What will Clinton do if she loses to Obama? Continue being a Senator?

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=DrDeth]

Ok, in Nebraska Obama won 15 of 31 votes (some are undecided). How is that “blowing her away”? In LA, Ob has 31 of 66.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
In OK, Hil won 24 of 38. NY 139 Clinton to 93 Obama. Arkansas- Hil 3 times as many delegates, now that is “blowing away”. Obama did win his home state, but only by 2x.

Hillary still leads in the overall count. Not by much., sure but as long as she is leading, Obama is not “blowing her away”. A very very tight race is not anyone blowing anyone away.
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Barack Obama’s margins of victory [ul][li]62%[/li][li]49%[/li][li]48%[/li][li]36%[/li][li]35%[/li][li]35%[/li][li]34%[/li][li]34%[/li][li]32%[/li][li]29%[/li][li]25%[/li][li]22%[/li][li]17%[/li][li]14%[/li][li]11%[/li][li]8%[/li][li]4%[/li][li]1%[/ul] Hillary Clinton’s margins of victory [ul][*]43%[/li][li]24%[/li][li]17%[/li][li]15%[/li][li]13%[/li][li]10%[/li][li]10%[/li][li]8%[/li][li]6%[/li][li]3%[/ul] source[/li]
Note that she only surpassed him by more than 20% in 2 contests, and neither of those was the state she represents in the Senate!

Obama, on the other hand, has blown her away in 11 states, with more than a 25% margin. She hasn’t even won that many states, let alone won the ones she has by that kind of margin.

Feel free to keep grasping at total delegate numbers, because very soon they won’t lean your way anymore anyway. Even as of this morning, Obama was within 2 delegates, including the superdelegates; Clinton 1,122 / Obama 1,120. source

So the pledged delegates – you know, the ones that are distributed based on what the voters want – are overwhelmingly in favor of Barack Obama; 983 vs 911.

And that’s not taking into consideration that there are still 48 pledged delegates that have not been allocated in states that have already held their caucuses and primaries. Only 4 of those delegates are outstanding in states that Hillary won, one is in New Mexico which hasn’t been decided, and the other 43 are in states Obama won, and that he won with considerable margins, such as Colorado, Illinois and Georgia.

82

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by a margin of 18% in Maine today. A state where even as of yesterday, it was thought that Hillary might have the advantage. Let’s not forget that just a few months ago, he was trailing her by as much as 37 points!

His win there tips the scales for total delegates, including superdelegates, in favor of Obama, 1134 to Hillary’s 1131.

It’s the first time in this contest that he has pulled ahead even when including the superdelegates, and the wind is at his back. As he continues to rack up endorsements, additional superdelegates and pledged delegates in every state he wins, that gap will continue to broaden, so that there will be no need for a brokered convention. It will be Obama’s fully and fairly.

83

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]

  1. You mean RFK, and 2. You don’t know that, and 3. Even if true, she’d *hardly * be the first :dubious:, and 4. and hasn’t Obama done pretty much the same thing?

Wow … she wants to be President !!! She’ll even do what it takes to win it!!! Unforgivable! Intolerable!!!

Come on now, people. :rolleyes:
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  1. No, being senator was not nearly as gift-wrapped for him as it was for Hillary

Its not that she’ll do what it takes to win, its that it seems like she will do WHATEVER it takes to win. She probably gets more heat for her unbridled ambition than a man would get but Obama doesn’t really try to bank on his race as much as Hillary tries to bank on her gender.

84

Evidence for that contention being what?

85

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
Evidence for that contention being what?
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Targeted mailings to female voters?

86

[QUOTE=Shayna]
So the pledged delegates – you know, the ones that are distributed based on what the voters want – are overwhelmingly in favor of Barack Obama; 983 vs 911.
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I love your enthusiasm and I definitely prefer Obama to Clinton, but in terms of the pledged delegates, Obama leads by about 52 percent to 48 percent. And that’s with about half the delegates still out there. McCain’s lead over Huckabee might be described as overwhelming, but not this.

That said, I’m sure you believe Obama is building up some big-time momentum, and I agree.

