See, this is why you have to watch the news or something. You seem to think the delegates were stripped from states as punishment for voting Clinton. They were stripped several months before the primary, for reasons unrelated to voting preference.
Not only that, it completely ignores the fact that the delegates earned by Obama only count for half as well. So it’s just plain wrong on any number of levels.
Besides which, Obama actually GAVE Clinton extra delegates in Michigan. He had the votes to force a 50/50 split in the committee but passed on it to (unsuccessfully, apparently) mollify Clinton, who subsequently sent her flying monkeys out to complain that she should have gotten another four delegates than she did (as long as the committee wasn’t going to give Obama NONE of the Michigan delegates like she originally wanted).
That’s exactly right - and I think a lot of other people can see she is complaining like a hungry step-child as well. By the looks of her campaign manager McCaulliffe, they are ready to exit but are going to go out in a hail of bullets next week. I just wish her most voracious fans weren’t getting lead news all the time.
Fox always trots out Turd Blossom to “analyze” Primary results as if he was offering some kind of objective or legitimate commentary. Notice that they never, ever tell the audience that Rove is now working for the McCain campaign. Fox used to make some effort to maintain a pretense of objectivity in its actual news reporting, but now even that has become increasingly editorial. Yesterday, they had Sean Hannity call in immediately after Obama gave his press conference about Trinity to "comment’ on it (he proceeded with his usual “Obama is a secret Black nationalist who wants to kill whitey” refrains). Since when is Sean Hannity some kind of serious pundit? Why does Fox news think that, during what is supposed to be a pure news reporting segment, that Sean Hannity has anything valuable to offer the world?
Also, who is that stupid, robotic bimbo that seems to be on continuously during the weekend on Fox? Julie something? She constantly flubs and mispronounces words on the teleprompter and has an incredibly stilted delivery. She’s like a Maya Rudolph character. She seems like a parody. She’s so dumb, so made up and so phony, she doesn’t seem real. Yesterday when she was earnestly bobbing her empty head up and down to Klannity’s idiotic, looping, fact challenged rants about hippies that live in Obama’s neighborhood, etc., she opined that Obama was “digging his own grave,” by leaving Trinity Church. She offered no rationale for this bizarre statement. I wonder if she misunderstood the instructions in her earpiece or something.
The votes are in in Puerto Rico: Clinton 263,120, Obama 121,458. Barring one hell of a surprise on Tuesday, Obama wins all popular vote counts that don’t include Michigan.
Another Team Hillary argument bites the dust.
Nice
Well, so much for the 1.5 to 2 million turnout the Clinton camp was expecting in Puerto Rico to boost her popular vote argument, eh?
That low turn-out also explains her percentage of victory. I forget where I read it, maybe fivethirtyeight.com, but a low turn-out was expected to favor her loyalists turning out, whereas a high turn-out was expected to be much closer … which had been put forth as a real catch-22 for her as she was hoping for a popular vote bump and she could get either a high margin or a high turn-out but not both.
The vitriol of the Clintonistas at the DNC meeting has got me a little worried. Are most of her supporters across the country this pissed-off and antagonistic? I’m starting to think Obama is going to have a lot of work ahead of him to unify the party by November. I’m pretty sure he’s up to it, but still I’m concerned.
I don’t think we need them. Both Obama and Hillary were ahead of McCain, even if Obama only picks up a fraction of Hillary voters thats still more than enough to beat him. Besides, would you really want to be on the same side as those clowns?
Well, they can choose between Obama and McCain->SCOTUS Justice->Overturn Roe v Wade.
If voting McCain proves ineffective, I recommend a regimen of holding their breath until they turn blue and/or biting their fingers off at the knuckles.
I doubt it. Obama explictly asked his supporters to stay home. Clinton made a point of bussing people out to protest.
Had the candidates reversed themselves there, I don’t doubt that Obama could have had a bajillion pissed off sounding supporters cheering him on and jeering at Clinton.
Okay, final dessert forks out for final prognstications…
Please make your predictions of the time and order of the final major outstanding supers.
Donna Brazile. Famously “undeclared but not uncommitted” - she has clearly signalled that she is an Obama supporter who felt that she should stay undeclared until “the end”.
Pelosi.
Reid.
Carter.
Gore.
The remainder of the “Pelosi seven.”
The Florida delegates pledged to Edwards.
Will the critical mass to reach the new absolute majority of 2117 be reached so that he has enough before polls close on Tuesday, between polls closing and his victory speech in MN, not until a few days later, or later than that?
I’m torn. I’m thinking that those big players are too: they want to let the last primary finish, but they also want Obama to be able to declare an unequivicol uncontestable, no asterisk victory Tuesday night no matter how Clinton plays it. And aiming for the window after the polls close is cutting it close.
I’m thinking that some of the big names start announcing tomorrow and that some of those Florida Edwards delegates announce their intention to respect Edwards request of them to support Obama as well tomorrow. Carter and Gore I think will wait until Wednesday (if Carter hasn’t exited Tuesday night) but I’m not sure if Pelosi, Reid, and company will give Carter the space to quit before they announce their support or not. Not after this recent posturing anyway. Brazile too I think would like to let the voting finish before coming out. Of course it would be nice if they came out tomorrow instead and encouraged the other supers to do so as well. But it is more likely they will be as respectful as possible to the Clintons and wait until the primaries are officially over, giving her a chance to do the right thing first.
In short, I think that he may still be short of his absolute majority Tuesday night at his victory rally but that by Thursday he’ll have it if he needs it.
Given that he may not actually have the absolute majority by Tuesday night I am hoping that Clinton has the class to accept the inevitable and gives an amazing concession speech in time for Obama’s rally. In that case those supers can wait until August to announce!
Your predictions?
Friday morning.
Harold Ickes was on “Meet the Press” today and would not say that HRC would concede if Obama gets the majority of delegates. He simply said that he does not accept that scenario and believes that Clinton will be the winner.
I really hope he is just saying that to get more votes and not because he wants to keep HRC’s options open after she loses in the delegate count.
I’m not counting on Obama to unify the party, I’m counting on McCain to unify the party.
The big dogs (Pelosi, Reid, Gore) will bark Wednesday morning and by Wednesday evening Hillary will pack it in. To stay in the fight any longer will hurt her chances for 2012, which is the only thing that now matters to her. The only lingering question is will she try to crash the party and push herself onto the ticket?
I predict a continual drip, drip, drip of supers over the coming week for Obama, with Clinton inexplicably continuing to have a few go her way, especially if Obama doesn’t win the final two primaries decisively.
Folks are concerned Clinton could still somehow pull the nomination out of her butt, so I feel many of the remaining supers could be afraid to cross her. If she gives any indication this week that she’s considering taking this to the convention look for a number of the remaining supers to continue to sit on their hands.
Oh, the agony.