Post your results here.
I have had the tv on for 2 minutes and am already ready to scream as Joe Scarborough asks why “obama can not close the deal.”
Gee. I dunno. Because he is running against an exceedingly popular candidate who has a 16 year advantage building a political machine who just a few months ago was Mrs. Inevitable?
Idiots. That is like bitching at the Giants for only beating the Patriots by a few points.
Zifnab
Yeah, seriously. What’s up with that?
JR
I love that Pennsylvania has suddenly become the microcosm for the entire Democratic primary electorate, don’t you. If Obama doesn’t win THIS state primary, then he can throw the other, what, 30 victories in the trash because those didn’t mean anything? Suddenly, winning one state after losing 30 puts Hillary back in serious contention for the nomination?
Obama closed the book on this mathematically. The chicken’s head has already been cut off–we’re just waiting for it to stop running around before we get to making dinner.
Ninerdave
CNN is calling it.
It doesn’t matter Hillary still can’t win the nomination without tearing apart the party.
Conservatively Liberal
I heard the same thing, and Harold Ford is just as painful to listen to. Russert saying that Hillary’s support is so tight that ‘it can’t be peeled away’ thus Obama is in trouble.
Shit, the leader in the contest being told that winning the delegate count is not enough. If this was reversed there would not even be a discussion, Hillary would have been declared the winner February 6th. If Russert says ‘white women’ one more time I am changing to the History channel for a few hours.
Well, time to go change the channel. He did it.
Pooh
Wait what? So by winning people who are going to vote Dem anyway….(note, I’d have the same complaint about a quote talking about BHO winning the AA vote by a hefty margin.) It’s just retarded “analysis”. Our entire political media class is completely stupid. Because if they weren’t they’d be doing something fucking useful with their lives.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Scarborough’s question to Harold Ford about having the Obama money to out-ad Corker was terrible. Harold Ford and the Ford family are fairly high up the Tennessee food chain and in no way comparable to Obama, who most people only began to recognize a little over a year ago.
Pat Buchanan called Obama “a wimp” a few minutes earlier.
On a different note, Norah O’Donnell looks hot tonight.
David
There’s your problem, you’re LISTENING to what they SAY.
Turn the sound off. There’s a whole new world of enjoyable TV out there once you use the Mute button.
Football is watchable again, for example. And definitely election night coverage. Are you seriously worried they WON’T show you the numbers over and over, you have to hear them speak the numbers too?
Hey, everyone – what’s your favorite TV with the Mute button?
I like football that way. Baseball too, even better if I can get that game on the radio. Election night. Almost everything on the Travel Channel, especially the poker (Vince VanPatten must DIE).
JR
What do you mean “CNN is calling it”?
They haven’t issued a projection yet.
Ninerdave
Sorry I should have quoted the next statement. It was snark as in:
“CNN is calling it that this primary won’t make a difference”
Not snark but ammusing msnbc has a blaring red banner that says:
“BREAKING NEWS: Pennsylvania Democratic primary too close to call as polls close, NBC News declares”
ZOMG!!! ZOMFG!!!
The polls closed and it’s still too close to call!!! ZOMG!!
Martin
Bill Clinton, myiq, and p.luc says if they were playing according to Canadian rules and that there were no running backs that the Patriots would have totally won that game.
nightjar
I’ll be attending nightly services in the Church of Baseball for the next couple of hours. Got to recharge the spirit batteries to suffer thru this insufferable primary pissing match.
JenJen
Scarborough makes me want to throw things at my teevee. And Christ, I just do not want to listen to GOP commentator asshats parroting Clinton talking points for the next two weeks. “Why can’t he close the deal?”
Grrrrr.
Martin
And just to head off myiq’s daily inflation: Obama $17 million, Clinton $8.6 million. Just a hair shy of 2:1.
David
CNN:
BREAKING NEWS: CNN EXIT POLLS: COMPETITIVE RACE IN PA. BETWEEN OBAMA AND CLINTON
In other top stories, up is down, the sky is blue and gravity works.
jaime
Here’s a better question “Why can’t Hillary close the deal?”
Delia
I got home a few minutes ago and turned on the teevee to hear Pumpkinhead proclaiming that Obama would never be able to peel away Clinton’s rock-solid support among white women and I wanted to scream at him “Hey, Pumpkinhead, I’m a white woman, and I’ve been supporting Obama since Edwards withdrew, and the nastier she gets, the more I support him. And furthermore: I’m in her prime demographic and I have lots of female friends who are voting just like me.” Then Pumpkinhead went on to say her core support was among white, older, stupid women. And I didn’t have an answer for him after that.
baldheadeddork
What I love about the idiotic “can’t close the deal” argument is that Obama has won twice as many contests as Clinton.
To use another sports analogy, it’s like complaining that the Giants aren’t as good as the Redskins because the Giants haven’t won every goddamned game.
