Roy Ho’s Blog

US has a military base nearby in Thailand.  And Thai has already been cleared by Myanmar governemtn to help.  All assistance can go through Thailand, similar to how aid was sent to Afganistan or Iran.  Why does US insist on direct aid to the Myanmar government? 

Every country wants to have a better relationship with another country.  Having a direct correspondence is just a good tactic to relationship building.  However, such direct correspondence was not on the table when Iran had an earthquake.  So, why Myanmar?

Disaster of this scale require multiple countries to help.  In fact, no amount of help will be enough for disaster of this scale.  China will provide a lot of assistance.  After all, this area affects all the transportation / infrastructure China has been building in Myanmar.

It is good for Pentagon’s strategists.  China has a strong military tie with Myanmar.  China can use the seaport of Myanmar freely.  The next stop for China will be thousands of miles away, days away by ship around Singapore in the island Hainan.  To the west, Parkistan is another ally.  US wants to increase its influence on Myanmar.  Having some first step relationship building exercise is important. 

Myanmar also has rich resources.  Oil field is only part of the story.  Myanmar has a lot of minority problems.  Areas near China (norter Myanmar) has always had multiple militas.  Areas near India is another conflict prone area for either Myanmar or India.  Britain used the northern Myanmar and parts of India adjacent to Myanmar as the spring board to Tibet back in 1800’s.  Making this country available for US to place a pawn somewhere, anywhere is important to Pentagon. 

China now has to face US bases from Japan, South Korea, Central Asia and Afganistan.  Nepal receives US training in its civil war against the Maoists.  UScan very well complete its enclosure on China.  

Obama needs approximately 80 super delegates.  How much will these 80 super delegates cost him? 

There are 280 uncommitted super delegates left. 217 pledged delegates are left for contest.  Obama needs 189 to win (Clinton needs 356). 

At this stage, the answer of electability is fairly clear.  Each candidate’s core constituency is known; their turn out rate is know.  Nothing can really get “negotiated” there.  You see what you buy.  Similarly for platform.  Other than a noble cause to vote for the winnable candidate, is there something a candidate can do for a super delegate just to get one additional vote?

It goes down to the question: what will convince a super delegate to vote for a candidate?  Electability?  Policy platform?  Popular vote count? Or something else?

All these above are very legitimate criteria.  However, some super delegates may have something more urgent on their hands: their own incumbency.  If a super delegate is in a tight race, his personal interest may be more at stake.  And Obama is not naïve about this: he has been fundraising for other candidates to gather favours.  The earliest senator endorsements are of this type. 

Other trades are typical political brokering: a promise of a specific legislation or pork barrel project.  What about fundraising support for a super delegate’s 2010 governor race?  Now, we are talking about money, real money for a politician.

Political Action Committees are the only ones that can accept political donations.  And they are owned by politicians.  The owner can forward the money to another PAC.  In fact, the surplus after campaigns belongs to the candidate.  They are structured very much like a personal account.  The point of this status is for the monitoring of Federal Election Committee.  

What did McCain do after he won over Huckabee?  Help pay off Giuliani’s campaign debt.  How?  Forward the money from his PAC!  Now, why did McCain do that?  Once Giuliani is out of the picture and since Giuliani and McCain share similar constituency, McCain wants to use Giuliani to help do fundraising.  And Giuliani was too busy with his own debt.  So, a favour was made, and a favour was returned.  

If the race gets another dramatic turn, the cost of super delegate will definitely rise since the Obama’s need of super delegate will increase.  However, if Obama can win the race all by him (through pledged delegate), then there is no need for Obama to get any more super delegate.  If not, no matter how much old politics he distains, he is still not immune to realities.