Who will (not should) be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008?

[Arles]

Originally Posted by Cringer

I suggest a Bill/Hillary vs. Barack/Michelle tagteam cage match on WWE's pay-per-view Wrestlemania.

That might raise enough money for the "redo" primaries in Florida and Michigan.

[JPhillips]

albion: In regards to the money, don't forget that primary money is not the same as general election money. An individual can donate 2000 to the primary campaign and another 2000 to the general. Obviously not everyone will max out twice, but given that whoever wins will have a sizable amount of donors to pull from the rival, money won't be an issue in the general.

I'll give you that the negative campaigning is more of a worry, but I don't think it will hurt much if the primary is over in early summer.

[Schmidty]

Man. I don't follow politics closely, because it's depressing, but holy fucking shit, Hillary has run a horrific campaign. She seems to have no control over anything, and even when she does try to seize control, she sticks her foot in her mouth. She is the epitome of incompetence mixed with illusions of grandeur.

[Buccaneer]

Playing the sexist card seems to be the speaking point of the month, but playing the sexist card while playing the race card???

Ferraro, the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee in 1984, told the (Torrance, California) Daily Breeze that "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Ferraro said the New York senator had suffered because the press "has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign."

[Vegas Vic]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Any time someone takes a 'who the hell do you think you are' shot at one of the Clintons, it's going to be something that the Republican and independent voters notice.

That's an interesting point, but I think you need to differentiate between the Clintons. Bill Clinton left office with an approval rating in the upper 60's. A lot of people, including independents, think he was an effective president. I voted for him twice, and I would vote for him again if the constitution allowed him to run. However, I would never even consider voting for Hillary Clinton.

[Vegas Vic]

It looks like Obama wins Mississippi something like 60-40, with exit polls showing Obama getting 90% of the black vote and Clinton getting 75% of the white vote.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Playing the sexist card seems to be the speaking point of the month, but playing the sexist card while playing the race card???

And she defended it again today when she got called on it. Gloria Steinem did the same thing in the NY Times not too long ago, she just wasn't as blunt about it. If Obama was a white male, he'd have won the nomination already. She's on meth to suggest otherwise.

[Greyroofoo]

Originally Posted by Vegas Vic

It looks like Obama wins Mississippi something like 60-40, with exit polls showing Obama getting 90% of the black vote and Clinton getting 75% of the white vote.

nice to see racism alive and well in America

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

If Obama was a white male, he'd have won the nomination already.

That's very debatable. John Edwards, for example, is a white male, and has a lot in common with Obama, but did not win the nomination.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

That's very debatable. John Edwards, for example, is a white male, and has a lot in common with Obama, but did not win the nomination.

I knew someone would bring him up.

Edwards isn't an Ivy Leaguer, wasn't marketed nearly as well and couldn't campaign his way out of a bag.

He was a poor man's Obama, sure. Good looks and nice smile and all that crap. Nice guy seems too. But nope. Every generation has someone who comes along like this and sweeps everyone up in his swoonability. And Obama is this generation's guy.

[Crim]

Edwards' delivery was smarmy, though. He always sounds like a lawyer. Obama's delivery is the key, IMO.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

nice to see racism alive and well in America

The South is still a part of America? *checks map* Guess so, (sortof)...

SI

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

I knew someone would bring him up.

Edwards isn't an Ivy Leaguer, wasn't marketed nearly as well and couldn't campaign his way out of a bag.

He was a poor man's Obama, sure. Good looks and nice smile and all that crap. Nice guy seems too. But nope. Every generation has someone who comes along like this and sweeps everyone up in his swoonability. And Obama is this generation's guy.

And if Obama doesn't carry the black vote to win South Carolina and get some momentum, he's out of the race well before now (he becomes Howard Dean, who people were all talking up in 2004 for sweeping up new voters and all that). I think people seem to forget in this Obamania that Hillary Clinton is actually a very formidable candidate.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

I knew someone would bring him up.

Edwards isn't an Ivy Leaguer, wasn't marketed nearly as well and couldn't campaign his way out of a bag.

He was a poor man's Obama, sure. Good looks and nice smile and all that crap. Nice guy seems too. But nope. Every generation has someone who comes along like this and sweeps everyone up in his swoonability. And Obama is this generation's guy.

If you argue that Edwards was advantaged because of his whiteness, though, how do you back that up?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

nice to see racism alive and well in America

I don't think that the metrics on the race thing are anything other than media spin to create a story. I think if you asked the 'average' person, there would be people who would naturally say they feel more "comfortable" with one versus the other. But in a year where a black candidate or so-called black candidate is winning states throughout the Intermountain West, South and Midwest with sizable margins, to call this some sort of racial firefight seems a bit off to me.

While I'm sure there are lots of black folks who get an immense amount of pride from seeing Barack Obama doing well, if there was an indication that he wasn't representing their interests, I don't believe he'd be getting support from them.

I think that's the thing to understand about this. And by the same token, I can see plenty of white voters feeling that the black candidate is going to represent the interests of "his own" people despite Obama's record not necessarily showing that to be true anymore than any other liberal progressive's record might.

But by the same token, I can see those same folks choosing to vote for Hillary because even if they don't like her, they can see her as someone that will fight for them. Perhaps even more so now, because of how despite cozying up to blacks in public, the Clintons have been alienated by them when their knight in shining armour as it could be twisted to be put, shows up to the scene.

I do think the optics of this race are the reason things are where they are, but I don't think it's solely about race which is motivating people to decide the way they are or we'd have a minority President by now. I think it's about the right fit in the right year and I've said before that when people used to bandy about who might be the first black President, never did a person like Barack Obama wasn't the idea.

In a historical sense, it makes a ton of sense. But on paper? Couldn't have dreamt him up.

Even if he were white, if everything else remained constant, I think all the other parameters would pretty much be as they have been now. Even the strong black support. The Kennedy family can attest to that loyalty.

It's all speculation obviously, but Obama isn't a charity case who went to UI-Chicago, got a scholarship to law school and used inner city muscle to get himself a Senate seat. Or a product of the Democratic machine at the national level (see Ron Brown, Carol Moseley-Braun or others) who managed to leverage things to get themselves in the right spot at the right time.

Nope. He went to an elite prep school in Hawai'i, transfer from Occidental to Columbia and goes on to Harvard.

The old guard is skeptical of him and while the new guard love him, he still has to fight battles from all sides because he's not beholden to any of the "old school" and on the union-cozy left, that makes life a lot more difficult. He gets through all of that with his work as a community organizer.

Obama believes in his rhetoric. He's not just a shiny package. I mean, I'd not vote for him if he were the Messiah, but...he truly believes in what he says and clearly isn't cut out for campaigning.

But he's certainly the more polished version of Candidate 2.0. Howard Dean really took big strides when he raised all that damn money in the 'net back in '04 and I wondered what that would do the game going forward for '08. I never imagined it would manifest itself in the way that it was with Obama.

But if he were white, none of this would be any different. Except the love that you get from black people who've finally decided to embrace him warmly after being a bit cool to the idea at first, feeling he was some sort of joke created to coddle them and was really some sort of "Uncle Tom". Needless to say, his choice of a wife was the shrewdest campaign move of his life and he damn sure knows it.

When a guy brings millions of people to the polls to vote for him who otherwise would be sitting at home watching the coronation of Hillary I right now on CNN; in a way that no other candidate has -- sure, people liked Edwards, but he didn't put butts in the seats like Obama does..in Boise to Birmingham -- then it's nothing short of a phenomenon.

I'm still not entirely convinced the story ends with him as President of the USA, but only because he looks much less likely the insurgent that he did when this all started, because history in the making is always a strange thing to watch..because you're still blinking in disbelief that whatever has happened actually has.

But it's astounding to watch it all unfold, given that no one predicted the scenarios we're seeing now, rendering the Fourth Estate effectively useless. But that was bound to happen anyway.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

If you argue that Edwards was advantaged because of his whiteness, though, how do you back that up?

I never said Edwards was advantaged because of his whiteness. I said if Obama was white, he'd be the nominee. Because the only thing holding him up now isn't the Clinton machine -- they're machine isn't what it once was -- it's because of 1) his name and 2) his imputed race and the 3) relatively unknown nature of his political existence. It's more complicated than that, but the basic breakdown is:

If you have a white, young, likeable candidate with minimal baggage and the ability to generate crowds like a rock concert and to inspire people who otherwise would sit out...without all of the baggage of race or religion, how could you stop him? This is before you mention that our imaginary candidate went to arguably the most prestigious prep school in Hawai'i, is an Ivy graduate and rather than making millions as a lawyer suing the pants off big companies, rolled up his sleeves and worked with the people as a community organizer, before working his way up through the state legislature and eventually making it to the US Senate.

