Primaries

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I agree with you on two points: Hillarys blunders and it wasn't that bad. It is, unfortunately, the kind of language that can easily be taken out of context.

As for "the Republican spin machine", I'm not sure they want to hurt Obama too much. I still believe they would rather face him than Hillary.

 

That ARG poll is an outlier. The three polls with the most reliable track record this year - Quinnipiac, Rasmussen, and Survey USA - all show no difference. Same with Gallup, though Gallup hasn't been as reliable. Any gains losses for Obama were countered by those who feel Hillary badly overplayed her hand on this one.

Sorry to disappoint, guys - but if 4 days of this story dominating the news cycle and Hillary jumping in front of every microphone she could to bring this up didn't even make a dent in Obama's numbers in PA, and in fact his national lead over Hillary is now the highest it's ever been (11%), I think it's safe to say that most of the country saw this as the non-issue that it was. This really was an absurd blip on so many levels. Any honest observer can read what Obama said and understand what he meant, despite how it came off (and I do admit it came off badly). Other candidates have said far worse and received a 10th of the sh*t for it that Obama has for this.

The silly, it burns us, precious.

Edit:

I hope you're right, because I couldn't possibly disagree more. There are entire warehouses full of anti-Hillary oppo-research just itching to see the light of day. I think hers would make the for the ugliest presidential campaign in any of our lifetimes.

ps - Nice to see you around, Jack.

 

I have to agree with what others are saying. Obama's comments weren't that bad. As someone who spent the first 26 years of his life in a small blue-collar town in Pennsylvania, I can tell you first hand that characterizing Pennsylvanians as a bunch of gun-toting, god-fearing simple people isn't that far off the mark. The comparison fails in the Philadelphia area, but it's pretty spot on when you look at the rest of PA - which is mostly rural. Any Pennsylvanian who performs an honest assessment of his home state would likely come to the same conclusion.

However, I would still be cautious about the poll results. Most of the poll results coming out today cover a period both before and after the comments became public. The fact that they haven't budged does look good so far, but I don't think we'll be able to come to any definite conclusions before PA votes next Tuesday.

One thing does bug me a little. In Ohio, Obama steadily cut into Clinton's lead. It started out as an 18-point Clinton advantage, and by the day before the Ohio primary, it was down to 4 points. Yet Clinton won Ohio by 10 points. That was really surprising, because in most other primaries up to that point, Obama was out-performing the polls. There was no really good explanation for why in that instance he seriously under-performed the polls.

There is a little doubt in me about the accuracy of the poll numbers we see coming out of PA - that we might be seeing the same thing happening in PA as happened in OH. That the final tally will turn into a double-digit Hillary win. While I have no doubt that Hillary is in this for the duration - and indeed I don't have a problem for her waiting for every last vote to be cast - I really don't want her to make this thing interesting.

 

One caveat to what I said earler: I'm afraid of a strike three. Meaning - if Obama experiences another kerfluffle like this that is race related, whether it's that he says something that can be construed badly, or doesn't say enough when something arises, then it could appear like a pattern. Wright, plus "bitter-gate," plus ________ = Obama's an elitist snob racist smoker person, or whatever. He needs to be extremely careful from here on out. I really can't believe this is even an issue, honestly - it's so god damn stupid. His comments were basically right, it's only the DC chattering class and the press looking for red meat that are up in arms about what he said. Even Clinton's own supporters have heckled her for bringing it up at campaign stops, for Pete's sake.

I predict* that Clinton will take PA by about 5-8 points, which considering she had a 25 point lead there less than a month ago, is quite a hit. Also - it's estimated that even in the rosiest of scenarios Clinton is expected to pick up 53 delegates and Obama 50. All this for a difference of 3 delegates, and she'll almost certainly lose the next 3 big contests. It'll be like Texas all over again, I think. It would be nice if Obama could eek out a win in PA, but I don't see it happening. He did what he needed to do - which was prevent HRC from having the huge victory she would have had a month ago.

* My track record for predictions is, shall we say, muttled.

 

I'm glad you brought that up, DR. While I'm sure you are aware of this, seeing as how you live in Texas, many people may not realise that while Hillary won the popular vote in Texas, Obama actually walked away from Texas with 5 more pledged delegates than Hillary. This is because of the screwed up system Texas uses, in which a primary and a caucus take place on the same day. Clinton won a slim victory in the primary, while Obama won the caucus that took place later that evening. The final tally when the pledged delegates from both the primary and caucus are added together - Obama 99, Clinton 94.

