NBC projected an Obama win in Virginia almost as soon as the polls closed. We’ll see what the numbers reveal, but that suggests Sen. Clinton was on the receiving end of a good old fashioned ass-kicking in that state. Maryland and D.C. still have their polls open. The talk seemed to be that Sen. Clinton would have a shot at Virginia. Even more surprising, however, is the fact that the Virginia race between Huckabee and McCain is still too close to call. This is supposed to be a coronation for McCain.
The analysts on MSNBC thought Obama was basically sucking the wind out of McCain’s sails. Virginia is an open primary. Obama has a good deal of appeal to independents. So, independents who might otherwise go vote for McCain figure McCain has it wrapped up and go ahead and vote for Obama in a race that’s more interesting.
Update Obama has swept Clinton in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. And, it looks like McCain will sweep Huckabee in those states as well.
I was watching some of the analysts. There was some hand wringing about how bad things were going to get for Obama once the mean old Republicans started after him. For some reason, I was reminded of a scene in the Watchmen comic book series. Rorschach, a vigilante super hero who thrives on violence toward criminals, finds himself locked in jail with a lot of the criminals he put away. The criminals are eager to do him harm and come after him. He does something particularly nasty to one of them and says, “You don’t understand. I’m not trapped in here with you. You’re trapped in here with me.”
What bothers me is that even with the wins last weekend, the wins tonight, and Wisconsin and other races later this month, everyone is Clinton could still win Ohio and Texas and we’d still be tied. (One article I read said that if she doesn’t win both, she should exit the race because it’s over.)
Here’s hoping that Ohio goes for Obama – I just can’t see him winning Texas.
Also, that McCain / Obama effect is why Obama lost New Hampshire and why this race is still going on. Polls were predicting a double-digit win for Obama going into New Hampshire and then he lost – apparently a LOT of independents at the time voted for McCain because they didn’t want Romney in the race at all and because they figured Obama was “safe.”
Great job, New Hampshire! You might have single handedly kept Chris Matthews busy an extra month!
Hard telling at this point, but Clinton’s Ohio/Texas strategy looks a little like the Giuliani Florida strategy.
That’s a good reference from the Watchmen.
I don’t see things getting worse for Obama than McCain, like you say.
I think all Obama has to do it say “I’ve been against the war this whole time. McCain is still for it.” War support below 1/3. Obama wins.
Along those lines, McCain really suffered from MSNBC’s coverage in that they switched from Obama’s speech directly to McCain’s speech. The difference was stark. Cutting from a wildly enthusiastic, diverse crowd cheering on a message of hope to a group of old, white people talking gloom and doom.
Doug, I was thinking the same thing. No. I was hoping the same thing. Clinton’s people seem to be writing off February and putting all their hopes on the Texas Ohio two step. I hope the independents come out big for Obama in those states. I would still definitely vote for Clinton before I would vote for Bush v.3. but I lost a lot of respect for her when she caved in to the NeoCon strategist and voted for authorization for the Iraq invasion/lie. I give a lot of credit to Edwards for admitting he’d made a mistake but the Billary machine couldn’t do that. I think Obama is on a lot firmer ground on articulating why Iraq was a huge blunder and how it has made our military and our homeland security weaker.
Does anyone think finding bin Laden would suddenly boost war support and give the edge to McCain?
If no, would finding him in Iraq do it?
For what it’s worth, since OH,PA and TX are evidently the next key states,some political stategists were discussing on CNN what Clinton has to do.Should Obama’s sweep continue til then,which many predict, Clinton would have to take an average of over 60% of all delegates in those 3 states to make up her delegate difficiency difference.This is evidently expert speculation of those who understand these things. In contrast,in the republican primary, winner take all, McCain beat out Huckabee in VA in a very competitive race 59-41% and was awarded all the VA delegates.
But doesnt ‘winner take all’ sound ‘so republican’?
Lou said
I think you misspelled “American”. Winner take all is how we have done the electoral college system.
Sounds like you’re still bitter over Gore winning the popular vote but losing the election, that might be why it sounds ‘so republican’.
For what it is worth, I do like the E.C. system better than popular vote for no other reason then it makes sure that Chicago, New York and LA people don’t get an unfair advantage. I think the election should be more about “fair” than “equal”.
