There is no other way to describe what Obama did last night other than to state that it was a blowout. He won by a 17-18 point margin in Wisconsin, and he won the Hawaii caucus by over 50. Not only that, but TPM discusses the exit polls:
The exit polls show that Obama cut deeply into Hillary’s core constituencies in racking up his sizable victory in Wisconsin tonight.
Obama made it very close among females, losing to Hillary by the slimmest of margins, 51%-49%.
He won by a sizable margin among middle-aged voters, 53%-46%.
He won by decent margins among voters with an income less than $50,000.
He won by big margins among self described moderates and conservatives.
He won overwhelmingly among people who decided in the last week or the last three days, though Hillary won narrowly among those who decided in the last day.
He won narrowly among members of union households.
I defy anyone to find any positive news in any of that for the Hillary camp. It is just over. That doesn’t mean they will roll over and give up, and I expect them to get particularly vicious, as that is what they always do when they are in political trouble. I would not be shocked if by the end of the week the Clinton camp is mainstreaming (or trying to, at least) the Sinclair nonsense (or something like that).
Finally, and most devastating to Clinton, was this exit poll result:
Although Wisconsin Democrats were least likely to say “electability” was the most important candidate attribute, they also identified Obama, not Clinton, as most likely to win in November, by 63-37 percent.
Electability was the super delegate argument, and even that has now been stripped from her.
The real problem for the Clinton camp right now is there really is nothing they can do- their attacks have been rejected, yet there really is no way for them to lift Hillary’s positives. All they can do is to try to chip away at Obama’s support, and every time they do that, it is so ham-handed and nasty and stupid that the voters reject it and support Obama more. I fully expect three weeks of them throwing Wolfson in front of the cameras at every opportunity, unshaven, bags under his eyes, and sporting the upper lip sweat we all know and love, to scream about plagiarism (itself a bunch of rubbish). That really is all they have left.
The only thing that can save Hillary right now (and even then, I don’t think there is anything that can be done), would be for Obama to completely blow it. Right here, right now, it looks like this race is over.
Jen
Well, P-Luk says the real story here is that caucuses don’t count. In support of this contention, he uses Washington state’s “beauty contest” primary, which Obama also won.
The Doughy Pantload has NUTTIN’ on P-Luk.
Billy K
I’ve been saying this race is over. I can’t believe you’d plagiarize me!1!
Mr Furious
HEre’s a serious query…
Looking over the race, how much of Obama’s criticism of Clinton have been o f the nature that would harm her and the party’s chances in the general election? I seriously cannot think of any. While everything—EVERYTHING—coming out from the Clinton camp is stuff that can be picked up and used by the Republicans in one way or another or is designed to damage him as a candidate going forward as much if not more than it impacts him now…
He seems to have stuck more or less to contrasting the two of them before Democrats while she goes on stage last night and claims he’s not ready to be PResident.
Seriously. I know I am biased, but I really am having a hard time thinking of the worst stuff that’s been thrown at Hillary.
demimondian
Come on, John, this really is a nonsensical argument. Surely you can look at a map — find Wisconsin (yeah, it’s the funny state which wears the UP like some kind of warped beret…that one, up there). Now, find Milwaukee, or, if you prefer “Green Bay”. Now, let your finger drift South until it crosses a state boundary.
What’s the first state you enter called? On my map, it’s called “Illinois”. Now, go look up Sen Obama (D-IL). Notice anything he and that state have in common?
Wisconsin doesn’t count, and, particularly “blue collar” Wisconsin doesn’t count. Obama’s from the next state over, for heaven’s sake!
Lee
Speaking with others here in North Texas, we think he is probably going to take Texas.
One of my buddies is of Mexican ancestry (his parents were migrant workers). He went down to visit his family in South Texas last weekend.
The support for Clinton with hispanics has to do with education and generation. The large amount of young educated hispanics in Texas (yes the wingnuts have lied to you, they really do exist) support Obama. Many of them are convincing their parents to vote for Obama.
