There has been a lot talk about the recent gas tax holiday that Hillary (and McCain) have proposed. And Obama has called pandering. The media, helped by the Obama campaign, has gone along with this characterization of Hillary’s proposal (though oddly that same frame has not been applied to McCain and he is somehow not pandering). And of course there is a huge difference between what Hillary proposed and what McCain proposed that for the most part has been given short shrift. She would pay for hers by collecting the tax from oil companies instead and McCain will yet again put it on the national credit card. So Hillary’s proposal causes no loss in highway funds and no loss of revenue or jobs as Obama has tried to suggest.

 

The other aspect of this is the suggestion that nearly all economists agree that this is silly and will do no good. Hmm I find that an odd argument. An 18 cent reduction in gas prices is not important (and please don’t bring up the idea that there will be nothing to prevent the gas station owners for taking the windfall for themselves because then you concede there is a windfall to be had)? How about an 18 cent rise in prices? No effect? If that were true then when does a rise in gas prices begin to be important? Is 20 cents enough to have an effect? Is it 25 cents? 35 cents? You see how silly the argument is. And yet Dean Baker, assistant director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research calculates for each penny increase in the cost of gas, U.S. consumers pay an extra billion dollars a year? Sounds like a 4+ billion dollar savings to me (18/ 3 months of summer).

 

What this is indicative of, however, is the real difference between Obama and Hillary. When regular Americans are feeling the pinch of an economic downturn you can expect a concrete proposal that will take effect immediately from Hillary and you can expect Obama to talk about your pain and do nothing. 

My husband is a republican (the old northeast variety) and doesn't get that they are no longer that party. Fiscal conservatives? Ha! No evidence as far as I am concerned.But the perception continues.  He seriously thinks that McCain is different than Bush and is some kind of independent. That is why I was surprised when he told me about watching  the O'Reilly interview and being extremely impressed. He told me that he thinks Hillary did herself a lot of good. He said that even when O'Reilly threw awful questions at her she calmly held her own and even managed to put him in place and show how wrong he was. He also drew the distinction about how she looked compared to how Obama looked when he was asked the same type of stupid question in the PA debate. There was no whining.  The difference was like night and day he said. I don't know that he would actually consider voting for Hillary instead of McCain but it sure opened up his mind to that possibility. 
That is why Hillary can win in November and Obama can't. Obama won't get those Reagan democrats (or most working class democrats) and we can't win without them. We saw this directly in Texas. Hillary won the general and Obama could come in and take it away only in the precinct conventions where it can be controlled by a few enthusiastic supporters. Obama then won the Wyoming caucuses, but out of 100,000 registered democrats only 8000 actually participated. All the new enthusiasm for registering and voting in these primaries is widely seen as enthusiasm for Obama. It is not. It is because for the first time these states actually count to pick the democratic presidential nominee. Am I dismissing the obvious enthusiasm that Obama generates? No. I am simply pointing out that it will not be enough in the general. 
If democrats want another John Kerry pick Obama. If they want to beat McCain, pick Hillary. It is that simple. 

Texas has both a primary and a caucus. In the primary voters come in and in 5-10 minutes  can usually cast their ballot. There is very little excuse in my mind for a voter to contend they do not have time to do this, even if you have a job , 5 screaming kids or are very old and handicapped. A caucus on the other hand requires you to commit to come after the polls have closed at 7:15 PM and stay around for at least an hour and if they are heavily attended for hours to sign in and to elect delegates to the senatorial convention. I ran one these caucuses on March 4th in Dallas TX after having arrived at 6 AM to set up the polls and working all day to see that voters were able to cast their ballot in a timely fashion.  I dropped off my election judges materials finally around 10:30 to 11PM that night. 
Most voters came into vote that day not knowing about the caucus. Of course some had been informed by the campaigns of either Clinton or Obama that they HAD to come back to "sign-in" for the caucus. My little old friend who has voted in every democratic primary since I have been doing this in 2001 came in and I asked are you coming back for the caucus. She said oh deary no honey I have to have my son drive me now and I don't think I can make it. Another young woman came in and I asked do you think you can come back and caucus. She said no my husband is out of town and I would have to find a baby sitter plus there is the TAKS test tomorrow and I have to get the children to bed. All day long we had some young college students hanging around outside though asking voters if they supported Obama and if they did telling them about the caucus and asking them to return. Turns out at least some of them, though they truly were registered in this precinct, were being paid by the Obama campaign to do this. I wonder if they were making more than the $7.00 an hour that the county pays election judges?
When the caucus sign in started after the polls closed, which was about  7:30PM because while the poll doors close at 7PM sharp the last voter has to finish and that took a bit of time, most people just signed the sheets with presidential preference  and then left. We had 52 Obama and 32 Clinton people sign in but by the time we actually did the count and were trying to allocate delegates the place was getting much  emptier. I could have contested this and forced the count to be retaken and if I had the Clinton fraction would have increased greatly. That was perfectly within my rights. I did not because I am  the democratic chair of the whole precinct  and need to serve even those who don't support my candidate. But if I were a person picked by a particular campaign I would have forced the issue and helped my candidate because I most likely would never have to deal with these people again. This indeed happened in many places where the normal precinct chair was too busy closing the polls or frankly just didn't care. 
So Obama won more delegates out of our precinct than Hillary. Not because his followers were necessarily more dedicated but because of a multitude of reasons and because they are a different demographic than Hillary's. Caucuses are inherently undemocratic but in Texas this two step system is even worse because it disenfranchises even the people who have taken the time to come in and vote. Hillary won Texas but she will most likely come up short on delegates because of this weird system. I don't think anyone can convince me this is fair. And it is the accumulation of all these little unfairnesses that has given Obama a delegate lead (a similar thing happened in Nevada). 
I know the mantra is Hillary is trying to steal the nomination from Obama but just as strong an argument can be made the other way. The truth is both are going to require the super delegates to reach the magic number and Hillary is no more stealing the nomination from Obama than he is stealing it from her.  I know, I know,   Obama's super delegates are going to turn out to be bigger and stronger and somehow oh so much better than Hillary's...... And the spirit of obama moved across the waters and he said let there be obama super delegates and there were obama super delegates and obama saw the super delegates, that they were good...........