Obama must stop stalling MI/FL revotes for the good of the party

Great Debates
101

Sigh. Elvis, let’s see how dead is it?

Michigan several weeks ago “officially ended the chances for a privately funded do-over of the state’s Democratic presidential primary.” A Florida “revote” cannot happen according to the Florida Democratic party because it requires “90 days, the Republicans to cooperate and voting machines in 17 counties. So it really can’t happen.”

Please tell me how these votes can happen given that have been long killed? Some, what did you call them? Ah yes. Actual facts. Heck these corpses are already decaying in the ground!

102

[QUOTE=jayjay]
Oh, she’ll attract a Republican electorate, all right. Right to the voting booth to vote for McCain.
[/QUOTE]

I have a different theory. I believe the Republicans want HRC to win the nomination because if a Dem is going to win the White House, which is likely, she is the better choice for Republicans. I know the ultraconservatives will not vote for HRC nor will they vote for Obama, but I just don’t see McCain winning against either candidate. I do think HRC has damaged her chances to win as much as she has damaged Obama. Her campaign tactics, including the monotonous Florida and Michigan spin, have turned off plenty of Democrats. Not to mention Obama has the support of every lefty site I can think of, including the highly motivated Moveon. Obama has the money and the support to win in November.

103

I hope this won’t be a death-dealing shock but I take my hat off to you ElvisL1ves. In this thread and others you’ve posted in on this issue, I admit to anxiously awaiting, like a man dying of thirst, to see who will be the first to respond to you and how. I was all giddy ‘n’ stuff when I woke up and saw you’d started this thread Saturday morning, knowing how entertaining it was going to be, and you certainly didn’t disappoint. Every time I thought “Aha! They’ve got ElvisL1ves this time,” you came back and spun everyone in circles. You’re like a loose ferret in a room full of kids tripping over themselves trying to catch you. Even when they have you in their hands you still get away. :slight_smile:

After reading many of your posts and the responses I believe the challenge is your opponents are boxing, but you’re using Kung Fu, and everyone knows a boxer has no chance against someone skilled in the art of Kung Fu. They keep trying to get you on the ropes, but you know Kung Fu, man. There are no ropes. :smiley:

I think you’re way off base with your stance on the FL/MI stuff, but hey, I have to admire that you continue to defend it against the onslaught. Kudos.

104

My hat’s off to Elvis, too. She is loyal to her candidate, outspoken and tenacious. Elvis took on everyone in this thread and didn’t miss a beat.

I don’t agree but respect differences. I have a few staunch HRC supporters in my family. One is my fiercely opinionated mother. This has been an interesting and often divisive primary process. I hope Dems can move past this when the nomination is decided.

105

[QUOTE=Shayna]
What I love most about this crap, is the extraordinarily stunning hypocrisy from the actors in the Clinton camp.

Clinton’s own people – 12 of them, including her chief strategist, Harold Ickes – sat on the Rules Committee and voted unanimously to strip Florida and Michigan of all of their delegates, not just half, which would have allowed both candidates to campaign there, and we’d have at least had fair results at this point. The only dissenting vote came from the only Obama supporter on the committee.

And of course when Terry McAuliffe was Chairman of the DNC, he sang is different tune, as well. And now the Clinton folks are having an aneurysm because their girl didn’t wrap it up by Super Tuesday like they thought. They don’t give a rat’s ass about the voters in Florida and Michigan. If they did, they wouldn’t have created this mess in the first place. But they did. It’s entirely their fault. They were so damn arrogant in their confidence that she’d take this nomination without them, they were willing to play hardball in an effort to shut Obama out in those states and not let him have his voice heard.

They screwed him over, and now they have the utter gall to blame him. There’s nothing more Republican in tactics than that.
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According to your link, the Terry McAuliffe and Carl Levin quotes are from when Michigan threatened to pull the primary up for the 2004 election. Michigan relented at that time with promises that the unfair primary system that favors Iowa and New Hampshire would be changed for the next election cycle.

The subsequent DNC commission made changes to the calendar that moved New Hampshire to the second primary held after Nevada. New Hampshire made it known that they would move up their primary earlier to be first, no matter what the DNC said. When the DNC refused to punish NH for this by either stripping their delegates, or recommending the candidates not campaign there, Michigan considered the 2004 promises from McAuliffe to be broken.

