Primaries

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I've been listening to both potential candidates as they rumbled through Texas this last week, and regardless of who wins today, I have to commend both O and the Hill for striking ground on HC. And regardless of who wins today, the Republicans better start thinking about how they are going to respond to this issue, no matter whom they face this Fall. If they side with the big insurance companies again they may as well start thinking about those high-paying jobs with their insurance backers, and leaving public service to the Dems.

 

I believe that was Hillary's problem the first time around. If the insurance companies are not part of the solution, there will be no solution. For that matter, the AMA should not be excluded this time either.

 

If the insurance companies get a seat at the table, you can rest assured that the AMA will get a seat, too.

 

Well, I have to admit that I have been impressed by Oprah's big O, and the Hill as they campaigned here in Texas. IMO, they are both fine candidates for the Democrats. Nevertheless, my understanding is that Rush has ordered Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary for Hillary, to make it that much harder for Obama. My understanding is that unless one votes in tonight's Democratic caucus, that the votes really don't matter much anyway. I not sure what kind of drugs he is on at the moment, but I wish Rush would share with the rest of us. I can't believe people take this guy seriously....

 

I hope this means you won't be throwing your vote away for Mr. Nader.

On a side note, McCain has managed, through his words, to offend me enough to make sure I'll be holding my nose for Clinton if she wins. While McCain's record is commendable, I have to take what he's said in order to rally his base into account, as well. There seem to be two different John McCains running for office. I would be proud to have one of them as our president. The other one scares the **** out of me.

 

I felt that way about Reagan, Drew. I never voted for him or his VP.

 

I never quite understood the appeal he has in the US. I mean, he was a very successful politician, partly due to being the US president at the right time, but I get the feeling he's practically worshiped in some circles.

 

I do think that Reagan is in some ways being underestimated, but also over glorified. It was hilarious to see nearly all of the GOP runners to invoke his name to push some buttons in the audience, a little bit as if in a prayer.

I believe that the GOP is actually happy to have McCain running and likely losing - the man is old, and physically a wreck after what the Vietnamese did to him, and after that ordeal he'll likely be out politics - one less straight talking, maverick to worry about. Well, that one is history anyway. I find his alliance with Hagee and his weaseling on torture appaling - all in order to achieve presumed 'electability' among GOPers. Yuck. I think the GOP will try to reform from a platform of opposition after McCain's electoral defeat.

As for Hillary, I would prefer her to Obama because I feel that Obama is a lightweight. Change is nice and well, but change to what? It is hardly an end in itself. What I don't quite get is the passion with which some folks support one D-candidate over the other. A while ago, after Hillary beat Obama in one of the primaries, there was some white woman, probably a college student, on tv, who sobbed softly that "at last there was hope." She meant Obama. Hope of what? The end of days? The second coming? Free lunch? What? In my view Obamamania is just that, "mania". And that I distrust.

 

Check Obama's web site and compare it to Clinton's. You'll notice that his platforms are just as detailed as hers are. Incedentally, Obama actually has more legislative experience then Clinton. If he's a lightweight, so is Clinton.

 

Wow. Clinton eeked out the win in Texas - which really surprised me. And it looks like she has won Ohio handily, by about a 10 point margin. Once you add in Rhode Island (for Clinton) and Vermont (for Obama), there is no doubt that Hillary is going to gain some ground on Barack.

I freely admit that her victories were impressive, but these victories alone will be insufficient to completely evaporate Obama's lead. Most analysts said she needed something of the order of 60-40 wins in Texas and Ohio, and she fell short of that in Ohio, and no where close to that in Texas. In fact, the real question is what happens now? Hillary's performance last night definitely means the campaign goes on. With the exception of Wyoming and Mississippi who vote in the next week, there isn't another Democratic primary until Pennsylvania votes on April 22nd. That's seven long weeks from now. So I don't know much about momentum for either canidate at this point. Can you still have momentum with no races between March 11th and April 22nd?

Hillary is definitely going to gain some ground here. The screwy way that Texas allocates delegates (OK, most states have screwy ways of allocating delegates but Texas is screwier than most others) means that it's almost impossible to predict exactly who gets what delegates. In fact, as it currently stands it looks like Obama is gonig to perform better in the caucus than he did in the primary. (How does that happen?) The best guesstimates I have seen at this point show Hillary picking up about 30 net delegates on Obama, mostly based on her win in Ohio.

