Suzanne Pleshette of Bob Newhart Fame Passes Away At 70.

Suzanne Pleshette, the beautiful, star best known for her role as Bob Newhart's wife on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died.
Pleshette, who underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006, died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home.
"The Bob Newhart Show, a hit throughout its six-year run, starred comedian Newhart as a Chicago psychiatrist surrounded by eccentric patients. Pleshette provided the voice of reason.
Here is an episode of "The Bob Newhart Show", featured at Hulu.com.

Clinton's Victory In Nevada Doesn't Translate To A Delegate Victory.

Sure, Hillary Clinton may have won the popularity vote in the presidential caucus that was held today in Las Vegas. But surprisingly, in what is really meaningful, the number of delegates that will be sent to the Democratic National Convention, the winner was Barack Obama. Sen. Obama won thirteen delegates to Sen. Clinton's twelve. Overall, Clinton leads the delegates race with 236, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Obama has a total of 136, and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has 50.

This race turned decidedly testy in the last few days of the campaign. Most media is suggesting that it came from the Obama camp and the Culinary union. Of course when has the mainstream media ever been known to be aware of what was really going on?

It was Clinton supporters who filed a lawsuit to prevent the at-large precinct sites on the Las Vegas strip after the Culinary Union endorsed Obama. They did this in fear that the large constituency of union workers would cause her to lose these large caucus sites. In actuality, the hotels, who supported Clinton (more on this later), prevented many culinary workers from attending the caucus. Page after page of culinary workers who had requested to attend the caucus were denied to attend by their management. They did however, ensure that any of their management that went to support Clinton, were allowed to attend. In fact, after the time that the doors to the caucus were supposed to be locked and no more admittance was allowed, they were still letting management in to caucus.

The Obama team and the Culinary Union were warned that they would be drawn back into court if they had any campaign paraphernalia outside the caucus area, and organizers were not allowed near the caucus area. How funny that the outside was lined with Clinton posters, people passing out buttons and t-shirts and encouraging people to vote for Clinton. The T-shirts tried to fool union members by having the slogan, "I Support My Union. I Support Hillary".

I was supposed to caucus today at Bellagio, but at the last moment was told that since I had requested the day off, trying not to inconvenience my department by having to leave my shift for a couple of hours to participate, that I was not allowed to vote at Bellagio. Only workers who were scheduled for a shift were allowed to participate. I had to rush back home to get to my precinct in order to caucus.

This morning, when I went to Bellagio to work with the union organizers, we were honored by Barack Obama making an appearance in the Bellagio Employee Dining Room. It was a visit that the Clinton campaign did not want to happen, even though Bill Clinton had been making the rounds into the hotels all week. Yesterday, Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea spent the afternoon in the Bellagio employee dining room, but when word came out that Obama was going to be there this morning, she complained that he shouldn't be allowed to come there to try and sway employees. Of course, since the Clinton's were staying at Bellagio, she almost got her wish.

Personally, I think the real reason the hotel executives were promoting Clinton, is that they know that she is unelectable against ANY republican candidate in the November general election. She is so polarizing as a candidate, that democrats who do not like her would never vote for her even if she is their candidate. Republicans, meanwhile, would become united against what they view as their ultimate enemy.

The general opinion about why the Culinary endorsement for Obama did not translate into a victory, is that they waited too late to give the endorsement. Theorists say that if they had made the endorsement six weeks earlier, their organizing skills could have translated to an Obama victory. This may be true. I just wonder how much dirtier the Clinton campaign tactics, taken from the Karl Rove handbook, would have become.

Barack Obama Visits Bellagio Employee Dining Room

The picture on the left is yours truly, riesen2b, shaking hands with Presidential Candidate, Sen. Barack Obama in "Mangia!", the employee dining room at Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas, NV. Senator Obama was allowed to visit early this morning, much to the chagrin of the Clinton campaign. They had pressed hard to keep him out of the casino, even though Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea had spent the entire previous afternoon campaigning in the employee area. This is the same campaign (Hillary's) that tried to stop the voting in the casinos by filing a lawsuit to try and stop it. That lawsuit was thrown out on thursday by a federal judge. As of this post, it appears that Hillary will win by a percentage of 51% to 45% for Obama. Not exactly a mandate for her to be the candidate considering a day earlier a Review-Journal poll had her leading in double-digits.

The video is just a short clip of Senator Obama as he makes his way through the employee dining room at Bellagio.

Dems In Dead Heat In Nevada But Obama Slightly Ahead

A new poll by the Reno Gazette-Journal shows the three top Democratic presidential candidates in a dead heat going into Saturday's Nevada Democratic caucuses.
The survey conducted for the newspaper shows Barack Obama with 32-percent, Hillary Clinton with 30-percent and John Edwards with 27-percent.
On the Republican side, John McCain was on top 22-percent.
Rudy Giuliani was second with 18-percent; Mike Huckabee, 16-percent; and Mitt Romney, 15-percent.
The poll was conducted Jan. 11 to Jan. 13 , with samples of 500 likely Democratic caucus-goers and 500 likely Republican caucus-goers statewide by Maryland-based Research 2000.
The margin of error is 4.5 percentage points. Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal.

I'm not sure if this poll takes into account the lawsuit from the Clinton camp that is attempting to shut down at-large caucusing at casinos on the Las Vegas strip. Having their chance to caucus taken away from supporters of Clinton after the culinary union endorsed Obama has become a battle cry from the union, as evidenced by a news conference by D. Taylor, Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Union. According to Taylor, these same people that filed the lawsuit, were in favor of it when the idea was thought up nine months ago. When their candidate wasn't endorsed, sour grapes made them file suit, since they know that ultimately these caucusing sites will decide who the winner is.

Highlights of Barack Obama Rally At Las Vegas Culinary Union

Highlights from the Barack Obama Rally at the Las Vegas Culinary Union Local 226 on January 11, 2008. Si se puedes, or Yes we can!

Barack Obama Rally At Las Vegas Culinary Union: Part 7

Barack Obama speaks at the Las Vegas Culinary Union on January 11, 2008

Barack Obama Rally At Las Vegas Culinary Union: Part 6

Barack Obama speaks at the Las Vegas Culinary Union on January 11, 2008.

Barack Obama Rally At Las Vegas Culinary Union: Part 5

Barack Obama speaks at the Las Vegas Culinary Union on January 11, 2008. This is one of the best parts of his speech.