The only story from Pennsylvania that matters tonight is the popular vote. If Clinton doesn’t roll up a huge win (20+), she has no chance of being ahead in the popular vote when the primaries are finished. The remaining states that strongly favor Obama are a lot bigger than those that favor Clinton. If she doesn’t get a big lead tonight she’ll have zero chance of ever catching up even if she does blow him out in Kentucky and WV, even if she counts the vote totals from Florida and Michigan.
The mouthbreathers on the teevee aren’t bright enough to figure this out on their own, but the undecided supers are. If Clinton doesn’t win huge tonight she loses her last claim on the nomination. Game over.
David
sorry… up is up. “Up is Down” was the Fox lead.
Dennis - SGMM
This whole site will be singing a different tune in January when Hillary, dressed in her ermine-trimmed red velvet pantsuit, the orb in her left hand and the scepter in her right, with the Crown of the Triangulators perched firmly on her head, ascends the rostrum to take the oath of office.
Jake
Newsflash: the media wants to make this race appear close, for obvious reasons. TNT isn’t the only station that knows DRAMA.
I just want one, just one of these asshats to note that Obama has an insurmountable delegate lead, and an insurmountable lead is BY DEFINITION not close. What’s she going to net, 10-15 delegates from PA? The proportional system is PRECISELY what makes Obama’s delegate lead all the more impressive.
THIS IS NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE.
PeterJ
So if you factor in myiq’s inflation into his prediction about the result of the primary, you get a Clinton win by 5.5%.
Also you probably should factor in the same inflation into his name, so I guess it’s myiq0.8xu. That explains a lot.
David
That’s fine, any Dem but Lieberman will be thousands of times preferable to McCain
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I just may have to go through with my plan to plant a snuke in Senator Clinton’s snizz.
zzyzx
MSNBC is speculating on how Clinton ends her campaign. Apparently the Clinton camp knows they don’t have what they need. Fingers crossed that they’re right.
David
can someone tell me why the FUCK bill bennett is asked for his opinion?
nightjar
Meanwhile the Hills is kickin’ back at headquarters having herself a little snack.
Martin
Wow, 52% turnout for Dems. That’s huge.
There is no national popular vote in the primaries. A number of caucus states never reported one. That’s actually worse than not recognizing FL/MI. Please don’t feed this shit.
Jake
can someone tell me why the FUCK bill bennett is asked for his opinion?
I love this blog.
Jen
Maybe it’s the same reason Hannah Montana’s memoir is worth seven figures…?
Dennis - SGMM
Because of the crucial compulsive gambler demographic?
David
Gee, I remember when you had to live an actual life first, THEN you got to write a memoir.
This country is soooooooo eff’ed
Delia
Hey, Tweety just asked a good question: “Why did Hillary have to pay Mark Penn $4 million for him to be a good Clintonite? And he didn’t even have good ideas.”
Dulcie
Christ on a tortilla, the girl is fifteen. She has no life experience. What in the hell can she write about?
I weep for my country.
Rick Taylor
Yup. Yet the attitude on some pro-Hillary blogs seems to be that Hillary was always the underdog, running against a charismatic opponent, with the media and so many elite Democrats against her. And of course since he’s outspending Hillary in Pennsylvania, he has to win, or at least hold her to single digits, or it clearly shows he’s in big trouble.
Delia
Hey, Tweety just asked a very good question: “Why did Hillary have to pay Mark Penn $4 million to be a good Clintonite? And he didn’t even have good ideas.”
That’s why she’s running out of money.
Conservatively Liberal
If Hillary stays in after this, I would suggest a new campaign song:
“Running On Empty” by Jackson Browne
The chorus says it all:
Running on – running on empty
Running on – running blind
Running on – running into the sun
But I’m running behind
ntr Fausto Carmona
Meanwhile, Tweety was espousing that Obama was trying to spend Clinton “into oblivion”.
myiq2xu
With Elton John performing “The Bitch is Back” live.
Oh! bama already left the state. That says it all.
Dennis - SGMM
Via satellite. There will only be room for one queen in D.C. that day.
Rick Taylor
I have to ask, with everything going for him, why was King Arthur never able to close the deal?
[Ok, cheap shot, but I couldn’t resist]
John S.
Yeah, that’s generally what people do when their work is done.
ntr Fausto Carmona
You mean Obama hadn’t been saying for weeks now that he’d be happy with a close loss? Zounds.
John S.
Because the Black Knight always triumphs!
Even when the stupid bastard has no arms or legs.
It’s quite the metaphor for Hillary’s campaign.
myiq2xu
Q: How do you play San Francisco poker?
A: Queens are wild and straights count for nothing.
zoe from pittsburgh
Get Joe Scarborough off of my teevee.
