Presidential Primaries

Yeah, you make a solid argument -- that's why I hate that this is a contest. The reason I would vote for Bush (in only this race) is the way he institutionalized corruption. There were a number reasons to go to war in Iraq, but the one he presented to the United States were fraudulent, and that has cost us in both blood and dollars.

War aside, the real killer for me is actually what the Bush administration did to the justice department. The DOJ, and our country's committed AUSAs, are the lifeblood of our federal justice system. The Bush administration bastardized incoming hires as well as any established prosecutor with a backbone -- which really hit close to home for me. I worked with the two Harvard Law school attorneys at the UN: both brilliant, who wanted to serve their country. They both got passed over positions, for graduates from religiously affiliated bull-shit law schools like Catholic University and Southern University. I hope I don't need to explain the difference between the caliber of lawyers produced by the institutions.

Our country lost. If we don't have good-brilliant lawyers in those positions it comes back to bite you in the ass the next time there is a Citibank, Enron, voter fraud, racketeering/gang prosecution. Our country would be a hell of a lot safer with a thousand Patrick Fitzgeralds in office: Bush threatened to remove him (never mind the fact that he is a Republican.) I wasn't personally hurt by Clinton getting a blow job; just embarrassed. Our country is less safe, from threats domestic and abroad, because of the Bush administration's corruption.

_______________________

In other news, Hillary made the statement today that Gore and Kerry lost because they were out of touch with the American population. I just wished someone would have asked Hilary if her husband would have won in any other election, presidential or otherwise, with 42% of the popular vote.

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I love this response from Obama yesterday. Even though it is clearly spin, his spin is fun.

 

Paula Jones was more than embarassed by Clinton's lies about the BJ. To focus on what was covered up fails to consider the damage done by the cover up or the reason behind it.

The Bush DoJ deserves more credit than it gets, IMO. There are something like 50 congressmen under investigation by the DoJ, 40 of them are republicans. You'd hardly expect a corrupt republican DoJ to go after republicans with such fervor. It's hardly surprising that only 50 congressmen are being investigated - they're all a bunch of crooks to some degree.

Bush never threatened to remove Fitzpatrick. In fact, all I ever saw from the administration was praise for him and support for his investigation, no matter where it led. Contrasted to the treatment Ken Starr got. Really. Think hard on that one - they guy is a brilliant legal scholar, former solicitor general, SCOTUS material, and in every account a good guy. It reminds me of a saying that goes something like "when the law isn't on your side, attack your opponent."

FWIW, Harvard lawyers are a big part of the problems we face. Harvard MBAs aren't so good for the people, either.

Regarding the war... I agree that the administration marketed the war by focusing on the one (of many legit) cause for war that turned out to be bogus. Though if you have an ounce of belief (and backbone) in human rights and the kinds of things Amnesty International stands for, you have to back the overthrow of Saddam. Though he is quite clearly and officially disarmed.

Regarding 42%.... Trivia question! Name another two-term president who won both times with less than 50% of the vote.

 

FYI

http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20080404_barack_obama.htm

Political junkies know the details of all the sordid scandals swirling around Obama in Chicago, but the average American voter does not have a clue.

The prosecution team is led by the US Attorney for Northern Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, of Scooter Libby fame; the same guy who put the last Illinois Governor behind bars and convicted a host of government officials from the Daley administrations who were involved in what prosecutors called "pervasive fraud" to rig city hiring for 12 years with persons who got out the vote for Mayor Daley, and the candidates he endorsed, as well as numerous crooks rounded up during the scandal involving Daley's Hired Truck program.

The list of names in the indictment includes about eight persons referred to as "Co-Schemers," and reads like a "who's who list" of major campaign donors to Obama, Blagojevich, Daley and other powerful Illinois politicians.

Blagojevich is referred to as "Public Official A," Obama is referred to as a "political candidate," and there is a list of "Individuals" from "Individual A" all the way up to "Individual HH."

By now, everybody following the case knows the names of the "Co-Schemers" and "Individuals", and the Republicans can use the court filings as a roadmap for their plan of attack on Obama. In fact, they are probably editing their talking points for cable news shows as we speak. They no doubt already have video clips in the can of every failed low-income housing project in Chicago connected to Obama to splash across the airwaves the minute he is nominated.

In addition, the Chicago Tribune has two ace reporters, Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, stationed at the courthouse, who provide a daily blog called "Gavel-to-Gavel" on the Tribune website which gives a blow-by-blow account of the live testimony in the trial every few hours.

