That may be less likely than first thought.
Teresa Heinz (Kerry) has written a glowing op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette enthusiastically endorsing Obama.
THK is highly regarded in Pittsburgh for her extensive charitable work and deep commitment to the city and its people.
Please answer the questions asked. Leave it at that she hopes his support collapses as she reasonably points out why he would not be an adequate president and why she would be, if that makes it more acceptable to you. She won’t do anything negative in any way. But negative somehow happens. But is that the scenario you see, her winning so handily from here and him being so damaged that the supers can go against a pledged delegate lead of over a hundred by a two to one margin, without her having convincingly won the popular vote either?
The questions that followed are still awaiting your answers. “…at what point would you believe it becomes so unlikely that continuing the race has more potential to cause the party harm than a realistic chance to get your favored candidate the nod? Is there such a point in your mind? Or are the party’s best interests immaterial at any point? Or is the possibility of an Obama candidacy so horrible that potentially harming the party is a lesser risk?”
WI and FLA were won by GWB by tiny % in the last election. it is entirely within the best interests of the GOP to see that the voters of both states are pissed at the DEMs, and it should be within the best interests of the DNC to see that they mollify the voters (not the State Legislatures; but the voters, who did nothing wrong but were still disenfranchised) otherwise the Dems will lose the General Election.
Indeed, the Dems in the FLA Legistlature were conned into this move by the GOP and are dumber than a bag of hammers. I still don’t see why anyone would want to punish the VOTERS by disenfranchising them.
Again, it’s not the fault of the Democratic Voters in those states at all, they had no say in the matter.
Obama has enough Delegates that he could get the Fla delegates seated if he so choose. He does not so choose, as that gives his opponent more Delegates. Thus, he may win the Nomination, but if so, he will surely lose the General election.
DSeid…“My understanding was that her team works on undermining him (by keeping up associating him with a scary sounding Black preacher, etc.)…” It’s his preacher. Obama’s choice and Obama has not dis-associated himself.
What, that actually campaigning makes a difference, especially for the guy who’s less familiar to the voters?
It hardly stacks up as an ‘accusation’ against the intelligence of FL/MI voters, unless you’re going to say the same about SC voters (avg 7.5% lead 10 days out, won by 29), VA voters (avg 16% lead 5 days out, won by 28), WI voters (avg 4% lead a week out, won by 17), MO voters (avg 9% deficit 3 days out, won by 1)…want more?
I’m saying the good people of Michigan and Florida are just like the residents of Missouri, Virginia, Wisconsin, South Carolina, and a bunch of other states. The only thing that differed was the campaign, or absence of one, in their respective states.
That’s not much of an ‘accusation.’ Unless, of course, you think that the residents of all those other states are, in your phrase, “just too dumb or ignorant to have their views count anyway.” But the latter is a necessary condition to believing I’m ‘accusing’ the residents of FL and MI of being less than with it.
Like I said: your accusation, in your words. Enjoy.
Only if they’re grounded in reality. You’re not off to a good start there. Now can you assess Obama’s campaign without blaming everything that goes wrong with it on “The Monster” or can’t you? Who else would you find to blame things on if he were President? The use of bogeymen is a traditional Gingrich-Atwater-Rove tactic, now unfortunately becoming an Obama tactic as well, as your own example shows. Well, what exactly is it you expect to win if you win it *that * way?
You know the rest, and I’ve been clear enough. The problem Obama faces is the deflatiing of his bubble - and that’s under his own control.
Subjective, can’t assess before it happens, probably not until the convention - by then, we’ll know just how much helium is left in the balloon, won’t we?
That’s your idea of asking “serious” questions? :rolleyes:
To the point where a vote taken in an uncampaigned-in state doesn’t even count, as you said? Just how uninformed do any people have to be for you to make *that * claim? Please.
That’s what inevitably follows from your statement. Please. Try accepting responsibility for it, willya?
Ain’t enough of these :rolleyes: in the world for that bit of contortionism.
Nitpick: while you’re correct about WI, GWB won FL by 5% in 2004, which isn’t huge, but it’s nonetheless on the very outer edge of swing-state territory. Eleven states were decided by closer % margins than FL.
Well, how should we count it? I’ve established that Obama made up considerable ground very quickly in many states where he campaigned. So what should we do with FL - close the gap by 13%, apportion it somehow amongst the CDs, and see what we get delegate-wise? And the same in MI, only replacing ‘Uncommitted’ with ‘Obama’?
Once we get into that, it’s YHO v. MHO v. anyone else’s HO; there’s no canonical way to project Obama’s gains from campaigning, only to not do so would be more wrong than to do so.
Dude: saying a statement and its contrapositive are equivalent isn’t contortionism, except in your world. In ours it’s truth.
Oral surgery time.
If Hillary fails to blow him away in PA does she still have enough of a chance? What if (highly unlikely) she lost PA?
If she loses NC by a margin close to what she wins PA by so nets very few delegates, does she still have enough of a chance?
If he over the next two weeks the poll numbers fail to show much long term impact from “Pastorgate” does she still have enough of a chance?
If she loses Indiana does she still have enough of a chance?