What is up with the MSM news channels giving stupid right-wing bozos their own shows? Why is Scarborough on for 3 hours in the morning? Why does Glen Beck have his own hour-long show? Who took Lou Dobb’s meds away? Why did they hire Tony Snow?
JenJen
Nobody can make me smile when thinking about wingnut media asshats, and especially the usual suspects zoe mentioned above, the way Frank Rich can. :-)
“When a Washington doyenne like Mary Matalin, freighted with jewelry, starts railing about elitists on “Meet the Press,” as she did last Sunday, it’s pure farce. It’s typical of the syndrome that the man who plays a raging populist on CNN, Lou Dobbs, dismissed Mr. Obama last week by saying “we don’t need another Ivy League-educated knucklehead.” Mr. Dobbs must know whereof he speaks, since he’s Harvard ’67.”
Dug Jay
Aside from blacks and college degreed voters, Hillary is winning all other demographic groups by wider margins than she did in Ohio and Texas. Looks like a real route, with Obama having earlier departed the state with his tail between his legs.
Andrew
A modest proposal: Any Democrat who sits out the November election or votes Republican receives a large “I’m a fraking idiot” tattoo on their foreheads. This means you, TalkLeft morons. I’m happy to say the same to Obama folks who do the same, but they’re a lot more rare than the nutjob Hillary klingons.
Mary
route != rout. And you’re lying about the demographics. Obama’s definitely done better with seniors and white men than he did in Ohio, and there may be a few others he’s also improved in.
John S.
Of course he is – it’s Dug Jay.
He’s more full of shit than a manure truck.
CFisher
To give us all odds on who will win in November so we can at least make some money of the 18 months of idiocy we’ve had to endure.
xyzzy
Holy fucking crap. With ONE PERCENT of the results tallied, NBC news calls the Penn primary for Clinton.
It’s all over now, folks! You can go home! Clinton wins it! The One Percenters have spoken! Ya heard it here first.
JenJen
Your sweeping generalizations aside, Dug Jay, Obama’s rally in Indiana looks raucous and, dare I say it, fun.
Hillary’s blatant “please go to my website and give me $25” banner and that geezer crowd? Not so much.
D-Chance.
Hil wins. CNN calls.
chris
“Aside from blacks and college degreed voters,”
Last I checked, these were NOT separate categories. Are you trying to claim that blacks don’t have college degrees?
Rick Taylor
I’m looking at this webpage of results which probably isn’t a good idea, as it keeps changing. Originally Clinton was 20 points ahead, then 6 points, then 14, now she’s 4 points ahead with 7% reported.
D-Chance.
Very strong showing from Clinton tonight. A very good night for her, and for America.
ntr Fausto Carmona
General Pyhrrus congratulates Senator Clinton on her victory.
Cain
Well I for one sez, “Thank God!” The penn primary is past us and we can all relax till the press gins us up again tomorrow. :)
cain
the politic golfer
Did you notice that until about 8:50 or so, on MSNBC they were reporting exits showing Hillary wins women by almost 20% and wins men by almost 8% but they were saying that the race was too close to call. Are there any other types of voters?
merrinc
I’m resigning myself to President McCain. The silver lining is that he’ll inherit the fucked up mess that Bushco has made and in four years, we can say a big fat I TOLD YOU SO to the rednecks and elect Barack Obama.
Cain
merrinc,
Clinton still can’t win. She needs to like completely win, whateve she gains is going to be made up in Oregon and NC by Obama. There will be no change by the end of the primary season come end of May. So relax, drink some stout, call a hooker of the gender of your choice and soak in the love.
cain
J. Michael Neal
How come these morons are asking how it is that Obama can’t put her away, but don’t ask that question of Clinton. If your objection is that Obama lacks a “knockout punch,” how the hell can you prefer Clinton?
Desmond
She lost men. She won WHITE men.
zoe from pittsburgh
If the current gap sticks– 52-48 — then what is her delegate pickup from PA? Maybe 5 more than him? 10? Still not enough to make a difference. Not to mention she can only stick around if the money starts to flow her way.
Let Hillary do her victory dance today– it’ll be over after Indiana and NC.
JenJen
I don’t know, merrinc. That big fat “I told you so” to the “rednecks” in 2004 didn’t work out so well, for anybody.
Cain
Hey, don’t forget us Oregonians! Well fittingly perhaps we will execute the coup de grace on Hillary. Deliver the knock out punch so to speak.
cain
ntr Fausto Carmona
Wow, now there’s a blowout: Hornets up by 18 over the Mavs midway through the fourth. Whoops, 20. Heckuva shot there by Chris Paul.
