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Campaign season is just getting warmed up, but looking back on the primaries we’ve already seen plenty of the usual fare: candidates shaking hands, hanging out at diners, and scaring voters about foreigners who are taking your jobs.

Sometimes the threat comes from China, Japan, or outsourcing to India. Today, it’s NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement—you know, all those Mexicans taking our jobs.

Senator Barack Obama joins the likes of CNN’s Lou Dobbs in decrying NAFTA. So many free trade foes fret about cheap foreign labor, yet they rarely holler about competitors who will work for far less than any foreigner. Politicians don’t pay much attention to it, but—from Terminator to Ice Pirates—Hollywood films have been warning us about humanity’s inevitable war against the machines.

“Now, think about it,” says Reason.tv host Drew Carey. “How are we supposed to compete against something that doesn’t get paid, doesn’t get health insurance, and never goes on breaks?”

Today, we don’t need human workers to book our travel, do our banking, or file our taxes. From factory workers to symphony conductors, countless workers are locked in battle with soulless job stealers known as computers, websites, and robots.

“No job is safe from the robot threat!” warns Carey. Of course, the warning is more than a little tongue-in-cheek. There’s no need to take a sledgehammer to a robot, because, although technology shakes up the labor market, it ends up giving us higher living standards as well as more and better job opportunities.

Like technology, trade gives us more good stuff than bad—yet Americans are likely to cheer technology and fear trade. No doubt TV talkers and White House wannabes will keep stoking our fears of foreigners until voters and viewers stop buying it—or until robots snag their jobs, too.

I don’t like regulated trade but if the alternative is one sided regulation the argument can be made for government treaties but they should not increase any restrictions or provide special treatment. That, however, is incredibly unlikely not to be included and therefore I think better to be safe then sorry and allow the grey/black market work around the regulations.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/…

Republicans receive the largest slice of presidential campaign contributions made by military members and their spouses, but leading anti-war candidates are getting a substantial cut, too, according to an independent analysis of political contributions.

From January 2007 through March of this year, service members or civilian employees of the military donated at least $766,000 to presidential candidates, according to data made available April 20 and provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group in Washington.

The analysis included donations of at least $200 made by individuals who listed their employer as one of the four branches of the military - Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps - or the Coast Guard, National Guard, Army Air Force Exchange Service, armed forces or military.

These donors gave the largest amounts to Rep. Ron Paul, the long-shot Republican candidate from Texas who has acknowledged defeat in the nomination process but continues to campaign, and Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrat from Illinois.

During the reporting period, Paul - a former Air Force surgeon who broke with his party to vote against the Iraq war - received the most military contributions, with $201,271.

That’s significantly more than the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain from Arizona, who received $132,133 from military donors, according to CRP.

“I think that our fighting men and women want to protect America, defend our Constitution and defend our borders,” said Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Rep. Paul’s campaign. “I think they’re sick and tired of being sent overseas on these police actions and getting caught in the middle of these civil wars, and want someone like Ron Paul speaking sense.

“They signed up to defend our country, not police the world,” Benton said, “and I think they’re hungry for leaders who do that.”

Obama, meanwhile, whose opposition to invading Iraq has been a centerpiece of his campaign, has received $178,456 in military contributions, compared to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s $85,000, the analysis shows.

“To see two anti-war candidates getting more money from the people fighting the war or providing support for the war effort was surprising to us,” said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics.

However, the donations cannot be considered representative of military employees’ political preferences as a whole because the analysis does not include donations of less than $200, the point at which campaign finance law requires campaigns to disclose the name of a donor and contribution amount. Thus, individuals who give less than $200 aren’t counted.

“The picture could be completely different if you were able to look at smaller donors,” Ritsch said. “You’re looking at a tiny slice of the military who have enough disposable income to donate to a candidate.”

Overall, military donors still favor Republicans to Democrats, 62 percent to 38 percent, according to CRP. But Ritsch said at the beginning of the war, three-quarters of military donors favored GOP candidates.

And you can bet this won’t get much MSM coverage.

http://caucusresults.sos.state.mn.us/…

	Hillary Clinton	0	0.00%
	Jerome Corsi	1	1.22%
	John Edwards	0	0.00%
	Rudy Giuliani	0	0.00%
	Mike Huckabee	3	3.66%
	Alan Keyes	3	3.66%
	John McCain	0	0.00%
	Roy Moore	0	0.00%
	Barack Obama	0	0.00%
	Ron Paul	65	79.27%
	Mitt Romney	2	2.44%
	Undecided	7	8.54%
	Other	1	1.22%

My idea of the Libertarian, Constitution, Independent and perhaps Reform and Green all nominating Paul perhaps isn’t too far fetched.

