Presidential Primaries

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 2 2008, 08:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Or horrible polling.

I've never heard of these guys.

Let's see what Rasmussen says: Clinton 47%, Obama 42%.

He's clearly eating into her big lead.</div>

SUSA, which again -- even over Rasmussen -- has been the only reliable pollster this cycle has Obama still down 9. That's down from 18, but still insurmountable. Obama will have to go six points up in PA to win, given the fact that Hillary has a near monopoly on all of the local political machines. It's just not going to happen.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 2 2008, 09:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Anyone catch Jesse Ventura on the Larry King show last night?

. . .

What he said about Obama was that he's basically a tool of the democratic party; regardless of what he proposes to do, the party will effectively dictate to him what to do.</div>

I've been thinking a lot about the Ventura comment today. Many pundits have said that Obama wouldn't be in this race if he wasn't black. That no politician would be able to burst on this scene with his inexperience and grab the national attention without his "racial advantage." And, I think that even the most ardent of his supporters would have to agree to some extent with this.

On the flipside, if Obama had Clinton or McCain's resume he also wouldn't be in the race. There's a real double standard. No way Obama is able to run for President if he finished near the bottom of his class in military school, or failed the bar. (Hillary's failure on the bar is actually a big issue for me. The group of my classmates who failed the exam -- and the gossip circles are tight enough so that I knew everyone -- either were widely diresepected even before the test as not law school material, or had rather extreme emotional issues. It's a little beyond disbelief to me that someone who has, or at least had, a legitimate shot at the Presidency would fit in one of these categories.)

I guess my point is this: to be a legitimate black candidate for president you have to be perhaps the most articulate candidate we have had since candidates began using speech writers. You have to be President of Harvard Law Review and be almost professorial on the campaign trail, and still -- people just say that you are a puppet controlled by the party.

I mean, it's a ridiculous statement. A statement that wouldn't be made if Obama was white.

So it cuts both ways. Obama has achieved a level of enthusiasm that just wouldn't be present if he was a traditional candidate. But at the same time, he is a ten feet more qualified intellectually than the Kerry, Bush, McCain, HRC's of the world (not that that by any means makes you a good or even adequate candidate) and people are still asking about the white people who are in charge of controlling him.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (such sweet thunder @ Apr 2 2008, 08:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 2 2008, 09:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Anyone catch Jesse Ventura on the Larry King show last night?





. . .





What he said about Obama was that he's basically a tool of the democratic party; regardless of what he proposes to do, the party will effectively dictate to him what to do.</div>





I've been thinking a lot about the Ventura comment today. Many pundits have said that Obama wouldn't be in this race if he wasn't black. That no politician would be able to burst on this scene with his inexperience and grab the national attention without his "racial advantage." And, I think that even the most ardent of his supporters would have to agree to some extent with this.





On the flipside, if Obama had Clinton or McCain's resume he also wouldn't be in the race. There's a real double standard. No way Obama is able to run for President if he finished near the bottom of his class in military school, or failed the bar. (Hillary's failure on the bar is actually a big issue for me. The group of my classmates who failed the exam -- and the gossip circles are tight enough so that I knew everyone -- either were widely diresepected even before the test as not law school material, or had rather extreme emotional issues. It's a little beyond disbelief to me that someone who has, or at least had, a legitimate shot at the Presidency would fit in one of these categories.)





I guess my point is this: to be a legitimate black candidate for president you have to be perhaps the most articulate candidate we have had since candidates began using speech writers. You have to be President of Harvard Law Review and be almost professorial on the campaign trail, and still -- people just say that you are a puppet controlled by the party.





I mean, it's a ridiculous statement. A statement that wouldn't be made if Obama was white.





So it cuts both ways. Obama has achieved a level of enthusiasm that just wouldn't be present if he was a traditional candidate. But at the same time, he is a ten feet more qualified intellectually than the Kerry, Bush, McCain, HRC's of the world (not that that by any means makes you a good or even adequate candidate) and people are still asking about the white people who are in charge of controlling him.