Would you be in favor of taking it to a floor fight under any circumstance in which neither already has enough delegates ahead of time?
Or if we’re talking popular vote, that’s a 62,300-vote edge for Hillary in FL, and 12,800 in MI.
Answer the question ElvisL1ves…
Obama’s path to the nomination is clear.
How does Hillary win? Surely you must have some strategy in mind.
How does one follow from the other? Surely not.
The DNC has to take a longer view than a single election. Say they allow FL and MI to have a do-over–what’s going to happen in 2012? Half the States in the Union could move their primaries up to January so that they’re in on the early action (in the media race, at least, if not the actual race). Then if it isn’t decided by springtime they can have a do-over. There’s no downside other than paying for two elections.
Meanwhile, Iowa and NH would probably have to move to December, given their state rules that automatically move their elections if another state tries to move ahead. Other states would follow, and the whole process would repeat in a giant game of electoral leapfrog until the Iowa caucus is held on the day after the previously elected President is sworn in.
The DNC needs to be in control of the calendar, and if there are no consequences at all for breaking the rules, then they aren’t in control at all.
I never heard Obama actively speak out against do-overs in MI and FL; he just deferred the issue to the DNC. This, IMO, was exactly the right thing to do.
An interesting analysis. I don’t quite agree with all of it but it gets to the point that I am trying to get to with Elvis-
My unanswered question remains - is there a point at which the long shot is so long, and the potential for overall harm so great, that even her steadfast supporters would believe she should stop?
I think that she will stop when it is clear she can’t lock up enough superdelegates to win nomination. Which probably won’t happen until very close to the convention.
Folks, look. This is what the Democratic Party asked for with their decision to add “superdelegates” to the mix. They were lucky they didn’t go through this in 1984 with Mondale/Hart, which, as you may recall, was not completely decided at the time of the California June primary. This year’s difficulties are the price that will be paid for a decision to rely in close contests upon the party heavyweights to make the choice.
One of the things the people who support Sen. Obama say that bugs me the most is this repeated assertion that Sen. Clinton should stop trying to win the nomination using the superdelegates, or that if she manages to win the nomination that way, that somehow she will have “stolen” the nomination. Look, neither she nor Sen. Obama set this screwy thing up this way. If she wins nomination using the mechanism the party put in place over twenty years ago, more power to her. She hasn’t “stolen” anything; she’s played the contest the right way, and achieved the same result Sen. Obama wants to achieve. I do not believe for a minute that, were the roles reversed, Sen. Obama would be stepping aside at this point.
If anyone has a complaint with the possibility of Sen. Clinton being nominated, given the primary/caucus results to date, they should take that complaint directly to the Democratic Party. Otherwise, if you support Sen. Obama, stop whining about the situation, and make persuasive arguments for why superdelegates should support him, other than “because more people have voted for him.” There are plenty of good arguments to make. Make them. 
She will keep going because it helps her both in the short and long term. There are four possibilities of how this ends up, and I think her order of preference would be as follows:
1- Hillary beats McCain. Well that’s obvious. Of course she wants to win.
2- McCain beats Obama. This would set her up for her “I told you so” run in 2012.
3- McCain beats Hillary. Clearly inferior to #2 from her point of view. She’d have to run either as a rematch against McCain (which never works for the challenger) or as a defeated nominee against a fresh GOP choice in 2012.
4- Obama beats McCain. Her nightmare scenario. This would make another run for her impossible until 2016 at the age of 68, with an incumbent but unfriendly Democratic president. Moreover, if Obama’s veep choice runs in 2016, she’d be bucking the establishment candidate.
Her number one goal is to make sure outcome 4 does not happen. If she can’t have the nomination, she wants to be damn sure it is worthless. So from her point of view, continuing the fight and crippling Obama makes perfect sense.
Oh, I do. If Obama had lost 11 primaries in a row, lost more total states, consistently lagged in delegates and in the popular vote, he would have been vilified as a spoiler who was damaging the party. Don’t for a minute believe that Obama would have been treated with the same deference as Hillary if he had the same dismal record. If the roles were reversed, Obama would have been savaged by the Clinton machine and by the press at large.
Not to mention that the superdelegates would have thundered over to Clinton in droves well before this point.
Oh, please. Gary Hart ran all the way to the “end” and he had a much more dismal chance than Sen. Obama would have if the roles here were reversed. And people weren’t “savaging” him for it.
Aside from party pressure which would surely be there were the roles reversed, from a purely practical perspective, I think Obama would have stepped aside by now to preserve his future chances- he is a young man. The reason why we’re seeing what we’re seeing from Hillary is that she has very little personally to lose in most scenarios (in a way what **BobLibDem ** was pointing out).
I don’t really buy the idea that Hillary not pulling back or dropping out would be permanently damaging for the party. It’s not the greatest situation, but assuming that the result is an Obama win, and it looks like it will be, we might as well hit this stuff and air it out now, while there are months and months to prepare and respond and dry out the laundry. It also gives Hillary the opportunity to realize on her own that she pulled out all the stops and just straight got beat, which will let her clear her head and get behind Obama in the general. If she felt forced out in any way, this would be less likely.