Does WV matter? Not as much as it used to.
Hillary’s gonna bring jobs back to Detroit. And Cleveland, too. Plus, she’s going to stop New York from shrinking. Bitch is hot.
Okay, not the landslide [post=9798118]I dreamed of[/post] but Obama did beat Clinton in my precinct (403), 126 to 117. Yay! Back to reality now. Thanks for y’all looking in on us (especially those kind enough not to use the broadest of brushes). See ya in the Fall.
You done good, Ape.
Hey, I didn’t do nothin’ but link to it. The crew at DemConWatch did the heavy lifting - they have a GREAT site!
DCW has him up by 14 supers, and AFAICT, everyone’s got his superdelegate lead in double digits now - AP, CNN, NBC, RCP, whoever.
What part of “smoke-filled room” do you not understand? :dubious: Or “November”? Or Obama 237, McCain 290?
All this cheerleading and denouncing certainly looks fun, but at some point you have to get serious. Eyes on the prize. Dukakis and Mondale and Kerry and all that, ya know?
Liberal, kindly keep your racist cracks under better control, okay?
Hey, according to that, Obama has closed his Ohio and Florida gap to 1% in each! Woohoo! 
As I said in another thread, the current Dem vs McCain maps on Electoral-Vote are more novelty than prognostication. A sizable portion of the data is 30+ days old and the “last poll counts for all” method gives wonky results. Once he starts adding in collected data for each state, it might mean something.
Actually, if you follow your own methodology and reject Rasmussen poll numbers, Obama gets MI, WI, and NV, putting him at 269 EVs and McCain at 258 EVs.
I was just about to do that. 
That result, btw, does show Obama short of 273, doesn’t it? Did you do it for Clinton vs. McCain too? :dubious:
jophiel, do you know of any actual data that bears out the cheerleaders prediction as fact of an easy Obama electoral win ? Or is that based largely on dismissing and denouncing the sincerity and size of the Republican’s support rather than trying to understand and win it over, in the tradition of modern Democratic nominees not named Clinton?
No, but I never predicted an easy electoral landslide and I’m not interested in defending anyone else’s opinions for them. I was merely pointing out that the current Obama/Clinton vs McCain maps on Electoral-Vote aren’t a very good indicator of anything right now. The webmaster doesn’t even run them the same way as he runs the “real” maps (averaging multiple polls) which should be a hint that they’re not created with the same dedication to making a prediction. Any outlier from a polling firm he accepts will instantly throw off the maps and much of the data is old enough to be little more than an artifact in this political era.
They’re amusing to look at but don’t prove much.
Elvis, you have to realize that, after the republican nomination was cinched, many republicans registered as democrats and are now voting for Clinton because she is thought to be easier to beat in the fall because of her relationship with Bill and their whitehouse history.
Now we both know that Obama has more delegates than Hillary and has been outperforming her spectacularly in:
1-new superdelegates
2-donations
3-endorsements.
More alarmingly, several Clinton delegates switched to Obama but not conversely.
But let’s forget about delegate numbers, popular vote and momentum for now and consider only the personal achievements of both candidates. Nobody denies that hillary was the frontrunner and the likely choice. Heck, that’s what I thought 6 months ago.
Yet, Obama did great for an underdog against someone as experienced and wise as Hillary. You simply cannot ignore all the evidence and deny that he did a better job so far than she did and thus deserves the nomination more.
I’m just going to go ahead and post what Elvis will likely post. “If he’s so great, why hasn’t he won yet?”
A common meme for the rationalizers. Got any numbers to support it, though? And, even granting its existence and significance just for argument’s sake, wouldn’t it at least as fair to call it evidence that she’s better able to “cross the aisle” and attract GOP support than he is? 
Not adjectives for her we’ve been used to seeing from the cheerleading squad, hmm? Except, as in this example, when they fit into a cheer.
And there’s the problem I keep trying to bring up and which so often gets ignored or dismissed. One, it *isn’t * about the nomination, it’s about the election. The one in November is the one that matters, as Presidents Kerry, Dukakis, Mondale, and MdGovern can tell you. You have to start with the desired final result and work backward or you’re relying on hope to override fact.
Now how do you, as objectively as possible (and I’ve given enough hints), say that Obama has shown he’s more likely to win when it matters than Clinton? Or even comes close? :dubious:
Two, what does “deserving” (however you care to define it) have to do with winning? Get over it. Politics doesn’t work that way. It’s not about superior personal morality or anything so ephemeral; it’s about getting someone in office who will best pursue the policies and make the judgments you think are best for the nation, and it isn’t always a pretty sight.
I am *so * not looking forward to yet another every-fourth-November round of wondering what happened, how the people of states with a majority of EV’s could be so blind as to not see just how right we are and how much better our candidate is. Maybe you’re just not looking ahead quite that far?
I understand that the Democratic Party understands that the best way for them to drive a stake through its own heart would be to reverse the outcome of the primaries and caucuses in a smoke-filled room.
