A great polarization is dividing the Grand Old Party and as a conservative who WILL vote for McCain...I am wondering how many of my fellow bloggers are willing to vote for McCain to prevent a Barack Obama or, dare I say, Hillary Clinton administration?

    Here we are yet again, stuck in another campaign season where the Democratic Party's nomination for president has absolutely no chance of winning in the national campaign. First there was Al Gore, who was just a little too liberal for the country, and then John Kerry came along in 2004, still too liberal and now you can add a big fat dose of boring to the picture as well. Attempt number three is rapidly approaching and it appears as though democrats are trying to learn from their previous failures by putting Hillary Clinton, who is constantly portraying herself to be a moderate, at the top of the party. Hillary has the name, the gender, the money, and the ability to get more money. 

    Let's be honest though...Clinton is not what she portrayed herself to be before she was officially running for president. (She's been unofficially running for president for years!) Clinton's plan of victory had always been exactly what Bill Clinton's plan for victory was: Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, and continue to lie until people believe you are vastly more moderate than you actually are. Hillary is not a conservative, not a moderate, not even left-center...Hillary is a full-blown Berkeley liberal, which is GREAT if you support those ideals. Her plan of portraying herself as more conservative than she actually is was working until that pesky Obama showed up, forcing her to take liberal stands on issues she would have rather taken a more moderate approach on. 

    Obama is a well spoken, honest, is a tremendous speaker, and able to command powerful audiences throughout the nation. Most importantly, the media loves his JFK-like radiant glow that he gives off...And yet still, he is a liberal...an inexperienced liberal who really does not have a chance in a national election because he just too far to the left.

    Super Tuesday proved just how divided democrats are on these two candidates. Both the delegate count, which really matters, and the popular vote were nearly identical for both Clinton and Obama...Which is why neither can win this primary outright until the convention....which means only one thing: BROKERED CONVENTION.

    A brokered convention on the part of the Democratic Party will all but assure the Grand Old Party a victory in the national election. Clinton will not back down, and why should Obama either? They both should feel pretty confident about their chances. In the end though, I honestly believe that Hillary and Bill Clinton have far more political connections and favors owed to them than Obama does, thus, making it near impossible for Obama to win a negotiation at the brokered convention that is inevitable to occur.  

    According to the latest numbers on the election: Hillary Clinton currently has 1,012 delegates. Obama has 933 delegates. This means Clinton has won 52% of the delegates to Obama's 48%...excluding the previous drop-outs.

    That margin of 4% is not even close to what either candidate would need to win. A total of 2,025 delegates are needed to win the nomination for the DNC.

    Clinton, the front-runner, would need a total of 1,013 more delegates, and Obama needs 1,092 delegates.

    So how many remaining delegates are there left? There are a total of 457 Super Delegates remaining, which are cast by members of the party, politicians, etc...Thus far, Clinton has won 62.224% of these special delegates. (211 of 339 thus far) Obama has won 37.758%. (128 of 339) So let's just say for the sake of great political debate that Clinton wins  60% of the remaining Super Delegates. This would give her an additional 274 delegates, bringing her total to 1,286 delegates. Obama, after factoring in ONLY the remaning Super Delegates, and assuming he wins 40% of the remaining group, will have a total of 1,115. (The increase for Obama and decrease for Clinton is likely in this category because Edwards is gone, Obama's numbers in state elections will go up slightly, and Obama's popular support has been rising, which makes him more attractive to Super Delegates.) 

    Now let us factor in the state elections remaining. There are a total of 23 states remaining for Clinton and Obama. So far, in terms of state elections, Clinton has won 801 delegates. Obama, in those same states, has won 805 delegates. Obama is actually winning more delegates. According to the polling data, Obama is likely to win a good percentage of the remaining delegates in state elections. There are a great deal of states with high percentages of African-American populations still remaining (D.C., Virginia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina) Let us assume then that Obama wins 55% of the remaining delegates. That would give him an additional 938 delegates, bringing Barack Obama's total to 2,053. Clinton, winning 45% of the delegates, could win 767 delegates...Which would mean Hillary Clinton's total delegates at the convention would be 2,053.

    Will the numbers work out perfectly this way? No. The reality is, however, that the election will most likely end up so close that a brokered convention will be forced. So what does this have to do with the national election chances of the democrats?

    A brokered convention would look awful for the party. Clinton, who would most likely win the brokered deal, will look exactly like the typical Washington D.C. politician that she actually is. The same will go if Obama wins in the convention. Democrats are the same people who complain time and time again about fair elections and the Al Gore vote of 2000...They will, however, have to swallow a tough pill of watching backdoor politics decide who wins their nomination, rather than a clean election. If Hillary and Barack refuse to drop out of the race for president, they will both suffer as DNC is split so dramatically amongst the two candidates that a chunk of their supporters may actually not participate in the election of their candidate wins. This is increasingly more true amongst African-Americans supporting Obama. The data I have seen from various sources shows that many of them will not show up to vote at all if Obama is not their candidate, especially after Clinton's recent controversial remarks.

