News US Presidential Primaries, 2008

[mathwonk]

its all relative of course. one of my old teachers, a traditional hindu yogi, always took it as a great compliment to be compared to a monkey, since hanuman the monkey god, was his favorite deity and a great warrior.

 

[lisab]

Edwards endorses Obama:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/14/edwards.obama/index.html

Timed to blunt Clinton's WV victory, perhaps? So after Kentucky, maybe we'll see Gore get on board...? Idle speculation...

 

[turbo]

Edwards for VP? I'd like to vote for that ticket.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I did a quick calculation and found the following. Take the states and D.C. that have voted already (excluding Florigan) and give to Clinton the electoral college votes from the states that she won, and give to Obama the electoral college votes from the states that he won. I get:

Clinton 256
Obama 207

I worked very fast and I might have slipped up somewhere, but if not, then perhaps the delegate distribution is by population, whereas in the electoral college it is not. Clinton has a strong case here, but she needs to see it.

 

[Vanadium 50]

delegate distribution is by population, whereas in the electoral college it is not. Clinton has a strong case here, but she needs to see it.

Oh, she sees it all right. Her allies have been making this argument for a while. Probably ever since she fell behind on the whatever the last metric they told us to use was.

I don't see the relevance here. Does anyone seriously think that Massachusetts will go to McCain over Obama because Clinton beat Obama there? For that matter, does anyone seriously think Utah will go to Obama over McCain because Obama beat Clinton there?

 

[Gokul43201]

I did a quick calculation and found the following. Take the states and D.C. that have voted already (excluding Florigan) and give to Clinton the electoral college votes from the states that she won, and give to Obama the electoral college votes from the states that he won. I get:

Clinton 256
Obama 207

I worked very fast and I might have slipped up somewhere, but if not, then perhaps the delegate distribution is by population, whereas in the electoral college it is not.

Did you give Texas to Clinton or Obama?

Clinton has a strong case here, but she needs to see it.

There is no case here. The primary season is decided by delegates, and if it were based on something else, the campaigns would have changed strategies accordingly.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The entire argument depends on the notion that democrats will vote for McCain rather than Obama, and some will, but not many. Passions are high now but that will pass, and far more Reps will vote for Obama than Dems that vote for McCain.

This race is over.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Here is an interesting twist: Most pundits say that a terrorist attack will help McCain, but I think not. If we don't see an attack, it helps Obama because it helps to focus the race on the economy. And since the terrorists know this, and attack must mean that they want McCain to win, so an attack helps Obama as well. Of course it doesn't really matter because Obama showed today that he can blow-out McCain on foreign policy as well.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Did you give Texas to Clinton or Obama?

There is no case here. The primary season is decided by delegates, and if it were based on something else, the campaigns would have changed strategies accordingly.

I gave it to Clinton because that's how the popular vote went. I was trying to emulate the general election. But no matter. If you give Texas to Obama, then present the same argument in Obama's favor.

I don't agree that the decision will be made by the delegates, but rather by the superdelegates. Clinton's only hope now is to persuade them and her argument up till now has been that she is more electable. So far, that hasn't worked for her.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

At any rate, the result in West Virginia shows that Obama needs Clinton to stay in the race. After all, what would it have looked like if she had dropped out before WV? Do you think he could have broken 50% running against nobody?

 

[BobG]

I did a quick calculation and found the following. Take the states and D.C. that have voted already (excluding Florigan) and give to Clinton the electoral college votes from the states that she won, and give to Obama the electoral college votes from the states that he won. I get:

Clinton 256
Obama 207

I worked very fast and I might have slipped up somewhere, but if not, then perhaps the delegate distribution is by population, whereas in the electoral college it is not. Clinton has a strong case here, but she needs to see it.

The distribution of delegates are determined roughly by how many Democrats are in the state, not the total population. Likewise for Republican distributions.

Dems have 4050 delegates (not counting MI & FL) while Rep have 2382. With penalties, this doesn't give a perfect idea of the difference, but there's about 1.7 times as many Dem delegates than Rep delegates.

In Texas, there's 228 Dem and 140 Rep delegates - a 1.6 ratio because the state is more Republican than Democratic.

In New York, there's 281 Dem and 101 Rep delegates - a 2.8 ratio because the state is heavily Democratic.

In Wyoming, there's 18 Dem and 14 Rep delegates - a 1.3 ratio because the state is heavily Republican.

It helps balance out the race. Winning the Democratic primary in Wyoming is meaningless because a Republican will win the state in the general election. Of course, winning New York is almost as meaningless since a Democrat will almost surely win the general election in that state regardless of who the nominee is.