Obama has delegates selected from Michigan, despite not being on the ballot. He would likely have had more had he remained on the ballot. Whether or not they get seated at Denver remains to be seen.

106

onomatopoeia, thanks, I guess, but I’d still rather see you address the topic than dismiss any of it as “spiin”. unconventional, I’m a guy, but thanks, too.

You’re both still doing a better job of understanding *what * the frickin’ topic *is * than DSeid, though.

pantom, the post of yours I was replying to was your first one in this thread, about how Clinton could be expected to beat McCain if she can’t even beat Obama - as if the same people are The Deciders both times. If that isn’t what you meant, sorry.
Still looking for the evidence that Obama is more likely to beat McCain than Clinton is … I see the bald, audaciously-hopeful *assertion * to that effect repeated by Shayna and Gadarene, but that’s all. Not even a cherry-picked outlying poll number.

107

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
onomatopoeia, thanks, I guess, but I’d still rather see you address the topic than dismiss any of it as “spiin”.
[/QUOTE]
What?? Is my popcorn finished already? I’ll be right back.

108

[QUOTE=Liberal]
The website itself was registered with false information. The telephone number given, 202-111-1111, is not a working number. (Feel free to try it yourself.) Why would they do this? The principles seem genuine enough — two geeky-types who don’t, on the surface, leave the impression that they have a political agenda. But digging deeper, one finds their strong connections to — surprise! — George Soros. One of the guys, Achal Achrol, is a Soros Foundation fellow, and a contributor to Hillary’s campaign.
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George Soros is backing Obama, is he not?

109

[QUOTE=jayjay]
The PA results confirm what everyone thought would be the outcome for the six weeks before. Nobody expected him to win. The demographics of PA are not in his favor (they’re not necessarily in hers as regards the GE, either). And yet his share of the demographics improved over Ohio. In a six-week period that began with him 20 points behind, in which his worst two-week period re publicity occurred, in which ABC hosted a “debate” which was a thinly veiled hit job reveling in completely irrelevant trivialities, in which she threw the kitchen sink and two other major appliances of your choice at him…he still held her to a single-digit lead.
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He was everywhere from 3 points AHEAD to 20 points BEHIND in the preceding weeks with many polls having her ahead by 10-15. And that’s where she stayed…despite being outspent by millions, endorsements from every major paper for Obama, a ‘blue collar’ high-profile legislator endorsement that everyone crowed about endorsing Obama, etc. The most he did is reduce it from 15 to 10 with triple the money. Not impressive.

His performance at the debate was his fault, not the moderators. He’s prickly.

Oh, and that’s a double digit lead. (If you break it down by percentages, that’s 54.65 percent for Clinton and 45.34 percent for Obama. Round up the Clinton number to 55 and the Obama number down to 45, you get a ten point margin of victory for Clinton.)

110

[QUOTE=jayjay]
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?
[/QUOTE]

She is beating him. She’s got the popular vote. He’s got much more money.

And she still keeps winning large states. All of them, in fact, except Illinois.

If he’s such a great candidate and she’s such a monster, bleeding superdelegates, bleeding non-superdelegate endorsers, and bleeding large-money donors then why can’t he put her away?

There’s probably a reason.

111

[QUOTE=9thFloor]

His performance at the debate was his fault, not the moderators. He’s prickly.

[/QUOTE]

nitpick - by almost every account including those of Clinton’s surrogates - the debate was poorly moderated, and not one issue was raised pertaining to the candidates until more than 45 minutes into the debate. I wanted to hear issues not whether or not he wore a lapel pin.

And 9th floor - she is not winning. If she is please post a reliable cite for that. She is behind in popular vote, delegates and states won. How do you come up with her winning, she’s clearly not.

Howard Dean was on this morning talking about when the candidate should step down and it’s going to come in June after the last primary. I’m sorry, but if there were a scenerio where Clinton was going to be the nominee, it would have happened already. Her biggest blunder was forgoing and minimizing primaries like the Potomac Primary…thats where she lost this nominating campaign.

I hope you’ll come back and discuss when the primaries are over, even if your horse comes in second. Your opinion is valued so I do hope you don’t just disappear if Clinton loses.

