"But shrill hypocrisy is not how this nomination will be decided. Should Hillary Clinton....."
Was the word "shrill" strategically positioned just prior to Hillary a subliminal misogynistic message of some sort?
Timmeh! on MSNBS just produced an E-mail from the 5 million dollar man, Mark Penn stating that he was merely an outside advisor to the Hillary campaign with no authority to make any decisions and no campaign staff assigned to him.
Well THAT should be helpful the day before the election!
Posted by TIKI AL at March 3, 2008 04:41 AMI tend to agree, Turkana. I just hope this cat fight ends soon. We can't afford the bitterness and the waste of money (another hundred million?) on increasing division while the media, as always, ignores Republican faults, distorts Democrats' and forgets inconvenient truths.
I have no doubt at all that Republican "pranksters" are doing all they can to increase the resentment and unthinking hostility between both camps. There sure does seem to me, to be a huge increase in troll droppings around the blogosphere lately. Some people are catapulting the propaganda with great gusto.
Posted by DemnNewJ at March 3, 2008 04:46 AMAs a former Edwards supporter I agree with most of your analysis.
However, the superdelegates should vote how their states voted, even if that means that Ted Kennedy and John Kerry have to vote for Clinton.
Posted by Gay Veteran at March 3, 2008 05:26 AMThis astutely lays out the various paths which we will face, without getting at the implications. Hillary has possible avenues by which she can continue, but she is no longer a viable candidate.
Our chances of winning in Nov will likely be decided tomorrow. The corporate TV media is right now destroying the "dysfunctional" Brawling Dems and building up the Repub nominee.
Repubs are dying to have this continue. The longer the better. It's what they are prayin' for.
Posted by euzoius at March 3, 2008 06:01 AMNeither one of them is going anywhere until the convention. Nor should they.
(Yes, I'm a "hard core" Hillary supporter.)
Why?
The party has essentially divided over this primary and ending it prematurely will ingrain that division. Hillary supporters will (and do) feel steamrolled over the rush to anoint Obama. Obama supporters will feel robbed of their candidate (destiny).
Now if the votes tomorrow look like the Potomac states then I might reconsider. But I expect her to win in Ohio and for them to almost tie in Texas (akin to Missouri). That will not be enough to chase her out of the campaign. (Spare me the line about Bill saying she must "win" Texas or the endless meme that Obama - the front runner for weeks - triumphs every time he gets close for catching up.)
Frankly, the party should not seek an early end with the following stories surfacing. Obama's campaign now has to admit it misled people that a meeting even occurred with Canada about NAFTA post the debate. Better the Rezko trial play out in the primary than the General. Similarly he must start explaining (in the primary) why he feels Republicans are better on national security (ala Hagel adn Lugar) when this administration has botched everything it touched in the past 8 years.
Posted by cdalygo at March 3, 2008 06:07 AMI agree with Turkana and have to say anyone who thinks Hillary should keep going if she loses Texas or Ohio is being delusional.
She started the idea that these two big states were her firewall right after Super Tuesday. She's lost several states that she had a real shot at during February like Maine. In part because she decided that campaigning in Texas and Ohio were more important.
If she splits tomorrow, particularly if she loses in the primary and the caucus in Texas then she needs end her campaign. Continuing to ignore Obama's victories (with her lack of concession speechs) and soldiering on to PA after splitting March 4th will help no one.
Cdalygo, the Rezko will not end during the primaries even if they go to August and Obama's connections with Rezko are weak at best. He's not on trial. If voters feel his views on NAFTA or National Security/Foreign Policy are wrong then they shouldn't vote for him. Hillary has more explaining to do on that then he does.
Posted by Siberian at March 3, 2008 06:20 AMThe republi-cons would like nothing better than to drag this out until the convention.
"Florida Governor Charlie Crist said he'd support a repeat of the Democratic presidential primary so the state's delegates can be counted at the party's national convention."
It would behoove the Democrats to get behind a candidate ASAP. While McCain got to rest up in Sedona, AZ this weekend, Hillary and Obama continued to clobber each other.
Has anyone else noticed how exhausted both Dem. candidates look?
On 60 Minutes last night, Steve Croft asked her if she doesn't take both Texas and Ohio, would she drop out.
No, she responded. "Bill didn't lock up the nomination until June."
Good for her.
She belives in herself, and she believes in this nation. She should fight all the way to the convention.
I hope that she does.
Yesterday, they had another rally in eastern Ohio that I got to see on the TV. Kelly Pavlik (for the unwashed, he's a world-ranked boxer) stood up and endorsed Hillary!
Good for him. Good for the Mahoning Valley.
You Obama-anians don't have a clue of what the True Stakes are. You think all you need is the magical word "Change" uttered every 45 seconds is going to change the reality. Or seeing the poster that they attach to Barack's podium with those words is going to somehow magically change the environment, because everyone keeps seeing the word phrase as he gives his speeches.
