wisconsin

Jason Rae is a junior in college, and the youngest person ever elected to the Democratic National Committee.  As such, he is getting personal phone calls from Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and others.  He even had breakfast with Chelsea Clinton at the Marquette student union the other day!

Now, as super-delegates go, Jason is handling himself rather well.  He refuses to endorse before the Wisconsin primary, he’s been a senate page, and he seems to work his butt off for the party.  I will not be a voice in the chorus suggesting he’s uninformed or brainwashed, simply because of his age.  We may disagree on a lot, but I’ll wager he’s more informed than 99% of the population, and best he’s enough of a policy wonk to back me into a corner on an issue or two.

I will suggest, though, a system is broken if it’s prone to create images so surreal as Bill Clinton calling the cell phone of an ambitious young man who’s really good at social networking and making campaign signs, like a less sexy version of Tracy Flick in the movie Election.

Puts a bit of a different spin on this clip, don’t it? [ht ought to go to someone, but I can't remember who.  Sorry!]

Watching that, I’d say the Clinton campaign can probably be confident of Jason’s support.  Feel free to prove me wrong, Jason!

Finally, take a look at this alleged picture of Jason.  I’m sure he’s going to turn out very handsome in a nebbbishy sort of way, but that photo is less than flattering.  Now take another look at how Chelsea’s turned out.  Now, I’m not saying it was appropriate for Shuster to suggest the Clinton’s were “pimping” out Chelsea.  But I certainly understand the thought.  Of course, I’m a blogger and he’s on TeeVee, so different rules.

But Chelsea is now 27 years old and playing politics.  I’m afraid Bill and Hillary are going to have to deal with the fact the ‘helpless daughter’ rules don’t apply anymore.

UPDATE:  See this post.  Apparently Jason would be unswayed by feminine charm…And it seems I was right.  Jason did turn out nebishly handsome.