To your last point - there is a reason she is bleeding superdelegates and not picking up anymore…you doknow Obama picked up 60+ delegates when Clinton was losing them right? Can you explain that?

112

[QUOTE=9thFloor]
She is beating him. She’s got the popular vote. He’s got much more money.

And she still keeps winning large states. All of them, in fact, except Illinois.

If he’s such a great candidate and she’s such a monster, bleeding superdelegates, bleeding non-superdelegate endorsers, and bleeding large-money donors then why can’t he put her away?

There’s probably a reason.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, there are several. Political intimidation, having the media in her lap, she’s WHITE…you know.

I don’t know why I let you people upset me so much. Obama’s going to be the candidate, and then you can go cry yourselves to sleep.

113

[QUOTE=jayjay]
Oh, there are several. Political intimidation, having the media in her lap, she’s WHITE…you know.

I don’t know why I let you people upset me so much. Obama’s going to be the candidate, and then you can go cry yourselves to sleep.
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It’s easy not to get upset man. Think about who the candidate is going to be in reality then throw that smile right back on your face! :smiley:

114

[QUOTE=9thFloor]
George Soros is backing Obama, is he not?
[/QUOTE]
Sort of, I suppose. From the NYT:

At a lunch he gave Wednesday for reporters in a hotel here, George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire and former hedge fund manager who is a regular participant at Davos, vouchsafed a regard for Barack Obama as a Democratic candidate in the United States’ presidential race — but, diplomatically, he kept the door open to Hillary Clinton, too.

[snip]

Mr. Soros added that he had ‘’very high regard’’ for what he depicted as Mrs. Clinton’s statesmanlike qualities. ‘’I prefer Obama because I think he would bring more radical change,” he said. “But if she is the candidate, I will be very supportive of her.'’

115

[QUOTE=9thFloor]
Oh, and that’s a double digit lead. (If you break it down by percentages, that’s 54.65 percent for Clinton and 45.34 percent for Obama. Round up the Clinton number to 55 and the Obama number down to 45, you get a ten point margin of victory for Clinton.)
[/QUOTE]
Well, sure, if you round two numbers prior to calculating your final result, you can turn a 9.31% margin into what appears to be a 10% margin.

But calling a 9.31% margin a ‘ten point margin of victory’ doesn’t make it one.

116

9th Will you take my bet? I may have missed your response.

Elvis so it isn’t relevant to the thread whether or not “revotes” are possible at this point? I have provided you with cites that show that both the state organizations say the idea of a “revote” is dead as of at least weeks ago. If you have any evidence to support your assertion that they are at least among the undead, any major state or national leaders even who at this point in time is saying that they actually could occur, then now would be a good time to put them up.

Or live in stuck in the denial phase of your grief process. Feel free.

117

Elvis:

I never said that, and don’t you dare put words in my mouth, let alone characterize them in that way. It’s intellectually dishonest.

118

[QUOTE=RickJay]

I mean, I’m not the one who’s syaing Clinton is a dead candidate walking; that’s your position, and Obama managed to lose to her by almost ten points in Pennsylvania. He can’t be THAT popular in PA to lose fairly badly to an allegedly doomed candidacy. So if he can lose to an allegedly dead candidacy, just how badly do you think he has the potential to lose to a real live Republican Presidential candidate?

The superdelegates do have to consider this stuff, and while I do like Obama and loathe Clinton, I can quite understand why a DNC superdelegate would be concerned that Obama has done poorly in key battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. That’s doubly true of PA, where - and again, this is your claim - the candidate that “Has no chance” won easily over Obama. Candidates who are perceived as having no chance shouldn’t win that easily over alleged juggernauts. If a DNC superdelegate decides to vote Clinton because they really, honestly think she’s a better bet to win key battleground states, that is a perfectly fair way to vote.

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First, to address the part I bolded, I don’t think that’s a common perception. We here are much more knowledgable than the general public. The media is fueling the idea that Clinton’s campaign is still viable - how many people do you suspect really know the numbers?

Secondly, even if the perception was that Clinton couldn’t practically win, how would you expect this to affect the voting? Would people switch support from Clinton to Obama just to be voting for the winning side?