    Unless either Clinton or Barack Obama realize that their campaigns ruin their party's chances, there is no way that either one can win. They need all the combined support they can get, and a brokered convention will splinter support throughout the party. Even if Obama leaves before a brokered convention can occur, it is still possible his supporters may stay home on Election Day out of hatred for Hillary.

As defined by Merriam Webster's: Socialist: an adherent to a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed.
  
    Barrack Obama is a Socialist. We need desperately, for that very reason, to put our conservative differences aside and rally around John McCain. 

    Tonight, Barack Obama impressively won all three of the primaries for his party. He swept Washington, Nebraska, and Louisiana with relative ease. In a victory speech given this evening in Richmond, Virginia, Obama spoke with great candor and passion of the goals he hopes to complete if he becomes president. As I watched the one-term senator from Illinois speak, I could not help but admire his incredible talent of oration.

    I find it ironic that he mentioned several times the fathers of this great country and their revolution; His policies are in total opposition to what thousands fought and died for. Furthermore, he is gaining more political steam each and every single day. His lead in the delegate count, excluding superdelegates, is continuously growing. He is raising more money, speaking in front of larger audiences, and gaining more momentum. Not until the actual convention are the nearly 800 superdelegates, made up mostly of politicians or powerful members of the party, forced to make a final decision for whom their vote is passed. Therefore, it is logical to assume that if Obama's momentum continues, superdelegates may go along with him. 

    What makes this so incredibly scary? Unlike Clinton, Obama has a great deal of appeal to the "independent voter". There is also a love affair between Barack and the media. These two vital pieces of information make Obama more likely to beat McCain than Clinton. So, let us look at what you will be getting if Barack Obama is made the President of the United States of America:

1. Universal Healthcare: Obama is going to provide government sponsored healthcare for every single American. Why is this bad? 1. The federal government cannot run ANYTHING except the military properly. Would you like the same people who handled the Hurricane Katrina disaster or work at your local DMV running your healthcare when you need heart surgery? 2. An increase in TAXES would be NEEDED to pay for a program like this. Yes, it is true that the richest Americans in the country would handle this burden, but it is also true that the richest Americans control American business and job growth. If they are over-taxed, the economy will go into a recession. 3. Why should taxpayers pay for other people being irresponsible? For instance, let us say that your neighbor down the street from you drinks a little too much one night and stumbles down the stairs of his house. He injures his knee, which requires surgery that you will pay for with YOUR taxes or possibly YOUR job. Then, your neighbor needs physical therapy to help properly heal his injury, which you will also pay for. What about a person who chooses to eat poorly their entirely lives and now has heart disease? Or a person who started smoking ten years ago, well aware of the risks involved, and now they need a new long because they have lung cancer. Should taxpayers have to pay for these people? Should there be no responsibility? 4. A universal healthcare system will destroy any competition, which will lower standards, quality, and potentially raise costs.

2. Raise taxes on wealthy Americans. Yes, wealthy Americans can afford to pay more than the middle class. However, it is important to note that if you raise taxes on business owners, job growth, economic growth, and consumer prices will suffer.

3. Tie the minimum wage to inflation. Essentially, Obama wants to raise the minimum wage when inflation goes up. Well, that sounds great! Except, inflation is, in part, already tied to the minimum wage. For instance, let's say you raise the minimum wage from 9 dollars to 10 dollars. What this means is not only will the person who was making 9 dollars an hour get a pay raise, but so too will the person making 10 dollars an hour, because they won't work for what is now the minimum wage after they had been working for 1 dollar over the minimum wage when it was 9 dollars. Wages go up, producers raise their prices because people have more money. This leads to an increase in the cost of living, which causes more salaries to go up. In addition to this, more currency will be in the marketplace. All of these factors will cause inflation more rapidly than it has been occurring already. Under Obama's plan, the minimum wage would continue to go up to counter the rising inflation, which would, in turn, cause inflation to go up again. A plan like this shows he is lacking in a fundamental understanding of economics.

4. Illegal Immigrants. The illegal immigrant problem will continue to become more and more of an issue for working Americans.

5. Foreign Policy. Barack Obama has no foreign policy experience, at all. Not only that, but Obama's plans for Iraq and battling terrorism are essentially to deal with it diplomatically. Good luck! Does anyone else realize how ridiculous it is to attempt to negotiate with terrorists?

The list goes on, and on, and on, and on....

In the end, would you not rather have John McCain as president or do you want to live with this kind of madness?

Maybe Barack Obama is not a full blown socialist...he does not want the government to control all of business outright (Just the billion dollar medical industry)...He, like all liberals, know it is easier to just take your money instead.

Justin Trask-Haskins
Author, Saving America:From Global Warming to Immigration