I know that I haven’t participated much in these threads but I have been an avid reader of them. I think it’s time for a thread about the next battle.
The big Dem debate is tomorrow. I look forward to Hillary asking Barack about his (lack of) accomplishments and he having an answer that hits the ball out of the park.
I’m gonna say Obama wins Vermont and Texas, keeps Ohio close, and who cares about Rhode Island?
I’m also looking forward to Obama asking Hillary about her accomplishments, which AFAICT are pretty nickel-and-dime stuff.
Other than helping give Bush the authority to start a war - that was a pretty significant accomplishment.
Actually, RI has 21 delegates to VT’s 15. Rep. Pat Kennedy of RI endorsed Obama so maybe RI goes to Obama too.
Ah yes, the “no cute name for this primary” primary. (Clamsteak? Maple hotdogs?) I thought this was going to turn into a mini-Super Tuesday - I considered tradmarking “Super 2sday” - but it’s not shaping up that way right now. Right now I think Obama will win Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he won Ohio either, depending on how the next two weeks ago.
As far as the debate goes- are they actually going to ask each other questions in this one? That’d probably get snide pretty quick.
How about “Gallows Tuesday”?
I think Hillary pulls out a narrow win in Ohio, Obama gets a somewhat larger win in Texas and easily wins VT and RI.
The Austin, TX debate is tomorrow. From what I can find, it will be journalists from CNN and Univision asking questions of the candidates. There’s another one next week in Cleveland.
The look on Clinton’s face yesterday when she knew she had lost and yet continued to speak was one of disgust. She was so irate, it came out in her kackle and in her mannerisms. Then the networks switched to the winner.
I predict Obama take the delegate count in TX with a narrow victory in pop vote, then he narrowly takes Ohio - maybe not so narrow - and cinches VT, and RI. I’ll be in RI for the next two weeks campaigning as I live 10 minutes away from the border. As a matter of fact, I got a campaign email saying the much of the Maine and New Hampshire Obama organizers are going to VT, and the CT, MA ones are going to RI to spread the word.
I don’t see a lgoical way Clinton can cinch the nomination, even with back handed seating of FL and MI. Her negative campaigning is set to backfire bad on her.
As for the debate: What’s the format? If they can ask each other questions, Obama will trounce her. If it is moderated and someone else asks questions, it’ll be a tie or Obama will cinch ‘the perceived win’ .
This just points up (again) the superior organization of the Obama campaign.
Georgia supporters have been getting organized to go to Texas and help out as well.
I asked my sister the other day - [grumble, grumble, grumble a Clintonite] if they do as much as we in the Obama camp do and ya know what she said: “Phlosphr, we are just as organized we just don’t have as many people…” :rolleyes:
I’ve gotten into heated battles with her, and finally, she is admiting that her ship is sunk and that she may cast her vote for Obama against McCain.
Hillary narrowly wins the popular vote in Ohio, but delegate count ties.
Obama just picked up the Teamsters endorsement. Clinton just lost a lot of her lead in Ohio.
I love the latest attempt to portray Hillary as a working-class woman and Obama as an Ivory Tower limousine liberal. She’s talking about working the night shift (in the US Senate–hahaha) and her surrogates attack Obama for going to Harvard Law (she went to Yale). After law school, Obama got out and worked in civil rights. Clinton spent a year doing public interest work, but then went to a corporate firm to defend big corporations, including Wal-Mart and Tyson. The Clintons are richer than the Obamas by more than a factor of ten, and she comes from a much more privileged upbringing. She loaned herself $5 million dollars! Is she really fooling anyone?
Odds of her winning both big - which is what she really needs to do to stay in it: virtually zero. Obama would have to really commit some major pr offense for that to occur.
Odds of her winning both by a slim margin: Maybe 10%. Would she try to soldier on then? I don’t know. I’d guess she would. Even if he came out of it extending his delegate lead.
