Texas isn’t resolved yet by the way if you can believe it. Obama is still leading, but one bright spot for her as it turns out now that they’re taking a look at details:
“In Webb County on the Texas-Mexico border, where Laredo is located, Clinton surprisingly swept all 51 delegates because Obama did not meet the 15 percent threshold of caucus support.”
March 29, 2008
Clinton, Obama camps still battling in Texas
Posted: 06:15 PM ET
I will take your word for it that you don’t view Obama as a messiah. But to say that “No one views Obama as a messiah” is, I think, clearly not true. No one??
Please, there’s entire sites, blogs, and more dedicated to that notion both metaphorically and even literally.
“He’s no ordinary man,” said Sparrow, who calls Obama a man of resplendid vision with the wisdom of Solomon, the biblical king of Israel. ``I see people my age in the 70s, 80s, 60s, 50s screaming out in appreciation like when the Beatles first came to America. I can’t believe that older people would react that way. That is one of the reasons why I believe he was sent by the Messiah."
“He’s running a theological campaign,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who ran for president in 1984 and 1988. “At some point, he took off his arms and grew wings.”
I suppose one can split hairs over ‘**sent **by the Messiah’ and **being **the Messiah from that particular quote LOL…but I think you get my meaning.
And then beyond that, in terms of ‘getting a lot of fawning attention’ Newsweek has a magazine out that is Newsweek-length but is all about Obama in its entirety. The Obama magazine, basically. I think there’s a lot of messiah-like fawning and, as linked above, even overtly so.
I’d agree with you on smears and their effectiveness many times; I think it goes with the idea that it’s easier to pull of a big lie than a small one sometimes.
As for splitting hairs, however, I’d say that it’s ironic that there’s a view that we’re splitting hairs over Obama’s comments on McCain’s comments. Seems to me Obama is the one splitting hairs over McCain’s comments; and deliberately out of context as a demagogue on that issue. Just how it seems to me; it’s clear that McCain didn’t mean keeping the troops there for 100 years in an active capacity or even in any capacity as a literal plan. He was making the point that the number of years they’re there isn’t the issue at all – it’s casualties and being part of a perpetual civil war. I think Obama knows that. But it’s a good tactic, and HRC has used it as well. I agree it’s not exactly what one would call a ‘smear’ though.
This is silliness. I don’t intend to debate the wisdom or likelihood of maintaining a a peaceful U.S. presence in Iraq, akin to South Korea, Japan, Kuwait (for the last 17 years). I am merely pointing out that this is what McCain said would be acceptable, so long as it was just such a presence, without loss of U.S. lives. That’s what he SAID.
Obama took that sound bite and said that McCain wants another 100 years of WAR in Iraq. He said McCain, “says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq.” McCain specifically said he was NOT willing to do this.
This isn’t that tough to parse. Obama is playing on voter ignorance to create a false comparison between McCain’s and his own position. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a real difference; it means that McCain’s town hall point is being used dishonestly by Obama. Obama is trying to create the impression that McCain wants the current conflict to go on for 100 years, as compared to Obama’s position on swift withdrawal.
Obama is a smart guy who knows damn well that he’s comparing apples to oranges. There is plenty to debate between their positions on the best resolution to the conflict. Using McCain’s belief that a longer-term U.S. presence after the conflict is resolved (again, akin to Japan) to mean something other than it does in plain English is a shitty political ploy, one that does not make Obama unique as far as this kind of thing goes. It’s typical. He is not the pure, “above such things” politician some in this thread have suggested. That’s the only point.
Wait…so you’re saying he’s **not **the Messiah? 
(Good post, well explained.)
Thanks! And, no, he’s obviously a lesser prophet, not the Messiah.
This morning is showing Obama with a pretty large lead.
There’s at least one case of a delegate being informed by the Clinton campaign that they don’t have to vote the same way in the regional meetings. Unfortunately for her, it had the opposite of the intended effect 
I’ve also heard about MASSIVE credentials challenges by the Clinton campaign in the Texas district caucuses. One delegate reported that they were there 18 hours yesterday because of 10 hours of challenges.