87

[QUOTE=Marley23]
I love your enthusiasm and I definitely prefer Obama to Clinton, but in terms of the pledged delegates, Obama leads by about 52 percent to 48 percent. And that’s with about half the delegates still out there. McCain’s lead over Huckabee might be described as overwhelming, but not this.

That said, I’m sure you believe Obama is building up some big-time momentum, and I agree.
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Overwhelming may be a stretch in terms of overall percentage, but not in terms of the difficulty of overcoming that gap. Putting aside superdelegates, if Clinton is going to net 72 pledged delegates then something unexpected will need to happen. She will have to win Texas *and *Ohio in landslides to net that many delegates, and she will be even further behind by that time.

88

[QUOTE=Marley23]
I love your enthusiasm and I definitely prefer Obama to Clinton, but in terms of the pledged delegates, Obama leads by about 52 percent to 48 percent. And that’s with about half the delegates still out there. McCain’s lead over Huckabee might be described as overwhelming, but not this.
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In some senses, Huckabee has better odds because the Republican primaries are all winner-takes-all meaning that each state Huckabee wins is a full pot of delegates for himself. Not that I think he has a chance in reality.

Democratic primaries are proportional so Clinton needs to win by large numbers to secure a lead over Obama. If she effectively ties, the delegates get split pretty evenly and she won’t be able to make up the gap. This ignores the almost certain delegate wins Obama will take from Maryland, DC, Virginia, Hawaii and probably Wisconsin (did I miss any?). Wisconsin is the only one of those shaping up to possibly be close.

89

[QUOTE=Jophiel]
In some senses, Huckabee has better odds because the Republican primaries are all winner-takes-all meaning that each state Huckabee wins is a full pot of delegates for himself. Not that I think he has a chance in reality.
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No, not all of the Republican primaries are winner-take-all. Many of them are proportional.

90

[QUOTE=Richard Parker]
Overwhelming may be a stretch in terms of overall percentage, but not in terms of the difficulty of overcoming that gap. Putting aside superdelegates, if Clinton is going to net 72 pledged delegates then something unexpected will need to happen. She will have to win Texas *and *Ohio in landslides to net that many delegates, and she will be even further behind by that time.
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But there is absolutely no reason to put aside superdelegates. :dubious: That’s like a Clinton-ite saying “putting aside the states where Obama won…”

Yes, Obama is now 3 delegates ahead. But a little while when Hillary was 30 votes ahead, all the Obama-ista’s said it didn’t matter. :rolleyes:

Maryland (99) & Virginia (101) do look like Obama will win more votes than Hillary. In Wisc (92), Clinton is very ahead, but the data is rather stale. However, Texas (228) and Ohio (161) both have a lot of delegates, and the most recent polls there show Hillary way ahead. This may change, and it will, of course. Source for all this is Realclearpolitics.

Franckly at this point in time, the small states don’t count for much. A landslide in North Dakota (13, where Obama won 8) isn’t worth as much as a solid but non-landslide victory in California (207 Clinton, 163 Obama). Obama would have to have 14 Landslides in smaller states to equal one solid victory in a CA.

It’s an interesting and close election. I am watching it all with interest, and hoping it’ll be a deadlock and they’ll turn to Gore. :smiley: :smiley:

91

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Leiberman was somewhat unusual because he was running for election for two different offices simultaneously. His senate seat came up for re-election in 2000, the same year he was nominated for Vice-President. So he knew he would have to resign at least one of the offices he was running for…
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LBJ in 1960 and Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 both took advantage of a Texas law permitting them to appear on the same state ballot both for their Senate reelection campaign and as a candidate for VP.

As to the OP: I suspect Hillary Clinton will continue to serve as a U.S. senator as long as the voters of New York want her to. From all I’ve read, I can’t think of anything else she’d rather be doing than be involved in politics, power and prestige.

92

[QUOTE=spoke-]
No, not all of the Republican primaries are winner-take-all. Many of them are proportional.
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Whoops. Color me wrong then. I hadn’t been following the Red side oif the race too closely and apparently I misunderstood something down the line.

93

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
But there is absolutely no reason to put aside superdelegates. :dubious: That’s like a Clinton-ite saying “putting aside the states where Obama won…”
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Absolutely no reason, except the entire context of our discussion (hint: we were debating the applicability of the word “overwhelming” as applied to the lead among *pledged *delegates).