But hey, the Mavs can still pull this one out if they can convince the refs they deserve the win! MAVMENTUM!
reid
Good grief. MSNBC has Clinton campaign chair McAuliffe on, lets him go on about them having the popular vote lead when it’s all over, oh, including Michigan and Florida, and doesn’t say a thing about it afterwards. They’re actually debating delegate count vs. popular vote. Questioning why Obama can’t put her away, and that the pressure is on him to win Indiana. My head is about to explode.
jake
CNN calling it for Hillary with 12% counted. Could someone please explain to this mathtard how that’s possible?
merrinc
thanks, cain, but I don’t drink and I doubt my husband would be keen on me calling a hooker. I think I’ll just turn off the tv (before I’m tempted to throw a really heavy object at it) and go have a good cry.
And on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, I’ll go out and canvass again for Obama in NC. He’s going to kick her ass here.
zoe from pittsburgh
Before PA he’s was up 166 delegates, at this point she *might* pick up 14 from PA. So at the end of the night his lead is still 150 among pledged delegates and she has no way to make it up without a superdelegate coup.
ntr Fausto Carmona
And we’re back within 4. My prediction’s looking really good right now.
Notorious P.A.T.
She *is* put away, her ego just won’t let her admit it.
If she wins Pennslvania by 10% or so, and Obama wins Oregon (where he is heavily favored) Clinton basically needs every Democratic voter to pull the lever for her to overcome Obama’s delegate lead. It could happen!!!!!!!
Cain
Oh well, yikes! :-) Yeah, I suppose your husband might be offended, but you never know. Good luck on Saturday.
cain
zoe from pittsburgh
Sorry, cain, I would love it if Oregon were to end this– it’s such a beautiful state. It’s the only state in the country where I encountered a natural hot springs in a state park where the official posted state sign read “Warning: Clothing Optional Area Ahead.”
Cain
The press loves a good story, so they’re going to spin this into a grand battle etc etc because it’ll get the most eyeballs glued on to their sets. This is after all, all about ratings.
Morever, the longer the contest go on, the more money get from all those ad revenues from the campaigns. But I think Hillary has spent a boatload on Pennsylvania, i’m not sure how much she has left for the rest of the campaigns.
cain
Krista
Well, now…that all depends. ;)
Cain
yes at one time “CLothing Opetional” might be fun, but not in a middle of an obesity epidemic. Is that hte park you had to walk like a mile in? I’ve never been to any of the hot springs precisely because of the clothing optional thing. A little too much nature for me.
cain
vwcat
Joe is scared to death of Hillary not getting the nomination because he is a republican and knows it’s their only chance to win.
But, I thought if she won by less then 10 percent, it was not feasable for her. So now the media is now taking their orders from Clinton and even if it ends at 3 percent she will be hailed. 2 hours ago, 3 percent would have meant death to her campaign.
But, the reason he cannot close it out is that everytime Hillary is on the brink the old white women come out in droves to help her. They are what is driving her campaign.
cooomaraswamee
It looks like we have to put up with another couple weeks of Hillary
Dug Jay
Not really. You’re drinking the Kool Aid from the Obama goons who are trying to push that story. Clinton appears at the moment to be headed for at least a ten percentage point margin of victory.
Anticorium
I think we’re all ignoring the important story of the night:
Ron Paul is pulling in 16% of the vote in the PA Republican primary.
Now that’s pony smoke, folks.
zoe from pittsburgh
Hillary is $1 million in the hole. Obama has $43 million.
Geez, it’s disgusting to watch all the Republicans salivating over this– Buchanan, Bill Bennett, Scarborough. You can almost read the thought bubbles over their heads– “Yes! Yes! Yes! We might not have to worry about McCain or GOP GOTV after all!!! Go Hillary!”
I wish Rachel Maddox would reach over and pick up Pat Buchanan’s cup, sniff it and say “whoah, is that paint thinner?”
Conservatively Liberal
Damn straight. The wife, daughter and myself are freshly registered Democrats (from small ‘i’ independents) here in Curry County, and so are some of our friends. I still consider myself a small ‘i’ independent, and if Obama pulls the primary win off (I only say ‘if’ because Hillary’s campaign is a zombie now and it refuses to die) I will stay a Democrat, as will the wife and daughter. If Hillary steals the ‘win’, it is back to independent for us.
Hillary = Same Old Shit
Obama != Same Old Shit
Well, the wife and daughter just took off for the party, so I am off to make some heavy metal noize with our son. This ain’t going anywhere fast anyway…lol
Later! :)
Cain
Come on, that’s just an old wives tale.
cain
cooomaraswamee
Dug Jay,
Mccain 2008
Thanks *Hill*
myiq2xu
Philly is overrepresented in the early returns. And thats Oh! bamas’s PA stronghold.
Big night for Hillary.
Huge
matt
ok, maybe i’m a total idiot… but if only about 20% of the polling stations (counties, etc.) are reporting, and this is only about a 6-point race, doesn’t it strike anyone as a bit premature at this point to project a winner?
Hell, maybe Hillary pulls this off, and maybe this post will be obsolete in an hour or so, but fuckin’ CNN was calling it with 5% reporting….. WTF?