The names of corrupt politicians and power brokers from both the Democratic and Republican parties are being dropped before the jury like flies. Many of the witnesses, including the main co-defendant, Chicago businessman Stuart Levine, have already pleaded guilty and are testifying under grants of immunity in hope of getting a lighter sentence, which means they have everything to gain by testifying about the other crooks.

Although the Tribune's Gavel-to-Gavel coverage is just as good as having a front-row seat in the courtroom, the Obama camp apparently feels the need to monitor the trial first-hand. On March 14, 2008, during an interview with the Sun-Times, a reporter said to Obama: "You have somebody in the courtroom to monitor the trial, right?"

"We may," he replied, "I think that may be true."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 13 2008, 11:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>The Bush DoJ deserves more credit than it gets, IMO. There are something like 50 congressmen under investigation by the DoJ, 40 of them are republicans. You'd hardly expect a corrupt republican DoJ to go after republicans with such fervor. It's hardly surprising that only 50 congressmen are being investigated - they're all a bunch of crooks to some degree.</div>

It's not supposed to be Bush's DOJ. The department, as justice is itself, is supposed to be nonpartisan. I don't know the intricacies of all of their political prosecutions, but am not surprised by the number. The DOJ actually has a federalist type structure: the office in Minneapolis has a completely different set of priorities than the office in Chicago, etc. It was Bush's attempt to centralize and politicize the department that drew so much fire. I assume you have, however, heard about the overtly revolting prosecution of Dan Siegelman.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Bush never threatened to remove Fitzpatrick. In fact, all I ever saw from the administration was praise for him and support for his investigation, no matter where it led.</div>

Bush's liaison to the DOJ circulated an internal memorandum that was later (I assume intentionally) "leaked" floating the idea of removing Fitzgerald during the Scooter Libby perjury trial.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Contrasted to the treatment Ken Starr got. Really. Think hard on that one - they guy is a brilliant legal scholar, former solicitor general, SCOTUS material, and in every account a good guy. It reminds me of a saying that goes something like "when the law isn't on your side, attack your opponent."</div>

This is deserving of a whole different thread which I will spare both of us. But I agree, the Clinton's response was pretty sickening.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>FWIW, Harvard lawyers are a big part of the problems we face. Harvard MBAs aren't so good for the people, either.</div>

I'm not sure I can agree with this statement. If you were to make a list of the greatest legal minds, conservative and liberal, of the past four hundred years, half of them would be Harvard grads. Harvard has consistently produced the strongest most influential graduates over the last two hundred years. To attack Harvard lawyers is to attack all good lawyers.

I think my comment on the religious legal schools needs a little more context. Religious legal schools are a relatively new concept, that unlike their undergrad brethren, have proven thus far to be a failure. They were funded by high roller donors for the exclusive purpose of training lawyers who would bring about what the donors saw as more equitable balance between religion and politics. The only problem is, the faculty they hired starting producing scholarship that the donors found to be inconsistent with their goals: I.e. the bible calls for more progressive taxation, or reasons that the First Amendment bans the teaching of scientific design. The response by the schools: fire faculty in groves. The schools have produced scandal after scandal and I think they will be put out to pasture in the two or three years. The students they admit are marginal at best -- they are usually unranked so I would imagine mid to high 2s in undergraduate GPA and bottom 25% on the LSAT. Compare to Harvard with GPAs ranging above 3.95 and the top half of 1% on the LSAT.

Bottom line, these schools are producing graduates that are not qualified to practice law, often struggle to pass the bar, and you want nowhere near the highly sought after DOJ positions that are integral to our nation's justice system. If you believe in a meritocracy, it's a perversion of everything you care about -- and our country suffers.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Regarding 42%.... Trivia question! Name another two-term president who won both times with less than 50% of the vote.</div>

Richard Nixon?

 

Regarding Fitzgerald.

I've seen a PDF of the memo and several e-mails (on a .gov site), many to or from Harriet Meiers. The e-mails discussed that the US Attorneys serve 4 year terms, and then at the pleasure of the president. There were 7 names originally discussed for replacement, Fitzgerald not being one of them. There was a chart/table listing all the US Attorneys, with one of four rankings. Fitzgerald was rated the highest possible.

The memos were dated at the time he was investigating the Plame leak. You'd think I could find some news article about some attempt to fire Fitzgerald, but I can't. What I do see is luny-left blogosphere type posts that make such a claim, along with assertions that Fitzgerald had brought indictments against Gonzales and numerous other high level officials - which we know didn't happen.

Bill Clinton fired all 93 US Attorneys in 1993.

I don't know how you can think of the DoJ as anything but the president's, since they serve at his pleasure and he gets to nominate them. The president also gets to nominate the Attorney General, and the administration has every right to promulgate any laws. Wouldn't you expect a Nader DoJ to go after corporations more than other DoJs?

Funny thing you bring up meritocracy. I blogged about it here:

http://sportstwo.com/forums/blog-b1-entry551.html

The short story: Meritocracy was invented in the 1950s by the president of Harvard with not-so-honorable intentions. That'd be circa Brown v. Board of Education.

It's just not a good thing for society to be run by some exclusive elite club of Harvard graduates, or lawyers with one view of the law - it's hardly representative of the people.

Scalia, Souter, Roberts, Kennedy, and Breier are current SCOTUS members who graduated Harvard, Rehnquist went there too. As did Jeffrey Skilling, the CEO of Enron; it's really a shame you don't hear about the rest of the Skilling types who are so good at what they do, they don't get caught.

Trivia answer: Woodrow Wilson.

 

If you were a betting man, would you bet that Bush gives Scooter Libby a full pardon? You mentioned about the pardons given by presidents at the ends of their terms... I would bet that Bush does NOT.

 

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content...l_tracking_poll

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows John McCain leading Barack Obama, 49% to 42%. The presumptive Republican nominee also leads Hillary Clinton 47% to 43%.

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, Obama leads Clinton 48% to 44%. While statistical noise has created daily fluctuations, this race has remained quite stable for the past month or so. A look at the overall trends shows Obama enjoying a modest but consistent advantage.

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content...ential_election

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Ohio shows John McCain leading Barack Obama 47% to 40%. He also leads Hillary Clinton 47% to 42%. Last month, McCain led both Democrats by six percentage points.

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content...ential_election

While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continue to compete against each other in Pennsylvania’s Presidential Primary, both Democrats have opened a lead over John McCain in the Keystone State.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Pennsylvania finds Obama leading McCain 47% to 39% and Clinton with a 47% to 38% advantage. That’s a significant change from a month ago when McCain was essentially even with both Democrats.

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content...ential_election

The battle over Florida’s convention delegates may be taking its toll on Barack Obama’s prospects in the Sunshine State. For the second time in three months, John McCain enjoys a double digit lead over the Democratic frontrunner.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Florida shows McCain attracting 53% of the vote while Obama earns 38%. Last month, amidst talk of a possible Florida revote, Obama had closed to within single digits of McCain. In February, however, Obama trailed McCain by sixteen points.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 14 2008, 08:49 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Bill Clinton fired all 93 US Attorneys in 1993.</div>

It's not a question of asking prosecutors to resign and then rehiring them like cabinet members. It's the use of firing pressure, while they're in the middle of a cycle and case load, to influence outcomes in trials that is the problem.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>It's just not a good thing for society to be run by some exclusive elite club of Harvard graduates, or lawyers with one view of the law - it's hardly representative of the people.

Scalia, Souter, Roberts, Kennedy, and Breier are current SCOTUS members who graduated Harvard, Rehnquist went there too. As did Jeffrey Skilling, the CEO of Enron; it's really a shame you don't hear about the rest of the Skilling types who are so good at what they do, they don't get caught.</div>

I think your examples tend to negate your point. I don't know a more diverse group of legal minds than the ones you cited above, in terms of approach and ideology. Souter is probably the most liberal sitting jurist, outside of perhaps Stevens. . . it's a toss up on what you consider liberal ideology. Scalia is the most libertarian. Roberts perhaps the most traditionally conservative. Kennedy the most likely to swing on issues. Of course, it all depends on what you consider libertarian, liberal and conservative.

You also have a wonderful cross-section of judicial approaches. I always appreciated Rehnquist for how brief his opinions were, how free from academic pondering. At the same time, Scalia and Breier take an academic stance to their decisions, though they are reflected in very different ways.

Bottom line. Since Yale stopped using grades and class ranks Harvard has produced the best legal minds, of any political or methodological persuasion.

But this gets away from the main point. The main point is that my friends were damn smart, damn hardworking, and incredibly qualified. They had the options to work anywhere they wanted. They spent their cutting their teeth with the DOJ as honors summer-interns and both had fantastic resumes and recs. They had diverse experiences with international and domestic law and had gained the trust of the prosecution and chambers divisions at an international criminal court.