 

[Astronuc]

Interview with Jesse Ventura, third-party candidate and former Gov. of Minnesota.

Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, May 17, 2008 · Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90548512

Ventura makes an interesting observation that three senators are running for president, so they are getting paid for a job they are not performing.

 

[russ_watters]

There is no case here. The primary season is decided by delegates, and if it were based on something else, the campaigns would have changed strategies accordingly.

Yes, Clinton is trying the same change-the-rules-in-the-middle-of-the-game approach that Gore supporters used to use when he "won the popular vote" against Bush in 2000. If they want to change it for next time, fine, but to circumvent their own rules now would be a very bad thing.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

to circumvent their own rules now would be a very bad thing.

I can see it now:

They can't stand up to Iran and North Korea, they can't even stand up to Florida and Michigan. I'm Jon McCrane and I disapprove of this farce of a party.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

72,000 people showed up to see Obama in Oregon yesterday.

 

[lisab]

72,000 people showed up to see Obama in Oregon yesterday.

I saw that on the news - the crowd was crazy-huge! Did you go, Ivan?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I saw that on the news - the crowd was crazy-huge! Did you go, Ivan?

No, I've been buried with work so I haven't made any of the events. I was tempted to try for Eugene a few weeks ago until I saw that the lines were forming at 5AM for a 9PM speech.

 

[chemisttree]

Here is an interesting twist: Most pundits say that a terrorist attack will help McCain, but I think not. If we don't see an attack, it helps Obama because it helps to focus the race on the economy. And since the terrorists know this, and attack must mean that they want McCain to win, so an attack helps Obama as well. Of course it doesn't really matter because Obama showed today that he can blow-out McCain on foreign policy as well.

An attack could also be construed as yet another Republican failure. Of course the non-attack could be seen to help the Republicans. Obama could blow-out McCain on foriegn policy if only he could somehow negotiate a peace accord with some particularly nasty terrorists, say like Hamas. Yeah, that's it! He could have someone close to him negotiating with Hamas and spring the peace deal on the public in late October. Quite an October surprise that would be.

Boy, let's hope that if someone close to Obama is negotiating with Hamas, that it doesn't leak out!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

An attack could also be construed as yet another Republican failure. Of course the non-attack could be seen to help the Republicans. Obama could blow-out McCain on foriegn policy if only he could somehow negotiate a peace accord with some particularly nasty terrorists, say like Hamas. Yeah, that's it! He could have someone close to him negotiating with Hamas and spring the peace deal on the public in late October. Quite an October surprise that would be.

Boy, let's hope that if someone close to Obama is negotiating with Hamas, that it doesn't leak out!

I was talking about his list of Republican failures, which shows that the current approach of cowboy diplomacy doesn't work and has made Iran stronger, Al Qaeda stronger, created Al Qaeda in Iraq, weakened our own military to near the breaking point. A policy that has put unprecedented demands on our soldiers, decimated an entire country, lead to endless miscalculations and alienation with no WMDs, with no end in sight, no end of spending in sight, the price of oil skyrocketing, and a much more dangerous world than we had when we started.

 

[chemisttree]

I was talking about his list of Republican failures, which shows that the current approach of cowboy diplomacy doesn't work and has made Iran stronger, Al Qaeda stronger, created Al Qaeda in Iraq, weakened our own military to near the breaking point. A policy that has put unprecedented demands on our soldiers, decimated an entire country, lead to endless miscalculations and alienation with no WMDs, with no end in sight, no end of spending in sight, the price of oil skyrocketing, and a much more dangerous world than we had when we started.

You forgot global warming and polar bear angst.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

The sub-prime crisis has a new victim in its sights. Another borrower that took advantage of easy credit and loaded up with no hope of paying back. Now the percentages have changed for the worse and the bill is coming due. Poor Hillary.

 

[Art]

The sub-prime crisis has a new victim in its sights. Another borrower that took advantage of easy credit and loaded up with no hope of paying back. Now the percentages have changed for the worse and the bill is coming due. Poor Hillary.

lol btw hasn't she only until the end of the primary season to reclaim the money she lent to her campaign? IIRC after that she can only get back a max of $250K. I wonder will that push her to concede after tonight's results. Obama may then have the majority of pledged delegates which might be the push she needs to bow out in return for a deal with Obama to help her pay off her campaign debts including the money owed to herself.