TheFountainHead
I’m headed over to Hillaryis44.com for my morning dose of scary. Anyone want to go see how Taylor Marsh is spinning this?
Original Lee
Spot on, John. Observe the Hillbot column in the WashPo this morning:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902342.html?hpid=topnews
Or, equally stupid but in a different way:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902336.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Billy K
Dallasite here; I agree. Maybe not by double digits, but ultimately I think it’s gonna go to Obama.
Wish I could be at the AAC today. He speaks in about an hour.
Pug
EVERYTHING—coming out from the Clinton camp is stuff that can be picked up and used by the Republicans in one way or another or is designed to damage him as a candidate going forward as much if not more than it impacts him now…
John McCain picked up the empty rhetoric theme last night in his victory speech, and a really, really bad speech it was. I assume the Clinton camp’s response will be, “see, even the Republicans agree with us”.
If Hill comes out swinging and dirty in the debate Thursday night like she did in her non-concession speech last night, Obama should refuse to debate again on the grounds that these debates have become counter-productive and harmful to Obama’s campaign in the fall.
The Grand Panjandrum
Instaputz referring to last nights primary results in Wisconsin:
ThymeZone
My first visit to Hi44 came up with this, a line from Jay Leno. Now THIS is funny:
I don’t think we can top that today.
Billy K
Wow. I’ve never seen people so deluded since…well, since my last trip to Redstate.
They’re pinning their hopes on a silly Matthews video where some random Obama supporter doesn’t have his legislative record memorized. “Did I just feel a shift?”
Um…
Mr Furious
I think he’ll be ready for that, and will be able to skewer her with it right in front of everybody. The only place she excels is in the policy/wonkery argument. That is now moot. She has to attack him on (and with) style and conviction—and she is not in the same weight class. He will knock her ass out if she pulls that shit. I am betting on it. And hoping for it.
TheFountainHead
Your morning Hillaryis44.com gems:
And this one, in response
It’s interesting to note that there’s no new post this morning on that site, when they usually have some Obama bashing/cognitive dissonance up bright and early each morning. Losing streak getting to them maybe?
Face
And when Clinton drives this all the way until July/August, and O-face drains his bank account in the battle, you’ll not be surprised when McCane sneaks thru in November.
She may single-handedly ruin the Dem’s chances if she doesn’t cut bait by April. Maybe Taylor Marsh can talk some sense into her.
4tehlulz
Fuck these people. Fuck them in the ass and in the mouth. If they do that and McCain gets elected, they better Shut The Fuck Up when their savior gets America involved in more insane wars.
ThymeZone
Once again, a reminder that we should never post drunk.
chopper
periodically?
zzyzx
Seeing how it’s mainly backfiring, it’s starting to look like Clinton’s attacks are helping Obama. She presents them horribly, Obama comes up with a counter, and then when McCain goes there, he sounds like a Clinton rerun.
Dave
Yes! My state came through I thought it would Obama but you can never sure about Wisconsinites. I think it’s that northern european (norwegian) blood. I couldn’t get to the poll until 5:00 so I wasn’t sure how turn out was going. very cold here yesterday and today -10s with -30 to -50 winchills. I was happy to see I was #742 in 2 of 4 wards with 3 hours to go in a city of 8000. I would guess turnout was 1700+ by the end, very high in a primary. Now on to Ohio and Texas!
TR
Wow, that is some batshit crazy over there at Hillaryis44.org.
I love how they keep calling the Obama backers a “cult” and yet they’re the ones threatening to vote for the Republican if their chosen candidate doesn’t get the nomination and making plans — I am not kidding — to put together a scrapbook of photos and thank you notes and send it off to Hillary.
Yeah, Obama has the cult.
chopper
see, this is what makes hi44 so entertaining. they’re outliers, they aren’t even democrats, just hardcore obama haters.
a democrat would vote for the democrat in the fall, not try to get a guy like mccain elected because you’re royally pissed that your guy isn’t gonna win the primary.
people may call john a hillary-hater, but he’s pledged to vote for the democrat this fall.
Dennis - SGMM
They ought to be holding bake sales for her busted-ass campaign.
Because of their attitudes and invective I suggest that these people now be designated “The 102nd Fighting Keyboarders”.
Nicholas Weaver
I don’t care for Obama. He strikes me as all rhetoric, but nothing to know he’d be a good administrator, which depends so much on being able to hire good people, know when to let the good people work, and know when to overrule them, which the W. Clinton administration did well.
But I’ve grown SO incredibly disgusted with the “Win at any cost” attitude coming from the H. Clinton campaign that, for the first time in my life, 30 seconds ago I’ve just given $100 to a candidate’s campaign.
Congratulations to the Clintons! Only such disgusting behavior as theirs could have made me support Obama with money.
4tehlulz
Am I the only one who found Hillaryis44’s “Confidential Tips” link a bit creepy?
Face
WTF?
crw
In other news, Al Sadr is threatening to end the months long cease fire. McCain in popping a boner at the thought of so many more young people getting to prove our National Greatness.
Expect an epic landslide this fall.
jnfr
To be fair, I know just as many MUP supporters who have declared they’d vote for McCain rather than Hillary. It’s not a point of view I understand on either side.
Mr Furious
Isn’t kicking the establishment, experienced candidate’s ass across the country showing you anything?
While Hillary’s camp runs around with their head’s cut off with a strategy that ran out two weeks ago?
You might not be able to quite predict an Obama Administration from the Obama campaign, but I think you can definitely draw conclusions about Clinton’s management and delegation skills from the ineptitude and loyalty-over-competence failures of her campaign.
Andrew
You mean like hiring staff who are competently running a multi-state primary campaign, versus a staff that doesn’t understand Texas delegate rules and can’t find enough Pennsylvanians to seat?
Andrew
Damn you, Mr Furious, am am furious at you for preempting me with a superior post.
Nicholas Weaver
Mr Furious: The ability to run a campaign well really has little to do with running the country. Its much more specialized, much more limited in focus, and doesn’t have near the complexities.
But you are right about running it poorly: Before Obama started building momentum, I could have voted for H. Clinton with comfort, assuming it would be the same management style as W. Clinton. But the way they’ve handled failure has clearly shown this is not to be.
I don’t see Obama necessarily being a GOOD president (or a bad one, for that matter), but H. Clinton has shown that she WOULD be a bad president. (But still probably better than John McCain’s as yet unselected VP candidate.)
Punchy
Why not start this again:
Who does Obama, the likely nommy, choose for Vice? Does he go cracker, to perhaps get a few Confeddy votes, or does he go jungle fever and go cracker chick like Kathy Sabs?
They could term it the Minority Majority. It’s got cache.
demimondian
Me, too, and me, neither — but it’s a universal phenomenon.
Theorem: “Any sufficiently large group of humans contains at least one fool”
Conjecture, unproven but compelling: “All groups of size greater than 0 are sufficiently large.”
zzyzx
Clinton’s insistence on seating FL and MI as is is what started to make me worry. Part of the job is knowing what can be done and what can’t. Fighting that hard over something that obviously wasn’t going to happen raised a lot of red flags.
If I were in charge of her camp, I would have asked for a revote on 3/5. That would both play to her strength (Super Tuesday Part II, only this time only with states she is doing well in and little time for Obama to catch up), and be next to impossible for Obama to reject without looking bad.
You have to know how to win while making your opponent think that they have won. I can see Obama doing that, but not Clinton.
PK
By the way that “YES WE CAN” chant of Obama’s- thats a straight lift from Bob the Builder. How can you have a presidential candidate who plagarises from a cartoon character!
Mr Furious
Agreed. That’s why I think that his success is less of a predictor than Clinton’s failure—which really reveals critical flaws and just eviscerates her biggest qualification.
Evinfuilt
Isn’t our current president Mr. Magoo?
chopper
if you look at the list of people obama’s looking for in a cabinet, a large chunk of em worked in clinton’s administration.