. . . and then some political hack in Washington decided they weren't cut out to represent their country because prosecuting genocide is "liberal." **** that. Instead, they hired people I wouldn't trust to do my taxes.

 

^^^ Republicans historically hire hacks from the business world, while Democrats hire academics. I am pretty set in my thinking that we don't want exclusively one or the other. The only thing that balances things out is that neither party has a monopoly on government. When "liberals" sit on the court, they legislate and their rulings become law by fiat and stare decisis. When "conservatives" sit on the court, they balance things out - like their ruling that eminent domain, in the case of the EPA, the government must actually pay fair value.

The thing is, you see a diversity on the court, while I see like minds with not much separating them. They're not about sticking to the constitution, but in some form or another molding a social democracy. The EPA's ridiculous powers are a perfect example - they should not have those powers in the first place, but the mix of justices we have and have had merely allow it and temper it.

 

While we're discussing the law...

Is the purpose of the courts to:
1) determine the truth
2) administer justice

Pick one.

I'll entertain you with a bit of history about how the purpose of the law changed from one to the other.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/us/polit...agewanted=print

April 16, 2008
Fight Leaves Democrats Questioning Prospects
By JEFF ZELENY

The battle between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama over whether Mr. Obama belittled voters in small towns appears to have hardened the views of both candidates’ supporters and stirred anxiety among many Democrats about the party’s prospects in the fall.

For five days, as Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have tangled more ferociously than at almost any point in the last year, interviews with voters in Pennsylvania suggested little new movement toward either side as the primary campaign there entered its final week. A snapshot of public opinion, a poll by Quinnipiac University, showed no change in the race from a week ago.

“There’s a lot of truth to what he said,” said Ezar Lowe, 55, a pastor at a church in Ambridge, Pa., a city along the Ohio River that has been steadily draining population since steel mills began closing two decades ago. “I’ve seen it.”

The closing week of the Democratic primary race in Pennsylvania is awash in fresh accusations of elitism and condescension. After sparring over those topics from afar, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama will come together Wednesday evening at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia for their first debate in nearly two months, which will be televised nationally on ABC.

Cindy Phillips, 54, a flight attendant from Leetsdale, Pa., said she had intended to vote for Mrs. Clinton before the latest feud developed. But she said her position was solidified by Mr. Obama’s remarks that many small-town Pennsylvania voters, “bitter” over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”

“He just doesn’t know Pennsylvania,” Ms. Phillips said in an interview. “People here are religious because that’s their background, not because they’re mad about jobs.”

For six weeks, Mr. Obama had diligently worked to introduce himself to the voters of Pennsylvania. He visited small towns and factories, bowling alleys and beer halls, with every picture designed to allay any concerns that voters harbored about his presidential candidacy.

Now, though, advisers to Mr. Obama wonder whether those images — and, more importantly, the political gains that even his detractors believed he was making in the state — have been overtaken by criticism over what his rivals suggested was a profound misunderstanding of small-town values.

On Tuesday, as Mr. Obama campaigned about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh in Washington, Pa., he said he was “amused about this notion as an elitist.” Asked by a member of the audience if he believed the accusations were racially motivated, he said no, adding, “I think it’s politics.”

It is a diverse state, but the voters that seemed the toughest for Mr. Obama to win over were the same ones that had helped Mrs. Clinton defeat him in Ohio: working-class whites, especially those in regions that have suffered through decades of economic decline.

These Reagan Democrats — people who might lean Republican on national security and social issues but who look to Democrats on the economy — could determine whether Mrs. Clinton performs strongly enough against Mr. Obama in Pennsylvania for her campaign to continue.

They are also helping to test the limits of Mr. Obama’s appeal, a skeptical focus group that to varying degrees has become a proxy for his ability to calm concerns about his race, his values and whether he can connect with voters beyond the Democratic Party’s base.

“It seems he’s kind of ripping on small towns, and I’m a small town girl,” said Becki Farmer, 32, who lives in Rochester, Pa., another Ohio River town hit hard by the closed steel mills. “That’s where your good morals and good judgment come from, growing up in small towns.”

Indeed, advisers to Mr. Obama concede, his job has been made that much more complicated by his remarks about bitterness among small-town voters. Though it remains unclear what effect the episode will have in the long run, it has suddenly prompted a series of questions — and worry — from Democrats about whether Mr. Obama could weather a Republican onslaught in the fall, should he win the presidential nomination.