Let’s say hypothetically we have 5 states with 10 voters each. The states are A, B, C, D, and E. Let’s say that A has the demographics that would cause a candidate to win 7-3, B would be 8-2, C would be 6-4, D would be a 5-5 tie, E would be a 4-6 loss.

Let’s say that those elections were held in reverse alphabetical order once a week. E, D, C, B, A. The candidate in question would start off behind - and by week 3 would tie it up. In weeks 4 and 5, they gain enough to win. Overall, they win 30-20. It appears that they became stronger and stronger as time went on.

Now let’s reverse the order. They start off strong, and after week 3 they have a 21-9 lead. Now we know the other candidate will have to win 16 votes to 4 in the remaining states just to tie, and the demographics don’t support that at all. So we can say it’s practically impossible the other candidate wins. And yet in our example, states D and E go 5-5 and 4-6 in favor of the opponent. At the very end, even though it’s meaningless, our candidate goes from winning to suffering small individual defeats. At that point you might say that a candidate that strong should be able to win every individual battle, and this casts doubt on their strength. That the candidate couldn’t finish off their opponent.

And yet in both those scenarios, the states voted the exact same way. It’s just that the order in which they voted was changed. And so my point is this: Pennsylvania always had the demographics to support Clinton. They happen to be late in the primary cycle. But this should not be used to prove Obama can’t finish the deal. If you arbitrarily change the voting order while keeping the votes the same, you could create whatever trend you wanted to finish it out. If we had Pennsylvania vote a few months ago, and have Illinois voting last week, it would seem as if Obama were indeed finishing off Clinton even though there was no changing of the actual votes. It’s an issue with the perception of trends.

That isn’t to say that the voting timing isn’t entirely insignificant. The states that vote later see more from the candidates. In this regard, it has favored Obama. Since Clinton always had the demographics to win Pennsylvania, the fact that she won by less now than she would’ve in the past indicates that Obama is gaining ground relatively.

So unless you perceive the voter base as trying to only vote for what they perceive to be the winning side, I don’t understand the idea that Obama should win every remaining primary and that it’s a sign that he’s weak. Why would someone who supports Clinton for whatever reason stop supporting her simply because Obama is winning?

Besides, where do you go with that argument? “Obama isn’t beating Clinton THAT badly, so let’s nominate Clinton, who isn’t beating Obama at all”?

119

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
RTFirefly, you list a few constituencies who are not going to vote McCain anyway, but none who might.
[/quote]
Actually, I did. You’re welcome to say why you think I’m wrong.

Not to mention, turnout plays a big role in a close election. Bush won the 2004 popular vote by maximizing the turnout among potential GOP voters. It’s quite possible to lose an election by one party’s supporters being energized, and a key bloc of the other party’s supporters being pissed at their own party and showing up in substantially less than the usual numbers.

What’s purist about basic electoral arithmetic? It’s exactly the sort of thing the supers should consider.

And I missed the part where Obama was particularly ‘ideologically pure,’ but that’s a whole 'nother debate.

120

[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
Let’s say hypothetically we have 5 states with 10 voters each. The states are A, B, C, D, and E. Let’s say that A has the demographics that would cause a candidate to win 7-3, B would be 8-2, C would be 6-4, D would be a 5-5 tie, E would be a 4-6 loss.

Let’s say that those elections were held in reverse alphabetical order once a week. E, D, C, B, A. The candidate in question would start off behind - and by week 3 would tie it up. In weeks 4 and 5, they gain enough to win. Overall, they win 30-20. It appears that they became stronger and stronger as time went on.

Now let’s reverse the order. They start off strong, and after week 3 they have a 21-9 lead. Now we know the other candidate will have to win 16 votes to 4 in the remaining states just to tie, and the demographics don’t support that at all. So we can say it’s practically impossible the other candidate wins. And yet in our example, states D and E go 5-5 and 4-6 in favor of the opponent. At the very end, even though it’s meaningless, our candidate goes from winning to suffering small individual defeats. At that point you might say that a candidate that strong should be able to win every individual battle, and this casts doubt on their strength. That the candidate couldn’t finish off their opponent.

And yet in both those scenarios, the states voted the exact same way. It’s just that the order in which they voted was changed.
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:applause: