It appears that Obama beat Clinton **worse **than McCain beat Huckabee in WI.
Salient point about Obama’s stepping on Clinton’s speech: Clinton was supposed to speak at 8:30. It appears that the campaign delayed her speech, perhaps in an attempt to get Obama to delay his. My take: her campaign tried to play hardball, and Obama’s smacked it down.
Beauty contest for the Dems, apparently. The state mandates for this year that the primaries are on Feb. 19, but the Democratic Party of Washington assigns all its delegates according to the caucuses on Feb. 9. The Republican Party of WA assigns delegates half by caucus and half by primary.
Hawaii aparently stayed open late due to huge voter (caucuser) turnout, but numbers are finally coming in. Looks like 74% - 26% for Obama. (with 26% of the vote in)
Hooray!
GObama
I’ve never been happier to be proven wrong. A good night for Obama as he continues to whittle away at Hillary’s base. His speech was off his normal game as he spoke too long and covered too many topics. But compared to Hillary and McCain, he was masterful. Hillary was utterly graceless in defeat and refused to mention it, instead repeating her tired lines that haven’t worked so far. I was glad to see that the Obama camp finally had enough of her sore loser attitude and started his speech halfway through hers, and the networks dropped her like a hot potato.
McCain acted like he was auditioning for the remake of Grumpy Old Men. Since the experience attack was working so well for Hillary, he thought he’d use her lines against Obama. He’s probably grumpy since the only thing that could unify his party is rapidly fading off the national scene.
It’s hard to find any comfort in the numbers if you’re in the Hillary camp. Some say that keeping it as close (as if 17 points was close) as it was justified the negative campaign ads. It’s beginning to look like the best she can do is a split decision in Ohio and Texas and it’s quite conceivable that she could lose both. The superdelegates certainly know how to read election results and I look for Obama to start to make ground among superdelegates as well.
All in all, a disaster for the Clintons. They have brought on the personal attacks they now receive because of their own arrogance and slimy behavior. Bill has thoroughly trashed his reputation and Hillary refuses to believe that she is not entitled to the presidency.
God, but wouldn’t you hate to be Bill Clinton these days? The Monica-Gate fallout and heart problems combined couldn’t be worse than seeing Hillary at home these days.
Do you think Mike “Bunker schmunker! Even now our scientists are vorking on miracle veapons dat vill fin the var!” Huckabee will concede now?
I think we can safely assume Hillary won’t until the convention and even then may run as an independent or take a hostage.
I don’t see HRC running as an independent. I think it would paint her as even more of a sore loser and jettison any support she may have in the democratic party. Pushing for the superdelegates to nominate her despite the poular vote is more likely, but again, that would only make her look like a sore loser and turn many people that may be on the fence about her off.
PS- Multiple hand but I’ll report it anyway: I have a co-worker whose son works in the offices of Alaska governor Sarah Palin and swears that she’s taking an increasing number of calls from McCain campaign reps and GOP big shots these days. According to my source, according to his source, it’s a near foregone conclusion that she’s going to be asked to be McC.'s running mate due to her socially moderate (other than being anti-abortion)/female/younger/relatively attractive/intelligent reputation/whole package. The hell of it is, according to my source according to his source, she doesn’t really want it.
This is deeply affecting her campaign, I can’t wait to see how she behaves at the debate - whiny little…nevermind. The nations already see’s her ship sinking, that’s enough for me.
What time did Obama actually end up going on?
Apparently, a pro-Hillary 527 organization has set up shop to launch an attack campaign against Obama in Ohio. Look for some swiftboating.
This is incredibly self-centered of Hillary and destructive to the party. Ohio will be a swing state in the general election, and a bunch of attack ads against Obama could have the effect of weakening him there in November. Not to mention driving a deeper wedge between his supporters and hers going into the convention.
I hope Ohio and Texas will reject attack ads and finish Hillary’s campaign.
He cut off Clinton’s speech because she wouldn’t conceed or recognize him at all, so he simply went on and began his speech. Every single station switched from her to him in the span of about 2 minutes, it was hilarious. I laughed my ass off, because she essentially got snubbed because she was trying to get her way, and being snarky about it.
Anyone catch the look on her face during that speech? She was visibly pissed off.
I don’t know the exact time (because I wasn’t watching from the beginning), but I think it was 9:45ish.
After the week of attacks Obama has faced from Hillary with negative ads, the trumped up “plagiarism” charges and then HRC (as his her wont) refusing to acknowledge Obama’s win or to congratulate him on it, I can’t blame his campaign for bigfooting her speech like that. Ordinarily I might think that’s kind of rude but you reap what you sow and I think Hilldog had it coming last night.
58% to 41% with 100% reporting
I just have to reiterate that this is an amazing result. Last I heard before the polls opened, polls had the differential at 5%, which really is near the margin of error of most polls. In my mind, it was neck and neck with a slight Obama advantage. 17% is a total blowout!
Given how pundits are saying that Ohio demographics are pretty close to Wisconsin demographics and that Wisconsin was a kind of pre-Ohio test for Obama, I would say he passed handily. Summa cum laude, one might even say.
What are the Odds Hillary throws the towel after losses in TX and OH?
My advice to Hillary (and some of her supporters) is to stop taking it so personally.
I would imagine TPTB in the party will lean heavily on her to do so.
ETA: Responding to Phlosphr (shakes fist at self for not quoting him)
That’s what I wonder. What happens when she’s mathematically eliminated? Will she ever just man up (so to speak) and admit she lost, or will she keep trying to argue in the delegates from MI and FL to change the formula?
And wouldn’t it be ironic for Al Gore to be brokering an agreement when she’s the one talking about counting the votes in Florida?
Florida really seems to have a knack for screwing up the election process, huh?