Why is this so arcane, anyway? Why do they vote for delegates to the district, where they vote for delegates to the state convention, where they vote for delegates to the national convention? Why not just vote for a friggin’ candidate and cut out all this sloppy, messy, stupid rigmarole in the middle? (And yes, I say this as an Obama supporter knowing that his forte is the caucus format (though not his exclusive strength))
I’ve stumbled across a disquieting report while browsing through reddit:
But no source for this report…or rumor…is given. Has anyone else heard of this with a more substantial cite?
No, it’s based upon a Caucus, not the Popular vote at all. The Polular vote is everyone getting a chnce to go to their polling place and cast their vote. The caucus is based upon a limited number of dudes who can take more or less the whole day off, and they shuffle around and noses are counted. It is a democratic process and it does reflect the will of those people, but it’s not the Popular vote.
Here’s how it works in Iowa, and TX is similar (wiki):*The process used by the Democrats is more complex than the Republican Party caucus process. Each precinct divides its delegate seats among the candidates in proportion to caucus goers’ votes.
Participants indicate their support for a particular candidate by standing in a designated area of the caucus site (forming a preference group). An area may also be designated for undecided participants. Then, for roughly 30 minutes, participants try to convince their neighbors to support their candidates. Each preference group might informally deputize a few members to recruit supporters from the other groups and, in particular, from among those undecided. Undecided participants might visit each preference group to ask its members about their candidate.
After 30 minutes, the electioneering is temporarily halted and the supporters for each candidate are counted. At this point, the caucus officials determine which candidates are viable. Depending on the number of county delegates to be elected, the viability threshold can be anywhere from 15% to 25% of attendees. For a candidate to receive any delegates from a particular precinct, he or she must have the support of at least the percentage of participants required by the viability threshold. Once viability is determined, participants have roughly another 30 minutes to realign: the supporters of inviable candidates may find a viable candidate to support, join together with supporters of another inviable candidate to secure a delegate for one of the two, or choose to abstain. This realignment is a crucial distinction of caucuses in that (unlike a primary) being a voter’s second candidate of choice can help a candidate.
When the voting is closed, a final head count is conducted, and each precinct apportions delegates to the county convention. These numbers are reported to the state party, which counts the total number of delegates for each candidate and reports the results to the media. Most of the participants go home, leaving a few to finish the business of the caucus: each preference group elects its delegates, and then the groups reconvene to elect local party officers and discuss the platform.
The delegates chosen by the precinct then go to a later caucus, the county convention, to choose delegates to the district convention and state convention. Most of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention are selected at the district convention, with the remaining ones selected at the state convention. Delegates to each level of convention are initially bound to support their chosen candidate but can later switch in a process very similar to what goes on at the precinct level; however, as major shifts in delegate support are rare, the media declares the candidate with the most delegates on the precinct caucus night the winner, and relatively little attention is paid to the later caucuses.
*
If voters get to vote, then it’s a popular vote. That is the definition of popular vote. You are trying to challenge the legitimacy of caucuses because your candidate doesn’t do well in them, but that’s how some states run their nomination process. All candidates know this going in and they must plan their campaigns accordingly.
Thanks! I haven’t sold all of my earthly possessions to sell flowers for Obama’s campaign. 
The media created meme that Obama supporters are cultish and Obama is messianic is a great way to undermine the enthusiasm for Obama’s campaign. It is yet another smear tactic meant to cast Obama supporters as extremists to scare voters. Fox News likes to compare Obama to Mao and Hitler.
Far more frightening than Obama’s cult is the media’s power to invent it.
You’re welcome. True, the media always creates memes.
