During the 2004 Presidential Campaign, 11 states voted to ban gay marriage. Only 2 of these states were "blue states", voting for Kerry over Bush. One was Oregon, the other Michigan. Today the Michigan Supreme Court, in a 5-2 ruling, stated that the ban

against gay marriage also blocks governments and state universities from offering health insurance to the partners of gay workers.

Note. The court ruled that governments and state universities are blocked from offering health insurance to partners of gay workers. Sorry, its not even optional.

Monday eve, 15mi north of the GWB and wondering how Indiana looks for Obama. Man, if he wins both tomorrow, its O.V.A.! Hillary gets to withdraw with dignity which means President Obama becomes more of a reality. I always check RealClearPolitics first, and have done so since last September. Its my favorite poll clearinghouse. Two of the polls included in the average covered 5/3-5/4 and had similar sample sizes (600 & 636). One showed Hillary with a <st>6</st> point lead and the other had Obama up by <st>two</st>. But both cannot be true at the same time as the only way for both Hillary and Obama to win is for there to be a tie.

Now just because you want one poll to be true and the other not doesn't mean that the one you want to be true is the one that is true. There are ways to determine how reliable a poll is, how valid it is. And no, you don't even have to be able to do algebra to do it. You just have to be able to the elementary stuff - read, write, and arithmetic. Oh yea, and google.

Lets jump to it ...

Clinton's Catholic Advantage
Throughout this Presidential Primary season much has been made of Senator's Clinton 2 to 1 advantage with Hispanic voters. Yet there has been little analysis of Hillary's 2 to 1 advantage with Catholics, even though the support that Hillary receives from Catholics surpasses every other demographic advantage she enjoys - be it sex, race, income or education. As it has been reliably estimated  that at least 70% of Hispanics in the United States are Catholics  and that Hispanics are also currently 29% of all US Catholics, perhaps a paradigm shift would render a more consistent explanation as to just who is Hillary's most reliable voting bloc.

In the spirit of the post modern, post racial world that most progressives and liberals want to live in, I will use Religious Affiliation, instead of ethnicity, as the Organizing Principle to demonstrate that whatever problem Senator Obama has winning Hispanic votes is subordinate to the problem he has winning the votes of Catholics in general.

Every since the brouhaha between Krugman and Obama began, I've become more and more disinclined to even read Kruman's Op-Eds. Obviously this is a "cut-off-nose-to-spite-face" situation as The Professor has been a source of good information ever since the late 1990's when the NY Times would publish one or two articles a year by the "professor of economics at M.I.T.". Clear-headed and critical, Krugman's ability to explain complex economic issues in unpretentious prose quickly won me over. When he became a regular at The Times I would read his articles even if the subject was of little interest to me.

As Krugman's critiques of Obama became more acerbic it got to the point that I would first peek at his Op-Eds, looking for the word "Obama". If it was there, I would look away so as to avoid going ballistic over some terse remark. Unfortunately, there were times when I wouldn't even peek. Last Monday was one of those times, but I was saved from my myopia by BillyZoom's Diary on Krugman's Op-Ed on the world food crisis Grains Gone Wild.

If My Candidate isn't the Nominee, I'm Going to:
   a. shoot self in foot;
   b. cut off nose to spite face;
   c. vote for McBush!

According to the MSM, the Democratic Party is on the verge of tearing itself apart over who should be the nominee. One could even say that Democrats are suffering a strange form of bi-polar disorder where the primary symptom is the desire to have a third Bush term if a Democrat not of ones choosing wins the nomination. So prevalent is this dis-ease that I have given it the nom de guerre bi-MACK.

But how accurate is this diagnosis? Does bi-MACK represent a new virulent strain of DemocratusReaganassous - which first gripped the country during the 1980's, was sent into remission in the 1990's thanks to the DLC(linton) vaccine, reemerged eight years ago as the Bush-II variant and was (supposedly) wiped out with the IraqBacklash innoculant of 2006? Or is bi-MACK a virtual virus, created by the MSM and spread virally via virtual news? As virtually everyone either claims infection or knows someone who claims they are infected, bi-MACK is now a virtual pandemic. But does it really exist in the real world?