[QUOTE=NurseCarmen]
Damn. I wish it wasn’t my wife’s birthday tomorrow. I’d be going to an Obama rally otherwise.
[/QUOTE]
I think I might try to make it. It would be cool to see him be able to basically see him give an acceptance speech tomorrow. I hate downtown St. Paul, though…
[QUOTE=Frostillicus]
BTW, I just read that the Democratic nominee is scheduled to accept the nomination at the convention on August 28th, which just so happens to be the 45th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech. I wonder if Obama can use that angle in his acceptance speech.
[/QUOTE]
As long as he doesn’t say “I have a Dream Team”.
Something involving a theme that “We are no longer dreaming,” might be nice.
Out of the yesterday’s nightmare and into tomorrow’s new dream/morning/day?
“I am a dreamboat”
“I was Hillary’s worst nightmare, but I have a better dream for America…”
“We will be summarily executing the Coreys Feldman and Haim for Dream a Little Dream…”
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I think I might try to make it. It would be cool to see him be able to basically see him give an acceptance speech tomorrow. I hate downtown St. Paul, though…
[/QUOTE]
Go. Please. And report what it was like. If you will do so, I promise to give you two — no, make that three — free passes on arbitrary declarations about Biblical scholarship. 
[QUOTE=Cervaise]
“We will be summarily executing the Coreys Feldman and Haim for Dream a Little Dream…”
[/QUOTE]
I hope he belts out the Mama Cass song, though.
(P.S. I do know the song was around before her version, but her version is the one I want him to do…)
I’m planning to go tomorrow, too. My first political rally ever! Wee hoo!
[QUOTE=Beadalin]
I’m planning to go tomorrow, too. My first political rally ever! Wee hoo!
[/QUOTE]
You youngs ones are very fortunate to be emerging participants in this particular campaign. It’s been a long time since we haven’t had to choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
From the AP:
What a backfire for HC. So far today, three newly available supers from FL and MI have come out for Obama for a total of 1.5 more delegates. He’s now 42.5 away from the nomination and will probably get 20 or so of those from tomorrow’s primaries.
I’m going to go all Chicken Little on you guys here and make the prediction that Tuesday’s event will not be a concession. I am guessing that what occurs there will probably not be to my liking.
We are seeing a lot of things going on. She is winding down her campaign, but it doesn’t mean she’s giving up. All it means is she doesn’t need staffers anywhere anymore because there are no primaries left. For her to work the super-delegates from now until August, all she needs is herself. She’s simply trimming the fat that would be done even if she were to go on a 24/7 “You better pick me” campaign.
But we are seeing some threats now. The leadership is signaling that it’s over. They have made it clear to her that she is going to have a grace period, in which to concede after Tuesday. After that they are pushing her out. Supposedly Wednesday is the day.
But why would she have gone all this way? She’s already pushed back at the news that her campaign was ending because it is getting rid of all of the advance staff. She’s doing that because either
A) she still wants to see how many super-delegates she can get. Maybe she really believes she can do it. It could be that Hillary has brought us to this point, because she really does believe her math.
B) she wants to destroy the party. Sour grapes, scrap to the end.
So her speech could take several forms. But I don’t expect concession. What I do expect? I expect more, “Rah! Rah! Popular Vote! Rah! Rah! Polls! Rah Rah! Swing States.” She is again, using this as a play-fake to get media time. She’s been doing this for a while now. After some game-changing loss, the media will say, “I wonder what she’ll say” and they’ll turn to her speech and it’s the same garbage as usual. She’ll continue to question his ability to lead and continue to try to weaken the party.
This will obviously precipitate a super-delegate flood towards Obama. At which point does she get the picture? I don’t know. It literally might be until Denver that she stays in. The expensive part of the campaign is over. She has also signaled today that super-delegates can switch votes until Denver. She’s engaged in this sort of “This is how far I’m going to take it” rhetoric several times. Each time letting us know how much further she’s willing to take it. She’s never lied about that.
She’ll stay in until she’s pushed out, and will then still continue to haunt the process, delegitimizing it every step of the way. She has done this at every turn and I see no reason for her to do it now.
I agree this nomination will be over with or without her blessing this week, but I don’t know if she will ever believe it.