Then again, maybe I’m a total idiot and I just don’t understand the whole system…. could be why I’m registered independent……
JenJen
Why does Tweety always pronounce it “kumb-bye-ah” instead of the more familiar “koomb-bye-ah?”
That’s always kinda bugged me.
Martin
Like Hillary’s concession speech after Wisconsin, delivered in Texas where she didn’t even mention Wisconsin voters or thank her volunteers? Bitter much?
And according to CNN, Obama won men by 7 points and the under 40 vote by double digits. Problem is that PA has an insane number of old people. 23% were 65 or older. People in PA need to fuck more.
Andrei
How many delegates does it take to win “huge?” Just curious where the bar has been set.
zoe from pittsburgh
Yes, it’s a BIG win for Hillary–
Hillary’s campaign is running in the red, she had all the support of the good-ol’-boy PA Dem machine and she was running against a guy no one even knew 2 years ago– and she maybe won by what, 6%? 8% She had a lead of 20% 2 months ago.
That’s a great win. Huzzah!
ntr Fausto Carmona
Very big. The Night She Couldn’t Bury Obama.
Why can’t Hillary close the nomination?
Rick Taylor
I learned a knew principal about how elections work and when they’re significant or not from the Clinton campaign I didn’t know before. Evidently, they are handicapped according to what you spend; the more you spend, the less a victory counts. And so the campaign was arguing today that even a narrow victory for Clinton was significant because Obama was outspending them so much. More extreme Clinton supporters will say that Obama should drop out of the race altogether if he can’t win Pennsylvania after spending so much money. So it turns out that having a bankrupt campaign is a justification for Hillary staying in the race, and for the super-delegates over-turning the pledged delegates at the convention.
Martin
So much for our Jew chat earlier. Obama landed the protestants but Hillary won on the Catholic vote:
White Catholic (31%)
Clinton 70%
Obama 30%
She won the Jewish vote as well but by a much smaller margin and they were a small part of the electorate. Aside from expected trends on race, gender, age, etc. this is one that I hadn’t seen anyone comment on previously. Noticed this from Sully today:
Now, I don’t deny that Clinton has faced a fair share of sexism in this race, but there is no way that she has faced anything quite like that.
Martin
If they have good exit polling data they can use that to set a baseline, compare actual returns to see how solid it is and extrapolate for the whole state. Generally it works well unless it’s Missouri in which case you’ll fuck it up.
They can’t really nail down the final vote difference using it, but they can work out if the gap is safely large enough to call the race. With each set of returns, the variability goes down until it’s low enough to safely call. FWIW, CNN is the most conservative with calling races so I only ever watch them even though Wolf Blitzer needs to die.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
If the numbers stick, SurveyUSA looks to have picked another one. Which says a lot considering that their poll before last had Hillary up 14. Momentum, bitches!
Notorious P.A.T.
Up is down! North is south!
xyzzy
Yeah, that’s just it, isn’t it, Jake? It’s NOT.
They’re relying completely upon exit polls. And we all remember how well exit polls served us in 2000 and 2004.
Responsible Mainstream Journalism: Makin’ Shit Up Since… well, Since Forever, I Guess.
Martin
They got spanked hard over that. They used to call the race immediately in almost all cases. CNN at least has gotten a lot better. Only CNN held out on the MO democratic race and were clearly explaining why they were holding out – everyone else called it wrong. CNN has put some real money into their data and analysis on calling races. Their swooshy map thingy has me in awe. Just on UI alone it’s amazing. By comparison, MSNBC is the clear winner on breaking down the delegate stuff. I switch back and forth for those two items.
zoe from pittsburgh
Ugh. I used to really enjoy listening to both of them, it was like beautiful music to listen to people who know how to think as well as speak. Now I can’t watch Hillary. It’s not because I think Obama is the bee’s knees, it’s because my opinion of her has dropped that low. She’s a narcasstic sychophant who owes most of her success to old-boy-network nepotism, plain and simple.
If I lived somewhere else other than PA I’d say to the state, thanks a lot guys, thanks for encouraging her. But since I live here I’m just sort of sad that we failed everyone. On behalf of PA I say to everyone else– sorry! we’re all stuck with this traveling fiasco for at least 2 more weeks.
myiq2xu
Hillary is giving her speech.
Gracious in victory, very inspiring.
YES SHE CAN!
zoe from pittsburgh
Cain– I just think it’s cool that the state is OK with a bunch of naked people frolicking deep in the woods. To borrow another state’s saying, it’s just very live and let live, and I wish more of the country were that way.
nightjar
Ok, Zoe, I’ve heard of bended knee, trick knee, and even wounded knee. But “Bee’s Knees”? Just curious.
Rick Taylor
Two weeks feels like forever now, but it’s not so long in the overall primaries. So far it looks like she’ll be held to a single digit lead, which isn’t bad at all given the demographics. The Clinton campaign is saying is a win is a win now, but I don’t hear a lot of triumphalism. I don’t think this will be going on too much longer.
zoe from pittsburgh
Yes she can do what exactly?
Narrowly win PA and yet STILL be behind in the delegate count, popular vote and the number of states won and STILL be delusional enough to think she can win?
It’s not a gamechanger. It’s her first win in 11 races. Clinton and her supporters can keep telling themselves she can *still* win without stepping back and thinking “if the situation were reversed would Obama still be in the race?”
She’s slowly destroying the party. She can only win by pleading with the superdelegates to favor her when they clearly should be supporting Obama. If she is successful in her pathetic plight then the Dems are completely and totally fucked.
Martin
myiq-
Did Clinton thank her supporters tonight? That was something that rubbed some of us the wrong way after some of her previous losses – that he didn’t acknowledge her supporters and thank them for their effort.
But otherwise good win. She worked hard for this one.
zoe from pittsburgh
The bee’s knees— it’s a bizarre, absurdist old phrase that I happen to love. It means height of greatness, similar phrases are “cat’s pajamas.”
Just for the record, I’m 32 not 82.
nightjar
LOL. In that case, I agree. Obama is the Bee’s Knee’s.
myiq2xu
Hello? Ohio? Texas?
How soon they forget.
zoe from pittsburgh
Seriously, myiq3xu, let’s follow Hillary’s mission to its logical conclusion– what do you think will happen to the party if she somehow convinces just enough superdelegates to vote for her and ignore that he leads her in every other metric?
I’d really like to know what a Hillary supporter who believes that she still *should* win thinks. This is the best forum for it because it’s anonymous and you can be totally honest. Go for it.
Martin
Zoe-
Don’t sweat it. This will still be over soon. Outcome for Clinton looks like around +13 delegates tonight. That’s pretty good for her, but she’s still not making up ground fast enough and she’s got unfavorable states in 2 weeks. We’ll see what the supers have to say on things.
zoe from pittsburgh
It’s just irritating to listen to her and her people make these “faux-mentum” arguments. She had a BIG lead in PA, she won with a much smaller one and says it’s proof she’s the one with momentum.
Under pressure she was deceitfull and slimy and embraced the very characteristics we’ve watched the GOP use against the Dems. I’m just sick of her and Bill. Sick in a sad sort of way because at one time I really liked and admired them BOTH. The Clintons have turned out to be the biggest disappointment in this whole election season.
merrinc
Excellent editorial in the New York Times:
They smack her for the fear mongering ad and call upon the superdelegates to end it: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box.
Lynne
Although I realize that this site is inhabited almost exclusively by Obamaniacs, Hillary is an extremely viable candidate given the demographics of her base and comparing that to past election trends.
Older people tend to actually get out and vote on election day in greater numbers than the young. Older people are trending to Hillary. Women tend to get out and vote in greater numbers than men. Women are a very large part of Hillary’s support. Whites, the majority in this country, tend to vote as a greater percentage than blacks. There are more people making less than 50K per year in this country than there are making over 50K. There are more people in this country without a college degree than there are people with a college degree. Whites, making less than 50K per year and without a college degree, are trending towards Hillary. These are the most important – they are the voters that make up the “Reagan Democrats” and many are saying that if Obama gets the nomination, they will cross over and vote for McCain.
Also, if you look at the primaries held through today (but not including Florida or Michigan), if it was winner take all (instead of proportional awarding of delegates), like the Republican primaries, Hillary would be ahead of Obama by close to 300 delegates. Michigan can’t be counted since Obama wasn’t even on the ballot, but if you throw in Florida, she would have an even larger lead in delegates.
Hillary has won all of the large swing states by fairly large margins. Given that our elections are determined by the electoral college and it’s winner take all, it does give anyone wanting the Democrats to retake the White House pause.
Rick Taylor
Zoe-
Couldn’t agree more. And I voted for her earlier on in the primaries.
Although to be fair, every campaign spins the results as best they can. I would like to hear what the rational for the campaign is now. The super-delegates are going to overturn the pledged delegate count based on. . . . what? When questioned about it, Hillary Clinton went on about how everything is fluid and even pledged delegates could change their vote, which was quite astonishing.
As far as I can see, she and her campaign just can’t believe what’s happening. Of course she’s the better candidate; of course Obama can’t win in the general. It’s a mystery why the party doesn’t seem to realize it, but come the convention, the super-delegates and maybe even some delegates pledged to Obama are going to wake up and say, oh my God, Hillary’s the only one that can win. Maybe if she does another commercial reminding us yet again the Presidency is a serious business, where anything can happen, people will wake up and say oh my God, of course we can’t let some wet-behind-the-ears senator take on such a serious job.
nightjar
How to get it thru the thick skulls of Hillary voters. It doesn’t friekin’ matter whether she’s viable or not. You know, it’s called an election and she’s behind and she can’t catch up, except by twisting arms SD’s. And that would be a nomination by the “smoke filled room”. Viable that!
John Cole
And if we had sent more troops to Iraq and not disbanded the Iraqi army we might not be in the mess we are in right now? If the Democrats were running Santa Claus, right now he would be kicking McCain’s ass in a head to head matchup among 6 year olds. If Al gore had won Tennessee…
Shall we all throw in our pointless hypotheticals?
Conservatively Liberal
He is holding her just under 10 points so far (9.8 currently at the PA SoS site, and coming in he was 20 or so down. Delegate count so far (referenced at Kos) is 52/46 but still along ways to go until that is resolved. Just over 1,000 districts left to count now.
While Obama did not win the state, he did win the spending game by forcing her to skip paying bills and put what little cash she had left in to PA. She is broke, begging for anything (I like the call for $5 donations…lol!) people can send her and there is a good chance that NC is going to completely negate the PA results. If that is the case, she is dead as far as the primary goes.
Her only hope would be a ‘gift’ by the super delegates. At least we only have to wait two weeks for the next round of ‘fun’. That does not give her much time to collect more cash, and it gives those who may be reluctant to contribute an out because they want to wait and see what happens in IN and NC.
This really does not change much other than give her a bump in the popular vote and a few extra delegates, the outcome has not changed one bit. I am glad that Obama cut her lead in half and wiped her out of cash. That alone makes every single penny he spent in PA worth it. He is wearing her down, and I am glad to see it!
Rick Taylor
I don’t think many people here question that Hillary would be a viable candidate in the general election. Indeed John Cole originally declared her election to be inevitable. I do object when people say that Obama is going to loose the election against McCain, and only Hillary can win, but I think they’d both do well (though to be honest, the last couple weeks have made me less certain about Hillary than I was before).
Also, this is hardly exclusively a site of Obamaniacs. Obama’s penchant for talking about unity, dismissing left wing radicals doesn’t sit well for many of us who’ve come to see the Republican party as beyond reasoning with. John made fun of the “Magical Unity Pony” early on. Certainly he wasn’t most peoples’ first choice here. It’s just that at this point many of us are horrified at the lengths Hillary is willing to go to pursue the nomination even now when she’s so far behind in the delegate count.
Martin
But you can’t mix and match to suit your needs. You talk about how if we did this and that and then talk about how we consider the EC. You don’t realize that you hamstring the caucus states by excluding them in your if scenarios – where we don’t have popular vote tallies. You exclude the fact that the GE is a single day election, not a sequential thing where Clinton can hopscotch from state to state on a shoestring budget. You need to fight all the states at once – and Obama has that organization already in place and has the fundraising support to pull it off.
And the primary and the general reflect different approaches. Primaries are usually picking the preferred of two candidates. Even now after all this, you have the majority of supporters expressing positive for both candidates on almost every issue and relatively few defectors – and that pool will only get smaller. Primaries are mostly driven by positive ratings.
The general is the opposite. Voters are usually picking the least offensive candidate. The party loyal line up behind their candidate and the middle makes their best stab. Low negatives are what works best here. That doesn’t favor Clinton. She is flat-out unacceptable to a decent swath of the populace. I don’t agree with the reasons why, but we all know what they are.
You can’t cherry-pick the stuff out of the primaries that suits you. You need to look at the whole package. Clinton’s negatives, her campaign problems, and her trouble raising money (she’s already tapped a lot of people for their max for the general, Obama has barely hit up anybody yet) makes Obama look like a much stronger candidate. Given that McCain is likely to face money problems, throwing more states into the swing column favors the Dems. Clinton has strong support in blue states, but has few swing states to work with. Her map looks a lot like 2000 and 2004. She’s strong in Florida and decent in Ohio but she’s losing the pacific NW, and she gets massacred in the midwest. Obama puts all kinds of states in play. Iowa, North Dakota? Nebraska? Yeah, they aren’t as big as Florida, but Obama is gonna bury McCain in money and force him all over the map. That’s what will get Ohio, etc. back in play for him where he is weak.
Clinton/McCain is pretty narrow, and well known fight – and one that hasn’t worked well for us. Obama/McCain is a totally new thing and one where we need help. We can get close to a filibuster proof majority in the senate if we can pick up open senate seats in red states. We know we can do this with Obama’s strategy since we got Webb, Tester and Foster this way (among others). I don’t know if we can with Clinton’s strategy since she’s going to skip most of these states. If you look at the big picture, Obama is all win in the general. Many of the supers see that.
Rick Taylor
If it was winner take all, Obama would not have campaigned the way he did, and it would have been a completely different race; no one knows who’d be ahead or by how much. These questions are pointless. Obama campaigned to win the race we actually had, and he did so effectively. Hillary Clinton, from what I’m told, overlooked the caucus states allowing Obama to sweep them. Going in, I assumed that Clinton would be the more effective campaigner. I’ve been astonished to be proven so wrong.