• The Democrat race is still in the air a bit. While Clinton is ahead by nearly 100 delegates there is still many states left and a long time till their convention.
• McCain did well as expected. I think primarily because of the number of winner take all states. Had the delegates been split up it would probably would have been much closer.
• McCain won 9 states. Huckabee 5. Romney 7. Paul 0.
• Accounting for things like what occurred in West Virginia the number of delegates dedicated to each candidate is not quite accurate.
• The available numbers also don’t account for any internal events which may be occurring in the states. I’m not familiar with the workings of all the different states but some use this primary or caucus to vote for state delegates which will at a later time pick national delegates. In those cases the MSM reports the national delegates as if they were already selected. If someone was to drop before the nationals are selected than they could vote differently.
• In several states Giuliani actually got votes. He even beat Paul 5% to 4% in California with 90% reporting. Assuming much of those votes would have gone to McCain it doesn’t look like they would have changed the results in any of the states. Again given the differing systems it’s hard to say for sure. Thompson even got 3% in Tennessee. In that race it could have changed the outcome. Huckabee got 34% and McCain got 32%. I suspect it would have helped Huckabee more than McCain however. I’d like to know if these were protest votes or people who didn’t realize their candidate of choice had dropped. I hope it’s the former.
• There has been several accounts of voting issues with Paul supporters. Three from people I know. Steve Miller in Brooklyn saw issues with voting machines not working and those running the poll said that only 2 Republicans where running and Jim Lesczynski and his wife had changed their party affiliation months ago yet the voting place had them as their old party. Here in NJ they had my girlfriend and I marked as unaffiliated and we had to choose which party to vote for on the spot. No harm but sad that I had changed to R months ago and received confirmation saying as much.
• Paul did well in states he was expected to do well in but not as well as some thought. 3rd in Alaska is disappointing given the level of support that was expected. He was the number 1 fundraiser there. In Montana Paul was again the number 1 fundraiser with more than twice what Romney in second raised. Yet Romney won 38% of the state delegates vs Paul’s 25%. Unfortunately Montana is a winner takes all state and the delegates are apparently required to vote for that individual. It’s even more interesting in North Dakota where Paul again was the largest fundraiser with Romney raising the least yet Romney won the majority with Paul a close 3rd with 21% to McCain’s 23%. Both get the same number of delegates as does Huckabee with his 4th place 20%.
• He also did worse in some states where he was polling last but with higher percentages than he actually received.

Paul generally got spanked but that was expected. The race is still not over and even with McCain in the lead he’s only 60% the way to the nomination. Obviously money does not mean votes. As a movement we need to better target the public. I truly believe the MSM did us great harm in this race and we need to figure out a way to deal with that in the future. The counties around the several states where Paul won or did well should be analyzed and replicated. I don’t believe there was anything particularly special about those voters it was how we advertised and presented our candidate to them. We need to convince people not only of his platform but his electability. As much as we hate that that is a major component to the average voters decision it’s reality and we need to counteract the MSM putdowns and writeoffs. Spend less money on blimps and more on newspaper, radio and TV ads. More articles to the editor which aren’t defensive and complaining about being left out but offensive and comparative and explains why our policies are right and better for the average voter. While we may lose this battle the fact we are able to get such high numbers in some areas of the nation should give us encouragement. In local and national elections were we are targeting much smaller audiences we have a better shot at getting freedom fighters in office. Murray Sabrin’s campaign for Senate has been able to get more money than they where asking for from 47 states. That kind of support will hopefully help get those people elected. Also as a libertarian candidate we’ve gotten a low of 3% and high of 25%. This is just unheard of in the Libertarian Party generally. Nationally Paul is pushing 7%-9% from what I’ve seen. That’s really huge. We do have an audience we just need to approach them. We probably have a larger audience we just need to get by the MSM’s attacks and blackout. On a local level that’s much easier.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when and if Huckabee or even Romney drop out. It seems to me that those supporting them would be hard pressed to support “liberal” John McCain. If Paul does not drop and seeks the Libertarian ticket he could possibly pick up quite a few delegates. I understand that is a fairly unlikely situation but I’d love to see it just to gage what and why people choose a candidate.

To leave on a more optimistic note, A Scorecard You Won’t Find on Fox News:

Supporter Loren C. sends in this excellent summary of what Ron Paul has achieved so far.

A friend of mine asked me tonight, “Should Ron Paul just quit? I never hear of him on the news so he can’t be doing very well today (Super Tuesday).” Here is my reply to him:

I don’t care what the liberal media is saying, he has,

2nd place in Nevada

2nd place in Louisiana (possibly first once they get it sorted out)

2nd place in Montana

2nd place in Maine

3rd place in Utah

3rd place in North Dakota

There is about 21 more states left to vote,

He has plenty of money,

No one has even close to enough delegates to take the nomination,

He has the only true Republican stance on the issues,

He is the only candidate who believes our government should follow ALL of the Constitution,

Quit?

Not even close. Keep fighting, Ron Paul is!

Well said. And while the momentum John McCain has been gaining lately may appear daunting, Ron Paul supporters are the ones who should be least intimidated by it, because as the other, fraudulent alternatives to John McCain fail one by one — Mitt Romney is certainly on the ropes after tonight, especially if, as appears to be the case, he loses California to McCain — the real alternative to McCain-ism, Ron Paul, will only become more attractive to conservative Republican voters.

Indeed, it’s interesting to note that so many of the states McCain won tonight were blue states which any Republican (except the antiwar Dr. Paul) will have a hard, if not impossible, time winning in November. And despite his wins tonight, McCain does not have a majority of Republican National Delegates, so the fight for the nomination is still very much on.

http://www.lvrj.com/…

A judge today is to order that Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich be allowed to participate in tonight’s debate.

 

Alternate District Judge J. Charles Thompson on Monday afternoon said that he will grant a preliminary injunction requested by the long shot candidate. Thompson is expected to sign the order today for Kucinich, attorneys for both sides said.

NBC Universal Inc., which is hosting the debate on its cable channel MSNBC, wants to include only the three top candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards — and is expected to continue fighting against Kucinich’s inclusion.

Kucinich filed a complaint Monday morning in District Court alleging that NBC broke its contract with him. Kucinich said the network last week invited him to take part in the debate but later rescinded the offer without adequate explanation. He also contended the network wasn’t abiding by federal requirements that it provide equal airtime for candidates.

I like Dennis Kucinich. Not his policies of course as he’s more or less a socialist. However he’s honest about it unlike some in his party. I’m going to have to disagree with his actions however. While I would like to see him on the stage with them tonight their property rights trump or should trump any other argument. I wouldn’t consider an email as described a contract nor if were would I believe that his rights infringed by them rescinding the offer.