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe]
She is winding down her campaign, but it doesn’t mean she’s giving up. All it means is she doesn’t need staffers anywhere anymore because there are no primaries left. For her to work the super-delegates from now until August, all she needs is herself. She’s simply trimming the fat that would be done even if she were to go on a 24/7 “You better pick me” campaign.
[/quote]
Due respect, but that doesn’t make sense. There are no more primaries left for Obama either, but he isn’t winding down his campaign. If she felt like she was still in the running, she’d be revving up her staffers if anything because the national campaign is an even greater logistical challenge. You can’t camp out somewhere and campaign there for a week. You have to be on the move, and the advance staff has to stay well ahead of you.
For what it’s worth, I got an email solicitation from the Obama campaign (the price of donations, I guess) including a survey about whether I’d be willing to go door to door in my district during the general election. I’ve never seen anything like that in any election above the district level: this organized, this early. Whatever Obama might be planning on the mass-media level in the next few months, he’s obviously going to be deploying huge numbers of ground troops directly into the streets. That, I think, is a big part of why he isn’t dissolving his organization the way Clinton is: primaries aside, he has plans for, and needs, the human infrastructure. That said, even if Clinton were the nominee, I don’t think she’d be able to run the campaign the same way, and we’d probably see her shrinking her organization similar to what she’s now doing.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Due respect, but that doesn’t make sense. There are no more primaries left for Obama either, but he isn’t winding down his campaign. If she felt like she was still in the running, she’d be revving up her staffers if anything because the national campaign is an even greater logistical challenge. You can’t camp out somewhere and campaign there for a week. You have to be on the move, and the advance staff has to stay well ahead of you.
[/QUOTE]
I realize that it doesn’t make a lot of sense, Liberal, but really, what has HRC done lately that has made any sense? But here’s how it could work. If Hillary is really going to take the fight to Denver, she won’t have the resources for any kind of campaign until she gets legitimacy. And the door for her potential legitimacy won’t be closed until the votes are cast there. So you can see that the idea that Clinton plans on resuming campaigning after Denver with a full team doesn’t mean she can’t let them go in the mean time.
She can’t campaign until she has more money. She won’t get any more money until she becomes the nominee (in her mind) so she’ll have to go small-scale for a while, while she wins over the superdelegates.
I don’t want to believe it either, Liberal but looking at possible strategies she could take, it would fit in. I’m just getting myself ready for the non-end as usual. There’s been so many of these moments so far, and none of them have panned out. The first moment where she should have gotten out was when she revealed her plans to win even she didn’t have the majority of pledged delegates. I guarantee you, faced with this choice, every other candidate would have done so. Who would really want to win so badly as to do so in such an illegitimate way? Despite her trying to reinvent the idea of legitimacy, the party has firmly decided that in this case the pledged-delegate leader ought to be the nominee. I think this has been pretty clear from the point the question was first raised. Clinton’s strategy to find some way to legitimize it ex post facto isn’t going to work, because luckily the super-delegates aren’t as ADD as the American public.
Anyway, i’m guessing you’re reading a lot of the same stuff as me, but I remember reading today that the Clintons (all three) are sometime this week going on a big super-delegate call-a-thon in Chappaquaw. Either today, tomorrow, or Wednesday. They plan on stealing Obama delegates then too. But something tells me he isn’t worried. Maybe it will end there once they realize they won’t get any traction.
Merk, The fact that Bill is saying he expects today to be his last ever day of political campaigning is about as clear a signal as I think you’re going to find from the Clinton camp. I understand your trepidation, but all the smoke signals today are strongly indicating that Hillary has been given the message to end this herself or the supers will do it for her.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Merk, The fact that Bill is saying he expects today to be his last ever day of political campaigning is about as clear a signal as I think you’re going to find from the Clinton camp. I understand your trepidation, but all the smoke signals today are strongly indicating that Hillary has been given the message to end this herself or the supers will do it for her.
[/QUOTE]
Well… here’s to us hoping it will be so!
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Lib along those lines here’s that article about how Carter’s difficulties can be a caution to Obama.Obama must show the Clinton wing respect but he must not signal weakness in the process. He must have the spine that Carter never demonstrated or else he will be hamstrung by them forever more.
[/QUOTE]
I believe he made a good start on that in the RBC – conceding the 50-50 split from a position of strength enough to take it, but taking those four “extra” Michigan delegates as a small demonstration of his control.
The man and his team are amazingly subtle in their exercise of power when they want to be.