Super Tuesday is behind us, and the delegate count is still sprinkling in. Clinton shows wide support in a demographic she knows she does well in, women over 45. Hispanics came out for her in California, but the delegate battle is still coming in this morning. It is going to be very close - to that end. Let’s talk about what we are likely to see in the coming weeks from the democratic delegates.
Obama has overwhelming support from people who want change and the younger generation. Winning more states, and by wide margins he is showing that this race will not be a short win but a long drawn out, raise your blood pressure marathon. Clinton is showing what we expected a demographic pull from women over 45 and hispanics - men are drawing to Obama and the younger generations are tending towards him.
In the coming weeks what should we expect from the dem candidates?
I suspect we’ll see Obama ramping it up and having a greater presence in the coming state primaries, he tends to do well in states he spends some good time in.
I suspect Clinton will play her Gender Card to the fullest, and try to recruit more younger women. I also expect her to ramp up her ‘facebook’ style to try and appeal to the younger voters, though I suspect Obama will remain in good standing there.
I am actually very pleased with Obama’s showing on Tuesday, he demonstrated he can win key states by wide margins, and that he can do well in historically republican strongholds.
I’m predicting a close race with a tight squeak by for Obama to get the nod.
I was disappointed in the results of yesterday. In the early evening the talking heads were hinting at a possible big night for Obama, but California was a big step back for my man.
Plusses for Obama: The schedule for the rest of February. LA, NE, and WA could be a sweep on Saturday. I don’t know about ME on Sunday. MD, VA, and DC could be another sweep on Tuesday. Then HA, WA, and WI a week later could be fertile ground as well. Time to pick up some delegates and pile up some cash for March. He could really really use an Edwards endorsement prior to OH and TX in what will be his most difficult remaining big states. A national primary isn’t tailor made for him, he will be able to spend much more time in events in each upcoming state.
Plusses for Hillary: Name recognition going into the OH and TX battles. The Latino vote in TX and her machinery in place in PA.
I wish Obama would read Rove’s playbook and attack his opponent’s strength. I think Hillary’s “experience” is a sham and vulnerable to attack. I was much more optimistic yesterday than I am today, but this could still go either way.
I’d like to see this as well, but I don’t know if it’s the right move for him. He seems to do better staying out of the dirty stuff and sticking to his guns about raising the tone. Best bet for him would be to combine his charisma and knack for inspiration with actual policy discussions. We know that he wants change, and a fair amount of the country seems to want change, but it’s time we find out how he plans to bring about change. Point out policy differences between himself and Hillary. That keeps him relatively on the offensive but still on the high ground. If he can hold true bringing in the youth vote (and if they actually turn out to vote for a change) he could pull off the upset.
For Hillary, it’s hard not to view this as a loss. She was pounding Obama in most polls not that long ago, but now he cleanly beat her in some states by a wide margin and gained ground in the states that she was did win, keeping the margin of victory relatively tight. She didn’t lose on Super Tuesday, but it did put a heavy dent in her aura of inevitablity. Obama is more charismatic than she is and that will hurt her going into individual state contests where her instant name recognition can be overcome by Obama’s ground game. For Clinton to get back into it, she needs to put aside some of her straight policy and appear more personable. Bring back Bill, but put a muzzle on the bad attitude. Right now she needs buddy Bill who feels our pain.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I think Obama is in a really good position unless his supporters decide to compare his performance to the expectations of two days ago and not two weeks ago. Yeah, he lost CA, but not by as much as he was supposed to a very short time ago.
The rest of this month looks great for him, and if his current fundraising lead holds, he can outcompete Clinton in OH, TX, PA and others down the line.
Don’t be disappointed – it was a big night for Obama. [ul][li]He won 14 states to her 8[/li][li]He won his state of Illinois by a MUCH bigger margin than she won New York.[/li][li]The majority of the states he won, he pummeled her, with margins of 62%, 48%, 45%, 36%, 35%, 35%, 32% and 24%. She only beat him by more than 20% in two states, and one of those wasn’t even New York!![/ul] [/li][quote]
but California was a big step back for my man.
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No, no, no! California was a HUGE success. His campaign didn’t expect to win it, despite how close he came in the polls this last week, primarily because of the early mail-in votes. But consider the enormous gap he closed. Clinton had as much as a 37 point lead in California at one time!
Again, no, no, no. He’s done spectacularly well by avoiding that tactic and speaking strictly to the issues and how he’ll be better at solving them than his opponent. And he’s winning with that approach across a wide swath of this country.
I agree, he does need to play up his experience vs hers. He has more years of experience in holding elected public office, directly answerable to the people than she does. And Michelle had an interesting take on the relevance of his experience in her speech at UCLA, which I would like to see him bring up himself more often. She actually presented his state legislative experience as more important than having only federal legislative experience, because he’s the only candidate running who knows first hand how federal policy and laws affect both government and people at the state level. You’re right – he really needs to pound that concept home to more people.
But do not despair. Everything about last night was a rousing success!
By all counts, it appears that Obama was the big winner yesterday. Sure, the loss of California is disappionting - but he won in overall states, and from what I’m hearing this morning - he also won in overall delegates… though by a slim margin (maybe only 9 or 10). Considering how poor he was expected to do just a few weeks back, this is huge for Obama and I think it will translate into some great momentum going forward.
It’s starting to look like he won the delegate count, as well, even considering California.
According to this Time/CNN chart, last night’s delegates stack up as, Obama, 845 – Clinton, 836. Add that to the lead he had going into last night, and his overall lead is now 24 pledged delegates ahead (forget Superdelegates – they’re not committed at this point, so shouldn’t be factored in).