So long as he stayed away from the prostitutes like Eliot Spitzer and had the same rhetoric and everything that Obama does now -- save for the my dad was Black African, but still have his dad leave him at 2 -- what would stop him on paper?

If a person never watches TV, doesn't read the newspaper regularly and hears that Barack Obama has been elected President of the USA, they won't know what to do with that. Because they will imagine him to look like..well...you do the math.

Edwards isn't Obama Lite. He's John Edwards past, present and future. Other than being youthful first-term Senators and members of their respective state bars, neither has much of anything in common with the other. Their trajectories and even the way they've campaigned are contrasts.

More to the point, no way in hell that Michelle Obama lets Barack run again if he loses this time. You might say "he's so young" or "it's politics, he'll run again" but he won't. He can make a hell of a lot more money as Barack Obama, former loser turned Democratic Godfather Al Gore with better trajectory then as "failed candidate trying again for redemption." He can just do speeches, advocacy and be the voice of the new generation and maybe run for Governor of Illinois in 2010 rather than waste his time with this stuff again.

Especially since it's unlikely he'll get to run in four years, stalled by whoever the incumbent is at the time.

And if Colin Powell's wife had enough pull not to let him run in '96, I am doubly certain with no facts to back it up other than my imagination of the dynamics of their relationship through inference that Michelle wouldn't entertain going through this ringer again if he somehow loses now or in the general election.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

I never said Edwards was advantaged because of his whiteness. I said if Obama was white, he'd be the nominee.

Your second sentence, I think, can be parsed as: Obama is disadvantaged because of his race. Which is exactly the same thing as saying that a competitor, who doesn't share that disadvantage, is advantaged by his race. Its the same exact meaning, just the way you are trying to say it sounds less inflammatory.

[Young Drachma]

Hell, to make it even more fun...our white Obama should still have an African dad. Just let his African dad be a white South African who was anti-apartheid and who moved to Kenya rather than live in a racist South Africa. Man, the media would eat that up all day.

And when his mom re-married and took up an Indonesian man? No worries. The media would just say that those early experienced abroad trained young Barry to "broaden his mind and learn that people are different and to respect other cultures."

Too bad Obama doesn't speak any foreign languages. I think the imaginary one totally should.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Your second sentence, I think, can be parsed as: Obama is disadvantaged because of his race. Which is exactly the same thing as saying that a competitor, who doesn't share that disadvantage, is advantaged by his race. Its the same exact meaning, just the way you are trying to say it sounds less inflammatory.

No, it's not. But you're entitled to your opinion.

[Buccaneer]

DC, you mentioned that Obama wasn't charity but if you look at the Senate race, he certainly was gifted it (both of his opponents, Dem and Rep, screwed the pooch, if I recall). Not sure if it means anything but I still believe, as I have had all along, Hillary's (still) high negatives have a lot to do with it.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

DC, you mentioned that Obama wasn't charity but if you look at the Senate race, he certainly was gifted it (both of his opponents, Dem and Rep, screwed the pooch, if I recall). Not sure if it means anything but I still believe, as I have had all along, Hillary's (still) high negatives have a lot to do with it.

He got lucky in his Senate race, no doubt. But so did Hillary in New York. It happens all of the time, that's no big deal. Needless to say, he can have the seat for as long as he wants so long as he stays scandal free. He's pretty popular here by all accounts. Even in southern Illinois.

I don't think he hasn't been lucky. I just say that with his resume on face, that he wouldn't necessarily be treated as some sort of pretty beauty pageant charity case, but a "rising star" in the party.

Oh but to your main point, yes..he's benefitting a whole lot running against a Clinton.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Too bad Obama doesn't speak any foreign languages. I think the imaginary one totally should.

I think we all know who the imaginary Obama would be patterned off...

