Elvis:
Putting aside your use of the term disenfranchise: Absolutely. Yes.
Ah, and your wishing that a dead issue can be brought to life by the strength of Obama’s special powers, like rising Lazarus from the dead, is realistic?
Again here are the possibilities and their chances:
A revote. Zero chance. Even if Obama and the DNC put what they feel to be their and the party’s best interests aside for your view of the reality, at this point it couldn’t happen. The concept is as dead as that Python parrot. Wishing it alive won’t make it happen.
This goes to the convention floor and the delegations get seated on appeal helping put Hillary over the top. Not impossible. The bulk of the supers would have had to have already decided that Hillary was who they wanted and were trying to come up with a way to make that happen. Just winning Indiana won’t be enough for that. She’d need to bring NC to a near tie and win Indiana overwhelmingly. Again, not impossible, there are a lot of undecideds right now and they tend to break in her direction. Obama could say/do very stupid things during this next week. Highly highly improbable but not impossible.
This goes to convention and the delegates don’t get seated. Possible. Hillary then loses the convention fight and the party is indeed hurt come November. I think unlikely as I think the next one is more likely to avoid that.
It gets decided before the convention. By far the most likely in my books, either after Obama ends up winning NC by the expected margins and keeps Indiana to a tie or better or waiting until after all the primaries if she actually wins Indiana by a few percent which forces the hand to play out. But she still concedes before the convention as it becomes obvious that there is to be no run of supers by an over 2 to 1 margin to the rescue. The delegation gets seated as is.
jayjay, helluva spin there. Unfortunately, even with it, there’s still no award in real-life politics for “Most Improved”.
Gadarene, care to expand upon your reasons, and what considerations led you to them?
DSeid, if you refuse to consider the possibility that there might be a problem, then there’s no point taking further steps with you.
There is, however, a real-life penalty for “Much Poorer Showing Than Anticipated”. And Clinton is paying that penalty as she continues to bleed support to Obama.
Elvis I think we cross posted and cross edited!
As the result in Pennsylvania, after Obama had a whole undistracted month to use his huge money advantage and his huge and burgeoning popular support, demonstrated, huh? :dubious:
The expectations game is a lazy-media creation. There’s no need for us “real people” to play it.
Are you not paying attention to political news? Or are you just sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”? She bleeding superdelegates. She’s bleeding non-superdelegate endorsers. She’s bleeding large-money donors who previously raised mucho funds for her campaign.
And again, PA’s demographics favored her. She should have run away with the state. If Obama is so weak and empty a candidate, why isn’t she beating him?
There’s really not much resentment here, just a sense of being left out and passed by. But looking at how it’s being played out in other states, I personally will not mind missing out on a presidential primary campaign all that much. Everybody’s sick of the whole thing already.
Nobody wants the 2012 primary season to start on Groundhog Day 2011. If states are allowed to thumb their noses at the primary schedule rules without consequence, that is what will happen. End of debate.
Hell, this primary season really started in January of 2007. I hate that everyone was positioning themselves for their re-election (or their presidential election) before their seats in the Senate and House had even warmed to the temperature of their asses.
So, your proof that Obama continues to block a MI vote is a news article from mid March whose only content is a quote from an anonymous Democrat? Might it possibly be that Mr. or Mrs. anonymous is a Clinton supporter? We’ll never know, of course. But please, don’t give us the old: you can google it yourself if you don’t believe me. You know that’s not the way it works around here.
Also, it should be noted that the MI Democratic party tabled the notion of a do over on Apr 4-- about 2 weeks after your googled cite. Kinda makes that whole thing moot, either way.
Since his OP’s source has been debunked, I don’t think he’ll be back.
Go back and reread what I said about the insignificance of the expectations game. An example of that is this comment:
Despite all of Obama’s money, and time and effort, and uniquely energizing campaign that allegedly *transcends * the old-style-politics sonsideration of demographics, among other things? :dubious:
Strawman, and not even a good one. Nobody ever said he’s weak. Now, if Clinton is so dead, and so underfinanced, and so dependent on still-unreconstructed “demographic” voters as you say, why didn’t *he * soundly beat her? Tell us which candidate the Expectations Gods *should * favor currently, and why, before trying to foist off excuses for why he isn’t, okay?
John, you’re at it again. You *could * contribute some actual substance here instead of merely gadflying, if you wanted to.
Other folks: We’re in the world of the perpetual campaign now. It’s blended in with governing. Might as well get used to it.
To summarize, three big unanswered questions:
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What is the evidence that Obama is stopping, if even by inaction, these votes from happening? I think most of us find insufficient the bald assertion that if he was a good enough leader he could make it happen. Is there any actual evidence that his position matters and that it isn’t supportive enough?
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Why shouldn’t we be concerned with the precedent this sets by allowing states to ignore DNC rules? The point of controlling the primary dates is to have a balanced set of states setting the early momentum. Without that, name recognition will be a much larger factor than now and we end up with candidates that might not reflect the base we want to reflect.
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What evidence is there that voters desire to be counted, despite the clear rules, will cause them not to support the eventual Democratic nominee? It seems pretty counter-intuitive that a Democratic primary voter would toss their vote to McCain because they’re pissed at the DNC. Perhaps Clinton’s trying to blame Obama for this will have that effect, but I doubt it.
Richard Parker, asked and ignored.
Asked and ignored.
Answered already, including right in the OP - and ignored, just as in previous threads.
Horse, water. :shrug:
I am fromm Michigan and the whole thing pisses me off. I voted for Edwards in the primary. I would vote for Obama now. But I feel like an American possession. We really do deserve an input. We did nothing wrong.
Did you forget that this is GD? Who exactly are you trying to persuade with your smugness?
If you’re serious about thinking the OP answered the questions I asked, quote the relevant parts of the OP that answer them.
Sorry, Elvis, but your OP – and none of your posts in this thread – take any stab at all at answering questions 1 and 2. A vague statement that Obama needs to display “leadership” does in any way prove the assertion that he’s responsible for the lack of a recount.
And you haven’t even mentioned at all whether, by allowing a recount, we encourage states to move up their primaries next time.
I wonder whether, by examining supporters on the Dope, we can draw parallels between the two candidates. Is it the case everywhere that Obama supporters attack Clinton, but Clinton supporters snidely attack Obama supporters? Should I take a lesson from this?
Am I missing where question 3 is addressed?
I would concede that the 63% stat in the OP is indirectly relevant to question 3, but assumes (rather importantly) that voters will see Obama as “deliberately acting to prevent a new primary.” That case is even harder to make out than the case based on insufficient action. Which is why I said, “Perhaps Clinton’s trying to blame Obama for this will have that effect, but I doubt it.”