Four democrats have announced they will not participate in the Michigan Primary. All Democratic candidates have previously announced that they will not campaign in the state but now these four candidates have taken things a step further and taken their names off the ballot.

This leaves Clinton and the other Democrats in the party on the ballot.

Get more information on democratic rogue primaries.

Estimated to be at a cost of $20 - $25 Billion dollars a year Hillary Clinton is proposing to fund up to $1000 into a 401K account for every American. Clinton has given up her plan to give every child $5000 at birth. From the Associated Press:

Clinton would create “American Retirement Accounts” in which everyone could put up to $5,000 annually in a 401(k) plan. The federal government would provide a tax cut to match 100 percent of the first $1,000 for anyone who makes less than $60,000 a year and 50 percent of the first $1,000 for those who make $60,000-$100,000.

Honestly? The $5000 account idea was probably the first major mistake of the Clinton campaign policy wise. I didn’t quite understand it when I first read about it and it seemed to gain no traction. Though I will say it is nice that she recognized it and moved on it is a sign that as Clinton moves to court more of the liberal wing of the party she is entering territory that is leaving her open.
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Former Bush White House counselor Dan Bartlett looks over the presidential field in a surprisingly candid way and the results are… not so good. From the Washington Post:

One of President Bush’s closest advisers has a brutally candid analysis of the Republican nomination battle: Fred Thompson is the campaign’s “biggest dud,” Mitt Romney has “a real problem in the South” because people will not vote for a Mormon, Mike Huckabee’s last name is too hick and John McCain could end up repeating 2000 by winning New Hampshire but losing the nomination.

Bartlett had highest hopes for Giuliani who he did not criticize but was most interested in Mike Huckabee whom he likes BUT doesn’t think he will win.

I pointed out the other day how I don’t believe it is necessary by any means for a front-runner to take Iowa. I actually don’t think Iowa is necessary at all for a “strong” candidate. HOWEVER it has become important for the media and because of that the “second tier” candidates are increasingly looking at it as the potential last ditch for their campaigns as the NY Daily News and others are reporting.

How did we get here? Well since the early 1970’s Iowa was given the status as the “first caucus” in the nation. Because of that it is seen as a place where those in the second tier who give a strong performance can potentially win and use said win to raise money and influence in the coming primaries.

The problem? A candidate could potentially spend so much time and energy in Iowa (and New Hampshire really) that they aren’t battle ready anywhere else in the country. The support and financial boost they gain helps them move forward but not forward enough to win or if they do take some other high profile states by splitting the votes by a margin they face a general election with no real infrastructure to mount an effective national campaign.
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As I mentioned while I was away on a cruise ship the Internet was very expensive to use. It was also VERY slow. Loading a page took forever.

I was happy to see that Election Geek loaded pretty quickly. There are some more design things I can do to speed it up, for instance some of the graphics can be optimized and shrunk but thankfully the only elements that were slow to load were the ads. Luckily the rest of the page would pop-up and then the ads would take their time. Which is fine. I am going to look at different ways of ensuring that the rest of the page always loads first and then the ads load second if at all. The content is what is important for users and if an ad hasn’t loaded in the first four seconds they are just moving on to the next page where the ad won’t load anyway.

I decided while I was online to check out some of the official campaign sites to see if they too loaded fast. It was a pretty broad mix.
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