 

Drew,
it's a feeling. I think that she has administrative experience and in particular experience in the national security sector that Obama lacks. Considering the mess Bush will leave behind internationally that's what counts, the next president will be tasked with cleaning out a veritable Augeas' stable. Of course there is still a lot that can go wrong.

I like Obama's recent points on Israel though. Still, I don't really trust Obama on 'change', I can't quite put my finger on why.

 

This calculator is really helpful:

Slate Delegate Calculator

The calculator is a little annoying in that the percentages it allows you to enter must equal 100%. So I have to do a little averaging. For example, it won't let me enter that Clinton won Texas 51-47, as that only totals 98%. So I had to settle for entering 52-48.

Anyway, it looks like this:

Ohio: Clinton gains 15 net delegates
Texas: Clinton gains 7 net delegates
Rhode Island: Clinton gains 3 net delegates
Vermont: Clinton loses 3 net delegates.

So according to the Slate calculator, it's a net of 22. Slate gives you a good ballpark estimate, but it assumes uniform voting throughout the state, so sometimes the final tally differs by a few delegates, so the estimate of 30 could still be accurate. I think guessing somewhere in the range of 22-30 would put you in the ballpark.

Add in superdelegates, and you get:

Obama with 1,366
Clinton with 1,230

Now who is left?

In March -

Wyoming - 12
Mississippi - 34

April -

Pennsylvania - 158

May -

Guam (???) - 4
Indiana - 72
North Carolina - 116
West Virginia - 28
Kentucky - 52
Oregon - 52

June -

Montana - 16
North Dakota - 16
Puerto Rico - 28 (???)

Now make a few assumptions. Give Hillary PA, IN, WV, and KY with 55-45 margins.
Give Obama MI, NC, OR, and ND by 55-45 margins.

I don't know who will win in WY, Guam, Monatana, or Puerto Rico, so I left them at 50-50.

Results: Obama - 1,667 Clinton - 1,543

What if Hillary does better than that and wins the above states by 60-40 margins?

Results: Obama 1,651 Clinton 1,559

The bottom line here is:

(1) Hillary is going to have a very hard time passing off Barack in pledged delegates. With proportional allocation of delegates combined with their being only 12 primaries left, the math just isn't there. However, that might not matter because...

(2) If you do a similar exercise with Obama, he STILL comes up short of the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination. In fact, even if you go into the calculator and give all the remaining primaries to one canidate with 60-40 wins in all of them, there's no way either of them are getting to 2,025 without the super delegates. This is a mess.

Oh yeah, and we're STILL going to have to figure out what to do with Florida and Michigan.

 

I'm less gracious than Obama -- just how does her experience as the First Lady equate to experience in foreign policy, national security, or presidential administration? Is it because she watched from the sidelines?

I was really hoping Obama would put the nail in the coffin yesterday.

 

Last night was nauseating. Two weeks ago, HRC had 20 point leads in both states. Obama managed to close that gap significantly, but not quite enough. Despite the impressive gap closing, it's still a "win" for the Clintons. Now this thing is going to drag on and on, despite the fact that HRC can't possibly win - the electoral math don't lie - unless Obama screws up really, really badly in the next few weeks. I think I speak for a large swath of America when I say: awe, for f**k's sake, enough already.

Remember Terminator 2? It was on TV the other day. First time I'd seen it in over a decade. That liquid-metal terminator, you shoot him in the face, with a glock, shotgun, machine gun, run him over, blow him up in a semi, drench him in liquid nitrogen and shatter him into a million pieces...the son of a bitch just keeps coming. I had some major deja-vu last night watching the returns. During her victory speech last night I kept expecting her to hold up a picture of Eddie Furlong and say "Have you seen this boy?"

Let's hope Obama can put one of Pennsylvania's many steel smelters to good use.

 

T2,
you underestimate, and strongly so, Ms. Clinton's foreign policy experience. She got foreign policy briefings ever since she entered the Whitehouse, and continued to get them after she left. She had a strong influence on the Kosovo war and was actively involved in the US side of politics about it. Most importantly, she'll bring a group of adults in charge.