94

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Franckly at this point in time, the small states don’t count for much. A landslide in North Dakota (13, where Obama won 8) isn’t worth as much as a solid but non-landslide victory in California (207 Clinton, 163 Obama). Obama would have to have 14 Landslides in smaller states to equal one solid victory in a CA.
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On the other hand, Clinton’s solid victory in CA (+44 delegates) was countered by the wins in Washington, Lousiana and Nebraska (28+12+8). New York & Jersey (46+11) were largely negated by the much greater margins in Illinois (55), etc. Those greater margins are causing a significant add-up. Now, with Obama in the lead, if he scores significant wins in VA, MD, DC, HI (expected to do very well in all four) and does well in WI those are all a bulwark against “solid” victories in Texas and Ohio. If she does well, the score goes back to tied. If she fails to pull off decent margins there eliminating Obama’s Feb. gains, she’s out of luck.

Texas and Ohio are her last likely chance to score major delegates. If she fails there, I’m not sure Dean will want to drag this out to Pennsylvania.

95

[QUOTE=Richard Parker]
Absolutely no reason, except the entire context of our discussion (hint: we were debating the applicability of the word “overwhelming” as applied to the lead among *pledged *delegates).
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I wasn’t. Who gives a rat’s ass about what kind of delegates as long as you win?? :rolleyes: :confused: Not the context of “our” discussion. Maybe of *your *discussion.

96

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
I wasn’t. Who gives a rat’s ass about what kind of delegates as long as you win?? :rolleyes: :confused: Not the context of “our” discussion. Maybe of *your *discussion.
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What are you on about? Shayna, Marley23, and I were explicitly discussing pledged delegates.

I would not, and I think they would not, apply “overwhelming” to the total delegate count.

97

[QUOTE=Richard Parker]
What are you on about? Shayna, Marley23, and I were explicitly discussing pledged delegates. .
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Err, have you read the OP? Phlosphr: *"Do you think Clinton will run for re-election if she loses to Obama? Do you think she will go back to NY not go for re-election and write another book - Annuls of an historic March or something to that effect? I wonder about her wont to be in Washington if she doesn’t get the nomination…The old ties that broke - the failed allegiances. She’s not like a Kerry who can go back to normal…She’s a pillar of an old dynasty - and actually I like the woman. But I wonder where she will go after all of this is over - if she loses…

If a loss occurs - and it’s trending that way now - what kind of a blow to the Clinton’s ego would this be? Am I reading this all wrong and a loss won’t effect them at all? My sense is that a loss would deeply effect her, what I am wondering is how it would effect her, and what would she do?"*

Where does the OP mention “pledged delegates”? :confused: Are the three of you having a little private discussion all by yourselves?

98

If only there were some means by which you could go back and check what I was responding to specifically. Alas, one day we’ll have such technology.

And to be clear, I’m not saying you can’t respond to my remark, or that I want some kind of closed, private discussion. I’m just asking that you understand the context by, you know, reading the thread.

No hard feelings.

99

[QUOTE=Richard Parker]

What are you on about? Shayna, Marley23, and I were explicitly discussing pledged delegates.

I would not, and I think they would not, apply “overwhelming” to the total delegate count.
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Actually this all started when he accused me of “reach[ing] for anything” and “stretch[ing] the facts” for merely anticipating a “landslide” victory in Nebraska.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, that Nebraska. The one he overwhelmingly won 68% to Clinton’s paltry 32% of the vote. I’d say that fits the definition of a landslide without question.

Then when DSeid suggested he might have been missing my point, and further expounded with, “HRC has won a few big states and those were not blow-outs. Meanwhile across the country, from Louisiana to Nebraska, Obama is blowing her away,” he went a little ballistic about Nebraska again, concluding that “Obama is not “blowing her away””.

You’ll note that in the face of the indisputable evidence I provided by posting the margins of victory each candidate has achieved, he completely ignored it and suddenly started talking about superdelegates. Of course no one had claimed that he was blowing her away in superdelegates, but that’s neither here nor there apparently.

And now he wants to remind us what the subject of the OP was. What relevance that has to this little side string, I have no idea, but I guess it makes for a nice diversion. Meantime, I’ll just go back to celebrating yet another blow out victory in Maine!