Damn! Anyway I’ll be back.
In Texas? Where the percentage of the vote for Bush last election was something like 83%?
The fact that you can find two million Democrats (more than that, in fact) who were willing and capable of going out to vote in this primary is remarkable. The Texas Democrat is a rare bird and uncommon even in metro areas.
Now of course more people got the vote out because we actually matter in this primary. I seem to remember making that point in the same post.
I’m even willing to admit the Republicans-get-out-the-vote-for-Hillary business may have had something to do with the inflated numbers, but let’s be conservative (hee!) and say that eighty percent of our state would call themselves Republicans.
That leaves twenty percent of that twenty-four million for the Democratic party, and that’s being liberal (the terrible jokes, they just keep coming). So 4.8 million Democrats in Texas is a generous estimate. Two million people voting in the Democratic primary is therefore very unusual. Couple that with the prevalence of the religious right and ultra-conservatives in Texas and their general distaste for McCain and we may have a number of Republicans staying home in November and a good few Democrats coming out.
Or even, shocker, Republicans voting for the Democratic candidate. I wouldn’t bet the farm on a Democratic win in Texas – that’s insane unicorn dreams – but it’s a nice thought to know that my November vote might mean something on a federal level.
Well, that explains your whole rhetorical strategy, but some of us are trying to have a “great debate.”
Certainly she can. She is behind now by 109 delegates.1573 to 1464. 2025 needed to win. Obama needs 452, HRC needs 561.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
There are 346 unpledged Superdelegates.
There are like 611 delegates left to elect.
Penn(158) is the biggest state left, and Hillary has a large lead there: 46% to 37%. OTOH, Obama should win S.Carolina (115) by about the same amount. That puts HRC behind Obama by under 100, say 1642 Obama to 1560HRC. Let us say the next 338 are split more or less evenly, Obama then has 1811, HRC will then have 1729.
Obama would need 214 of the 364 SuperDelgates, HRC would need 296.
*
Neither can win at the polls.* Both will need those SuperDelgates. If SuperDelegates are “cheating” then no one can win without cheating, barring a miracle.
For those that claim the SuperDelegates are bypassing the “will of the people” :rolleyes: and that the election should just go to whoever gets the most votes, that’s fine too. As of today, the total Popular Vote (w/FL & MI)* 13,566,066 Obama 13,602,469 Clinton. That’s right, nearly 40,000 (that’s a tiny edge mind you) more Democrats want HRC than Obama. 
Now, it’s true that HRC is angling to get the FL & MI delegates seated. I think that’s what DtC means by “cheating” :dubious:
It’s not cheating if the Convention as a whole votes them in. In fact, it’s more democratic that way than a small group of party leaders deciding to exclude them.
The Fla legislature is Republican. They moved the Primary up on purpose so that the Dems would have to disqulify them, so that the voters of Fla (where Dems have a small majority) would get anagry at the Dems and vote GoP in the general election.
True, the Fla Dem party doesn’t have to do what the Fla legislature wants, but they can’t really throw an election with the $$ and machinery.
So, if the Obama block decides to vote “NO” on seating them, Obama may cost Hillary the Nomination but may give the General election to McCain. It’s a tough decision, either way. It’s not “cheating” it’s a vote to seta memebrs, that’s exactly what the Convention does. In fact, they voted to not seat me and my co-delegates when I was a delegate for Henry Scoop Jackson. It happens, it’s not cheating.
Best is likely a Clinton/Obama ticket, with HRC agrreing to serve only one term, then Obama gets the Prez, then HRC then Obama again. If their luck holds. The other chance is a compromise cand like Gore.
If the fight gets into the Convention, it could cost the Dems the election. The Obama-ites will win at the cost of pissing off Fla, which is a critical state. HRC can win by wheeling/dealing but some Obama-ites may stay home in Nov in disgust, again costing the Dems the election.
?!