</div>





Geraldine Ferarro was on the right track, but ridiculously over the top. Anyone who thinks that being (part) black isn't part of Obama's being is nuts. It's a big part of his success, not that there's anything wrong with that. What Ferraro said that was outright wrong was that Obama wouldn't be where he is if he isn't black, and that's just outright assanine, if not racist. Outright racist, with the implication being that he is somehow inferior, which he obviously is not.





I've written this before, and I haven't changed my POV on it: Obama is doing something that Colin Powell refused to do. Powell is a freakin' military hero and feared for his life and wouldn't run. Chalk up a big one for Obama for running, risk or not.





However, I fail to see where you get any of this from Ventura's statements. He didn't mention or even hint anything about Obama's race - his point was more about how the Democrats operate. If anything, Obama's only chance to win is if powerful party insider superdelegate types anoint him. Those delegates aren't elected by the peoples' vote, after all. There's more to him owing them the quid pro quo down the line than anything to do with who his parents were.





You don't have to read between the lines in the above article about Hillary courting the superdelegates to see what's really going on.





No matter how you slice and dice it, Obama's effectively going to run 300 meters of a 400 meter race and he'll be only slightly ahead of Clinton at the convention. That's according to the will of the voters, and without the will of the voters of FL and MI counted at all.





The proportional voting system the democrats use is just terrible. They squawked about how bad the electoral college was in 2000 but they're proving that some other system (at least this one) is far worse.





Here's an interesting slant on the race by a conservative-leaning fellow, but who's a great reporter nonetheless:





http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/3/...gate-count.html





Projection: Clinton Wins Popular Vote, Obama Wins Delegate Count


March 28, 2008 02:31 PM ET | Michael Barone | Permanent Link





The Clinton campaign has taken to boasting that its candidate has won states with more electoral votes than has Barack Obama. True. By my count, Clinton has won 14 states with 219 electoral votes (16 states with 263 electoral votes if you include Florida and Michigan) while Obama has won 27 states (I'm counting the District of Columbia as a state, but not the territories) with 202 electoral votes. Eight states with 73 electoral votes have still to vote. In percentage terms, Clinton has won states with 41 percent of the electoral votes (49 percent if you include Florida and Michigan), while Obama has won states with 38 percent of electoral votes. States with 14 percent of the electoral votes have yet to vote.





The Clinton campaign would do even better to use population rather than electoral votes, since smaller states are overrepresented in the Electoral College. By my count, based on the 2007 Census estimates, Clinton's states have 132,214,460 people (160,537,525 if you include Florida and Michigan), and Obama's states have 101,689,480 people. States with 39,394,152 people have yet to vote. In percentage terms this means Clinton's states have 44 percent of the nation's population (53 percent if you include Florida and Michigan) and Obama's states have 34 percent of the nation's population. The yet-to-vote states have 13 percent of the nation's population.





Thus the Clinton campaign could argue that Obama cannot win states with most of the nation's people even if he wins all the remaining eight primaries. Could argue�"but I don't think that's going to persuade any superdelegates that Clinton is the real winner.





The Obama campaign has argued on occasion that its primary or caucus victories in Republican states means that Obama has a better chance to carry them in the general election than Clinton. As the Clinton people point out, that's ridiculous in some cases: No one thinks Obama's victories in lightly attended caucuses in Idaho or Wyoming mean that he can win them in November. Even in states like Minnesota and Colorado, Obama's caucus wins are less persuasive evidence than current polls that he can do better there than Clinton in November. Nor are Clinton's primary victories in states like Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Ohio very strong evidence for the proposition that she'd be stronger than Obama. General election polls are better evidence; they buttress Clinton's case in New Jersey and Ohio, and refute it for Nevada, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. Interestingly, Clinton won primaries in only five states which went heavily for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004�"Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.