[Young Drachma]

Also I'll concede that his speech to the convention in '04 probably wouldn't have astounded the media the way it did, had he not been who he is. But if he's mythical Obama, he still has books to write about his white African dad and the same zany story Barack does, drugs and all. Only he doesn't have the whole "self-discovery, am I black?, dump my white girlfriend, move to Chicago after college to work with 'the people'" penchant. Though I know plenty of kids who've done that last part only [insert inner city here] in the pursuit of "finding themselves" and so, it wouldn't be that far-fetched on paper.

I'll put Fauxbama to rest now though.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Arles

I think we all know who the imaginary Obama would be patterned off...

finger wagging ftw

I like how it's all slower now and stuff too. Richard Jefferson needs to put his damn finger back in the socket and shut the hell up. If he'd peaked a few years ago, the Nets might've fluked into a title against the Spurs.

Back on topic now, tho.

[SackAttack]

So here's a fun note from the CNN exit polls.

To the question "Should Clinton pick Obama as VP?" 56% responded "Yea" to 41% "Nay". Okay, that's not hugely surprising.

Of the 56% who said "Yea," 71% of THOSE voted for Obama. Basically, "Our guy is the best thing going, but if Clinton somehow manages to get the nomination, damn straight she should pick him."

Of the 41% who said "No," Clinton had the edge 59-36. To me that almost has to be read that the 36% meant either "No, because she ain't GETTING the nomination, and that's why I voted Obama," or else "Obama shouldn't touch Senator Clinton with a 10 foot pole."

Strangely, if you flip the question the other way, it was 54-43 in favor of Clinton as Obama's VP, but more Obama supporters were in favor of an Obama/Clinton ticket than weren't. I'm guessing THAT has to be the Republican crossover effect.

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I think people seem to forget in this Obamania that Hillary Clinton is actually a very formidable candidate.

Maybe so, but who in the fuck are these people that are voting for her? Are they the Democrat equivalent of the people that voted for Bush in '04????

[ISiddiqui]

I voted for her .

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I voted for her .

That's cool. Now tell me WHY??????

[ISiddiqui]

I like her policies on health care and taxes. I think she'll govern by triangulation as President on other things that come up during the next 4/8 years (as her husband did). And I value experience in my Presidents.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Even if he were white, if everything else remained constant, I think all the other parameters would pretty much be as they have been now. Even the strong black support.

I want some of whatever you're smoking, 'cause that's some good shit.
Or 'shrooms. Gotta be 'shrooms for you to hallucinate like that.

If he's white, he's long gone by now, not even an Edwardsian afterthought.

I'm not sure Christ himself could get 90% of the self-identifying Christian vote.

[Noop]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I like her policies on health care and taxes. I think she'll govern by triangulation as President on other things that come up during the next 4/8 years (as her husband did). And I value experience in my Presidents.

What experience? Being in a Senator for 8 years? Or being the first lady for eight years? Or maybe both.

If she is the nominee then I am quite sure I will be voting for McCain or abstaining all together. If she couldn't keep her husband in order how can she keep a country in order? She gets no points from me for standing by her man because it is my belief she did it for her own political gain.

[SuperGrover]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I want some of whatever you're smoking, 'cause that's some good shit.
Or 'shrooms. Gotta be 'shrooms for you to hallucinate like that.

If he's white, he's long gone by now, not even an Edwardsian afterthought.

I'm not sure Christ himself could get 90% of the self-identifying Christian vote.

Has a candidate ever gotten 90% of any demographic? That is amazing!

Anyone who thinks this campaign is not heavily about race is fooling themselves. Obama has used a gigantic majority of black votes to buttress his totals in every state in the union. Clinton has fought back with huge margins in Hispanic votes in California and Texas, which without she would be dead already. This campaign is as racial as one can get in American politics, v 2008.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

Has a candidate ever gotten 90% of any demographic? That is amazing!

Anyone who thinks this campaign is not heavily about race is fooling themselves. Obama has used a gigantic majority of black votes to buttress his totals in every state in the union. Clinton has fought back with huge margins in Hispanic votes in California and Texas, which without she would be dead already. This campaign is as racial as one can get in American politics, v 2008.

The thing is, everybody playing the race card seems to be on Clinton's side of the line. Yes, the black population is rallying around Obama, but I don't see him trying to play that population off of any other.

Sen. Clinton, on the other hand, has her husband making the "Even Jesse Jackson won _______" comments, has Geraldine Ferraro saying "He wouldn't have gotten this far if he weren't a black man," and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

It's racial, but I think that's a bed the Clinton campaign made for themselves, and now they're having to lie in it.

