28 responses so far ↓

• 1 Von Cracker // May 7, 2008 at 11:05 am

  That kid you see crying on the street, walking with a ball in their hand?

  That is a Clinton supporter….quite sad.

• 2 Rebecca // May 7, 2008 at 11:19 am

  They have worked hard. They had good reasons to support her. Let them vent, it is healing. For the next few weeks we have to be very kind and gracious.

  But, as they say on kos this morning, NOT gracious enough to put her on the ticket in the vp slot or pay off her campaign debts. She’s not a unifying force within the party or, more importantly, within the nation. She shouldn’t be treated like one.

• 3 Von Cracker // May 7, 2008 at 11:24 am

  Agreed.

  Consistently, Obama’s message has been focused on moving away from the past. Asking HRC to be VP would be directly counter to it.

• 4 El Somnambulo // May 7, 2008 at 11:35 am

  And of course it was Harold Ford of the odious DLC all over the tube calling for an Obama/Clinton ticket.

  As for being gracious, I will be gracious only when the Clintons make clear they are actually winding this thing up.

  Until then, I won’t rest until we drive the stake through Dracula’s heart.

• 5 Pandora // May 7, 2008 at 11:54 am

  I agree with Rebecca… let them vent, at least it shows they’re beginning to face the fact that Hillary lost. I shudder to think of what I would have written had the positions been reversed.

  However, I won’t console them. They need to work through their issues on their own. As far as paying off her debt? No way, especially since she keeps lending herself money to keep this thing (I refuse to call it a race) going.

• 6 A. Bundy // May 7, 2008 at 12:09 pm

  You know where this is going? It’s going “all the way to the White House!” according to Mrs. Clinton!

  Mathematically Obama would need to garner roughly 68% of the remaining 217 delegates to get the required 2,025. That is just NOT going to happen with HRC still out there.

  So, this thing still looks like it is going to the Convention.

  This is the system that the DNC put in place! They didn’t feel their constituency could be trusted to elect viable candidates! There had to be a system in place so the powers-that-be got to control who was elected. So you get what we have today.

  Clinton should stay in this race. Due to the way the system is set up, she can still win. She should take this thing all the way to the convention; which is exactly what the system calls for!

• 7 Dana // May 7, 2008 at 12:15 pm

  Perhaps you will remember who has been saying, since last December, that race would play the biggest part in this election, and that was why Barack Obama would be much easier for the Republican nominee to defeat than Hillary Clinton.

• 8 liberalgeek // May 7, 2008 at 12:35 pm

  Dana, if the Republicans want to run the general that way, fine. I’m happy to take my chances there. I think people are generally not racists and I think that McCain will avoid the issue.

  It will be up to the 529’s to point out that Obama is black. And McCain will have to run away from them.

• 9 FSP // May 7, 2008 at 12:55 pm

  Interesting statistic. Since March 1, the popular vote total in the Democratic Primary:

  Clinton: 5,560,159 (51.1%)
  Obama: 5,330,689 (48.9%)

• 10 anon // May 7, 2008 at 12:57 pm

  Another interesting fact: If your aunt had whiskers she’d be your uncle.

• 11 liberalgeek // May 7, 2008 at 1:02 pm

  And this doesn’t exactly fairly represent the Caucus states, does it?

• 12 Al Mascitti // May 7, 2008 at 1:07 pm

  Fairly? A guy whose party still has no candidate for governor but insists that, quite literally, nobody is better than either Democrat? Where would you get the impression that Dave knows how to be fair?

• 13 FSP // May 7, 2008 at 1:23 pm

  I think Wyoming was the only caucus state.

• 14 kavips // May 7, 2008 at 2:22 pm

  Of more important note, I disagree with anon. I’ve seen in passing, quite a few aunts bearing whiskers, who were endowed with rather large mammary glands, large enough to make one think they lacked the proper equipment to have ever been an uncle at one time……

• 15 RSmitty // May 7, 2008 at 3:00 pm

  Caucuses are crap, anyway and I have said so from day 1. If you really want to get into semantics, which is what you do with Dave these days, he did say:
  Since March 1, the popular vote total in the Democratic Primary:
  

  Nothing about the entire voting for primaries and caucuses alike.

  Now back to your fairly semantical bashing of Dave. It’s his fault he gives you the opportunity, tho. Dave, you bastard!

• 16 cassandra_m // May 7, 2008 at 6:04 pm

  I’m not even sure why Dave’s statistic is so interesting. HRC didn’t change her “inevitable” strategy until after Super Tuesday and it has been pretty plain for sometime that the Dem base is split between the two. And as Presidents are elected by Electoral College, Dem Presidential nominees are elected by delegates to the convention. And HRC has not been able to close that gap.

• 17 FSP // May 7, 2008 at 6:07 pm

  “Dem Presidential nominees are elected by delegates to the convention.”

  And those delegates are assigned in a format that allowed Barack Obama to be where he is. If even 1/3 of the states did winner-take-all, she’d have it already.