Martin
If there is one thing that is clear in all of this, it’s that Obama’s campaign understood the rules of the game like nobody else. Clinton ran a general election. She walked into this playing the wrong set of rules.
You win a delegate game by finding the easy winners. Odd delegate districts and you focus on them. A single vote win nets you a delegate advantage. You work out to high even numbered districts where a two delegate advantage is easiest to secure. The small even numbered districts you worry about least.
Even where Clinton secured popular vote gains, she got them in the wrong places and didn’t get delegates. Obama won delegate even when he lost popular votes by understanding the rules and tailoring his campaign toward them. That’s how the general works as well. Winning NY by a landslide doesn’t get you anything more than a narrow win gets you. The math is easier but its still a game of understanding and exploiting the rules to your advantage.
Now lots of people will scream ‘unfair’ and I’d agree if these rules were not well understood and the campaigns had no control how to play to them, but they did. Change the rules, change the campaign, change the outcome. And that’s why we can’t take FL/MI on face value. Obama has closed every single race by getting known by voters by huge amounts. He never had that shot in FL/MI. Hillary won because she was the known candidate. Essentially, her time in the WH was her campaign in those states and Obama never had that opportunity. Elected officials understand the dynamics of campaigning and they won’t overlook that.
And for all the howling over at sites like Mydd, this is why DKos is a winner. The Kossacks know this stuff inside and out. Not only do they know the rules, they sometimes seem to know it better than the Clinton campaign.
Conservatively Liberal
You are on target with that assessment Martin. Obama kept his nose to the grinding wheel and got the job done. He surrounded himself with people who knew what to do and they got it done. While Hillary was prancing around making TV appearances, being Mrs. Inevitable and raking in money and super delegates. Obama stuck to the game plan and methodically beat her every step of the way.
If I remember correctly, Hillary has collected about $170 million and has spent about $180 million (including her $5 million loan), and she is broke and in the hole Obama has collected just over $240 million, and he has spent about $190 million and has about $50 million cash on hand.
Who has run their campaign with an eye to getting the most bang for the buck? Who has over 1.3 million people throwing small amounts of cash that add up to a lot? Who has gone to states that are typically ignored and let those people finally have a say in who they want? Who is trying to help other Democrats win seats while campaigning in the primary?
Obama. Hands down he has put Hillary the Inevitable to shame. She was riding the horse of inevitability and he knocked her off her high horse. All she can do is attack him like a Republican, whine about him outspending her, criticize him for his huge events and his message of change and offer nothing in return.
She has lost this in just about every way she can, yet she refuses to concede. She can not face the fact that this nobody from nowhere is kicking her ass. She resents everything about Obama, and she is in this for spite now. She would cut off her nose to spite her face, no doubt about it.
I said I MIGHT vote for her if she were to win the legitimately, but the chance she can do that is gone. If they give the win to her over Obama, I will re-register as an independent and write in Obama this fall. I know people are crying about Supreme Court appointments and whatnot, but I am not swayed by that one bit. If the people of the party hand it to her over Obama, they deserve whatever they get in return.
I am not a blind voter, that is why I quit the Democratic party in ’92. Obama brought me back, but if he is out then so am I. Same for my wife and daughter. We are in this for him.
Lynne
While I appreciate and respect the analysis of my comments by other commenters (John’s snark not included), I noticed that no one addressed my comments concerning demographics. The ultimate goal is to get the White House back in the Dem column, and I just don’t see how Obama can do it, given general election voter demographic trends.
Using my own immediate family as a test, what I see concerns me. There are nine registered voters, eight being registered democrats and one democrat leaning independent. Family incomes range from approximately 150K per year to 350K per year. Gender breakdown is five women and four men. Age breakdown is two over seventy, three between 40 and 50, three in their mid thirties, and one age 20. Five are college graduates, three have some college, and one is currently in college. Sounds like all should be on the Obama bandwagon, given his base of support, doesn’t it?
The actual breakdown is somewhat surprising. Only one Obama supporter in the group. All others started out supporting Edwards, then switched over to Hillary after Edwards dropped out. What concerns me is their thoughts about the general election, if Obama is the nominee. Of course, the Obama supporter will vote for him. The independent says he will vote for McCain, as will two of the male democrats. One male democrat and one female democrat said they would go ahead an vote for Obama. The remaining three female democrats are torn – one between McCain and just sitting it out, the other two between Obama and just sitting it out. On the other hand, if Hillary Clinton is the nominee, all nine would vote for her, even the Obama supporter. The final breakdown for nominees:
Hillary Clinton – 9 votes for her.
Barak Obama – 3 votes for him, 3 votes for McCain, 1 undecided leaning McCain, 2 undecides leaning Obama.
Thoughts?