I understand that if there were a whole bunch of superdelegates who were just waiting for an opportunity to boost Hillary’s fortunes, they’ve had their opportunities - after TX/OH, after PA, after WV - to come forward and give their candidate some momentum.
Absence of evidence isn’t ironclad evidence of absence, but it sure is starting to pile up. There’s no evidence that the remaining supers are going to go for Hillary by the better than 4-1 margin they’d need to, in order to block Obama from the nomination.
Yesterday, seven Edwards delegates (1 NH, 6 SC) declared for Obama. He now has 1899 delegates, according to DCW. If Obama wins 17 of 51 KY delegates, 29 of 52 OR delegates, and the steady drip-drip-drip of 4 supers per day for Obama continues, he’ll have his 2025 delegates before the Rules and Bylaws Committee meets on May 31. You think they’ll undo a win? Me either.
What I understand is that even national polls this far out are fluky. Kerry led in the national polls for most of the summer in 2004, and the electoral map looked like a winner for him too.
The state polls are even flukier. Maps of ‘whatever the most recent poll is from each state, regardless of source’ are, quite simply, political junk food - they may be tasty, but they have no substance.
But FWIW, the national polls show Obama beating McCain - RCP’s average currently has Obama 47.2, McCain 42.8.
And the reason Hillary would be so invincible in November is…??
Right now, she looks as good as she’s ever going to look for November, because the GOP’s been holding their fire on her for months, as they make whatever small contributions they can to keep the Dem contest going. Their character assassins can do a job on anybody, up to and including Jesus Christ. There’s no clear reason to assume Hillary’s somehow more ‘electable’ than Obama.
Absent some huge and obvious electability edge for one or the other, at some point you have to toss all that out and ask, which of these two would you rather have in the White House?
You feel one way, and I respect that. But a majority of Dem primary and caucus voters have gone the other way, and that’s that.
RT - I really do wish Hillary supporters would respond to posts like yours.
There are several I have not seen around in weeks - who really liked doing the victory dance after PA. What happened? Where did they all go? 9th floor???
Well, let us Obama supporters be careful not to do a victory dance of our own. Hillary and her supporters are part of the Democratic team, same as us. We’re just picking a team captain. No point in antagonizing our friends who disagree with our choice.
We are definitely on the same team. We’ve got time to rally and I look forward to doing just that in the coming months.
Perhaps the Democratic Party could save some trouble in the future and not bother having any primaries or caucuses in any but a handful of big swing states? All you need to do is run them in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, … and sure, West Virginia cause it’s the bellweather. The rest don’t matter so why bother running them? What’s that you say? The nomination process is how we decide who is best able to win the election? Such foolishness. Clearly it is a bad process and should be ignored.
Back to the op and reality. Events have shown that the primary in West Virginia didn’t matter even with a Clinton blow-out and good turn-out, but Clinton’s actions since have mattered. For whatever reason she is playing out her hand (and we can speculate elsewhere what those reasons may or may not be) but she is behaving in a careful manner that focuses on the common goal of getting a Democrat in the White House. She of course emphasizes how she believes that she is far more electable but she is at the same time on message that she and Obama are actually not far off on matters of substance and both are very different than McCain. Her attack dogs are digging at McCain now (finding an interview in which he promoted discussions with Hamas for example). They have been called off Obama.
The manner in which the end-game is played out does have import. I can only hope that her supporters will follow her lead and understand that it is important to lose well and be prepared to pivot to a united front as the time comes. Yes, we are on the same team. Continuation of Bush’s policies via McCain is not what this country needs.
What part of “that’s what IS going to happen” do you not understand? :dubious: You can count all the public statements of support you like, but you’re still missing the point. It’s like pointing to national popular polls as evidence of electoral-college strength.
As I’ve said before, if you dismiss the only data there is, you’re free to say whatever you like.
If you don’t know by now that the President is chosen by the Electoral College, not by popular vote, then there’s not much point continuing with you, is there?
Strawman, and a typical one for you (but granted, not nearly so typical for you as for DSeid). Nobody said “invincible”. Nobody, nowhere. I’ve already pointed out to you what makes her easily the stronger candidate in November in the electoral vote.
Really, if you can’t force yourself to be serious here … well, there are other people reading, so let’s continue for their sake. One more thing all of us who have frickin’ paid attention in the last 2 elections know is the critical importance of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Look at any poll who wins in both matchups, and then try to find a way for Obama to come from behind in any of them. One can hope, sure, but hope, however audacious, is not a plan.
Hah. What have *you * been reading and watching for the last 16 years?
It isn’t an assumption. See above.
You are asserting that there is no huge and obvious electability edge for either. But the evidence says otherwise, doesn’t it?
Too bad they’re not the final deciders, then.
If “the only data there is” is suffering from major flaws, then it deserves to be dismissed. We shouldn’t make decisions based off of it just because we don’t have anything else.