<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 23 2008, 08:42 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>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> 1 in 3 say winning the general election. That's Hillary's argument/position. 1 in 10 say they'll support the candidate who's leading when the race ends with no winner. Candidate who is leading is Obama's position.
Clinton has a smaller lead in general election polls, and Rasmussen has her losing by two points. One can't decide their vote just on that argument.
The UNdemocratic Party isn't going to decide their nominee on democratic principles. That's the point. It's going to be decided by the politburo on whatever whim they choose. They should also fly a 48-state version of the flag at the convention, since they disenfranchised two whole states in the process.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 26 2008, 04:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>1 in 3 say winning the general election. That's Hillary's argument/position. 1 in 10 say they'll support the candidate who's leading when the race ends with no winner. Candidate who is leading is Obama's position.</div> Saying "best chance of winning the election" is basically saying the super delegates will use their best judgment. Which is the reason why there are super delegates. If the super delegates were to automatically go with the winner of the delegates, why have super delegates? I wouldn't read any more into this. p.s. Unless something HUGE happens, it's going to be Obama. Otherwise, it's awfully hard to see how best judgment would be to piss off the black votes and the young voters to appease seniors.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JayJohnstone @ Apr 26 2008, 07:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>p.s. Unless something HUGE happens, it's going to be Obama. Otherwise, it's awfully hard to see how best judgment would be to piss off the black votes and the young voters to appease seniors.</div> As a rule, young and black don't vote and seniors do. I agree it's likely to be Obama (and that prospect is slightly more appealing to me than Hillary, I think), but I'm not so sanguine about the Dem's prospects. Either way it's shaping up that someone will be angry.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 26 2008, 08:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>As a rule, young and black don't vote and seniors do.</div> Right, so who is more likely to stay away if their preferred candidate is not there? Also, play this out a decade or two. What's the future of the Dem party?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JayJohnstone @ Apr 26 2008, 04:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 26 2008, 04:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>1 in 3 say winning the general election. That's Hillary's argument/position. 1 in 10 say they'll support the candidate who's leading when the race ends with no winner. Candidate who is leading is Obama's position.</div> Saying "best chance of winning the election" is basically saying the super delegates will use their best judgment. Which is the reason why there are super delegates. If the super delegates were to automatically go with the winner of the delegates, why have super delegates? I wouldn't read any more into this. p.s. Unless something HUGE happens, it's going to be Obama. Otherwise, it's awfully hard to see how best judgment would be to piss off the black votes and the young voters to appease seniors. </div> LOL at the best judgment part. They're politicians. Every one of them is corrupt and about power and being re-elected. They're "best judgment" is likely to be which candidate isn't going to veto their earmarks or which candidate offers them the better island in the Mediterranean to be ambassador to. THAT is why there's super delegates - so they can wield this kind of power to get what they want. p.s. What have the democrats ever done to not piss off black voters and young people? War on Poverty? That's why there's so many projects out there. Black voters have seen more progress under republicans since 1980 (20 years of republican presidents, 18 years of republican senate, 12 years of republican house) than any time since the reconstruction. Obama is probably only politically viable because of that progress. Look at the sorry state of the education system, which won't get better unless the democrats are willing to let some fundamental changes take place. (BTW, we're looking at what national health care would be like when you see the bad public schools). Black people WANT vouchers, and who's standing in the way of that? That's the kind of fundamental change, along with merit pay and getting rid of ridiculous tenure (UNION) kind of rules that are in place. Not that the republicans are that much better or anything. I'm just looking at this in perspective.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JayJohnstone @ Apr 27 2008, 08:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 26 2008, 08:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>As a rule, young and black don't vote and seniors do.</div> Right, so who is more likely to stay away if their preferred candidate is not there? </div> Hard to say if this goes where you want it to. + Young and black simply don't vote if their preferred candidate isn't there. + Old simply chooses a different preferred candidate. + Young and black are notoriously fickle and there's a question over whether they'll actually show up on the big day. + Old's middle name is Reliable. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Also, play this out a decade or two. What's the future of the Dem party?</div> Well, given the nation's demographics, we've got an ass-load of retiring Olds who won't be dying off anytime soon. I've been thinking about the future of both parties and I'm not sure in reality.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 27 2008, 09:45 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JayJohnstone @ Apr 27 2008, 08:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 26 2008, 08:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>As a rule, young and black don't vote and seniors do.</div> Right, so who is more likely to stay away if their preferred candidate is not there? </div> Hard to say if this goes where you want it to. + Young and black simply don't vote if their preferred candidate isn't there. + Old simply chooses a different preferred candidate. + Young and black are notoriously fickle and there's a question over whether they'll actually show up on the big day. + Old's middle name is Reliable. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Also, play this out a decade or two. What's the future of the Dem party?</div> Well, given the nation's demographics, we've got an ass-load of retiring Olds who won't be dying off anytime soon. I've been thinking about the future of both parties and I'm not sure in reality. </div> I should have added the income and educated gap and the activist angle to the analysis as well. Super delegates are not going to want to overturn a elected delegate lead and shut out the younger, more involved/activist, educated part of their party. It's just not going to happen. Unless some HUGE event changes this drastically. Nothing I write today will prove this...just watch.... p.s. I am open to bets on the outcome.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JayJohnstone @ Apr 27 2008, 03:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Super delegates are not going to want to overturn a elected delegate lead and shut out the younger, more involved/activist, educated part of their party. It's just not going to happen. Unless some HUGE event changes this drastically.</div> Don't get me wrong, I expect you're right. I just think there are a lot of ramifications for down the road (for both the party and the country) that aren't being thought out. Basically, this nomination is being decided right along the major fault lines in the Democratic party. Do you really think it's the involved/activist/educated guys that the Democrats ought to be or are worried about? Of course it's not, and everyone knows it. It's the way black folks are going to vote. And black folks voted 92-8 percent for the black guy. White folks voted 60-40 for the white gal. There's really no shortage of questions here for how that works out in the long run. Could the Democrats, as a party, overturn anyone that 90% of black voters want and expect to keep black voters. Even supposing Obama fades drastically and actually loses the popular vote, I'd think that'd be a recipe for disaster. But at the same time, isn't the Democratic base supposed to be middle and working class Americans of all colors? Are you really going to say the party should be a coalition of activists, yuppies and black people. That coalition hasn't won them a state yet that Democrats normally win. I think race relations in the country are quite a bit more tenuous than they often seem to be, and this could go in a lot of very bad directions. I think it's going to be very hard for many black folks to accept if the black guy loses. The nomination or the election. But I think it's going to be very hard for many white folks to accept if the black guy who gets elected doesn't seem to represent their interests as well, and that could result in many problems as well.
