Indecision '08

Now that the showdown between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama is over, you would think that things would be more clear. But actually, the answer to the "who is going to get the Democratic nomination" question has only gotten more muddy.


Clinton
Even though Hilary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday, I don't think it's a "big win". With 55% of the vote, Clinton certainly gained the momentum she needs to continue this race, but it's not a win so impressive that put her in first either. Her total delegate counts are still behind Obama, even though Clinton has more superdelegates under her belts now. She and Obama are basically going head to head, and this win in Pennsylvania only adds to her potential in the race. Hilary now has the reason to run, and the competition between her and Obama will probably have to be settled by the super delegates.

Obama
Perhaps the whole "Reverend Wright" thing has struck Obama deep, since now not only the public associates Obama with an extremist, but now Obama is more vulnerable to the attack from his opponents. In fact, there's already a a pretty negative ad in North Carolina. Then his "bitter" remark got his opponents going again. Even though polls indicated that his remark did not hurt him, he lost nevertheless.

So now the Democrats are stuck with no clear winner, and it is unclear about who is "best" for the party.

Electability
Both Clinton and Obama will be subjected to negative campaigns by the Republicans no matter who is the nominee. Clinton has the Lewinsky thing, her past voting records, and her image to worry about. While Obama has Reverend Wright, inexperience, Muslim conspiracies to worry about. Clinton has won the bigger and more populated states while Obama has won the smaller states. Some argue that Clinton will have a bigger chance to get the bigger states in November, and that will lead the Democrats into victory. Some argue that Obama will be more appealing than Clinton to both the young and the undecided votes. I honestly do not have a preference right now of who should be the nominee.

The fact of the matter is that the super delegates will probably get their hands on deciding who the nominee should be. From the beginning, I thought the super delegates are not the best idea to get the nominee, since it basically ignored the popular votes and lets public "democracy" goes out the door. It's quite unappealing that a few hundreds of powerful members gets to make the big decision (kind of like oligarchy, isn't it?) while the previous delegates goes to waste.

Well, while this is all going on, McCain is just sitting back and laughing.

Oh, My Media

Of course most of the people in the West had heard about the Tibetan and human rights activists protesting in London, Paris and San Francisco during the Beijing Olympics Torch Relay. But while the camera of the West turned mostly to Pro-Tibet protesters, how many actually give the same coverage to the Chinese supporters who were waving the red flag on the sideline?

Right after the riots in Lhasa, the media immediately jumped and talked about the cruelty and the bloodshed that the Chinese police brought upon the Tibetan protesters, some even calling it "peaceful protests" on the Tibetan's part. Right, tearing down buildings, burning shops, and attacking the Hans are really peaceful. While reading the newspapers and sites of the West, I realized that they mostly focused on the Tibetans, and many did not mention the Hans that were attacked, injured, and those Hans that were killed by the rioters. Well, maybe I'm not paying close enough attention.

Then,media of the West began using various misinformation when reporting the Lhasa riots. Cropping our the violent part from the picture so it seems like the Chinese police are cracking down on the Tibetans (CNN), identifying the Nepal police as Chinese police (Germany), and saying an ambulance is a police car (BBC). I'm quite baffled by their "professionalism", and to see more of these "honest mistakes", you should see this video that was complied by the Chinese students in the West:


Then it comes the torch relays, protesters dominated the Western press, I didn't really know that there were Chinese supporters in London and Paris until I read the Chinese newspaper.Well, maybe I didn't pay enough attention again. Soon because of this, Chinese nationalism is rising, to the point of extreme. Boycotting CNN and French goods, and in one case, Chinese students are actually threatening another Chinese student of being a "traitor" in a gathering of both sides. Most of it went on unnoticed by the Western media, and it only makes the Chinese even more angry.

Well, now they actually does report the rallies by the Chinese supporters, but the catch is in its title: "Anti-French rallies across China", such a good title to depict Chinese supporters, isn't it?