Odds of Obama winning one or both: 90% but even higher if the supers start to declare for him en masse as I believe they will. She will be taken off life support by all if that happens.
Odds of a blow out for him in one or the other without the supers already declaring for him: maybe 30%.
I’ll place my final bet as it gets closer. A lot can happen between now and then.
I was browsing the Clinton site blogs last night. Usually I don’t bother because their policy towards censoring any anti-Clinton sentiment means it’s one Greek Chorus of “Yay Hillary!” but last night was amusing.
Several people were going on about how the phone lists given to volunteers for calling Wisconsin were absolutely terrible and resulted in the same homes getting called 8+ times in a night. And obviously resulted in a lot of very pissed off phone owners. Another person was talking about how the regional campaign managers were clueless and couldn’t answer basic questions or lend support. There was a lot of “Clinton’s campaign won’t develop a decent ground game strategy so we’re going to have to”.
Given the forced demographics of Clinton Cheerleaders Only on that site, it was quite an eye-opener to see so many people speaking so negatively about the Clinton campaign organization.
It’s ironic really, she thought she had this in the bag from the first mention of “*what’s his name…Barack Obama?” * That after she began to lose big she started to crumble…how could anybody think she’d be able to run a country if she can’t run her own campaign.
I’ve been campaigning for him in CT and RI, and I can tell you this. The organization is like working for a big entity that has all the bases covered. I’ve never went without an answer on anything and further, most of the time someone is telling people exactly what to do, when, where and how. And those folks are with it. The woman running the CT for Obama stuff is amazing. Every where they go they are organized.
One talking head had a good point. The Clintons put all their eggs into an early knock-out and were ill prepared for going a full ten rounds. Obama was banking on a full ten rounds and was much better prepped for the later stages that she never banked on this getting to.
Of course I do expect a President to be prepared for contingencies … y’know sometimes things don’t go exactly according to plan.
Nonsense. Mark Penn assured Clinton that she’d be greeted with rose petals and kisses on Feb 4th so there was no need to plan for a prolonged struggle.
Who can’t trust that kind of judgement?
Obama seems to be on a roll here in Ohio. I won’t say that the Teamsters endorsement is decisive, but it’ll certainly help. I’ve heard four Obama radio ads in the past 24 hours, and seen two of his TV ads - but nothing at all for Clinton. I have to say, it’s entirely possible that Obama will win all four states - Ohio and Texas perhaps narrowly - on March 4. If he does that, or something close to that, watch for the unpledged superdelegates to break his way bigtime. The outlook is increasingly bleak for Clinton, and her rhetoric and demeanor reflect that.
Pages 4 and 5 of this story starting with “America’s Community Organizer”, plus this YouTube video from the NYC branch of Camp Obama (!), which amongst all its branches have given thousands of volunteers 3-4 days of training in organizing, provide one hell of an insight into Obama’s ground game.
Not only has Team Hillary not done anything like this, I’m sure that no Presidential primary campaign in this country’s history has. This is a new thing, and it’s absolutely brilliant. This level of organizing will not only win Obama the nomination, but it will give him a leg up in the fall that no Democrat has had for a generation or two. By the time the fall campaign starts, Obama will have had a 50-state organization for the better part of a year, and will be able to provide funds and people to expand and refine it.
This is what a Democratic Party that’s really the party of the people should have been doing all along: out-organizing everyone else. The problem is, the Dems haven’t been very much the party of the people.
Change is a-coming.
Good point. Regardless of the outcome, pols are definitely going to look at Obama’s organization in this campaign as a paradigm for future campaigns.
But they’ll go about it all wrong, I’m certain. You don’t achieve this level of organizational dynamism without the people on the ground being highly motivated true believers. So, you’ll see clumsy, old POS political machine hacks attempting to recreate this sort of movement, but failing miserably due to their clumsy, old POS political machine hack candidates being what they are; utterly uninspiring.