This has led me to ask what would have been the result of the Democratic primaries and caucuses if the party's rules tended to allocate delegates by winner-take-all rather than proportional representation. It would be an interesting exercise to apply the Republicans' delegate allocation formulas to the Democratic results. Interesting�"but also time consuming, since those formulas tend to allocate many delegates by congressional district (or, in Texas, state Senate districts). So instead, using the realclearpolitics.com summary, I simply assigned all of a state's Democratic delegates to the winner of the Democratic primary or caucus. The result: Hillary Clinton gets 1,430 delegates and Barack Obama 1,237. That's almost the exact opposite of realclearpolitics.com's count of "pledged" (i.e., selected in primaries or caucuses): Obama 1,414, Clinton 1,247. It should be noted that the winner-take-all score would have been reversed if Clinton had lost Texas, which she carried by the narrow margin of 51 percent to 47 percent and which has 193 delegates.





That's an Obama margin of 167 delegates. And most of that margin came from caucus states and territories, where Obama's delegate lead was, by my calculation, 266 to 141�"a margin of 125 delegates. (I'm leaving aside the minority of Texas delegates chosen by caucus.) In the primary states Obama's margin was just 1,148 to 1,106, a delegate margin of only 42.





It's at least theoretically possible for Clinton to overcome this lead in primary-chosen delegates in the eight remaining primaries. That would give the Clinton campaign another basis for arguing that their candidate is really the choice of the people. But the fact is that the Clinton campaign has only itself to blame for its weakness in caucus-chosen delegates. The caucuses were there on the schedule all along, and the Clinton campaign had as much time and about as much money to prepare for them as the Obama campaign did. The Clintonites simply did not prepare as well as I am sure they now wish they had. I suspect that some of the anger we see from Clinton backers comes from their own reflection that if they had planned and executed better they would be ahead in delegates now rather than behind. You get really angry when you have no one to blame but yourself.





While we're talking numbers, here are a couple of interesting charts. First, from the Democratic MyDD website, here is a projection of Pennsylvania voting based on the results in demographically similar counties in Ohio. It projects a 57 percent to 43 percent Clinton win. (Hat tip, Jim Geraghty.) And at realclearpolitics.com, Jay Cost has prepared a spreadsheet on which you can put your own projections of the popular vote in the eight remaining primaries.





I couldn't resist using Jay Cost's spreadsheet to calculate the popular votes in the remaining primaries and my own old-fashioned legal pads to calculate delegate results. I used Cost's default turnout numbers and estimates of the two-candidate percentages which I consider optimistic from the Clinton point of view but not wildly unrealistic.











STATEWIDE PREDICTIONS


State Eligibility Kerry Votes Expected Margin Expected Margin Clinton Votes Net Clinton Margin Pennsylvania Closed 2,938,095 63.0% 1,851,000 20.0% 370,200 Indiana Open 969,011 82.0% 794,589 20.0% 158,918 North Carolina Open 1,525,849 82.0% 1,251,196 -10.0% -125,120 West Virginia Open 326,541 82.0% 267,764 40.0% 107,105 Kentucky Closed 712,733 63.0% 449,022 30.0% 134,707 Oregon Closed 943,163 63.0% 594,193 -10.0% -59,419 Puerto Rico Open N/A N/A 1,000,000 30.0% 300,000 Montana Open 173,710 82.0% 142,442 20.0% 28,488 South Dakota Closed 149,244 63.0% 94,024 20.0% 18,805 Total Net Clinton Votes 933,684











This would eliminate Obama's current popular vote margin, without including Florida and Michigan totals and even if you use imputed vote totals for the four caucus states (Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington) where Democrats did not disclose vote totals. The current popular vote margin for Obama on realclearpolitics.com is, under those favorable assumptions, 827,498. My spreadsheet numbers would give Clinton a 106,186 margin. The Obama margin if you don't give him his imputed margin in those four caucus states is 717,276. My results would convert that to a Clinton popular vote margin of 216,408.





But note a couple of other things. One is that this popular vote margin is exceedingly small when measured in percentage terms. With my estimate of 6,444,230 turnout in the remaining primaries, that yields a total Clinton-Obama turnout (with the four imputed caucus states included) of 32,995,378. The Clinton popular vote margin with the imputed caucus result was, as noted, 106,186, which is 0.32% of the total.