-FrL-
Nobody has said that winning with superdelegates is cheating. It’s lawyering in delegates from states where only mock elections were held that is cheating. Strongarming superdelegates to overturn the popular election is merely unsporting and likely to result in a fractured, failed party. Nothing new for the Democrats.
It works. 
2008 it’s Clinton/Obama. in 4 years it then goes Obama/Clinton. 2016 Clinton/Obama again, then 2020 Obama/Clinton.
I’m intrigued by your ideas.
That would hold more water with me if the Florida legislature Democrats had actually voted against the measure. They overwhelmingly supported it. Total vote, 118-0 in fact.
I’m not inclined to say “Those poor Florida Democrats who had their election stolen by clever Republicans…”
Thanks. It works for both sides, too. And, it spells certain doom for McCain. 
I believe you have a mistaken, and exaggerated, impression of the level of Republican advantage in Texas. Bush took a bit over 60% of the vote:
George W. Bush - 4,526,917 - 61.1%
John Kerry - 2,832,704 - 38.2%
Michael Badnarik - 38,787
Ralph Nader - 9,159
Everyone Else - 3,188
There has never been a time in the history of the State of Texas when the Republicans have represented 80% of the votes in a Presidential election, even in the 1972 or 1984 slaughters.
Kerry, who probably was not picked by even his own family to carry Texas, still got almost three million votes, nearly 40% of the take, and Bush is actually a Texan. When you consider that Bush was a Republican, an incumbent, a Texan, and running against a man who looks like Mister Ed who was conducting about as bad a campaign as you can possibly run, you frankly have to think there are some hard core Democrats in the Lone Star State to even make it as close as it was. The split was roughly the same (with lower turnout) in 2000. In 1996, Dole carried the state by less than 5%, and in 1992 Bush 1.0 carried it by less than four. It’s a Republican state, but saying “the Texas democrat is a rare bird” is just not true. There’s millions of them, as shown in every election.
The turnout is entirely a product of how interesting the race is. There is no reason for people to go to a primary for a race that has been decided. There was a LOT of reason to go vote at a primary that’s as close as the Democratic primary.
[
How is it sophist? If Clinton had said: “I agree to remove my name from the ballot” and had failed to do so, she could be condemned rightfully for that renege. But Obama chose to remove his name in Michigan as a political ploy, without securing the agreement of Clinton. When he did that, he must have had some inkling that Clinton, in a close nomination contest, would attempt to have the Michigan delegates seated.
Which is not to say they should be seated, if the nomination is still up for grabs. But it’s hardly sophist to point out that Clinton didn’t agree to remove her name, only to avoid campaigning there. Which, of course, Obama could have agreed to do, too.
Only he didn’t, because he didn’t want to have a massive loss in Michigan interrupting the planned effort to prove he could best Clinton. You rolls the dice, you had best accept that they might come up snakeeyes.
Clinton did understand that the delegates from Michigan and Florida didn’t count, and didn’t say a word about it until after she “won” their mock elections.
I bow to your actual numbers. I remember the last time I voted and looking at the numbers with some dull despair, knowing there hadn’t been much of a chance. I must have thought the gap was a lot larger than it really was.
This sounds very “depends on what the definition if ‘is’ is”.
If you want a perspective of an outside observer - I’ve certainly never been a democrat, and I’ve never really been a republican.
It seems that Obama’s supporters show genuine enthusiam for the guy and just want to see him win the election. They see HRC as a divisive, politics as usual force and feel that Obama can be special. Since all they’ve ever had their entire lives has been business as usual - from both sides - this unique opportunity really energizes them. And they get criticized for this enthusiasm by having it implied that they’re under some sort of cultish magic spell.
Whereas the HRC supporters tend to be bickering, arguing technicalities, willing to support dirty campaigning and attempting to cheat - anything to win.
It seems to reflect the actual campaigns.
