NC & IN

I don't think McGovern is a super delegate. He's just a high profile Democrat who was supporting Clinton. So, he's not one of the four.

 

That's correct; he's not.

Clinton picked one up today from NC, where the super had pledged to go the way of his precinct or district and it went for her. But one of Obama's four had previously been committed to Clinton, which means he still nets four so far on the day. That leaves her just 11 super delegates ahead, a lead that will be gone over the next few days.

Over all, he's up 155 with only 487.5 left (pledged and super). It's over. All that's left is figuring out the best way to end it. Most likely it will happen May 20 when Oregon and Kentucky vote.

 

I think bigger news than the delegates is this from Feinstein:

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/feinstein-asks-clinton-for-her-primary-game-plan-2008-05-07.html


Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) most prominent Senate supporters, said Wednesday that she will ask the former first lady to detail her plans for the rest of the Democratic primary.

“I, as you know, have great fondness and great respect for Sen. Clinton and I’m very loyal to her,” Feinstein said. “Having said that, I’d like to talk with her and [get] her view on the rest of the race and what the strategy is.”

Clinton, who eked out a win in Indiana Tuesday night but lost big to front-runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in North Carolina, has not responded to Feinstein’s phone call, the California senator said.

“I think the race is reaching the point now where there are negative dividends from it, in terms of strife within the party,” Feinstein said. “I think we need to prevent that as much as we can.”


When her supporters start publicly making statements like this, that's when the pressure will mount. Though, realistically, if she doesn't drop out in the next day or two, she's in until June 3rd. But she might be less destructive - we'll see.

 

Hillary should press on. She's earned it

 

Bob Kerrey, also a prominent Clinton backer, said she'd probably be out by June 3 too.

Major LOL's to bigtexxx who won the quote of the night responding to Clinton's 1.5% victory in IN by saying, "This is big." I have seriously been laughing at that all day.

 

Let the voters decide. Barack is trying to back into this nomination -- and that's what he's doing -- backing in by losing most of the recent states... He's trying to increase public pressure, through media and other channels to convince people that it's over. The reality is that he lacks the delegates needed to win. He simply does not have enough. So it's not over. And many of the people that voted for him did so prior to the Revered Wright bombshell AND prior to his precipitous drop in support among independents. Clearly Hillary is the better candidate for the General election as of today. There is no debating that. Obama has serious, serious issues in swing states with white voters.

Obama's delegate lead was built on only having to win ~30-40% of the white vote b/c he knew the black vote was in the bag, and that he didn't even have to campaign for it. He also knew his supporters were perfect for caucuses. So he won a bunch of caucus states, he won the black-heavy states, and he won some very red states where many voters despise Hillary. What he has failed to win over, time and again, are the voters whose vote you actually have to work for. He didn't have to work for students' votes -- the young media (youtube, facebook, etc) and celebs did that for him. He didn't have to win over blacks' votes -- their racial pride did that for him. He didn't have to win over the latte liberals' votes -- the anti-Hillary crusade did that for him. He had to win over white working class votes and Catholic votes. Failure on both counts. Massive failure. What a hollow victory. Very hollow.

 

I think everyone is perfectly fine with the victory, whether T_J thinks its hollow or not. We've already learned that your opinion is mostly wrong, so you thinking he's the weaker candidate bodes well for Obama.

 

T_J, since you are so concerned about keeping this primary trucking along:

https://contribute.hillaryclinton.com/

She needs every cent she can get.

 

I know I'm in a good mood when Jorge and texxx make me laugh out loud.

Continuing to argue that Hillary has any (and I mean ANY) path to the nomination after what happened last night is seriously laugh out loud funny. What would be even better would be if either of them could provide a single article, blog, comment, whatever from anywhere on the internet, posted today, that agreed with this hilarious idea. I have no doubt they're out there -- it would just be fun to read them.

Anyway, thanks for the chuckles, fellas. I might be in the minority here but I virtually never think you guys are funny. Today you are hilarious.

 

Also boding well for Obama is the fact that more people voted in the yesterday's Democratic primaries than did in the 2004 general election for Kerry in both IN/NC. Those kinds of numbers will potentially put an a whole lot of new states in play this fall.

 

Don't tell me you're falling for Jorge's stuff about Obama being a weak candidate. If he thought that, he'd be pimping him. Jorge, Rush and all Republicans are terrified of Obama. And rightly so.

 

So Batman, does Obama have the delegates he needs, today, to secure the nomination?

Obviously not, so two questions:

1) Why won't the superdelegates commit to him?
2) Why stop the process before someone has the requisite delegates?

There is no doubt in my mind Barack is the weaker General Election candidate as compared to Hillary. No doubt. And having a guy like Barack run against a military hero with appeal to independents is my dream come true. So do not mistake my appeals for the democratic nomination process to continue as being rooting for Hillary. I'm not rooting for Hillary. I'm rooting for HILARITY

 

Out of respect to someone who's been involved with the party for a very long time.

Same reason people called for Huckabee to drop out, even though McCain didn't have the requisite delegates. Because there's no point continuing.

Excellent!

 

Wouldn't surprise me either way. T_J has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the process (thinking Hillary could have a 600 delegate lead after Super Tuesday) as well as a complete lack of understanding of the electorate (thinking all sorts of nonsense things like Rev. Wright or the use of Deval's lines in a speech) would torpedo his candidacy. So nothing would surprise me with regards to his beliefs.

Despite a massively divided Democratic Party that has 30-40% of Hillary supporters picking McCain over Obama, those two are still only tied in the national polls. That means McCain's support plus all those anti-Obama Dems total to the same amount as the Obama support. As those wounds heal and anti-Obama Dems come back, the numbers are going to just grow.

 

As discussed earlier, this is the million dollar question for November. Will the massive number of newly registered Dem voters create a massive landslide or will they have little effect in November because they don't show up to vote? The answer is somewhere in between. But where?

 

Poling numbers will make the difference. They'll show up if he leads McCain with small single digit numbers, but they'll likely stay home if it's seen as a tidal wave. I guess if Obama can change that if he plays the "a vote for him is a vote for history" rhetoric, but voters are voters...

Since polling is unreliable with Barack as a candidate, it'll definitely be tricky.

 

Major already handled these questions fine, but let me have a go as well.

For the reason that Major cited and because, though it's a pretty well known thing that about 50 of them have been ready to announce for him for two months now, they have been begged by the Clinton campaign to just wait. Also because Obama is a relatively fresh face and they wanted to see how he handled stuff like Wright and how voters responded. As of last night, they have their answer. That's why George Stephanopolous said today that the nomination fight is over and supers will start flocking to him about 3-5 a day until it's done.

First off, nobody's saying stop the process. In fact, the process can't be stopped. The elections will be held and the supers will announce their preferences whenever they want. Hillary dropping out when it becomes impossible for her to win doesn't constitute a stopping of the process; it's part of the process.

As for why she should do that sooner than later, there are several reasons -- not the least of which is that she is turning a corner as of today where attacks on Obama will harm her more than him -- but the main one is that it is clear that he will be the nominee and it's time for him to spend time and money on his actual opponent for the presidency. But she can do whatever she wants now. As an Obama supporter I really don't care because she can't really hurt him anymore. And he's moving on to the general election no matter what she does.

Well now you're just lying again. But it is funny. So thanks for that.

 

Dude! That wasn't hedging, that was super-specificity!

 

Poor Republicans. . .
they had their guns and ammo ready to SHOOT AT HILLARY
and
now .. . they gotta regroup and try find some OBAMA AMMO

Rocket River
"They panicking .. they panicking . . " - Eddie Murphy in Trading Places