In Pennsylvania, as well as coming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, did Mr. Obama provide another excuse for white voters to voice qualms about his candidacy without acknowledging that it is his race that troubles them? If he defeats Mrs. Clinton, will accusations of elitism dog him as they have previous Democratic nominees? Does Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, suddenly have an issue that will resonate for the next six months?

It is the criticism from Republicans, though, that worries many Democrats. A senior adviser to Mr. McCain, Steve Schmidt, told reporters on Tuesday that Mr. Obama’s comments were “condescending and elitist” and that they would keep up the criticism “for the duration of Senator Obama’s candidacy.”

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama seemed to back away from criticizing each other in their respective campaign appearances Tuesday, after days of intense and personal confrontations. Again and again, Mrs. Clinton had branded Mr. Obama as an elitist, while Mr. Obama had mocked Mrs. Clinton as “talking like she is Annie Oakley,” after she waxed nostalgically about shooting guns.

Yet television commercials from both candidates continued to broadcast the charges, ensuring that the debate will almost certainly flare until the primary on Tuesday. It also offered Mrs. Clinton a fresh rationale to make to superdelegates that Mr. Obama is a flawed general-election candidate.

That, however, is precisely what troubles many voters in Pennsylvania and beyond.

“I wish they would just go into a corner and figure it out and quit fighting,” said Dave Davis, 52, an electrical worker from Oregon, who heard Mr. Obama speak at a union rally on Tuesday but is undecided between the candidates. “Taking shots at each other isn’t doing anybody any good. It will only help Republicans in the end.”

Sean Hamill contributed reporting from Pennsylvania.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/polit...agewanted=print

Clinton Outduels Obama in Primary
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

For better or worse — and many Democrats fear it is for worse — the race goes on.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Senator Barack Obama in Pennsylvania on Tuesday by enough of a margin to continue a battle that Democrats increasingly believe is undermining their effort to unify the party and prepare for the general election against Senator John McCain.

Despite a huge investment of time and money by Mr. Obama and pressure on Mrs. Clinton by the party establishment to consider folding her campaign, she won her third big state in a row. Mrs. Clinton showed again that she is a tenacious campaigner with an ability to connect with the blue-collar voters Mr. Obama has found elusive and who could be critical to a Democratic victory in November.

Mrs. Clinton’s margin was probably not sufficient to fundamentally alter the dynamics of the race, which continued to favor an eventual victory for Mr. Obama. But it made clear that the contest will go on at least a few weeks, if not more. And it served to underline the concerns about Mr. Obama’s strengths as a general election candidate. Exit polls again highlighted the racial, economic, sex and values divisions within the party.

To take one example, only 60 percent of Democratic Catholic voters said they would vote for Mr. Obama in a general election; 21 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain, exit polls show.

“This is exactly what I was afraid was going to happen,” said Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat who has not endorsed anyone in the race. “They are going to just keep standing there and pounding each other and bloodying each other, and no one is winning. It underlines the need to find some way to bring this to conclusion.”

The Democratic Party, so energized and optimistic just a few months ago, thus finds itself in a position few would have expected: a nomination battle unresolved, with two candidates engaged in increasingly damaging attacks. At a time when the Democratic Party would dearly like to turn its attention to Mr. McCain, it now faces continued damage to the images of both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama.

That said, the fears confronting Democrats could be swept away reasonably soon. Even with her comfortable victory on Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton still faces significant, though certainly not insurmountable, hurdles to securing the nomination, and it remains possible that her candidacy could come to an end in as little as two weeks, when Indiana and North Carolina vote. Should that be the case, the Democratic Party would presumably have the time and the motivation to heal its wounds.

“We have problems going both ways, but that is going to get healed,” said Joe Trippi, who was a senior adviser to the presidential campaign of John Edwards, who quit the race earlier this year. “If it doesn’t get healed, we have problems.”

Still, the voting patterns on Tuesday underlined what has been one of Mrs. Clinton’s central arguments to Democratic Party leaders in asserting that Mr. Obama would have trouble as a general election candidate. Once again, as in Ohio six weeks ago, he is struggling to win support from the kinds of voters that could be critical to a Democratic victory in the fall. Mrs. Clinton posed the question bluntly on Tuesday.

