Odds and ends.....

Sorry for the long absence from writing but I had to concentrate on speech writing. Last night at the event, someone at the table asked me if I had canned speeches that I simply updated and modified to fit the group. I was shocked because obviously this person thought I gave a lot of speeches....which I don't. I had spent the last week writing and rewriting. It wasn't easy and so my answer was no, this is brand new. And I hope I don't have to do it again soon. But throughout the week, I have logged on to the news blogs and followed the election results. Along the way, I came across a bunch of information and comments that I thought interesting and I wanted to share the thoughts with you. It is not the kind of stuff that makes the nightly network and cable news shows (and I wonder why) but it does make one think....this is truly the most exciting race in my lifetime and maybe ever. History will have a lot to say about this one. I did not write any of the words below, they are collected from many different writers on the internet.....So, here goes....did you know????

Look at 1992. Bill Clinton is fond of saying he didn’t wrap up the Democratic nomination until June 2 of that year, when he won the California primary. That’s technically true, but Clinton was the clear winner long before that. Nevertheless, former California Gov. Jerry Brown stubbornly stayed in the race, even though going into June 2, he had 388 delegates to Clinton’s 2,059. (Clinton’s total was, at the time, 86 short of locking up the nomination.)

The West Virginia results were as across-the-board as you can get. She (Hillary) won 57-34 among men and 70-24 among women. She won 64-25 among voters who attend church more than once a week and 64-34 among voters who never go to church. She won 69-24 among voters without a college degree and 54-39 among voters with a degree. She won 69-25 among voters who make less than $50,000 a year and 58-34 among voters who make more than that. She won 65-28 among voters who think the economy is the most important issue, 57-37 among voters who think the war in Iraq is the most important issue, and 68-23 among voters who think health care is the most important issue. She won 67-26 among white voters. (We don’t know the breakdown among black voters, because they were too few in number — West Virginia is 95 percent white — for exit pollsters to calculate, although results in other states suggest that blacks probably voted 90-plus percent for Obama.) She won 67-25 among voters who have a union member in their household and 63-31 among voters who don’t. She won 56-38 among voters under 30 years old, 63-27 among voters between 30 and 44 years old, 65-27 among voters between 45 and 59 years old, and 68-28 among voters 60 and older. Among all voters, 70 percent want the campaign to continue, against just 24 percent who want it to end as soon as possible.

Since 2005, Barack Obama has donated three times as much as Senator Clinton to Democratic superdelagates. The study found that the presidential candidate who gave more money to superdelegates received the endorsements 82 percent of the time. As noted in the Weekly Standard.

In 1980, Kennedy came into the Democratic convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City with 1,225 delegates to President Carter's 1,981, with 122 delegates uncommitted.
Kennedy stood on principle and people admired him for the fighting the good fight.
If Kennedy could take it to the convention when he trailed by 756 delegates, why can't Hillary go to the convention trailing by far less? Would it be so awful?

Barely a third of Clinton supporters say they’d vote for Obama over John McCain in a November matchup. As many claim they’d vote for Republican John McCain and a quarter said they would not vote for president. If that horse race were Clinton vs. McCain, half of Obama backers say they’d vote for Clinton, about three in 10 say they’d back McCain and the rest would stay home. Only a third of Hillary supporters say they will back Obama in a General Election. Barely a third! Another third said they would vote for John McCain. And 25% of them said they wouldn’t vote for anyone. Among Obama supporters 50% said they would back Hillary but 30% said they would vote for McCain. And 20% wouldn’t vote at all.

I am a woman who has fought for women's rights her whole live. Who once sat in a factory in Ithaca New York and wanted to tear it apart brick by brick as she remembered her mother's life eaten up by the numbing, mind stealing, life sapping work of putting the same 5 parts together on an assembly line for Grayson Heat Control. She did this for eight hours a day, five days a week, year in, and year out until her dreams become memories, and then they were nowhere to be found at all. I knew those dreams well, and I saw them eaten alive by a world that counts women's dreams less than anyone else's.

I mean I have never in all my life seen anything as tenacious, as determined, as strong, as committed, as inspiring and ultimately as Powerful as Hillary Rodham Clinton fighting for Her Fair Place in this nomination fight. This woman will take you home. She will rock your world. She can be the President of the United States--and she will start working for you and me on Day One. And if you don't think that would be pretty powerful, take a good look at her now. Because Hillary Rodham Clinton in the home state of Mothers Day is going to Rock the Vote like you have never dreamed. (referring to the West Virginia primary)

Have a great weekend!!!!