The other thing to note is that all of Clinton's popular vote margin and more comes from Puerto Rico. The turnout in other extraterritorial jurisdictions was very small: 1,921 in the Virgin Islands, 22,715 among Democrats Abroad and 284 [sic] in American Samoa. I'm projecting a turnout of 1 million in Puerto Rico, which has a population of 4 million. Turnout in Puerto Rican elections is, as a percentage of those eligible, higher than anywhere on the Mainland, something on the order of 80 percent as compared with 61 percent in the 2004 presidential general election. But Puerto Rico has not had a presidential primary before, so no one knows what turnout will be like. Puerto Rico will also be a challenge for the candidates. How do you campaign for the June 1 primary there and also campaign for the June 3 primaries in South Dakota and Montana?





Are my projections for Clinton's share of the vote too optimistic? Quite possibly. But I think they're at least defensible. I have her carrying Pennsylvania by 20 percent--a 60 percent to 40 percent margin of the two-candidate (Clinton and Obama) vote. That's better than she did in Ohio, where she won 55 percent of the two-candidate vote. But her showings there in the 6th congressional district (70 percent to 27 percent), the 17th congressional district (63 percent to 35percent) and the 18th congressional district (66 percent to 31percent) have influenced me; those areas are a lot like most of western and central Pennsylvania, where you also find very few blacks and upscale whites. Those results have also influenced my projections of even bigger percentage margins for Clinton in Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky. I projected a 10 percent margin for Obama in North Carolina; the realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls has him ahead 57 percent to 43 percent in the two-candidate vote. I have Clinton losing also by 10 percent in Oregon. That’s roughly comparable to her showing in the nonbinding February 19 primary in next-door Washington, where she got 47 percent of the two-candidate vote. I have Clinton winning Montana and South Dakota by 20 percent margins, when the conventional wisdom seems to be that these states lean to Obama. It’s true that Obama did very well in caucuses in Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, and Wyoming. But my hunch is that the wider primary electorate will go the other way. The closest comparable I can come up with is the nonbinding primary in Washington, where the vote in eastern Washington, the heavily Republican area east of the Cascades, went 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent for Obama. I don’t think he’ll do as well in Montana or South Dakota as he did in his halcyon days in February in this nonbinding contest. In any case, the popular vote margins in Montana and South Dakota are so small that they’re unlikely to make much difference in the bottom line. My projection for Puerto Rico is a guess, nothing more. Clinton has done well with Latinos in other states, but they’re a diverse group and voters in Puerto Rico may be different. Governor Anibal Acevedo, who has endorsed Obama, has just been indicted; other leaders of the two major Puerto Rico parties, the Popular Democrats (PPD) and New Progressives (PNP), are, according to this post, for Clinton.





My projections on Jay Cost's spreadsheet put Clinton ahead in popular votes, however they're measured. But my projections on my legal pads leave her behind in delegates. Each of these contests allocates most of a state's delegates by congressional districts, except for South Dakota which has only one congressional district; Montana also has only one congressional district, but it allocates most of its delegates in the two congressional districts it had in 1980, before the apportionment following the 1980 Census reduced its number of House seats to one. I give Obama small delegate edges in North Carolina (5) and Oregon (6), and Clinton relatively small edges in Pennsylvania (22), Indiana (12), West Virginia (10), Kentucky (17), Montana (3) and South Dakota (3) and a relatively big edge in Puerto Rico (20). Even so, that reduces Obama's current lead among "pledged" delegates (those selected in primaries and caucuses) from 1,414-1,247 to 1,655-1,565.





These two projections, if they come to pass, seem likely to cause maximum pain among the superdelegates. Clinton will be able to claim a lead in popular vote. But only because of Puerto Rico�"and because Puerto Rico this month replaced its caucus with a primary. Obama will be able to claim a lead in pledged delegates. But only because he gamed the caucuses better. His lead in caucus-selected delegates is currently 125, as best I can calculate it; that would mean Clinton would have a 35-delegate lead among delegates chosen in primaries. Both sides will be able to make plausible claims to be the people's choice.





