[QUOTE=Shayna]
And even if you want to stretch credulity and inlcude Michigan, giving Obama the 236,726 votes that went to “uncommitted”, vs Clinton’s 328,151, that still only depletes his lead in Primary states to 143,766.
[/QUOTE]
The Clinton supporters will fight to the death over that bolded part.
[QUOTE=Shayna]
As you can see, he’s beating her in Primary states, too! So even if you didn’t count the Caucus states, he’s still ahead by 523,358 votes!
[/QUOTE]
That’s when the Clinton supporters say it’s only because of his wide margin in Cook County, IL and you really shouldn’t consider that when you’re counting the popular vote.
There’s always a reason…
Hey. if we used the same system Saddam Hussein used to employ, she’d have won 100% of the vote.
First of all, tds1273, brilliant post. Thank you for sharing that info and your experience. And thank you for your participation in the process!
[QUOTE=Bosstone]
The Clinton supporters will fight to the death over that bolded part.
[/QUOTE]
They can pitch all the fits they want; they’ll lose. Even if you didn’t assign Obama a single vote (which is retarded, as clearly some of those votes most certainly were intended for him), that only barely pushes Hillary over the top in popular vote tallies in the primary states by 1,535 votes. But you cannot not count the tallies in the caucus states, many of which have voting just like primaries, where people show up, sign in under the candidate of their choice and leave again. So when you include all votes, even if you give Obama a big fat zero from Michigan, he’s still ahead. Still.
And there’s no doubt that by the end of the entire process, he’ll more than make up that measly 1,535 votes from the remaining contests, so again, moot.
Ok, this is just rich.
First, Hillary writes a letter to Barack Obama, imploring him to allow the votes from Florida and Michigan to be counted. Or wait, maybe not. Uhm, what the hell does this sentence at the end mean?
WHAT???
Seriously. What the hell does that mean? Isn’t that supposed to be the whole point of this cockamamie thing?
Ok, setting that inconsistency aside for a moment, she’s pleading with him to “join [her] in working with representatives from Florida and Michigan and the Democratic National Committee to arrive at a solution that honors the votes of the millions of people who went to the polls in Florida and Michigan.” And yet, while the Michigan Dems Settle on Delegate-Seating DNC Plan, and Barack Obama’s team has basically approved it, saying, “we agree with that decision. We have been talking with Michigan leaders about this proposal and will continue to do so,” “Hillary Campaign Says No To New Michigan Delegate Proposal.”
So apparently the only way “a fair and quick resolution must be clearly demonstrated” by Obama is if he agrees to accept the disqualified, undemocratic results from a faux primary.
I really can’t wait to hear her concesssion speech. She can’t get out of my face soon enough.
Two bits says the concession speech will morph immediately into a wildly enthusiastic endorsement of BHO, and a pledge to throw herself whole-heartedly into his support.
Watch closely, and see if Bill’s lips move.
[QUOTE=Shayna]
So apparently the only way “a fair and quick resolution must be clearly demonstrated” by Obama is if he agrees to accept the disqualified, undemocratic results from a faux primary.
I really can’t wait to hear her concesssion speech. She can’t get out of my face soon enough.
[/QUOTE]
She’s like a frigging android, or wind-up doll or something. I think we’re just going to have to wait on her batteries to run down.
[QUOTE=Shayna]
WHAT???
[/QUOTE]
She wants them seated, as is, and counted as delegates, not simply seated (symbolically) and not counted.
Who has ever suggested that they be seated but not counted? That doesn’t even make any sense. The definition (as far as the convention goes) of “seated” means “counted”, does it not?
Dimly in memory, as through grass darkly, I seem to recall something like there are conditions whereby delegates are “seated” and permitted to speak and otherwise partake in the proceedings, but cannot actually vote, hence, are not “counted”.
Thanks, Shayna this is actually the first primary I have ever participated in.
I really feel for the vote counters in that NW corner of Indiana though getting crap from the whinny, inpatient, no-nothing pundicks.