Not likely.
Joseph C. Wilson has an editorial on Huffingtonpost. Just posted today.
Its title is:
"Obama's Hollow 'Judgement' and Empty Record"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/obamas-hollow-judgment_b_89441.html
Some excerpts (which shows how Republican Obama is):
"....
Barack Obama argues that he deserves the Democratic nomination and Hillary Clinton doesn't because he possesses superior "judgment," as he calls it, on the key issues we face as a nation. As definitive proof he offers one speech he made in 2002 during a reelection campaign for an Illinois senate seat in the most liberal district in the state, so liberal that no other position would have been viable. When he made that speech, Obama was not privy to the briefings by, among others, Secretary of State Colin Powell, in support of the Authorization of Use of Military Force as a diplomatic tool to push the international community to impose intrusive inspections on Saddam Hussein.
Would Obama have acted differently had he been in Washington or had he had the benefit of the arguments and the intelligence that the administration was offering to the Congress debating that resolution? During the 2002-2003 timeframe, he was a minor local official uninvolved in the national debate on the war so we can only judge from his own statements prior to the 2008 campaign. Obama repeated these points in a whole host of interviews prior to announcing his candidacy. On July 27, 2004, he told the Chicago Tribune on Iraq: "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." In his book, The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006, he wrote, "...on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and- dried." And, in 2006, he clearly said, "I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of US intelligence. And for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices."
[paragraph jump]
There is no credible reason to conclude that Obama would have acted any differently in voting for the authorization had he been in the Senate at that time. Indeed, he has said as much. The supposed intuitive judgment he exercised in his 2002 speech was nothing more than the pander of a local election campaign, just as his current assertions of superior judgment and scurrilous attacks on Hillary Clinton are a pander to those who now retroactively think the war was a mistake without bothering to acknowledge Senator Clinton's actual position at the time and instead fantasizing that she was nothing but a Bush clone. Obama willfully encourages and plays off this falsehood.
[paragraphs jump]
Obama's gyrations on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are not the actions of one imbued with superior intuitive judgment, but rather the machinations of a political opportunist looking to avoid having his fingerprints on any issue that might be controversial, and require real judgment, while preserving his freedom to bludgeon his adversary for actually taking positions as elected office demands. It is hard to discern whether Senator Obama is a man of principle, but it is clear that he is not a man of substance. And that judgment, based on his hollow record, is inescapable.
...."
Our nation is damaged. Our nation is very sick. You think that soaring rhetoric is going to get the job done?
Not by any stretch.
They're now reporting that in the polls (if you really want to give them any weight) that Texas is a dead heat, and Hillary has just opened a lead of nine points in Ohio. (See rawstory)
Hillary is the only one on the Democratic side that is a true, honest-to-God Democrat.
Why should there be three Republicans in the race (Huckabee, McOld, and Obama)? There's something wrong here.
Posted by Troubled American at March 3, 2008 06:33 AMI agree that there is little reason for Clinton to withdraw if she wins the popular vote in Ohio and Texas. However, if Clinton emerges from the night with just a small gain in pledged delegates (or if Obama again wins more pledged delegates -- which has been the case on every contest date), it will be almost impossible for her to win the nomination.
Only a major change in elite and voter perceptions of Obama could alter the dynamics even with small Clinton victories in Ohio and Texas (and in PA on April 22). An unforced, self-inflicted major blunder by Obama is about her only hope. I hope her campaign recognizes that negative campaigning after March 4 only marginally increases the likelihood of such an error and is not worth the possible costs to her or the Party.
On the other hand, if Clinton loses the popular vote in either Texas or Ohio, it seems very likely that she will withdraw from the race within a week after March 4 (probably, Monday March 10 after losses on March 8 in Mississippi and Wyoming if not before).
Posted by Ben Brackley at March 3, 2008 06:45 AM
Troubled Troll, your persistent claim (based on literally nothing) that Obama is really a "Repub" is simply beyond foolish. Have you ever heard the phrase "The Big Lie"? Google it.
And Wilson's article says nothing of the sort. It argues that Obama "really" would have voted for Bush's Iraq "authorization" (ha-ha), as Hillary foolishly did. As though Wilson would know.
So the only thing "wrong here" is your preposterous conclusion on this point.
Posted by euzoius at March 3, 2008 06:46 AMwell, that major blunder may well be Obama's equivocation and what now looks like deception on the NAFTA conversation with Canadian officials...that does not look good, IMO.
Posted by John B. at March 3, 2008 06:50 AMLast I recall, if popular vote mattered in an election determined by delegates, Al Gore would have been president instead of Bush. Fact is, Obama and HRC are competing for delegates, and the superdelegates are going to side with whoever has the most going into the convention. Why? Because they know that if they hand victory to the second place finisher, the party will split and the race in November will be lost.
