I want to figure out totals for Obama and Clinton. Is there a website that already figured out the totals including Washington, Maine, Nevada, and Iowa.
Enjoying the hyperbole, Batman? Considering your attitude, why on earth would I bother? Major, I'm a great admirer of yours, but in my opinion, you are wildly optimistic. glynch responded better than I could: You know, it really trips me out. Trader_J has got one thing right... Democrats seem intent on self-destruction. I think Obama will get the nomination and have been saying so for a while. I voted for him in the primary. I simply don't dislike Hillary Clinton. For that, I get to subject myself to the "assaults" of the true believers of Barack Obama, who apparently is just shy of Jesus Christ material. Oh... and the previous sentence was sarcasm. I've no doubt that if I didn't add that, it would be taken literally. Several people here would do anything but vote for Hillary Clinton, to the extent that they would vote for a Republican, John McCain, who would continue the war, possibly start a war with Iran, prevent universal healthcare and the rest of the Democratic agenda in Congress that he didn't agree with, appoint conservatives to lifetime Federal judgeships, including the Supreme Court. They might vote for Nadir (who I'm obsessed with?? LOL!), or stay home. Do I agree with some of her campaign tactics? No, but I'd certainly vote for her in November with a bounce in my step, knowing I was doing what I could to punish the GOP for giving us 8 years of George W. Bush, unfettered by a GOP Congress that gave Big Business and the rich far more than their wildest dreams of avarice. That have enough hyperbole for you? Impeach Bush.
Obama has 14,022,139 votes (including Florida and Washington). Clinton has 13,524,178 votes (including Florida and Washington).
Caucus turnout. I agree with that. But my problem is that a lot of the Obama supporters (I'm not saying you, don't take this personally) seem to advocate one thing when it benefits their position but another when it doesn't. For example, I could respect the case that the delegate count is superior to the popular vote on the logic that the rules shouldn't be changed midstream, even if it's to do what's right. But by that same logic, superdelegates shouldn't be bound to simply reflect the will of the voters. Obama supporters say superdelegates should reflect the wishes of voters because it's the appropriate thing to do, yet if superdelegates were supposed to vote exclusively along that criteria, what would their purpose be? If we can add unwritten rules of fairness to the superdelegate voting process, we should be able to add rules related to fairness (popular vote) to the equation as well. I think consistency across the board is critical, regardless of who it favors.
http://www.nvdemscaucus.com/ 50.82 % : 59,763 45.09% : 53,025 Obama total (With Florida, Washington, Nevada) : 14,075,164 Clinton total (With Florida, Washington, Nevada) : 13,583,941 Difference : Obama + 491,223
http://www.mainedems.org/2008MaineDemocraticCaucusResults.aspx Obama - 59.43 : 26,069 Clinton - 39.91 : 17,506 Obama - 14,101,233 Clinton - 13,601,447 Difference (with Maine, Nevada, Washington, Florida) : Obama + 499,786
Ah, OK. It seems to me that using caucus turnouts to project popular vote totals is not going to be indicative of the will of the people. The only way to approximate the total, would involve plugging the percentages into the 2004 general election turnout - but that would be inaccurate as well, as turnout is going to be greater in a general. I don't think we need to change any rules regarding superdelegates until the end of the Mayan calendar, either. The supers can obviously do whatever they please. By the same token, however, they are not stupid. They have their own political futures to worry about, and will probably worry more about what their constituents think, and who will help them at the top of the ticket this fall.
I don't think the superdelegates should abide by the will of the voters. I think they will do so, because anything else is suicidal for the party. If Obama ends up with more pledged delegates than Hillary, I don't think there's any way - barring a huge Obama scandal - that the superdelegates will go in a different direction. The superdelegates that aren't already committed are clearly not huge supporters of either candidate; their interest is in growing the party or their own elections. And in both cases, overturning the delegate vote or voting for Hillary is a bad thing for the vast majority of them. The popular vote could be an argument for SD's who really WANT to vote for Hillary but need a justification, but those people would have committed long ago. I just don't think the popular vote, should Hillary win it, will sway many people. This is the main reason I can't see a method for Hillary to win.
To expand on this, I think ALL of the following have to happen for Hillary to end up the nominee. I'll give %'s of likelihood for each - these are just estimates, so feel free to point out where I might be over/underestimating something. 1. Win PA by double digits (70%) 2. Win the majority of delegates from the other 9 (?) remaining states, including 5 states (MT, SD, OR, NC, and IN) where Obama is favored. (20%) 3. Get a revote of some sort in FL/MI (70%) 4. Win FL by a healthy margin (75%) 5. Win MI by a healthy margin (25%) 6. Convince superdelegates to overturn a 50-100 pledged delegate lead and cause all hell to break loose (10%) I know this is simplifying the math way more than we should since some of these are inter-related, but multiplying all these probabilities together gets you an 0.18% chance of all of this. If you give her 10x the probability, you are left at 1.8%. Compare what Hillary is doing to the GOP race with McCain, Romney, and Huckabee. Romney, once he realized the math was against him, chose to simply drop out instead of trying to destroy McCain. Huckabee, in a similar position, continued to campaign but refused to attack McCain very much at all. Both could see the endgame and realized there was no benefit to destroying McCain. That's how campaigns normally work. Hillary, on the other hand, as she's gotten farther and farther behind, has gone the opposite direction and become more and more destructive. And let's not fool ourselves - she's farther behind today than she was 10 days ago, regardless of the media spin. Obama has accumulated 8 superdelegates to her 0, and more pledged delegates over that span. And 400+ more pledged delegates are out of the equation. If the roles were reversed and Obama was behind, everyone would be laughing at his campaign trying to continue against the inevitable Hillary.
Don't forget about the Texas Caucus. When the results come out after the March 29th convention, Obama will get more delegates than she will widening his lead.
I also think it will be very hard for her to win. But what's wrong with her keep fighting until she truly loses. What's wrong with her holding out the hope that Obama will have a huge scandal?
She's bloodying up Obama with blows that McCain will use in the general election. It's harder for Obama to counter when someone of your own party is making the same point.
There's nothing wrong with doing that. But the classy way at this point is o do it the way Huckabee was - going around and making the case about why you're the best choice, rather than why your opponent sucks.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7706.html Obama : 37.58% - 87,937 Clinton : 29.47% - 68,959 Obama : 14,189,170 Clinton : 13,670,406 Difference (with Maine, Nevada, Washington, Florida, and Iowa): Obama + 518,764 (approximately) April 22 Pennsylvania primary May 3 Guam caucus May 6 Indiana primary North Carolina primary May 13 West Virginia primary May 20 Kentucky primary Oregon primary June 1 Puerto Rico primary June 3 Montana primary South Dakota primary
Again that is a valid critique. I look at it as she had a massive failure but has bounced back to win two elections to the US Senate and be a moderately successful Senator. Actually no if you look at some of the material I posted in the Irish thread. George Mitchell and John Hume (one of the Irish negotiators) both say she played a valuable role. And that means you have unique insight into a presidential campaign? I think you should consider where they stand on issues and experience rather than be obsessed with personality.
