Guam is coming!
You heard it right. Forget about North Carolina. Forget about Indiana. Tomorrow the world focuses on Guam!
When tomorrow actually arrives is not so clear. Since it is always tomorrow in Guam, May 3rd (tomorrow) is actually occurring today; May 2nd and the Guam primary is scheduled for May 3rd.
For those of you may be asking the perfectly reasonable question "Why the $@!# is Guam voting in an American election?" Well, as a U.S. territory, the Democrats decided to allow them to have a say in the election process. Little did the Democrats know that the little Pacific Island, 5000 miles off the coast of California would actually hold a primary during a crucial moment in this nomination battle.
Up for grabs in the Guam caucuses are a whopping four delegates.
A split of anything other than 2-2 would require an electoral landslide from one of the two Senators. Who may have the potential to pull off that landslide?
The island territory, by every measure, should be Obama territory.
A scouring of the World Wide Web has not produced a single poll from Guam in regards to this election, but there are a number of factors which clearly favor Sen. Obama.
To begin with, Guam is a caucus. Hillary Clinton has yet to win a majority of delegates in a caucus. In Nevada she garnered more votes, but Obama won the delegate count. Obama's campaign has proven to be far more effective at educating its supporters on how to caucus. It seems that the more complicated the caucus process, the better Obama does.
Speaking of the effectiveness of the campaign, Obama has actually had an operation up and running in Guam for months now. Time and energy has gone into formulating an actual Guam strategy.
Throughout this campaign the Obama Campaign has seemed to leave no stone unturned in the hunt for votes, but even I was shocked upon learning of the level of preparedness Team Obama displayed in regards to Guam.
Sen. Obama has outlined his stance on six Guam-related issues including reparations owed to them by Japan, maintenance of Guam's only hospital and Guam's schools and the military build up in Guam.
Prior to this research I was unaware that there were in fact six Guam-specific issues to be discussed. Apparently Hillary Clinton was on the same page as me.
The only evidence I have seen that Clinton is even aware that something important will be happening there on the 3rd is a 60-second video clip on her site asking for support from the people of Guam.
In the video Clinton never acknowledges that it is actually a caucus and asks for support on "primary day." The video is also full of generalizations and a brief mention of her trip to the island in 1995. She also mentions that she told Bill if he went, he'd never want to come back. But, as it turned out, Bill did go in 1998...and then he came back...apparently without any kicking and screaming.
Clinton's website does also have links to two brief pieces about her stance on the military build-up in Guam and what she refers to as "Compensation", not reparations as Obama more appropriately calls it.
Obama seems to be more prepared for this crucial showdown in the Pacific. But just in case his preparation and natural caucus advantage weren't enough, it is important to remember that Obama spent much of his childhood in Hawaii. Illinois and Hawaii both view Barack as a native-son and it is not surprising that he has a better grasp of what Pacific Islanders want and need in a leader.
So the Stonecipher prediction (which hopefully will get me back on track): Obama wins in Guam...whenever tomorrow comes.
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