BTW, the large state argument is a loser. The large states that Hillary has won, so far at least (NY, CA) are ones either Democrat will win in November. Her victories there are moot. What does matter are the many, smaller swing states that Obama could potentially turn blue, that are certain losses with HRC as head of the ticket.
Meanwhile, if seating delegates from MI or FL would change the outcome of this primary, it ain't gonna happen. Changing the rules after everyone agreed to them just isn't going to fly with too many voters, and would be a prescription for disaster in November.
The bar for HRC is winning big enough to give her a reasonable mathematical possibility of reaching the convention with the most delegates. She fails to do that, superdelegates will stampede to Obama this week, and she's toast.
Posted by balthus at March 3, 2008 07:00 AMI generally agree with Turkana's assessment, but I'd have to say that a narrow victory (within the margin of error) for Obama in Texas would have to make the Clinton camp pause before dropping out. My own view is that the party is already divided, and would be dangerously so unless Obama wins big tomorrow.
Posted by JB64 at March 3, 2008 07:10 AMOne additional point on why it is a bad idea for the Clinton campaign to go negative after March 4 if she wins small victories in Ohio and Texas:
The more negative her campaign is, the more pressure will be put on her by superdelegates and other party insiders to withdraw because of divisiveness. With such a pledged delegate deficit, the odds of winning are small, but time may be one small factor on her side. The longer she can stay in the race, the greater the chance of a major blunder by, and a change in perceptions about, Obama.
Seven, It seemed that Chm. Dean was quite happy about Gov. Crisp's jesture to at least share in the cost of a re-vote in Florida. Using his jesture as a negative sure is indicated here. He wants his state represented in any event, period. He didn't have to make this jesture...just let Democrats foot the bill all themselves and really mess up Florida Dems. The state already polls badly for Obama as does NJ, Tenn., and Texas.
Hey, I'm all for this fiasco to continue.
Posted by peter at March 3, 2008 08:32 AM"Using his jesture as a negative sure isn't indicated here."
sorry
Posted by peter at March 3, 2008 08:34 AMObama has yet to win a large contested state
I thought all of the states were contested?
Posted by CH Truth at March 3, 2008 08:35 AMHillary Clinton has the right to campaign for as long as her will and money hold out, but the important question is, Why? If she ekes out narrow wins in both Ohio and Texas, not gaining any significant ground in delegates, her odds of getting the nomination would go from slim to negligible. She would need about 63% of the remaining pledged delegates to catch up to Obama, and that includes some states which will be quite unfavorable to her like Mississippi and Wyoming on March 11th. Getting 51% of the vote instead of 49% is practically meaningless, as a moral victory or token momentum will mean little after 80% of the delegates will have been chosen.
So what would be the purpose of continuing her campaign if she were not going to be the nominee? She isn't bringing her own issues to the discussion, as she and Obama are very similar on the issues. Any negative campaigning would only be destructive toward our chances in November, earn the enmity of Democrats, and poison her chances for Senate leadership or a future run. Super delegates and the Party establishment would line up behind Obama, putting Clinton on the sidelines. To do her best tomorrow, she needs to look to all the world like she's fighting hard, but without big victories, she'd be crazy to continue.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at March 3, 2008 08:50 AMOne also has to take into consideration that it is unlikely that Superdelegates who are committing to Obama today will change their minds unless something substantial happens between now and then... and winning by small margins in Ohio and Texas is not likely enough to convince these Superdelegates to reconsider.
She is currently down over 100 delegate even if you include the Superdelegates. There are currently only 362 Superdelegates that have not made a commitment.
Assuming that the rest of the pledged delegates fall down about even (chances are that Obama will pick up some, but let's use best case scenario for Clinton). That would leave Obama only 142 delegates short of the 2025. Hillary would have to convince 61% of the remaining Superdelegate to come to her corner...
As of right now... late breaking Superdelegates have been favoring Obama. I would think that even if Hillary can make the claim that she stopped the momentum, that remaining Superdelegates are still going to commit at worst for Obama at a 50/50 level over the next few weeks. The less that remain uncommitted, the steeper the climb for Hillary.
It's still a numbers (rather than political) game at this point.
Posted by CH Truth at March 3, 2008 08:59 AMch truth-
illinois and new york were not contested. the only large state obama won was illinois.
Posted by Turkana at March 3, 2008 09:01 AMIf you look at the pledged delegate count with a cold, rational eye, it becomes apparent Hillary cannot win the nomination. How much longer is Hillary going to damage the Democratic party's chancves?
Posted by green heron at March 3, 2008 09:09 AMIf Obama fails to stop her tomorrow, the race will take on a new trajectory. His current lead of 100 odd delegates does not include the contested delegates of Florida and Michigan, and you can bet that if Clinton wins Texas and Ohio those delegates will become THE issue going forward.