I mean, c'mon - Bill Clinton was ostensibly the "first black president," and his wife is getting creamed 10 to 1 by black voters in Mississippi? That has to be more than just "OMG, Obama is black like me!!!" talking there.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

It's racial, but I think that's a bed the Clinton campaign made for themselves, and now they're having to lie in it.

All I can do is LOL at this quote. I mean, it's kind of sadly naive but it's really too funny not to laugh at.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

All I can do is LOL at this quote. I mean, it's kind of sadly naive but it's really too funny not to laugh at.

And I thought it was because it had the words "Clinton", "bed", and "lie" in it

SI

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

He got lucky in his Senate race, no doubt. But so did Hillary in New York. It happens all of the time, that's no big deal. Needless to say, he can have the seat for as long as he wants so long as he stays scandal free. He's pretty popular here by all accounts. Even in southern Illinois.

I don't think he hasn't been lucky. I just say that with his resume on face, that he wouldn't necessarily be treated as some sort of pretty beauty pageant charity case, but a "rising star" in the party.

Oh but to your main point, yes..he's benefitting a whole lot running against a Clinton.

Hillary got lucky in NY? BullS$#@. She carpet bagged and found a state/county which was highly democratic and used her husbands popularity as president to win going away. That's not luck, it's brains.

Race is playing a factor here, but let's not kid ourselves: Hillary has tried to play the "first female president" card from the beginning. Every full speech I've seen from her brings it up. I'm really kind of with Buc on this. I think Hillary's negatives are a bigger overall reason for Obama's success than anything. At the start of the primary season, when the question "Which candidate would you NEVER vote for" came up, Hillary had the highest percentage of Repbulicans voting for her AND the highest percentage of democrats.

I'm not saying race doesn't come into play here, but I think it's a little naive to think that if Hillary had ran a better campaign and was more likeable that she wouldn't have overcome that problem. Race doesn't explain how Obama has steamrolled through laregly "white" states. She was destroyed in Kansas, Conneticut, and Utah. She won a grand total of 3 delegates out of 21 possible in IDAHO.

There are two big stories to me in this democratic primary:

1) Is Hillary going to be able to engineer a back door deal wtih the supers to get in. If she does, McCain walks into office unscathed.

2) The complete mismanagement of the Hillary Clinton campaign. She had it all entering the start of this race. More money, more connections, more everything. She comes out of the gate and loses Iowa which makes Obama seem like a viable candidate. She then hedges everything on Super Tuesday and comes out of Super Tuesday looking like Mike Tyson after a Buster Douglas uppercut. She didn't have any intrastructure in place in states after that because she honestly believed that'd be the end of this election. She proceeds to lose a month worth of primaries, many by ridiculous scores and then hedges everything on Texas and Ohio. Oops. She comes out of those states a whopping +4 after it is all over. Those were states she had been up 13-15 points in just a month earlier.

Now she's hedging everything on PA. Meanwhile Obama just came out +13 to +15 in MS and WY. Those states that "don't matter" are kicking Hillary's ass. I'm starting to wonder just how wide the delegate count is going to be by the time FL and MI revote. She's going to get her ass handed to her in Oregon and Kentucky on May 20. I think she'll lose the delgate count in the area of 60-40, if not worse. By the time the primary season has finished, Hillary may need virtually all of the supers to come her way.

This is one of the more mismanaged campaigns in my lifetime.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by TroyF

This is one of the more mismanaged campaigns in my lifetime.

Yup. She had to screw up this badly for me to see just how much of an advantage she had coming in. Tyson-Douglas isn't a bad comparison. She might still win this thing by split-decision after 15 rounds. But the fact that she didn't score a first round knockout is the biggest suprise.

Other than possibly a popular sitting vice-president, she had the biggest advantage of any candidate ever going into a primary season.* And she is behind with 3/4 of the states having voted. Amazing.

*Cue history majors coming in with 10 examples to prove me wrong.

[Vegas Vic]

Originally Posted by TroyF

Race doesn't explain how Obama has steamrolled through laregly "white" states.

What largely white states that held primaries has Obama steamrolled through?