It’s also true that there are people that genuinely feel that way, without the media’s help. It isn’t something the media created out of the clear blue sky without a single example of it actually being the case. It’s also true that what Fox is reporting on are actual events and facts; yes their slant on it is to be afraid of the Obamacult as analagous to other groupthink events in history because, in part, that’s the sort of thing the right wing is philosophically averse to. But it’s also true that there is, in fact, a cult of Obama. There is something disturbing about it, for some, including me. I don’t think he’s Mao or Hitler. But he is a relatively politically unknown figure rising on the wave of popular hysteria, IMO.
SuperDelegates are voters too. But no one who know anything about American polictic thinks that SuperDelegate or Caucuses are “the popular vote”.
Here’s a link to RealClearPolitics:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
Note the title “2008 Democratic Popular Vote”. Note that the "votes’ cast in the Caucus’s are not counted in any way shape or form (under popular vote, that is, they are counted under “delgates”). Note that they do have some estimates of what the actual popular vote was in Caucus states.
Nor is Hillary “my Candidate”, I am a Gore man. He’s lookin pretty good around now, eh?
Obama and Hillary have virtually identical Platforms. The only real differences are: Obama is a much better public speaker, Hil is better at "wheelin & dealin. And- Rove and assoc have already spent all their “Swiftboat” ammo on Hillary, but I am sure have something real nasty in store for Obama.
I speak not for Hillary but for the “dude in the middle”.
Note that Colorado, North Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, and New Mexico were all caucuses and their popular vote is listed right below the title “2008 Democratic Popular Vote”.
True, but not the votes of the dudes in the Caucus itself.
Amusingly, the “cult” was originally described as “rockstar appeal” until Obama started winning primaries and looking like the potential nominee. Then the meme shifted from “rock star” to “cult!”.
I guess “rock star” wasn’t scary enough to sell newspapers, fill cable news space and use as a barely-subtle attack against him. The point being that even if you want to point to awe-struck fans and folks fainting in the aisles, the way you paint the picture from those events is up to you. In this case, the media, pundits, columnists and his opponents decided to paint it as a scary cult. Not because they had to based on the facts but because they chose to since it benefitted them.
I can’t believe I’m defending McCain, but he made it clear that he was talking about having troups nominally stationed there for 100 years, not fighting in a war that long. How do we know this? Because his very next statement was to compare it to sites where we’ve had troops stationed in Europe and Asia for over 60 years. There aren’t too many people all worked up about the over 30,000 troops in still in Japan, mostly because they’re not getting shot at and they weren’t drafted. Do you suppose we’ll keep all 150,000 military personnel there indefinitely, or withdraw the majority once this ill conceived war is over?
That’s definitely true that there’s a difference in rock star vs. cult. I happen to think the two descriptors are appropriate at those two different times as you listed, and for those very reasons. When you start winning, your movement grows, and you look like you are in fact going to seize power then it feels more like a cult – particularly if you are someone who believes it’s based on very little substance.
Before that, rock star will do since it refers to a relatively insignificant candidate.
So, I’d agree with your assessment but not with the idea of the transition being an attack against him based on anything other than the fact that it sure seems true.
True, they didn’t have to. But they may also have simply seen it that way. I do.
Don’t worry, you’re not necessarily defending McCain you’re defending a fair reading of what he said.
A lot of what’s gone on in this entire election thus far is that people feel a cultish need to defend their candidate no matter what the reality is and attack the other with blatant misrepresentations, cherry-picking, and mischaracterizations.
On HRC’s side, hyperventilating about her lie over Bosnia misses the point: she has more foreign policy experience than Obama. That’s the point. (Although it is fair to be concerned about the related point, based on her statement, that she has a tendency to embellish and an image of not being trustworthy).
On Obama’s side, hyperventilating about his praise of Reagan missed the point: he was praising the effect of Reagan’s ability to draw Reagan Democrats and be a transformational candidate in that regard, not praising Reagan’s policies. That was his point. (Although it is fair to be concerned about the related point, based on his statement, that he seems to have a fetish for being transformational, pragmatic, and ‘3rd way’ which is troubling to some, including me).
I dunno if HRC plans to steal the nomination, but she’s definitely not planning to give up until the convention.