 

[turbo]

Obama cannot legally transfer money from his campaign to hers - the best he can do is host fund-raisers on her behalf and ask his supporters to help bail her out. The only way I can see his supporters giving her money is if she concedes soon, steps away cleanly (no wrangling for a VP slot) and campaigns earnestly for Obama.

If she continues her dog-in-the-manger campaign, she deserves to wallow in her debts. She can write a book about her failed campaign and recoup the money eventually, anyway, so she may not be as motivated to drop out as one might expect.

 

[Astronuc]

It looks like Clinton will win Ky and Obama will take Oregon with a substantial margin.

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Democrat Barack Obama is poised to hit a new milestone on his path to the presidential nomination in today's Oregon and Kentucky primaries by securing a majority of all the pledged delegates to the party's convention.

Both campaigns say they expect a split decision from today's round of voting. Clinton leads polls in Kentucky, which has 51 pledged delegates at stake, while Obama is ahead in Oregon, with 52 delegates apportioned based on the vote.

The way the delegates are awarded will give Obama more than the 15 he needs to surpass 50 percent of all the 3,646 pledged delegates awarded in Democratic primaries and caucuses beginning Jan. 3 in Iowa and ending June 3 in Montana and South Dakota.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080520/pl_bloomberg/apgmlt95lhwi;_ylt=AqqNpC9K_8P7J4yWpxXDNF9snwcF

 

[BobG]

Having Clinton still in the race, at least until today, might save Obama some embarrassment. If Clinton had dropped out after the Indiana/North Carolina primaries, would Obama have won West Virginia and Kentucky?

Dropping out of the race doesn't necessarily get a candidate's name off of the ballot. Huckabee is routinely pulling in around 10% of the vote two months after he dropped out and Edwards is still pulling votes in the states where he is still on the ballot.

Clinton might have beaten Obama in West Virginia and Kentucky even after dropping out of the race.

 

[turbo]

Well, Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot in MI and she managed to beat "undecided" and crows about what a great victory it was and how those votes MUST be counted. There's a lot of spin in this primary - most of it from the Clinton camp who keep re-defining the metrics by which she is "winning" the nomination. She has lost in pledged delegates, states won, popular vote, and the super-delegates are steadily breaking for Obama so her last gasp is a not-so-thinly-disguised appeal to race, as she and her surrogates make the case that Obama is unelectable.

 

[BobG]

Well, Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot in MI and she managed to beat "undecided" and crows about what a great victory it was and how those votes MUST be counted. There's a lot of spin in this primary - most of it from the Clinton camp who keep re-defining the metrics by which she is "winning" the nomination. She has lost in pledged delegates, states won, popular vote, and the super-delegates are steadily breaking for Obama so her last gasp is a not-so-thinly-disguised appeal to race, as she and her surrogates make the case that Obama is unelectable.

Right before the primary, Clinton held a 46 to 36 lead over Obama and Edwards combined in opinion polling. In the primary, she beat uncommitted 55 to 40. Instead of beating her two other major opponents by 10, she beat uncommitted by 15. (Of course, that was eons ago and Clinton and Obama poll about even in Michigan now).

And, she did beat uncommitted. That's a lot less humiliating than losing to uncommitted or losing to a candidate no longer in the race.

I'm not sure at what point Clinton should have dropped out - maybe between Ohio and Pennsylvania. But, at some point, she'd stayed in too long to be dropping out.

 

[chemisttree]

The pundits say that she is only staying into continue to degrade Obama's chances to beat McCain which, if successful, will give her a better chance to run as the Democrat choice in 2012. I don't think so. I think she is actually staying into make her friends either support her or stab her in the back.

Well, the long knives are unsheathed and Hillary is taking names. I wouldn't expect that Hillary's cabinet would be as 'diverse' as Bill's... and she certainly won't be credited with being the first black woman president. This rift in the Democrat base will have consequences that will be felt for a generation, especially if http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/05/clinton-argue-1.html"

 

[Gokul43201]

I think she is actually staying into make her friends either support her or stab her in the back.

Any friend that doesn't support her nomination over Obama's is stabbing her in the back?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

This rift in the Democrat base will have consequences that will be felt for a generation, especially if http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/05/clinton-argue-1.html"

The headline in the link says:

Clinton Argues That Obama Can't Beat McCain

The story begins:

ABC News' Eloise Harper reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton held a fundraiser in Ft. Mitchell, Ky., tonight and went a bit further than she's gone before in explaining why she believes Sen. Barack Obama cannot win in the fall.

But there is nothing in the story that supports these two statements. Well actually, she did hold a fundraiser.