[JPhillips]

If there's one thing I've learned in my life it's that the black man is always keepin' me down. Obama's just another in a long line of black power brokers that grew up on welfare, started selling crack, became a two sport HS phenom, got an affirmative action admission to college, ruined our white women, killed an innocent child in a drive-by, sold ten million copies of his obscene "music", and exploited the white guilt of weak-willed liberals to become the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. I've seen it a thousand times before, and I'll scream if it happens again.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Vegas Vic

What largely white states that held primaries has Obama steamrolled through?

Vegas,

The talk of caucuses is getting old.

Hillary wasn't blindsided by these things. She knew what caucuses were going in.

You sound like a football coach that says "Well, we dominated them in rushing, passing, defense, penalties against. . . if we didn't have those damned special teams we'd be world champions"

The fact is it doesn't matter how Obama got 18 of 21 delegates in Idaho. He DID get 18 of the 21. Just as the supers have every right to vote for who they want because it's part of the process, the caucuses are part of how you get delegates. Think of it this way: Hillary was +7 in Ohio and -18 in Idaho.

She can bitch about the caucuses as much as she wants, it was part of the process when this started and I didn't hear her begging for a change at the start of this campaign. (just like I didn't hear her give a damn about MI or FL until she realized she was getting her ass kicked and needed help)

But I will answer your question: Obama slaughtered Hillary in Wisonsin, Vermont and Utah. All primaries. All lily white.

[molson]

Originally Posted by TroyF

The fact is it doesn't matter how Obama got 18 of 21 delegates in Idaho. He DID get 18 of the 21.

He got them by understanding the differences between caucuses and primaries, and actually making a campaign stop here a week or two before the vote. Even the Boise media was a little confused about why he bothered to make the trip, but 14,000 delirious supporters showed up early on a Saturday (and more were turned away). And of course, since Idaho's population is very much centered in Boise, I'm sure he had more than half of the state's caucus voters in the same room with him that day.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by molson

He got them by understanding the differences between caucuses and primaries, and actually making a campaign stop here a week or two before the vote. Even the Boise media was a little confused about why he bothered to make the trip, but 14,000 delirious supporters showed up early on a Saturday (and more were turned away). And of course, since Idaho's population is very much centered in Boise, I'm sure he had more than half of the state's caucus voters in the same room with him that day.

and again, he understood the rules and the game, Hillary didn't.

Hillary did make as stop in Wyoming after she realized that every delegate was going to count. She was slaughtered there too. (though not as bad)

I mean, the rules didn't change midstream here guys. If Obama understood what you said above and Hillary didn't, she deserved to get slaughtered in that caucus. He was more prepared. I guess his lack of experience on the campaign trail didn't hurt him, huh?

[Passacaglia]

I think Hillary was -15 in Idaho.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

I think Hillary was -15 in Idaho.

Yup, 18-3. I knew that, yet typed in the 18. My bad.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by TroyF

(just like I didn't hear her give a damn about MI or FL until she realized she was getting her ass kicked and needed help)

I believe both sides were making noises about those delegates eventually being seated when they assumed the issue would have been settled already. Now that they seem to be potentially significant is when we're getting different views on whether they should be or not.

[SirFozzie]

CNN Tuesday also projected that Obama was the winner of the Texas Democratic caucuses that occurred March 4. Obama will be awarded 38 of Texas's delegates, while Clinton will win 29 delegates as a result of the caucuses, CNN estimates.

So Obama will soften the blow from losing Texas (54/46, I believe it is), by making back some of the delegates on the back end.

[Fighter of Foo]

This is hilarious:

"Yesterday [In Mississippi], Barack Obama won 60.6% and Clinton won 37.2%. If her Republican voters hadn't shown up, she would have won about 28% and Obama would have won about 68%."

[SirFozzie]

With the wins in Mississippi and Texas, Obama now leads Clinton 1,608 to 1,478 in the total delegate count, CNN estimates. Neither candidate is expected to obtain the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination outright before the national convention in August.

that 130 delegate lead is really hard for her to make up. she needs crushing victories in Pennsylvania and NC.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

that 130 delegate lead is really hard for her to make up. she needs crushing victories in Pennsylvania and NC.

Won't happen. It's up to the superdelegates (which has been the case for a while now I guess).

[SirFozzie]

But she needs the crushing victories to convince the vast majority of superdelegates that despite being behind in delegates and popular vote that she deserves it