How can 18 million* people be wrong???

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m a Bears fan. I haven’t been happy since 1985 - but I don’t lose sleep over it. We’ll win the superbowl again, maybe in time for The Fridge’s great great grand kids to watch.

But this rant is not about sports, it’s not about football, it’s about +/- 18 million* voters who stand behind Hillary Clinton after all of her bullshit rhetoric, bullshit divisive talk, bullshit coniving, back stabbing, narcissistic behavior.

Barack Obama is the Democratic Presidencial Nominee - GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF HILL!

If we look at the final hours of the democratic primary with a microscope we can see some interesting psychology going on here.

Clinton met a small gathering [maybe 1000] in a basement in New York City. Sorry, can’t use your cell phones, can’t use your blackberry, no calling home to make mom tape the speech…Nope, you’ve got to sit in a packed room [probably hot as hell] waiting for Hillary Clinton to come in, no idea that Obama just cinched the nomination because - again - you couldn’t check the scores on your Blackberry. Terry [The Goon] McCauliffe comes on at 9:35-ish and decides to pump up the crowd with this bit of fodder, “An now the next President of the United States…wait…Hillary Clinton”
CROWD CHEERS, AND CHEERS, AND CHEERS, AND CHEEERS!!!

:eek: no Clinton.

Dumbass - forgot to make sure she was on cue to come into the basement.

That’s basically in a nutshell the exemplification of their entire campaign. Too little too late, sad, then lies to make people think you are someone, and somewhere that you are not.

Now enter the Obama campaign and the Democratic Nominee.

17.5 Thousand people inside the Auditorium [read above ground stadium…not dingy hot basement] and another 15 Thousand standing outside.

Right on cue Obama enters [amidst the mêlée] and makes his way to the stage.

That’s basically in a nutshell the exemplification of this entire campaign - Organized, succinct, well run, happy.

Obama get’s on the stage with his lovely wife, with a kiss, kudos, and thumbs up from Michelle he begins his historic speech.

Crowd roars, barely let’s him speak and when he does speak he’s on cue - a whole hearted nod to Clinton, then to President Clinton then a stark reminder he is up against McCain. "I commend his achievments even if he dismisses mine.
Then says he can’t wait to debate him - I can’t either.

Back to the +/- 18 million voters behind Clinton. I understand Clinton has a base of core supporters, women and men who believe she would be the best president. I have no qualms with those folks. I do have an issue with the ex-candidate insinuating to some of her more ardent supporters that she will continue on, make a case, try for more, further divide. She did the exact opposite of what she SHOULD have done last night with her speech. She didn’t even acknowledge Obama won.
Any slight tinge of respect I had for Clinton is gone. To those voracious few Clinton supporters who are blind to the facts of electing a democrat, I have a few words for you.

Hillary Clinton LOST the bid to be president. She is NOT the Democratic Nominee. I highly doubt she will even be offered the vice presidency.

I implore you dear blind Clintonites: Take off your rose colored glasses and loosen up the belt on your pant suit. If you want a democrat in the White House then come out and vote for Obama. Don’t continue living in a mystery world, it’s over for Clinton. Don’t worry, we won’t do to her what they did to poor Barbaro - she’ll still have her seat in the Senate. You can write her letters there.

Now for the good of the party, stand up and vote Obama. Don’t worry, it won’t make you dirty or anything…you may even have fun.

We have pie. Lot’s and lot’s of pie.

  • I have friends who supported Clinton, but are willing to vote Obama for the good of the party, I am not saying all +/- 18 million Clintonites belong in the cuckoo’s nest - only some of them. Especially those who are saying they will vote McCain - but they are a minority and I would posit not the dem norm.
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I don’t mean to turn this into a debate on the merits of compulsory versus voluntary voting (especially as the equivalent of “primaries” doesn’t even happen in my country - the parties fight it out internally), but 18 million out of what… 400 million Americans (say 300 million adults)? That weirds me out a little.

3

There are about 300 million people in America. Take out the ones who aren’t old enough to vote and the roughly half of the adults who aren’t Democrats and you’re looking at a significantly smaller number. For 35 million people to vote in a primary contest is pretty remarkable by historical standards. Primaries don’t draw nearly as many voters as the general election does.

4

And apostrophes - several spare apostrophes.

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Eighteen million is the number of people Hillary Clinton claimed (in last night’s non-concession speech) voted for her in the primaries.

As of July 2007, the population of the U.S. was estimated at just over 301 million.