ThymeZone
Your best post ever.
John Cole
You are comparing apples and oranges. In most cases in which Obama supporters claim they would vote for McCain over Hillary, it is because they are folks outside the Democratic party- likely Independents or disaffected Repoublicans- and it makes complete sense for them to vote for McCain over Hillary.
Hillary supporters claiming they are voting for McCain over Obama is just insanity, because Hillary’s supporters are DEMOCRATS. Democrats choosing to vote Republican because their candidate lost the nomination is the height of stupidity, especially in this election.
It just goes back to what people have been saying- Obama expands the pool of people willing to vote for Democrats. Hillary shrinks it.
Wilfred
Bullshit. It’s adapted from Sammy Davis Jr.’s autobiography entitled “Yes I Can”.
Now Sammy was married to a white woman, Mai Britt, at about the same time that black commie (and in Sammy’s case, Jewish) men from the 60’s were mating with Nordic goddesses like Mai, or May, as in May Day as in the First International and workers of the world unite stuff (cf. Schiffren, Lisa et al.)
Obama changed the pseudo-American individualism of Yes I Can to the commie communitarianism of Yes We Can in homage to the legacy of Sammy, May, and Paul Robeson.
Jen
TalkLeft and P-Luk are in cahoots:
…regardless of what the states holding them, who have a right to choose which they want to do, want.
p.s. it’s too late
demimondian
John, I recommend you go troll some of the older dKos diaries. You’ll find that the number of “progressive” Democrats who said they’d vote for McCain first is strikingly high.
Be fair to yourself: you’re not the only person who’s said “I’ll never vote for X” for no good reason. You’re just one of the few who suddenly said “hey, wait. That’s not a good enough reason.”
jcricket
Yep, not looking good for HRC (and this coming from a supporter of hers). However, perhaps this is projection, but I think a prolonged two-way race actually helps the Dems in the long-run.
One of my fears with Obama is that he was “Dean writ large” – that his wave of support/enthusiasm would come crashing down into the reality of the long campaign, especially against Republican attacks.
But now that it’s not a one-shot (super tuesday) thing, I think that the longer his wave builds (i.e. through March and maybe into April) and the longer that’s the story (record turnout, gains in constituency across the board, etc.) I think the more it prevents the crash (paradoxically) theory.
My prediction is narrow wins for Hillary in Ohio and TX, and furious calls for her to drop out (which she won’t) before the races in April. She might even still win Pennsylvania. But numerically Obama will have a pretty big lead at that point.
What’s better for the Dems, actually, is for Hillary to stay in and my scenario to be wrong – that Obama wins Ohio and TX, proving he can “win anywhere” (I know, he’s already proved that). And maybe even wins in PA against a recalcitrant/stubborn HRC. Think of that story.
As a HRC supporter I’m more inclined to think positively of Obama as he does better in more contests. Not a one-trick-pony (ha!) so to speak.
swellsman
Nicholas Weaver: Yeah, what you said. I have been explaining to my friends and family for months now that I think Clinton would be a competent, able President, but that in 2008 this is to damn with faint praise. This feels like a real watershed year in politics, and dammit! Obama seems the candidate to really take the country in an entirely new direction.
But the incompetence displayed by Clinton in her campaigning has made my argument on her behalf (such as it is) much more muted. I am NOT convinced any longer that her organizational skills are up to the task. I mean, I don’t know how Texas selects its delegates, but if I was running for President I’m pretty sure I would have taken the time to figure it out. I don’t know what the deadline is for getting my delegates on the slate in Pennsylvania, but if I was running for President I would have taken the time to figure it out.
And look, I get that Clinton’s team never expected this thing to last beyond Super Duper Tuesday. But, y’know, even if you did have a Plan A, it seems to me at some point you should also have a Plan B somewhere just in case you ended up being wrong about being able to put this thing away early.
It seems to me that Clinton is running the kind of campaign that would have worked very, very well in the mid-90s, but has been unable to recognize that times are changing; hell, she seems remarkably behind the curve in even grappling with the new, enthusiastic “bottom-up” organizing and money-raising that the Internet and new networking technology makes available.