“Considering his financial advantage, the question ought to be, why can’t he close the deal?” Mrs. Clinton said outside a polling place in a northern suburb of Philadelphia. “Why can’t he win in a state like this?”

Mr. Obama continues to hold a lead over Mrs. Clinton in the total popular vote cast, as well as in pledged delegates. Those factors will weigh heavily on the superdelegates, elected Democrats and party leaders whose votes will be needed to give Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama the 2,025 total for the nomination.

Still, there were some worrisome signs for Mr. Obama after what has been several rough weeks for him on the campaign trail. At the least, he would have some work to do going into the fall if he wins the nomination, a point made even by his supporters.

“The negative attacks have had a little damage,” said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico. “I do believe it’s recoverable, mainly because of his theme of unity and bringing people together.”

Mr. Richardson added, “Senator Clinton’s negative attacks have hurt her as well, as recent polls have shown.”

The results of the exit poll, conducted at 40 precincts across Pennsylvania by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and The Associated Press, also found stark evidence that Mr. Obama’s race could be a problem in the general election. Sixteen percent of white voters said race mattered in deciding who they voted for, and just 54 percent of those voters said they would support Mr. Obama in a general election; 27 percent of them said they would vote for Mr. McCain if Mr. Obama was the Democratic nominee, and 16 percent said they would not vote at all.

After weeks in which Mr. Obama was pressed to explain what his opponents sought to characterize as disparaging remarks about gun owners and church-goers, Mrs. Clinton defeated him among those voters. About 20 percent of voters in those groups said they would choose Mr. McCain over Mr. Obama in a general election. And Mrs. Clinton defeated Mr. Obama overwhelmingly among Catholics, a constituency that will be critical in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“They both have great strengths, and they also have weaknesses,” Mr. Bredesen said. “The sooner it is we end this and try to figure out how to address those weaknesses, the better.”

Mrs. Clinton, exuberant in victory, was quick to vow that she would push on to the next big races. Yet if the outcome threw her enough of a line to keep going, it probably did not do much to help her accomplish two top goals: narrowing Mr. Obama’s overall lead in the popular vote, or his lead in delegates elected in caucuses and primaries.

Mrs. Clinton’s strategy all along has been to play for time, hoping that something would happen that might get uncommitted superdelegates to think twice before supporting Mr. Obama. Mr. Bredesen, in calling for an end to the contest, was hardly alone in suggesting that this might be damaging for the party as it heads into the fall election.

But Mrs. Clinton shows no sign of going away any time soon — and as long as she continues posting victories like the one she did Tuesday, Democratic Party officials are going to be hard-pressed to make the case that it is time for her to go.

Megan Thee, Marjorie Connelly and John M. Broder contributed reporting.

 

Your vote doesn't matter. It's effectively going to be a tie and the super delegates are the electors. What a waste of time and money the whole "democratic" process has been.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04212008/news/..._win_107409.htm

UNDECIDED SUPERDELEGATES JUST WANT A WINNER

April 21, 2008 -- WASHINGTON - Many of the Democratic superdelegates who are still undecided say their decision is simple - they want a winner in November.

That's good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who cannot catch Barack Obama in delegates in the remaining primaries and caucuses. He has a 164-delegate lead in that category.

There will be nearly 800 superdelegates at the party's national convention this summer. They are party and elected officials free to support whomever they choose. Clinton leads in superdelegates, 258-232, according to the latest Associated Press tally. But Obama has been gaining ground, picking up 84 percent of superdelegate endorsements since Super Tuesday. About 250 superdelegates have told the AP they are uncommitted. About 60 more will be selected at state conventions and meetings this spring.

AP reporters across the nation contacted the undecideds. Of those, 117 agreed to interviews.

* About one-third said their key consideration will be who has the best chance of winning the general election.

* One in 10 said they'll support the candidate with the most pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses.

* One in 10 said what matters most is who won their state or congressional district in the primary or caucus.

* The rest cited multiple factors or parochial issues.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Apr 23 2008, 04:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I wouldn't say it is "effectively a tie". Obama will only need around 40% of the delegates once it goes the convention, a huge edge.</div>

Neither candidate will have the 2025 delegates needed by the convention. That's 2025 needed and won via the primaries.

So when nobody wins and nobody loses, what do you call it? A TIE. T-I-E.

Spelled it out for ya

The very truth is that all 800 super delegates can make up their minds, for sure, at the convention. Whatever they say now is not a lock. You'd think so, but we've already seen some of them come out and say they're switching one way or the other.