That is about the margin Chuck Todd came up with last night on MSNBC (though I think he was saying Obama by four delegates plus-or-minus 10.) I agree, if he really did win the total pledged delegates, that is definitely something he can run on.
I am thrilled to read those delegate numbers Shayna.
And I totally agree with your take on tactics, even as I also agree with going after her percieved strengths. Just not in a Rovian way …
Accept the weekly debate schedule as requested by the Clintons but insist on a format that allows longer answers and that have each debate focused on single major subjects. Take her percieved policy wonkness on and out-wonk her.
BTW, anyone add up the total popular vote yet? (I had predicted that he’d win at least two of the total number of states, the total delegate count and total popular vote … I’m glad I’m finally right about something.)
That chart doesn’t match up with what CNN or Time has on their websites today. Time shows it as 825 to 732, Clinton’s advantage. CNN is reporting 783 Clinton to 709 Obama.
I don’t think last night was a big night for Obama. He’s winning in states he should win in. It doesn’t matter that he wins big in small states, and loses small in big states. He has to start winning big states if he’s going to overtake the 20% gap in delegates that most news outlets are reporting. It’s like Zeno’s paradox: the rabbit cannot overtake the tortoise because for every yard the rabbit runs, the tortoise advances 2 feet. For every two feet the rabbit runs, the tortoise goes another foot, etc. etc.
To use another analogy, it looks to me like Hillary Clinton has a game plan much like Nebraska football: keep running the ball, slug it out, grind out first downs, and eventually win the game by controlling the clock.
I’m voting next week and I’m voting for Obama. But I just see the deck and the schedule stacked against him.
Those maps are incomplete results though, Ravenman. Almost all of the Western states on that map in the first link have unallocated delegates. The first link is an attempt to project what it will look like when all the delegates are accounted for.
Those show superdelegates (who can change at any time). The previously linked chart is for pledged delegates – those won via election.
I think Obama stands a fair chance. Clinton’s Hispanic bulwark is about used up whereas Obama has several black heavy states coming down the road (Lousiana, Maryland, DC and eventually Mississippi). Clinton has Texas but it’s a single-state open primary which Obama does well in. Obama does well in the midwest and plains states as well. While not delegate heavy, they present a sweeping image much like those “Look at how Bush won” red/blue maps. If Obama is looking like the national leader, it might come to him when the DNP starts agitating to wrap this thing up. Pundits might think a convention decision would be neat but the party doesn’t want the general nominee to come out with two months to campaign & fund raise before the national.
I was hoping to see the enthusiasm that I saw last week for Obama, but from what I’ve read this morning, WaPo and CNN at least are trending towards giving the victory to Clinton, based solely on MA, NY, NJ, and CA. Obama has to make sure to get the noise out about the delegate count, the 13 vs. 8, and earlier expectations, not Monday’s. I hope he can do it.
I think I pulled out a vote for Obama from my wife, who up until recently has been a Clinton supporter. She mailed in her vote yesterday, but will not tell me who it was for (as is perfectly her prerogative). But she was teasing me about it all night, and she was dripping tears during Obama’s speech. So maybe there’s another WA vote for him.
It sucks not being able to vote (I’m not a citizen). But since I can’t, I think I’ll do something I’ve never done before: I’m going to go donate some money to his campaign. Maybe it’ll be enough to pull in someone to vote for him who never has. That’ll be my vote.
I hadn’t thought about this before posting in the other thread yesterday, but I’d say the factors are the pace of the primaries, the makeup of the states, perceptions of momentum (as affected by debate performance and endorsements as well as primary/caucus results). If this isn’t settled by March 4, which’ll be dubbed ‘Super Tuesday 2’ or something stupid, it’ll be really weird - there is almost nothing for six weeks after that. What the hell are they going to do with so few states left and so much time to stump? Since McCain is almost certain to lock it all up by then, and I’m going to join the bandwagon here by saying he picks Huckabee as a running mate, will people start pressuring the Democratic #2 to drop out so the party came “come together behind the nominee?”
Right now, all the stories are about how closely the Democrats divided last night’s votes. I think as analysis and over-analysis set in, that becomes more favorable for Obama. He fought to a draw against a favorite, it looks like, and a cursory glance says the schedule favors him from here on out.
Ah – I see the point about CNN not counting delegates from some Western states. Good catch, folks. But even here , at RealClearPolitics, it still shows Clinton with a 10% lead in delegates with California counted. So I’ll back away about an inch from my previous statement, but the fact is that Obama merely held his own last night, and didn’t have the kind of wins that take away Clinton’s advantage.
What I can’t figure out is the criticism that it is “inexplicable” for any delegate counts to include superdelegates. I think it would be downright odd to exclude superdelegate counts. Yes, superdelegates may and do change their support, but there’s an implication that when, say, the governor of some state endorses Clinton or Obama, he isn’t going to change his support willy-nilly. If a superdelegate does change his endorsement, of course that’s going to change delegate counts. But this obsession I see – mostly from Obama supporters – that simply because things could change means that superdelegates shouldn’t be counted at all is highly misleading.
I suppose I hope that I’m proved wrong, but I think Clinton is still going to grind this out for a victory.
It’s inexplicable for several reasons. First, historically the superdelegates rally behind whomever wins more pledged delegates. Second, CNN’s count isn’t a count of endorsements, it’s an informal count that makes assumptions about superdelegates. And third, and most importantly, it is entirely disingenuous to include that count in the Super Tuesday results. They have nothing to do with Super Tuesday!
Obviously superdelegates matter. In the discussion of who is winning right now, I think it is entirely appropriate for Clinton to discuss her *presumptive *lead there. But it is entirely inappropriate to discuss them in the context of who has won the primary elections so far.