It worries me that she demonstrates this very human failing: having learned how things work, we tend not to pay attention when circumstances change and we have to learn new lessons. If these two campaigns were trying to drive across Asia, Barack Obama would have MapQuest and Google Earth, and Clinton would be operating off of a map that said, “Here There Be Dragons.”
demimondian
Jen, (alternate) Obama delegate in the state of Washington here…you do realize that Washington State’s caucus is imposed on us by the party, right? We hold the beauty contest primary in spite of the parties’ refusal to recognize our wishes, not out of some desire to waste money on something foolish.
TL and PLuk are wrong about a lot of things — but not about primaries. And PARTICULARLY not about the beauty contest here in Washington.
Pb
More campaign plagiarism!
…with extra irony in full context:
Mr Furious
Yeah, if Hillary were to play it like Huckabee. But she won’t. If she’s in it, she’ll be working to destroy Obama regardless of the collateral damage. Nothing about that is good.
Z
Too true. W ran an excellent campaign.
Also, very true.
Jen
jcricket, I disagree with your opinions about the desirability of a longer Hillary campaign, (I guess I see parallels to wingers who thought Terri Schiavo was liable to dance the polka any day now — can’t we just let her go with peace and dignity?) but I respect your reasoned and empirical thinking and civility. If you can tell a joke, too, you win an Obamargarita.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
This can’t be true. Don’t you guys read that guy at Balloon Juice?
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
You… you mean… I can have as much of the Pony Dust as I want??!
After yesterday, verbally tussling with a couple of the people apparently incapable of understanding Hillary’s genderless downsides, I am ALL TOO HAPPY to piss on her grave.
Fuck it. Poison the well. I’m sick of the level of Teh Stoopid, and apparently Wisconsin supports me in my frustration.
I wanted to be nice, but when you weaken the term “sexism” by including into it “sensitive to basic indecency”, it gets me angry.
Jen
Wait, the DNC decides these things? That wasn’t what I understood. Admittedly, I don’t understand these things well. If anyone has a link to the Nickel Tour of the Primary Season Mindfuck, it’d be appreciated.
And, sure, they can certainly make their point and it’s not necessarily bad. But for P-Luk to come around after Wisconsin and say zip zero zilch nada about the results and only “the real story here is”?? When there is no possible happy spin you can put on it, so you change the subject — that’s just GWB-style head-in-the-sandedness.
Victor Jr. (Orlando,FL)
We’ve all heard it before:
“The Cream shall rise to the top”
“The Truth shall come to light”
Well America…here it is…right before your eyes. Obama’s ideas, presentation & delivery are head and shoulders above the rest. And that is FACT. Moreover, his record and past judgement proves that he is qualified and well prepared to lead this country back to prosperity by taking care of our home 1st, bringing our troops home and mending foreign relations. Foreign leaders are fed up with the ideals of “The Cowboy Way”. They are tired of the business of take take take, kill and destroy. Look where that has gotten us. American people are tired of all the lies. We are tired of all the White House scandal. We the people are tired of being taken advantage of. Obama gives it to you straight. The opposition says he doesn’t have the experience. Has Hillary led a country before? As I watch the debates, I really pay attention to content. Judging from political track records and debates alone, Obama makes me feel like he is the one who will deliver and make this organism function like it should. 4yrs ago, John Kerry presented his plan and strategy and ran circles around George Bush in those debates. Bush looked like a complete idiot, incapable of running a STATE – let alone a country, but the majority made excuses for his presentation and speaking skill and put him in office anyway. A PRESIDENT SHOULD BE THOROUGH. NO EXCUSES! The Organization will take on the characteristics of it’s Leadership. Indications of Bush’s leadership capability were made plain back then….But NOOOO. Many smart dummies stood up and said WE WANT BUSH – he’s our guy…and went out and voted for him…Look where THAT got us! You see, it’s not about skin color. It’s about TRUTH, CHARACTER,INTEGRITY AND CAPABILITY. No cover ups. No bigotry. Fairness. Fair Trade among Nations. Maya Angelou put it best when she said: “There is no human being more human than another.” Obama will get this country back in shape and restore the trust we have lost with the majority of the world. Make the RIGHT choice for you and your family’s safety. Do it for the troops that YOU say you love and support. BE the smart person that you’re conviced you are and VOTE OBAMA! America’s time is NOW
Fausto Carmona
She might not have a choice. Any losses or narrow wins there, and she goes from Serious Candidate to Mike Huckabee. At that point, someone from the DNC will take her campaign out back, hand it a revolver, and ask it to do the honorable thing.