I should also point out that I don't think it is particularly fair the way the Texas system works. I do not think it is fair that someone can win the popular vote and yet receive fewer delegates. I'm of the opinion that if you're using a system of proportional allocation of delegates that the delegates are ... you know... proportional.

As an aside, even though the Democratic party uses proportional allocation of delegates in all of its primaries and caucuses, I'm having a damn hard time trying to find how it's proportional. In each case (regardless of whether Hillary or Barack won the state) the loser receives a greater percentage of delegates than the percentage of people who voted for him/her.

MSNBC keeps a running tally of earned delegates by state.

While there are few instances as bad as Texas where the "loser" gets more delegates (the only other case is Nevada), every single state the loser appears to get more than his/her fair share of delegates. To use a completely fictional example, if a state had 100 delegates, and a candidate won the primary 60%-40%, I would expect the winner to get 60 delegates and the loser to get 40 delegates. But the way it usually works out in a case like that is the winner gets more like 55 delegates and the loser gets 45 delegates, which makes no sense. It seems like the process is actually designed to lead to what we have here - a protracted primary fight where it is difficult for one candidate to secure the nomination early, unless they are so popular that there is little competition.

At first, I like the proportional allocation idea, but I'm not sure I still do. Afterall, the electoral college (which is used in the presidential election) is a winner-take-all system. It does make some sense to use a Republican style winner-take-all primary since that's the system that is used in the general election. That, or have the electoral college use proportional allocation of its voters.

 

Yes, Texas is goofier than a wooden watch.

 

I just think that consistency between the primary and general elections would be logical. I don't see anything wrong with people of a congressional district getting to choose their elector per se. The issue is they get to do it in the primary, but not in the general.

And, while I understand this was not the point you were making, congressional district apportionment is insufficient to explain the difference between the percentage a candidate gets in the popular vote compared to the percentage of delegates awarded.

 

Which is more damaging?

Hillary lying about dodging bullets to make herself look heroic?

Obama's comments about blue collar Pennsylvanians?

Obama's refusal to publicly and permanently dissassociate himself from his pastor?

I'm not sure which will annoy the American public more. Though in the recent past it seems Obama has made more mistakes!

 

In a rational world, the former would doom the candidacy of any candidate and the latter two would be dismissed as the trivialities that they are. In a rational world. But this is America.

Incidentally, Obama's "bitter" comments have so far shown no effect on his numbers in Pennsylvania at all, while Hillary's constant harping on it has only served to solidify her negative numbers. In the general they might make some difference, but like I said, it appears most voters see it as the triviality that it is.

 

Oh, right. Well, it depends the viewers of which network you ask .

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, Obama distanced himself from those particular comments, and the pastor in general, and the Wright situation should be a closed case. Give the guy a break. What should he do, start pelting the Rev's front door with rotten tomatoes and organize a lynching party? And for that matter, just because a preacher makes politically incorrect statements every now and then, or subscribes to a conspiracy theory or two, does not mean they are a fiend in human skin that should be pilloried in front of the White House. Yeesh. Freedom of opinion equals freedom to dissent from the popular opinion, and that is what the pastor did. He could be wrong, sure, but the way everyone went "Omigosh!" was almost comical.

Same for the Pennsylvania comment - unless someone here is willing to prove xenophobia and racism have nothing in common with the urban poor, which will be quite the task. It might not have been as PC as possible, it might have been the wrong thing to say (like it's the first mistake a major candidate makes) but an Earth-splitting show of snobish elitism it ain't, no matter how much Hillary or McCain (give him time, his staff won't forget that incident) may pimp it. Same for Hillary's Bosnia experience. The woman may exagerate - not like she hasn't done it before - but the issue was way overblown.

 

DR,

Actually, I'd say all of those are non-issues. If anything is an issue for Hillary, it is that Mark Penn and Bill are both pro-free trade deals (most notably with Columbia) but she is trying to paint herself as the opposite, because NAFTA isn't too popular in the Rust Belt. (It is kind of ironic that she doesn't get called on this obvious pander. NAFTA was one of Bill's biggest accomplishments and has had economic benefits for a lot of states that border the Gulf of Mexico, but has hurt the Rust Belt. During her eight years in the Senate, Hillary has consistently voted to support and even expand NAFTA every chance she got, so it's willfull suspension of disbelief if you agree that she is in any way anti-NAFTA.)

But regarding the issues - it was very dumb for Hillary to make the sniper comment. I don't know why she would do so. The fact that she had already written about it in a book, and her statement was contrary to what was in there made fact checking very easy. Was she looking for street cred?