Let me add that my projections don't leave much room for a cascade of superdelegates to Obama. On each day's contests I have Clinton leading Obama both in delegates and popular votes (because North Carolina would be outvoted by Indiana on May 6 and Oregon outvoted by Kentucky on May 20). She would be getting closer to the nomination, not farther away.





Of course my projections could just be plain wrong. Clinton could win Pennsylvania by an unimpressive margin on April 22 and get clocked in Indiana as well as North Carolina on May 6. Then you might see a cascade of superdelegates toward Obama, and the race might effectively be over. But if all those three things don't happen, then I am sure the contest will go on through June 3. And in that case I think my projections are within the realm of possibility.

 

See the link for the pretty version of the table where he figures Clinton comes out ahead in the popular vote.

 

The guy edits the yearly Political Almanac (a book). He definitely knows a ton about all the various districts in all the states, and I don't think he particularly likes Hillary or anything like that.

For SST -

I forgot one other thing about the way demorats operate... They form firing squads in the shape of a circle.

 

And? You trying to make a point?

He also states:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Are my projections for Clinton's share of the vote too optimistic? Quite possibly. But I think they're at least defensible. I have her carrying Pennsylvania by 20 percent--a 60 percent to 40 percent margin of the two-candidate (Clinton and Obama) vote. That's better than she did in Ohio, where she won 55 percent of the two-candidate vote. But her showings there in the 6th congressional district (70 percent to 27 percent), the 17th congressional district (63 percent to 35percent) and the 18th congressional district (66 percent to 31percent) have influenced me; those areas are a lot like most of western and central Pennsylvania, where you also find very few blacks and upscale whites.</div>

And

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>My projections on Jay Cost's spreadsheet put Clinton ahead in popular votes, however they're measured. But my projections on my legal pads leave her behind in delegates.</div>

 

SST- here you go:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9368.html

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Obama tops $40 million in March
By MIKE ALLEN | 4/3/08 11:05 AM EST Updated: 4/3/08 11:05 AM EST



The Obama campaign announced Thursday morning that more than 442,000 contributors gave his campaign more than $40 million in March.

That is less than the record $55 million Obama raised in February, but it's roughly twice what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is estimated to have raised in March. She plans to release her totals later this month.

The campaign, which did not release an exact total, said more than 218,000 donors contributed to the campaign for the first time, and the average contribution was $96.

Campaign manager David Plouffe said: “Sen. Obama has always said that this campaign would rise or fall on the willingness of the American people to become partners in an effort to change our politics and start a new chapter in our history. ... Today we’re seeing the American people’s extraordinary desire to change Washington, as tens of thousands of new contributors joined the more than a million Americans who have already taken ownership of this campaign for change. Many of our contributors are volunteering for the campaign, making our campaign the largest grass-roots army in recent political history.”

The campaign's figures:

Total raised in March: More than $40 million

Contributors in March: More than 442,000

First-time contributors in March: More than 218,000

Average contribution: $96

Total contributors to date: More than 1,276,000</div>

Notice the last line. TO DATE. Didn't I guess about 1.25M? Pretty close

 

This is good for a chuckle.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart

Article published Apr 3, 2008
Blog bickering called poison to Democrats


April 3, 2008

By Jennifer Harper - Some say acrimony is rampant among liberal and progressive bloggers who debate the merits of the Democratic presidential candidates almost nonstop — the divisiveness potentially exacting a toll on the party itself.

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly yesterday cited both "venom" and "liberals brutalizing liberals" on Web sites partial to either Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama.

Vitriol is brewing among Democrats, Mr. O'Reilly said, singling out the Daily Kos in particular as a "hateful left-wing Web site" that slammed Mrs. Clinton as a "coward" and "degenerative liar," among other things.

Markos Moulitsas, who founded the site six years ago, denies there's a political breach among his online brethren.