zzyzx
The voters in WA want an open primary and the state parties want closed ones, hence the confusion.
I noticed a few hillaryis44’ers are starting to look at the VP slot. They’re moving into bargaining. This is healthy.
Face
Apparently you’re the drunk one.
As for the Hill, I see her winning TX by a small margain and declaring a huge victory. More money flows in, and she lives to fight another day. Or month. Or season. Ouch.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
It seems like Clinton offered Milbank an engraved invitation to be White House correspondent. Milbank is trying desperately hard to downplay Obama and stay within the lines of facts.
Pb
Jen,
The state party decides these things:
Jen
….so they settled on the caucus? This makes no sense to me.
Billy K
My question is, when does she get sick of being embarrassed?
The Grand Panjandrum
NM has a similar problem. This points to something we can glean from the actions of the state party. The state party leaders make the rules to AID incumbency. This is how they set up the rules to favor the people they want to see in office. THAT is why things seem so undemocratic. They ARE undemocratic. Leadership does not give one shit about the rank and file. Its about power. And that includes Democrats.
Jen
Thanks, pb. So, the Wa. state party chose the caucus. As I said somewhat inaccurately, though, the states are choosing the method they want. Isn’t that the right of the state parties? If you’re going to eliminate caucuses, you have to eliminate the right of the state parties to choose how they want to get their delegates, don’t you?
OriGuy
After Bush got elected, how many of those people (besides Sean Penn) who said they’d move out of the country really did? There’s nine months until the election; plenty of time for those people who say “If {Clinton|Obama|Kucinich|Paul} doesn’t get the nomination, I’m voting for {McCain|Nader|McKinney}” to reconsider. They might not contribute money or time, maybe they’ll stay home, but I bet most of them won’t end up voting for McCain. Nine more months for the economy to get worse, the war to drag on, and Democrats to make John McCain look like George Bush III.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I see her losing Texas, most everything else following, and declaring corruption and sexism in the campaign cycle. She starts a 527 to fight the “Sexist Scourge”, gets another couple million. She plays scorched earth until she’s fully reviled by non-supporters.
Her supporters have now dwindled to the dregs of cultist, American Idol-watching society. Every decision made by these people will be loony as all get-out. You’ve seen the latest:
“45 minutes without a teleprompter. What a blowhard”
“Periodically is a sexist term”
“Caucuses are un-democratic”
“Chris Matthews caught a State Senator. There goes the Obama Campaign!”
To Follow:
“Vote for McCain”
“Boycott the convention”
“Run independent, if only to take votes away from Obama”
…so on…
That’s the problem with taking away all the free-moving voters… now there’s no buffer for Teh Crazy.
OriGuy
Sorry, eight months. I haven’t had a shower and coffee yet.
SmilingPolitely
Ha! That’s good stuff.
Jen
Metaphysical query: if a state’s voters decided that they did want a caucus over a primary, would the caucus still be undemocratic?
ThymeZone
I’m hurt that you don’t know more about me after three years.
I don’t drink.
I might have the occasional glass of wine while cooking my worldbeater recipes, but that’s rare. I’ve had the same two bottles of beer in the fridge for months now.
I wish I could drink more, really. But my innards wouldn’t be happy.