I saw, sort of what they had to deal with from our legislative convention. While electing the delegates and alternates to go on to the county convention about 100+ of us were there long after the convention was scheduled to be over. Fourteen hours we spent in that high school gym and cafeteria, telling jokes and stories, sharing songs and pizza; you know, being a community.
Why were we there that long?
Because a group of maybe about 30 amazing people had to go through almost 700 handwritten(chicken scratch) lists of 37 different names and match up each name from a separate list of about 1-200 names…and do the whole thing 4 times over.
But that is more than fine with me, because when it comes to getting our Democracy right I want things done carefully and correctly like a fine meal; not fast and easy like drive-thru junk.
Unfortunately, after staying all that time for the results(you only had to stay if you wanted to try and get on the alternate delegate list) I didn’t make the cut. That’s okay, I am still happy I did stay. I’m really quite introverted, but inspired by our candidate and the people around me, I still made the change in myself to get up and speak(or rather campaign for myself) in front of more than a few hundred people. I would never have even given my self that chance if not for that caucus; certainly not had it been a primary.
More than anything at all that Barack Obama himself has said or done in this campaign, or his career even; it was that view from behind my shaking mic and the sea of energized faces of every age, ethnicity, religion, income, gender, and orientation that gave me real hope.
[QUOTE=tds1273]
More than anything at all that Barack Obama himself has said or done in this campaign, or his career even; it was that view from behind my shaking mic and the sea of energized faces of every age, ethnicity, religion, income, gender, and orientation that gave me real hope.
[/QUOTE]
Now that’s a really fantastic story! Thank you for sharing that tds. It’s one of the reasons I have been such a fervent supporter of Barack. He inspires me…and that’s not a usual thing for a presidential candidate to do for me. 
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Dimly in memory, as through grass darkly, I seem to recall something like there are conditions whereby delegates are “seated” and permitted to speak and otherwise partake in the proceedings, but cannot actually vote, hence, are not “counted”.
[/QUOTE]
So they can still get in door, cheer on the Democratic party, represent their hometowns, but just do not get to make official decisions?
Considering that by even getting into the party, they are getting away with breaking the very rules that they agreed to when they were set; that sounds more than fair.
Thank you too Phlosphr; a fine supporter you are. Actually, I have gained a tremendous amount of insight and anxiety relief from yours and Shayna’s post through these primaries.
Just happy I could return the favor a little bit.
Getting to be part of it first hand, and from what I have seen around the 'nets, I really think the sheer size and energy of the movement behind the Obama campaign is woefully under represented by the corporate media; and despite their best, deliberate efforts do and say otherwise, it is not stopping, or even slowing.
Maybe in typical elections you can’t gauge anything by primary numbers, but this is far from a typical election. Barring any vote rigging, I very much think we are going to see a deep blue tide sweep across the electoral map this fall.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Look, it wasn’t a blowout, but Obama still has the game won at this point.They are now just playing out the clock. He’s got the lead and he’s got the football and all he has to do is take a couple of knees. Hillary’s only hope is some kind of miraculous, fluke play involving a fumbled snap and a whole bunch of laterals and somebody crashing into the marching band in the endzone. It’s not theoretically impossible but it’s not going to happen.
Hillary put up a good fight for a long time. She deserves respect for it. She showed a lot of game. Neither she or her supporters should be disparaged for playing the game hard and they’ve probably done Obama some good in the long run. He is now officially seasoned and I think all the stupid attacks on Wright, flag pins, the neighbor who’s a former 60’s radical, etc. are going to be tired and irrelevant come fall. I also don’t begrudge Hillary supporters wanting to vent frustrations right now. I won’t even say that Hillary wouldn’t have necessarily been a better POTUS than BHO. I think now is the time to give her some space, let the last few primaries play out and then let her exit gracefully the first week of June. As grueling and interminable as this whole death march has become, I think the Clintons deserve to leave with some dignity and some props and not in a patronizing way either.