I wish I had more recent data (and that I had found a better source than USA Today), but in 2006, there were about 201.5 million Americans over the age of 18. They are eligible to register to vote, but many are not registered. In 2006, about 72 million voters were registered as Democrats; 55 million as Republicans; and 42 million registered as Independent or with a minor party affiliation.

Some states, instead of using a popular vote in the primaries, use a caucus system. Caucus voters have not been counted in Hillary Clinton’s popular vote claims – they are difficult to estimate and they went mostly in Obama’s favor. A claim of an aggregate popular vote across the wildly varied forms of the primary selection process, is pretty much doomed to being fictional. I don’t claim that any fewer than eighteen million people cast votes for Hillary Clinton, but it is not the most informative or “real” number, for purposes of considering what has happened so far.

6

That’s not enough to guarantee rightness, even if they were Frenchmen.

7

I love apostrophe’s :smiley:

Most people here know about my terrible grammar and spelling :slight_smile:

8

The absolutely brilliant part of last night was the venue that Obama chose. Do you know what’s going to happen in the XCel Center in September? John McCain is going to accept the nomination of the Republican Party, in the exact same spot that Barack Obama has already accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party 4 months earlier.

9

The MSM will be unable to resist cutting between clips of the two events, so McCain had better come up with a heck of a speech for that moment. McCain’s a good public speaker, right? :wink:

10

The thing that annoys me about the 18 million voters who must not be forgotten or ignored is that Hillary is smart enough, and educated enough that she should know that US electoral tradition is for “first-past-the-post-winner-take-all.” I sure as Hell don’t recall her reaching out to those millions of voters who voted against her in 2000, to represent their views and desires. (She’s done decent constituent service (or her office has) since she was elected, but that’s not the same thing as insisting that votes for losing candidates should be respected.)

Now, I’ll admit that a primary election isn’t supposed to leave two armed camps that can’t work together after the smoke clears. But there’s a part of me that thinks that governance shouldn’t be solely antagonistic either.

11

Note to the OP:

If you want Clinton supporters to be enthusiastic for your candidate, you might want to knock off the “pant suit” language. Kind of insulting.

Stick with offering pie. Or better yet, talk to these people, find out what worries them, and do what you can to close that gap.

Obama seriously underperformed among white women above a certain age and among the elderly in general - voters he’ll need in his corner if he has any chance of winning. So bring them in instead of driving them away.

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The more resolute Clinton supporters, the rational ones, I have no problems with at all. It’s the voracious few who really chap me up. I understand who Obama nees to court, but I shouldn’t need to invite them anywhere if they are democrats. Clinton should be shepherding them to stand behind the nominee, and not giving them false hope that she will somehow still pull this off - ala McCauliffe’s bullshit introduction last night, and Clinton’s blatant disregard for the winner of the contest. She did not even acknowledge Obama’s win, what message does that give to her supporters?

13

Perhaps that is so - but I’d rule out counting on good behavior from the Clintons for a win for the Democrats this year. The legwork for that one will have to come from the Obama side.

14

Sad but true. I’d like to say this primary season has emboldened Obama, I don’t think the GOP are going to be able to throw enough stuff at him to cost him the election. He’s had the worse shit slung already - and he’s demonstrated remarkable resilience to it. I think he’ll do just fine against McCain, and he only needs a fraction of Clinton support to come out in favor of him…the ones who wouldn never have voted for him won’t - I don’t think they were in the majority.

15

It’s also a good idea to remember that the “18 million” number is her total votes in all the primaries, not her die-hard core group of fanatics. Most of those 18 million, I’m willing to wager, were lined up behind Obama either in the last few weeks or after last night. I doubt she has 2 million voters who are willing to see McCain win in November.

16

I’ve already said I’ll vote for him. But that’s the extent of the support he’ll receive from me. The condescending attitude expressed by many Obama supporters, such as the OP is actually making me reconsider my voting choice and simply not marking the president part of the ballot at all. (There’s no chance in hell I’d vote for McCain)

17

How many million voted for Obama?

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By any logical standard, it was a larger number. I don’t know the exact total, but Clinton’s figures always exclude the people who voted Uncommitted in Michigan (some of whom would have voted for him) and they always exclude all caucus state voters. The exact totals from caucuses aren’t known, but they’re estimated.

19

There couldn’t have been even a 1% difference in the number of votes the two received. And counting the caucus votes is, as they say on “Lost”… complicated.

20

The number I heard from MSNBC’s Todd is that he has around 3,000 more. Todd seems to be straight-forward and a good ‘numbers’ man.