So, how’s your day going?
zzyzx
It depends if they made that decision in a caucus or a primary ;)
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
That query isn’t metaphysical.
if a state’s voters decided that they did want a caucus over a primary, the caucus is democratic is goddamn tautology, it’s that freaking simple. And that’s extra special in the U.S., considering *this isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic*
Ignore p luk from now on, he just proved himself detached from reality. He’s been trying to hard to make the numbers dance for Hillary, he’s dislodged.
BP
Let me speak up a little bit in defense of caucuses. Yes, they do require more effort, and tend to discourage participation. But it’s a tradeoff. I disagree with Grand Panjandrum that caucuses generally favor incumbency. The caucus system allows candidates who are much less financially viable to get support and win nominations or endorsements, especially at lower levels. Here in Minnesota, for instance, there is no way that Paul Wellstone would have been able to compete directly in a primary with his limited funds, but by having a base of devoted activists and a through knowledge of the process, he was able to score an upset victory.
I admit that for presidential politics, caucuses do have their downside, but caucuses have their virtues as well.
Ash
Maybe Hillary and crowd will manage to get Larry Sinclair to pass a poly just in time for her to squeak over the top in Texas in Ohio. Can’t have a gay crack head as prez. now can we?
Jen
You can quit swearing at me, CFC, I was just trying to make the point that there can be more than one way of looking at whether or not something is undemocratic.
A state’s voters could vote that they don’t want their black folks to vote no mo’, and that would be undemocratic, wouldn’t it?
It doesn’t sound like any of the state’s voters make the decision about primary v. caucus, so it’s kind of a moot point.
I’m going to tweak Demi now. Do you *still* think that all Hillary really wanted in Florida, after all, was there to be a caucus, not for the primary delegates to count?
chopper
i don’t see it going that far. she can’t piss off too many people, she’s got a senate seat to hold on to.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I’m not so much swearing at you as I’m swearing at moron Hillbots. :)
Maybe I’m overdosing on too much Pony Dust, but I’m just getting outright infuriated at this insulting stupidity; like we should be stupid enough to even discuss what’s wrong with coming together as a community and discussing what we want out of our candidate.
/Arrrrgh!
J.R. Labrador
Regarding Washington State: We used to have an open primary – anyone could vote for anyone in either party. Some time ago, the Republicans nominated a total nutcase for Governor and the Party blamed it on mischievous Dems crossing party lines in the primary. Both parties then sued saying that the open primary wasn’t fair, that people not connected to the Party were playing havoc with the nomination process. Much litigation ensued, with the parties winning the right to go to caucases so that they could control the process. Eventually the open primary was overturned by the courts but the public was quite put out (the open primary was a long standing and popular tradition) and legislature couldn’t be been seen to be on the side of abolishing “elections”, so now we have both. And the useless primary that we do have now is no longer open. You have to declare a party preference, and Washingtonians on the whole, aren’t happy about doing that.
Hope that helps.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
And you better not talk back to me, or I’ll destroy your Ozone Layer and give you a nasty sunburn! :P
demimondian
Nobody questions the right of the party to choose its method of selecting delegates. However, I question how democratic it is, given how tremendously unrepresentative it is. I know, from personal experience, how hard it is for a family with children to attend a caucus where there’s no childcare available. (Most places, the party was arranging cars and care. Not in my LD — bad, bad, bad.)
As to being tweaked: yes, I do think that the delegates from FL and MI will be seated THE SAME WAY THE DELEGATES FROM WA ARE.
jcricket
A priest, an imam and a rabbi walk into a bar and the bartender says, “Is this a joke?”
That’s all I got this morning.
jcricket
Much like I think we need a universal/uniform set of federal voting guidelines (states apparently suck at this stuff), I think the DNC needs to pressure states to go all primary. And possibly consider requiring simpler delegate apportionment rules.
No one is served well by this mish-mash of caucuses, primaries, precincts, etc.
I’m not complaining that it hurt Clinton or anything. Just as a general principle for next time around.
Shygetz
As the father of two very small children, I kept waiting for Obama to ask the rhetorical question “Can we fix it?”