Aren't these the same super delegates who promised to bring the troops home when they were running for election in 2006? Here's some rough math. About 2M people in PA voted, awarding about 200 delegates in the process. That's about 10,000 votes per delegate. Thus a super delegate is someone whose vote counts about 10,000 times as much as the typical white person out there. (that said tongue in cheek)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352651,00.html Is Hillary Preparing to Run in 2012? Friday, April 25, 2008 By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann Does Hillary Clinton really believe she can overtake Barack Obama among elected delegates? No way. The math is dead against her and she’s a realist. Even after Pennsylvania, Obama still leads by more than 140 in elected delegates. They’ll likely break even in Indiana and he’ll win North Carolina where one third of the vote is African-American. After that? If she wins Kentucky, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico by 15 points and they break about even in Guam, North Dakota, Montana, and Oregon, she’ll still trail him by at least 130 votes among elected delegates. Does she believe she can persuade super delegates to vote for her? Again, probably not. Obama has steadily eroded her edge among super delegates and now they are almost tied among committed super delegates. And the prevailing sentiment among those that remain is not to overturn the will of the voters. So why is Hillary still running so hard? Why is she especially focused on pushing up Obama’s negatives? Until the last vote is counted on June 3rd, we can chalk up her persistence to determination, courage and sheer obstinacy. But if she persists in her candidacy after the last primary, we must begin to consider whether she has an ulterior motive. Does Hillary want to beat up Obama so that he can’t win the general election in November, assuring McCain of the presidency so that she can have a clear field to run again in 2012? Obviously, if Obama beats McCain, Hillary is out of the picture until 2016, by which time, at 69 years old, she might be too old to run. But if McCain wins, she would have to be considered the presumptive front runner for the nomination, a status which she might parlay into a nomination more successfully than she has been able to do this year. Every day that she stays in the race and punches Barack Obama, she must realize that she is decreasing his chances of getting elected in November. Each time that she waves the bloody shirt and says that only she is strong enough to fight the war on terror, she obviously raises doubts about Obama’s strength and leadership. Every time she criticizes him for not switching pastors or for saying downscale white voters are bitter, she raises issues that are very destructive to Obama should he win the nomination. When does fighting for the nomination in 2008 end and seeking to sabotoge Obama’s chances in November to keep her options alive for 2012 begin? Doubts about Hillary’s motivation are going to keep on growing with each inconclusive primary. After she loses North Carolina and fails to carry Indiana by any significant margin (North Carolina has twice as many delegates as Indiana), people will begin to wonder out loud about why she is staying in the race. And if she remains obdurate after the last votes are cast on June 3rd, it will become an increasingly accepted presumption that she is running a campaign of sabotage against Obama. There is a way to run without waging a scorched earth campaign. Mike Huckabee continued to fight for the Republican nomination until McCain reached the magic number to clench the battle and did not attack McCain. He waged a positive campaign and exercised his right to stay in the contest as long as it was undecided without hurting the party’s chances in November. Obviously, Huckabee could have attacked McCain and drawn more votes for his candidacy, but, in the interests of party victory, he chose not to do so. Why isn’t Hillary making the same choice? In 2004, it is pretty obvious that Hillary did nothing to help John Kerry beyond giving a speech at the convention and waging a token campaign on his behalf. Bill did even less. Their goal was obvious: they wanted Kerry to lose to Bush so that Hillary could run in 2008. Is she playing the same game now? Only time will tell. Dick Morris served as Bill Clinton's political consultant for twenty years, guiding him to a successful reelection in 1996. He is the author of New York Times bestsellers Because He Could, Rewriting History (both with Eileen McGann), Off with Their Heads, and Behind the Oval Office, and the Washington Post bestseller Power Plays.
America's favorite pastor, Reverend Wright is apparently on his current press tour in preparation for a forthcoming book set to be released in November. Yes, November. The ****ing lunatic whack-job is Lewinskying Obama's candidacy. I can't believe this. Can't. Believe. This.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (such sweet thunder @ Apr 29 2008, 12:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>America's favorite pastor, Reverend Wright is apparently on his current press tour in preparation for a forthcoming book set to be released in November. Yes, November. The ****ing lunatic whack-job is Lewinskying Obama's candidacy. I can't believe this. Can't. Believe. This.</div> For the first time in quite a while, I can see how the Superdelegates might swing to Clinton.
Wright is hilarious. I think his bombastic speeches are just riling up the press and not the voters/delegates. People that want to find problems with Obama would find something else to ride him about if it weren't for Wright.
Wright is not very smart, but again he doesn't really affect how Democrats think. I think that's been empirically supported well, and the way some Conservatives have gone after Barrack it makes Obama somewhat of a martyr.