[/QUOTE]
Good points. Obama has nearly the same platform as HRC, but he is a super-charismatic speaker, and mayb that will bring some unity.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
So you’re saying that Obama should have dropped out before the primaries started because he was way behind in the votes of some party insiders.
And you’re the one who’s been flogging the importance of the popular vote - or at least, the more Clinton-favorable permutations of it.
[/QUOTE]
No, in fact, I want no one to just drop out. I want everyone to be able to vote.
I only mentioned the popular vote when the Obama-ites said that if the “SuperDelegates went against the will of the people…”. The election is so close there is no “will of the people”- or if there is, it’s that the people like both candidates and want neither to drop out. True, they like Obama a little better.
[QUOTE=Shayna]
I’m really sick and tired of this false meme that Obama is only ahead because of caucus states that “don’t represent the will of the people”, and that Hillary is ahead in primary states. It’s a flat out falsehood.
** State Type Obama Clinton**
Iowa Caucus 940 737[sup]*[/sup]
[sup]*[/sup]The vote totals for the Iowa Democratic Party are State Delegate Equivalents, which represent the estimated number of state convention delegates that the candidates would have, based on the caucus results.
And guess what -- even if you include **Florida *as is***, where Hillary's popular vote lead is 288,167, **Barack Obama is still ahead by 235,191 votes** in the Primary states *alone*!.
[/QUOTE]
It would be, if I claimed that. I have not. Obama has the large lead he has now in delegates due to his great showing in caucus states. Try it again, run just the States with elections, and see how the delegates come out. You'll be suprised. Obama gianed around 133 Delegates due to Caucuses. He's ahead by 154. As of today, he'd still be ahead without the caucuses, but not so last Tuesday.
And just to show you how "off" those estimtaes are- Iowa has around 3 million people, those estimates would indicate (although there is a caveat) that only 1600 people would have voted that day. :dubious: Voter turn-out is not that bad. :p[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
“Those few in the room at [the] time.”
Care to back that “few” part up with cites? Because everything I’ve seen suggested that the biggest problem with the caucuses, this primary season, was finding rooms big enough to contain “those few in the room.”
[/QUOTE]
Sure, they did have good turn outs- for caucuses. Around 200,000 I think in Iowa, where there are like 2 million voters. So, 10%, that’s “real few” in most books.
http://www.majorityrules.org/blog/2008/01/only-467-of-iowas-registered-voters.html
Only 4.67% of Iowa’s Registered Voters Supported Barrack Obama
Yes the headline is correct. And only 3.69% of Iowa’s registered voters turned out for John Edwards and only 3.66% for Hillary Clinton. The Iowa caucus system is a crazy system for picking a new President. As the New York Times notes today in an editorial entitled “Let it Start Now”; now is a good time to look forward and work for a better process next time.
The Iowa Secretary of State’s website listed some 1,922,235 active registered voters as of 1/3/2008. This number was the total based on figures for each Congressional District.
…
Accordingly the Iowa State Democratic Party reported that Barrack Obama received 37.57% of the delegates, John Edwards 29.75% and Hillary Clinton 29.47%. …
According to the Iowa State Democratic Party some 239,000 voters participated in the Democratic caucuses and some 115,000 voters participated in the Republican caucus.
So overall some 363,000 of Iowa’s 1,922,235 active registered voters participated in the caucuses. This is equal to 18.9% of all the registered voters.
Iowa does register people by party. From the Secretary of State figures there were 575,949 registered Republicans, 605,052 registered Democrats and 741,231 registered Independents."
Yes, for a caucus, that’s an amazing turn out. But only a few got to vote.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
But only a few got to vote.
[/QUOTE]
Only a few chose to vote. Unless you’re suggesting that 88% of the registered Democratic voters in Iowa were incapable of attending a caucus.
Most importantly, no one had a major problem with them before Clinton started losing them. Imagine that…