"While I'm touched by Bill O'Reilly's concern for our party, tell him not to worry. Unlike his show, where critics have their mics cut off and escorted out by Fox security, us progressive bloggers have no problem debating and disagreeing with each other," Mr. Moulitsas said yesterday.

"This all strikes me as in-house fighting — a family feud," said Lucianne Goldberg, whose own site, conservative-leaning Lucianne.com, receives an average 26 million visitors a month.

"There's some of that type of rivalry going on here between people who love John McCain and those who think he's just not conservative enough. McCain, anti-McCain — there's a lot of it," Mrs. Goldberg added.

"We are seeing the major blogs splitting into pro-Obama and pro-Clinton sites. There's a noticeable trend among those who favor Obama to go to Daily Kos, and for the Clinton fans to go to [blogger] Taylor Marsh," said Ian Faerstein, editor and writer for "The Blogometer," a frequently updated gauge of the blogosphere psyche on National Journal's Hotline, a daily online political briefing.

Things get particularly testy in "threads" of discussion posted by visitors to the sites, he said.

Indeed. On March 14, a frequent female blogger at the Daily Kos announced she would no longer contribute to the site, noting in an open letter: "I've decided to go on 'strike' and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution."

But Mr. Faerstein downplays the idea that "front page" bloggers such as Mr. Moulitsas or Ms. Marsh are locked in mortal combat.

"The front-pagers will unite with the front-runner when the time comes," Mr. Faerstein said.

Some have their own issues, though.

"The Democratic primary race has revealed a secret sexism among some of the biggest and most elite male-run blogs that has obliterated their credibility. Let's just say, 'Clinton derangement syndrome' is no longer simply confined to conservatives," Ms. Marsh said yesterday.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Steven Grossman characterized the online disagreements as a "microcosm" and a "subset" of the conflicting passions of Obama and Clinton supporters that eddy around the political landscape.

"We need to get beyond it," Mr. Grossman said, insisting that Democrats ultimately will opt for civility.

"We'll be together in November in ways Mr. O'Reilly might regret," he added.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 3 2008, 01:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Notice the last line. TO DATE. Didn't I guess about 1.25M? Pretty close </div>

Yeah, the first thing I thought when I saw that was Dabullz will be laughing .

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JayJohnstone @ Apr 3 2008, 02:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 3 2008, 12:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>And? You trying to make a point?</div>

You can cut and paste any portions that you want, but author clearly states it's not what's most likely to happen.
</div>

What's the title of the article?

His whole premise is that he projects Hillary to be ahead in the popular vote but behind in the delegate count that the voters commit.

Of course he could be wrong in his projections - nobody can see the future for sure.

 

FWIW

Rasmussen has been spot on when they project Hillary to win - almost a perfect record down to the % of the vote.

When they project Obama to win, he's won by a much wider margin than they projected.

However, Rasmussen doesn't release polls within a week or so of the primary in question, so there's no accounting in those week-old polls for late momentum or undecideds breaking toward Obama.

 

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/...to-bush-record/

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Obama Close to Bush Record

(CNN) ?€“ The "over $40 million" the Obama campaign says it raised in March would put the total contributions the Illinois senator has raised in his presidential campaign at approximately $234 million ?€” enough to surpass both the $200 million mark as well as the $215 million that 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry raised for that presidential primary season (then the Democratic record).

Obama is now just $25 million shy of reaching President Bush's overall record for presidential primary fundraising. In 2004, Bush raised a total of $259 million for his uncontested primary campaign.

The primary campaign season formally ends with the party conventions at the end of the summer.

Obama raised $194 million through the end of February. His official fundraising tally for the month of March is due to the Federal Election Commission by April 20.

Hillary Clinton raised $156 million through the end of February. Her campaign said Thursday it would not release her March totals until the filing deadline.</div>

Bush got to spend almost that entire amount on the General Election, which is a huge distinction.