The Rev Wright issue is the biggest non-issue I've ever heard of. While this will be the item that the Republican smear machine will swiftboat the **** out of, I don't know anyone who can say that they agree with 100% of what their pastor/priest/rabbi/mullah says in their church/synagogue/mosque on Sunday. I've recently gone back to the Catholic Church (I feel that the only way my infant son can make an informed decision to reject religion as I have, is to at least initially expose him to it). But one of my main reasons for leaving the Church in the first place was I disagreed with a lot of the view I heard in church.

The one issue that Obama-critics were right to point out was the "bitter" comments. Those weren't from someone else's mouth. It is reasonable to ask a candidate to clarify and explain any statement that can be misinterpreted. I think his explanation was fine, and that should be the end of it. While I personally didn't think his comments were elitist (and as I said I don't think many Pennsylvanians did either), Obama had to come out and tackle that issue immediately, because if you let it go you risk it taking on a life of it's own. I becomes a myth that is repeated so much that it becomes truth to most people.

 

As for free trade and NAFTA, that's being pointed out a lot in the conservative circles (you know, the ones that REALLY don't like Hillary ). I expect to see it come up if she takes the nomination.

As for the gaffes these candidates have made, I think it does reflect to some degree. While I certainly won't support censoring the candidates, that's not what this is about. We aren't argueing about who has the right to say what. We're talking about who the American people will vote for to next lead the country.

To that effect, while liers are pretty common on Capitol Hill, incompetent ones usually don't last long. The fact that this blew up in Hillary's face so easily won't sit well with those familiar with politics, and the fact that she 'misspoke' at all won't sit well with those that don't. As to Obama's issues, I don't think there's anything he could do about the Rev.'s statements. He'd already established himself as a good friend, frequent attendee, and general supporter of the Rev., so turning around at this point would be impossible. As for the impact on the election, it hints that he may share some, or even many, of those same views. The same goes for his statements in Penn.

All of these events reflect poorly on the candidates' ability to represent and understand the common American people, and they represent poor decisions on the candidates' parts. The question is, how will they stack up to each other and to McCain's blunders, which I guarantee you there will be some at some point. If not, McCain's the Devil.

 

McCain has already had his share of verbal blunders (I'm surprised you haven't noticed). He's twice said that Al Queda is a Shiite organizaiton, supported by Iran (demonstrably false).

Most of the people that think some individual comment makes a candidate unable to represent or understand the "common man" are usually the same people who would not typically vote for that person anyway.

For example, most people that would bash Hillary for the sniper fire comment, or would bash Barack for the "bitter" comment, are mostly people who are planning on voting for McCain in November anyway. Similarly, the people who call McCain senile for not understanding basic Shia-Sunni relations in the Middle East, even though he is supposedly running on a platform of strong foreign relations, are likely people who think we should get out of Iraq, and are thus voting for whomever ends up on the Democratic ticket anyway.

FULL DISCLAIMER: I still say if the Dems cannot win this November they should disband as a party. You're running against a guy who has no plan for an economy that's likely already in or now entering a recession, and is intent on furthering an unpopular war that will cost more dollars and lives. If they lose this time, I'm really going to consider moving to Canada.

 

You can crash at my place, Aldeth! It's a little chilly up here some days but you'll like it

Was Mccain's comment just a slip of the tongue? Or do you think he knowingly said something that wasn't true?

 

Well, given that he said it TWICE on separate days (it's not like the two slip-ups were in the same speech), it implies actual lack of knowledge on the subject. To me, that's at least a big of a blunder as Hillary or Barack, because that opinion may actually shape foreign policy. It's almost as bad as when people attempted to describe to Bush the differences between Shias and Sunnis, and he replied, "I thought they were all Muslims."

 

Oh yeah, the image of Lieberman whispering into his ear when he made one of his blunders was a rather telling one. Obama and Clinton might have said a few words wrong, but McCain might actually lead both of them in terms of gaffes.

Then again, it didn't stop Bush Jr.

 

So it looks like Clinton will win PA with about an 8 point margin, which I think is what was expected.

Clinton spin - "I kicked his ass like I knew I would!"

Obama spin - "She barely won, just like I predicted!"

Oh yeah, this primary really helped to settle things.

 

Yeah, I can honestly say I don't like any of the candidates. I actually hadn't heard McCain's blunder there, but I'm not surprised. I actually think, no matter who takes the presidency, this nation's in for a rocky four years. I'll probably vote based on vice-presidents, just so I can hope that something happens to the pres. (nothing too bad, mind you, just enough to let the vice take over). Of course, they could all pick bad running mates, too.

 

Can't you vote for the VP seperately from the President?