Personally, I think that HRC even being a possible nominee is such an enourmous and obvious strategy mistake on the part of the democrats that I can’t understand it. The Republicans have pissed off everyone - millions of independents are willing to go against them, apathetic democrats will show up to vote against them, and even dissatisfied republicans are willing to cross over to show their distaste of neoconservatism. The democrats practically have this election gift wrapped. The only thing they can do to lose it is to run a candidate that’s widely hated. And HRC, whether for legitimate reasons or not, is probably the most hated politician in the country.
Obama is energizing people who were otherwise apathetic, giving disaffected republicans a reason to come over, and energizing the democratic base.
That there’s even a contest makes me wonder about the strategic abilities of the democratic leadership and primary voters. It seems like half of them are trying to throw away an easy win.
Again, believe me or not but I don’t really have a stake in this - I’m speaking only in terms of political strategy.
Since Obama wasn’t well-known to most voters before campaigning in their states, inclusion of FL popular vote totals is like saying we should have just taken a national poll last year to determine the nomination based on name recognition.
And given the absence of opportunity of MI voters to even vote for Obama, to regard the MI vote as an indication of MI Dem voters’ preferences not only runs into the same problem as FL, but also that of the inability of MI voters to register a preference for Obama anyway. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is that Obama’s name was off the ballot - the vote still doesn’t represent MI voters’ preferences.
So right now, Obama’s up by something like 590,000 in the popular vote. (Would be ~100K more, but the vote wasn’t counted in a few caucus states.)
And in MI Clinton lost to the ‘uncommitted’ vote in several large counties and barely hung on against the uncommitted in several others. I wonder who those Uncommitted would vote for now?
There’s a whole shitload of women of a certain age that are for Hillary, regardless of whether they actually think she’s the best candidate or not. They’ve spent their entire lives watching rich old white men run the country, and for once there’s a viable female candidate for president; there’s a fair number of women out there who think this will be their only chance to elect a female president.
There’s talk about attacking a candidate’s strengths, and this, I think, is the major strength that Hillary has.
I truly believe we’ve now broken that barrier, thanks to Hillary. However, in the longview, this female candidate isn’t the right one for setting this precedent. If nominated, she won’t be elected, and some will equate nominating a woman to conceding defeat in the general election. This is untrue, but voters’ perception often doesn’t map too well to reality, but their votes certainly do.
The Republicans are standing back, barely controlling their laughter, licking their chops and pinching themselves, because only in a dream could the Democrats fuck up this badly. Seriously, even the most hard-bitten anti-Democrat wouldn’t have thought for a second that the Democrats could fuck up so horribly. Guess again…
Democrats, please do not underestimate the amount of Hillary hatred there is out there. Polls aren’t reflecting this very well, but it’s out there, and it’s palpable; election-swayingly palpable.
FTR, I’m not a Hillary hater, I’m just looking at America 2008 with untinted glasses. I could be wrong, and I hope I am.
Unfortunately you are 100% right. Illustrating your point, this morning on GMA a man was interviewed coming out of a Texas Primary voting station. When asked who he was voting for he said, "I’m a republican voting for Senator Clinton, because we know that getting her nominated would ensure a republican President, because McCain would have an easy time beating Clinton, than beating Barack.". I’m sure there is a live feed on the GMA website showing this guy…If this guy was even a small indicator of what’s going on in some states, people should really weigh who they want to cast their vote for and throw their weight behind.
The way it seems to me (I’d have to go read the actual wording of various rulings and whatnot to be sure about this), there were no primary elections in FL or MI. There were a bunch of people pretending to put on primary elections, but procedurally speaking there were no elections. Properly speaking, a primary election functions to seat delegates at the convention. But the FL and MI “primaries” did not have this function–there was no such function for any elections in those states to have, by a ruling of the Democratic party.
I would be okay with having delegates at the convention from FL and MI. (Even if this means my man Obama loses 
) but you can only have delegates if you have a primary or caucus. So they would need to have “new” (actually the first and only) primaries in those states.
-FrL-