Ah, I re-found the link It's Spengler's analysis on Obama. To add that, I find Spengler's view plausible, and he usually is pretty astute in his observations. If Spengler is right Obama is a leftist (forget about that Muslim crap Fox tells about him), and a pretty radical one, just that he is quiet about it. He's a guy who has risen through the ranks to reform a system (or country?) he hates - to change it from within, to change America from the top. 'The march through the institutions' to get into a position of power to affect change is what Germany's radical left of the late 60s called it. Obama would then be a social engineer. He is far more radical than Hillary. T2, get over your apparent Clinton-aversion, because you should fear Obama more.

 

The first lady has NO security clearance, Ragusa. She didn't get the same foreign policy briefings as her husband or any other elected official during her time in the White House. After she left, she became a Senator and only then gained security clearance.

No one's saying she has NO experience. But you over-estimate, and strongly so, said experience (and more to the point, so does HRC). If proximity equaled experience and qualification, Tiger Woods' wife would sweep the LPGA tour every year.

 

You keep forgeting about Michigan and Florida. Now the Dems will have to give them their say. A special election at both states is in order to settle the matter, IMO

 

Now THAT is the most reasonable solution out there. Of course, I'm not sure it would do much good to settle the issue. Florida's large senior population would likely vote for Hillary, while the fairly large black population in Michigan (especially Detroit) would go for Obama.

Still, I'm very uncomfortable with disenfranchising millions of voters, so anything that gives them a say, even if it does little to settle the issue at hand, would be good. The only thing I'm opposed to is just giving all the electoral votes to Hillary, especially in Michigan, where Obama wasn't even on the ballot.

But that's just the thing DR, despite the fact that the gap closed, Hillary did in fact win both Ohio and Texas. And picked up some delegates. The thing that is depressing is that the wins guarantee that this drags on at least another seven weeks until PA now. (The only other states to go between now and then are Wyoming and Mississippi, and neither canidate is going to base the future of their campaign on those two states, regardless of the outcome.)

You are right that the math isn't there for Hillary to win more pledged delegates than Obama, without making some really extreme assumptions about how people will vote. However, I think one thing you are missing is that Obama isn't going to hit the magic 2,025 number either without super delegates. That's why I think it may be wise to hold a special election in Michigan and Florida. I favor Obama, but I want the will of the people to be reflected, and not of 48 states, but all 50. Especially when the two states in question will likely be swing states this fall.

 

Ragusa,

I've seen Obama FOR YEARS. I don't know who this "Spengler" is, but the article is way off base. Do you really think such accusations would not have hit the news here already if they were true? Obama's career (let alone his campaign) would have been over long ago. Chicago is quite well known for it's ruthlessness in politics -- he would have been destroyed here. The Clinton excavation team would have come up with supporting evidence by now as well.

"Group of adults in charge"? Please, don't be so patronizing. All the candidates will do that.

Obama has been smart to stay out of the experience argument, because I believe many people (including you as DR stated) over-emphasize her role during her husband's presidency. I don't fear any of the candidates, I just have no confidence in Clinton's abilities to lead. Sorry, to me she's gone a long way over a stained dress.

Edit:
Aldeth/Chandos: Counting Michigan and Florida would be equivalent to the democratic party shouting out "we were wrong" at the top of their lungs. It would be sending a message that the party itself cannot abide by its own edicts and is willing to change the rules whenever things get tough -- a point that McCain will drive into the hearts of the democratic party. If they give in to the people of Michigan and Florida (and Hillary), the republicans will win this election.

I like Chandos' idea, but I think it would be disastrous for the democratic party. So, please ... forward that to the party.

 

Says who? I've always taken them into account. Hillary broke the rules she agreed to by trying to get them seated, but with the race in the state that it's in, MI and FL almost have to be factored in now. Even with them seated as they stand, she's still behind by a large margin. Re-doing the primaries in both states actually favors Obama, since this time he'll, like, be on the ballot. Plus, it would once and for all make those elections fair, and I agree that they should all count. That said, it was MI and FL who created this situation by defying DNC rules, and for them to count now it would require the DNC capitulating to the very people who broke their rules in the first place, so I don't know that it's terribly likely. I think the DNC should stand firm and HRC should stop trying to game the system whenever she doesn't like the outcome and praising it when it favors her.