Another thing to consider, given the fact that his campaign has outspent her 4-1 in both states, one would have to assume that anything less than double digit wins by him in those states begins to look like a loss, particularly if she splits the states.
Posted by JB64 at March 3, 2008 09:13 AMA 152 pledged delegate lead is not "100 odd."
Posted by green heron at March 3, 2008 09:25 AMEuzoius,
You want to call me a troll? You can. But it won't make it accurate.
Don't like it that I speak out against the Obama Noise Machine? Tough Cookie.
I will speak out.
Doesn't make me a Troll. Makes me not an Obama-anian.
In case you haven't seen this in another thread, Euzoius, read this article at this URL link:
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=5413#more
This will prove that Obama is a Republican. Pure and simple. Republicans dissasemble, and misrepresent their positions. In the venerable time-honored method of rat-poison purveyor Tom Delay.
Read the following Euzoius. There is background to my interpretations. Accurate background.
Euzoius, if you have already voted for Obama in a primary, tell me, did you know about Obama's voting record before casting your vote?
This is what he does when he votes.
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=5413#more
You can huff and bluff, Euzoius, and call me a troll, but I give you URL links to read.
None of what I say is baseless.
Read them.
Trolls don't give you links to read to back up what they say. They just give opinions, and call other people names, when the other person holds views that they disagree with.
Whoa...wait a minute...now didn't you do just that Euzoius?
You're the Troll, I'm afraid to say.
And yes, I am voting for Hillary.
Posted by Troubled American at March 3, 2008 09:26 AM"Trolls don't give you links to read to back up what they say. They just give opinions, and call other people names, when the other person holds views that they disagree with."
I provide links, at least some of the time. And I never call you fine people names.
Posted by peter at March 3, 2008 09:39 AMI'm not wasting any time reading anything from your garbage troughs, Troubled Troll. Any "Dem" who thinks that something "proves" Obama is a Repub is a cretin.
No rational Dem thinks that Obama is a Repub in any form. It's clear you won't vote for anyone but Hillary under any circumstances and hate Obama, assuming that you aren't actually a Repub--which I consider the most likely scenario here.
Nothing can be done once a person has poisoned their brain. There's no antidote.
Posted by euzoius at March 3, 2008 09:58 AMTroubled American, why bother posting an opinion piece from Ralph Nader's running mate? If you want to find arguments against Obama for president, I'm sure you can find something on the Republican National Committee website.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at March 3, 2008 10:11 AMTA are you Matt Gonzalez?
Posted by Seven of Six at March 3, 2008 11:07 AMTurkana, Hillary's press release in TX this weekend said that Obama must win ALL the states on March 4 or "there's a problem" (i.e. she won't be ending her campaign).
So the old firewall theory has been "modified". And as I predicted, she has now said that if she wins a single state the campaign will move on to PA.
Posted by euzoius at March 3, 2008 12:05 PMeuzo,
we'll see. that could be her game face. if she loses BOTH oh and tx, i guarantee you will see a flood of superdelegates jumping ship, and people like gore and edwards calling for her to stand down.
Posted by Turkana at March 3, 2008 01:33 PMGore whimped out early.
Kerry whimped out early.
Hillary will be there when Obama is forced to withdraw over the Rezko carnage.
Posted by TIKI AL at March 3, 2008 02:35 PMI gotta say I feel like a spectator at Ali-Frazier. Two heavyweights in their prime, giving it all they've got.
I'm a Hillary supporter, but I've been impressed w/ the Obamans' rapid responses. There's no doubt, whoever the eventual nominee is, they will have been improved by the primary process.
And I'll be proud to support them against McCain.
Posted by bartcopfan at March 4, 2008 09:10 AMAll,
Let's say that Clinton wins Ohio today by, say, 8 percentage points, while Obama wins a narrow victory in Texas. Let's also say that Clinton goes on to win Pennsylvania.
That would mean that H. Clinton will have won all of the big industrial states except Illinois, all states that Dem must win in November, especially Ohio. Do you go with her as being able to hold onto the base and hope she can patch together 270 electoral votes? Or do you pin you hope on the fact that Obama has run well in erstwhile red states? That means he needs to hold onto the blue base and add some purple states (Virginia, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, e.g.). Talk of a Dem winning Tennessee and Texas in November, as some have done, is pure fantasy.
What's more important -- holding the base plus Ohio (which would have put both Gore and Kerry over the top)or a potential, but far from certain, realignment? That's what makes this election so fascinating and makes Obama such a roll of the dice -- his potential upside is so exciting; his downside is McGovern '72.
Personally, I want to roll the dice, but the rationale for H. Clinton continuing with a split decision today is legitimate.