• 18 Frank // May 7, 2008 at 6:14 pm

  I found this an interesting read.

• 19 cassandra_m // May 7, 2008 at 6:18 pm

  I think I felt pretty magnanimous earlier today, but the news today shows that the HRC camp continues to ratchet up the racially-tinged rhetoric with the media blithely passing it all on. So now she is making the case that since she gets white voters, she is the only electable candidate. And since African Americans can’t vote for anyone but Dems, they’ll come back to support her once she is the nominee. But, of course, it takes all kinds of demographics to give him the margins he gets — Kos reports on the breakdown of the NC and IN vote. And Obama outperformed expectations almost everywhere in IN, making inroads into HRC’s traditional base.

  I had hoped that last night’s result would put a stop to the fairytales, but I guess not. It is beginning to look like Rachel Maddow’s prediction of a scorched earth campaign til the end may not be far off of the mark.

• 20 cassandra_m // May 7, 2008 at 6:35 pm

  And if the Rs had proportional representation, you might not be saddled with your less-than-ideal candidate.

  I am not particularly upset (mostly) that this continues — I am not happy with some of HRCs tactics and the media idiocy. I am delighted that Iowa and New Hampshire did not nullify all of the rest of our votes. I am also delighted that as this rolls on, new Democrats are registered in record numbers and brought out to vote.

  Still, this is a one off year. These two are splitting the Dem base, and of they weren’t, this would have been over well before now.

• 21 cassandra_m // May 7, 2008 at 6:36 pm

  Thanks for taking my comment out of moderation!

• 22 truth teller // May 7, 2008 at 6:41 pm

  Just so everyone knows that in order for the Dem’s to get a Nominee the Super delegates will have to vote. Therefor no matter who ends up with the position the desion will have to be made by a bunch of party hacks in a smoke filled room. Not the ideal condition for either Hillary or Obama supporters

  Also does anyone know what the Washington Post was talking about this morning about a Repub October surprise against OBAMA come fall.

• 23 truth teller // May 7, 2008 at 6:57 pm

  A Bundy is correct that the DNC set up this system which says nothing about most delegates or most votes controls the process. if neither Candidate gets 20025 or 22109 depending on( Florida and Michigan) The super delegates pick the winner.

  Also DANA is correct Race will play a big part in the election should Obama get the nod. Lets not overlook the fact that the Repub slime machine took a real war hero from Georgia who lost 2 legs and a hand in Nam and beat him with a draft dodger

  So I suggest that we all batten down the hatches and go to general quarters.

• 24 Dana // May 7, 2008 at 7:32 pm

  Al Bundy wrote:

  They didn’t feel their constituency could be trusted to elect viable candidates! There had to be a system in place so the powers-that-be got to control who was elected.

  Not exactly. Many Democratic officeholders who would normally have been expected to be delegates in past conventions didn’t get to be delegates because uppity upstart candidates did better than expected in primaries. The S-D system was created to make sure that sitting Democratic governors, senators and congressmen weren’t kept outside.

• 25 Dana // May 7, 2008 at 7:40 pm

  cassandra m wrote:

  And since African Americans can’t vote for anyone but Dems, they’ll come back to support her once she is the nominee.

  Not quite. This is the reason that Mr Obama will win the nomination, because the superdelegates, most of whom are elected officials themselves, do not want to risk their own re-elections by depressing black turnout.

  No one can know, of course, just what would happen, but most people figure that if the Democrats tell Mr Obama, “Go to the back of the bus, boy!” that a lot of blacks just won’t show up in November. They won’t be there to vote for John McCain, but without black votes, Democrats usually don’t win — and if they aren’t at the polls, they can’t vote in the down-ticket races, either!

  There’s another consideration, too. Blacks have been the most loyal Democratic constituency — except for deceased voters in Chicago, of course — and the party can’t risk alienating them. Shove black voters and their overwhelming choice to the back of the bus, and some black voters might just open up to the possibility of supporting Republicans, something which would have huge long-term consequences.

• 26 Stella Bluez // May 7, 2008 at 9:21 pm

  If this plays out until the Oregon primary….Obama could garner enough regular delegates to win straight out…..without the supers…..

  It’s just as well Clinton hangs in there thru West Virginia anyway since she will win that…though it won’t help her numbers…..& Obama will get even closer to his magic #……

• 27 cassandra_m // May 7, 2008 at 10:24 pm

  Dana, that quote of mine was me representing the arguments of the Clinton surrogates on the news today. And it simply is not possible for African Americans to be the reason why Obama is the front runner. We’re something like 15% of the total population, (and if you looked at Kos’s data that I linked to you’d see this) there are ALOT of white people voting for Obama. He certainly did not win Iowa with the AA vote.

• 28 Truth Teller // May 8, 2008 at 4:56 am

  Dana speaking of constituency not being trusted I believe that was the reason back in Philadelphia that our Founding fathers stuck us with the electoral college in the 1700’s
  So I guess we can thank them for Bush in 2000 and 2004

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