A Tale of Two Messiahs

As a warning: the first half of this post is devoted to me rambling about politics, for those interested only in me mocking crazy people, you should skip the next seven paragraphs or so.

As you should all know by now, I'm a political wonk, and I am therefore loving every minute of the build-up to the 2008 presidential election. Well, the end of March marked the end of the first financial quarter of the election season, meaning candidates filed their reports. At first, there were few surprises, Hillary banked, pulling in $26 million, Edwards trailed far behind. McCain's getting his ass kicked money-wise, but he was slow to start this time around (although you might be surprised to learn Mitt Romney is outpacing Giuliani at the moment, personally I wasn't). All pretty hum-drum at first, except that Obama wasn't reporting. And then he still wasn't reporting, and yesterday he still hadn't reported and the buzz grew. Well today he dropped the bomb.

In the first quarter Obama pulled in $25 million, leaving him just $1 million shy of Senator Clinton. Now, your initial reaction might be to say, "You gave us all that build-up to tell us he's in second? What the fuck?" But politics is ALL about expectations, and NOBODY expected Obama to raise this much.

I can thing of plenty of negative things to say about Senator Clinton, but I can't deny that the Clintons make the political machine move like nobody else. They eat up donations. They're barely human. So that Obama, as new to the scene as he is, is pacing Hillary is HUGE news.

Here are some other interesting facts:

Obama had over 100,000 individual donors, compared to Hillary's 50,000.
90% of Obama's donations were under $100
50% were from the internet
Obama claims to have received no money from registered lobbyists OR Politcal Action Committees

Now, many of you may not find that last fact to be all that interesting, but trust me, it is. PACs are those groups named things like "We Love Cute Bunnies and Hate Pollution" formed by corporations like MassChemical Pollutants Co. They are limited to $10,000 in donations, but a single company can make as many PACs as it likes (and to be fair many PACs are NGOs and other special interests). So basically they can fund people without limit. Taking no money from PACs means a pretty big hit to you figures.

So what does all this add up to? Well, a little bit of hope I guess. You've all heard me champion Obama on this blog before (a bit too frequently these days I admit), but it has been with the acceptance that, in all likelihood, he simply isn't a viable candidate yet (because he's black...shhh, don't tell anybody).

But these figures really do suggest a grassroots movement behind the guy that's larger than even I had expected. I'm starting to wonder now if maybe it is possible for him to win. Which excites me partially because I like him, but much more so because it makes the race waaaay more interesting.

RIGHT HERE! This is where I start making fun of crazy people, if you're in the "skip Devin sucking Obama's dick again" camp. Apparently, there is a man named Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda who claims to be the second coming of Jesus Christ.

He's been in the news recently because a few dozen of his followers got '666' tattoos in defiance of Revelations prophecy (for those who aren't up on their Armaggedon, 666 is supposedly the number of the beast and people will receive the mark of the beast during the rise of the Antichrist). According to them, Christ killed the Devil when he was crucified, and both the numbers 666 and the Antichrist himself are misinterpreted.

In fact, De Jesus Miranda claims to BE the Antichrist as well as being Jesus (which, if I remember my Star Trek correctly, means he would explode if he came into contact with himself...that has to be awkward). Anyway, he also claims that there is no Devil or sin, and his followers are incapable of doing wrong in God's eyes.

First off, I think if I was a tattoo artist I'd probably refuse to give people 666 tattoos. I mean, I don't really go for the whole Revelations Prophecy thing, but I try to stay on the safe side. So I have sort of a "no-bringing-on-the-rise-of-the-Antichrist" policy. I don't give people the mark of the beast, I try to avoid breeding pale horses, and if I kidnap people I try to keep it under 144,000. Just as a precaution.

Secondly, De Jesus Miranda drives a BMW and has three diamond encrusted Rolexes. Because, as it is written in Usher 4:13, "And Lo, Jesus did love his bling. And verily did he floss his ice to the multitudes."

Oh, by the way, Miranda is an ex-heroin addict. I'm sure you all remember the parable of the pearl and the eight-ball of smack. And this guy has over 10,000 followers.

Incidentally, Jesus isn't so good at HTML coding apparently. Check out his website http://www.cegenglish.com/ and its many broken links. Oh, and Jesus isn't great with his grammar or punctuation either, as evidenced by the following message on pages still being built: "You are blessed !, this is the best day of your life. This page is temporary under construction."

Still, Jesus does link to free email service, so that's nice of him.

But I bet Obama would do the same.