 

As per the USNews article, the biggest point missed in the discussion here is that the author is allocating the entire state's popular vote to one of the candidates, as if it were an electoral college. But that doesn't make any sense. If you want to count popular vote, why wouldn't you just count popular vote? If you want to count delegates, why don't you count delegates? I mean, you could pretend to allocate delegates in a way that is different than the rules established (which are pretend allocation of voters to begin with), but what's the point? The author invented a "unique" system to find a way to show that Clinton is still in the race. Which is fine, but I'm not surprised this story hasn't caught any momentum.

As per the Washington Times story, there actually has been a consolidation on the blogs over the last week. A breaking of the partisan divide within the party as most of camp Clinton settles in to the fact that the race is over. It's made me feel a little bit better for things going forward, as has the Pelosi relenting and stating that Supers don't have to vote their representatives -- it's not the type of thing she would say if they weren't already in line. It looks like the party is starting to come together, albeit two months later than the Republicans. Surprise surprise. Why are Democrats so stupid? I mean, seriously. We always put ourselves in this situation.

There was an interesting Gallup poll two days ago:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/105994/Presiden...sses-Depth.aspx

When Americans are asked which of the leading candidates left in the race for president they least want to see elected president this year, 40% name John McCain, 36% Hillary Clinton, and 20% Barack Obama.

A little cold water for anyone who wants to see a joint Clinton-Obama ticket.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Apr 3 2008, 09:52 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Bush got to spend almost that entire amount on the General Election, which is a huge distinction.</div>

Yeah, I don't know how this is going to play out. Will the Clinton donors give to Obama? How much is left in the Obama tanks -- especially since so many of the big donors have been maxed out. Not so pretty.

 

Interesting look at the Supers. If my count is correct, HC has only won one new Super Delegate since way back on Super Tuesday.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (such sweet thunder @ Apr 3 2008, 08:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>As per the USNews article, the biggest point missed in the discussion here is that the author is allocating the entire state's popular vote to one of the candidates, as if it were an electoral college. But that doesn't make any sense. If you want to count popular vote, why wouldn't you just count popular vote? If you want to count delegates, why don't you count delegates? I mean, you could pretend to allocate delegates in a way that is different than the rules established (which are pretend allocation of voters to begin with), but what's the point? The author invented a "unique" system to find a way to show that Clinton is still in the race. Which is fine, but I'm not surprised this story hasn't caught any momentum.</div>


He counted electoral votes. Hillary wins those, check. It's something she might argue to the superdelegates after the primaries are over and nobody's won the required 2025.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>By my count, Clinton has won 14 states with 219 electoral votes (16 states with 263 electoral votes if you include Florida and Michigan) while Obama has won 27 states (I'm counting the District of Columbia as a state, but not the territories) with 202 electoral votes. Eight states with 73 electoral votes have still to vote. In percentage terms, Clinton has won states with 41 percent of the electoral votes (49 percent if you include Florida and Michigan), while Obama has won states with 38 percent of electoral votes. States with 14 percent of the electoral votes have yet to vote.</div>

He counted and projected the popular vote. Hillary wins that, check. It's something she might argue to the superdelegates after the primaries are over and nobody's won the required 2025.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>This would eliminate Obama's current popular vote margin, without including Florida and Michigan totals and even if you use imputed vote totals for the four caucus states (Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington) where Democrats did not disclose vote totals. The current popular vote margin for Obama on realclearpolitics.com is, under those favorable assumptions, 827,498. My spreadsheet numbers would give Clinton a 106,186 margin. The Obama margin if you don't give him his imputed margin in those four caucus states is 717,276. My results would convert that to a Clinton popular vote margin of 216,408.</div>


He counted and projected the delegates, the biggest point being missed

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>I give Obama small delegate edges in North Carolina (5) and Oregon (6), and Clinton relatively small edges in Pennsylvania (22), Indiana (12), West Virginia (10), Kentucky (17), Montana (3) and South Dakota (3) and a relatively big edge in Puerto Rico (20). Even so, that reduces Obama's current lead among "pledged" delegates (those selected in primaries and caucuses) from 1,414-1,247 to 1,655-1,565.</div>