Jason,
I have have no issue with the Electoral College. I think it gives the smaller states a chance to present a higher profile,and in that way makes us more democratic maybe because candidates are forced to go to the smaller states to plead their case. .Gore lost in 2000 because of voting irregularities,mostly votes not counted( as I remember back).Our voting system has never been any where near accurate in counting,nor in allowing everyone qualified to vote, but usually there have been a few hundred thousand votes as a cushion to error and we were never prepared to determine an election where there were only a handful of votes difference out of millions cast. My comment about ‘winner take all’ was a reference to conservative Republicans in control in 90’s not willing to compromise,playing political brinksmanship and the government was shut down in the 90s as a rfesult.They never really have wanted to have bi-partisan government ,but that’s the only way constitutional democracy can be effective for all.It’s always been ‘winner take all’ mentality. But I’m not dwelling on the past,but you asked me to explain myself.Gore lost officially and America had to go on,and I’m sure 9/ll would have happened no matter who had been elected,but we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq using 9/ll and WMD and whatever else the Bushes/Cheney/ Wolfowitz et al. came up with.But Im one of those who now thinks we would have invaded Iraq had there been no 9/ll,but that’s just personal opinion.
I’m not particularly advocating a change to the Electoral College, but the system does over-represent rural voters — or at least states with low population densities. All of those states in the midwest and the mountain west with lots of land and not many voters get the same two electoral votes based on Senate representation that the high density states get.
Compare:
Wyoming – 3 electoral votes compared to 493,782 people; or 1 electoral vote for every 164,594 people.
New Jersey – 16 electoral votes compared to 8,414,000 people; or 1 electoral vote for every 525,875. In terms of picking a President, the vote of a Wyoming citizen counts more than 3x as much as the vote of a person from New Jersey.
Yeah, but in New Jersey the dead get to vote. Kind of evens the score….
The electoral college is ridiculous and needs to be axed stat. We are supposed to be a bastion of democracy but we elect a president in a most undemocratic way that discourages people from voting in consistently one sided states like Indiana.At the very least the electoral votes should be divvied proportionally in each state. Why when so few people vote do you want to discourage them even more?
The US was hardly intended to be a “bastion of democracy”–or of any other form of government, for that matter.
The end of government is the maximization of individual liberty; the form of government is only a means to that end, NOT an end in itself.
The maximization description raises an interesting point. It sort of has a utilitarian ring to it. What if the liberty of the overall population could be maximized by enslaving a few members of the population? Would the enslavement then be permissible?
The word “individual” is key there.
I can think of two times in history when government was completely ended,and it didn’t turn out well;just before the Bolsheviks took over in Russia, and leading into the reign of terror after Louis xvi was s deposed..Look at Iraq. Only American troops keep chaos at bay as there is no other operating government.
Clearly liberty has to be restrained to some degree — for example the liberty of one person to deprive another person of life, liberty, or property.
But, back to the maximizing individual liberty point — just as a hypothetical, let’s say there are 100 individuals currently enjoying 8 units of liberty out of a potential 10. Now, let’s say that 99 individuals could all enjoy 10 units of liberty if the one remaining individual was reduced to 0 units of liberty.
You have gone from 800 units of liberty total up to 990 total units of liberty. And, 99 people now have a maximum 10/10 liberty. However, to do this you have enslaved the poor schmuck who has 0/10 liberty.
Is this permissible?
If not, then the next question becomes whether it would be permissible to take a population with 99 individuals with 2/10 liberty scores and 1 individual with a 10/10 liberty score and, by reducing the favored individual down to a 9/10 liberty score thereby raise up the other 99 to 8/10 scores.
These scenarios boil down to two basic questions:
Is it permissible for the majority to completely subjugate a minority for marginal but real gains in liberty; and
Is it permissible for a majority to slightly inconvenience a minority if doing so will raise the majority out of squalor?
The USA is not a “bastion of democracy”. We are not even a democracy. We’re a democratic republic.
Yes, the EC system does over-represent the rual voters. Just like they are over-represented in the Senate.
I think this part of the system (the EC and the Senate) are good ways to balance the need for representing the vast rual areas of the country that would otherwise be taken advantage of by “the mob”.
Democracy is the rule of the mob. For example, well over 80% of people supported war to multiple countries after September 11th. That LA TIMES article suggests that Bush was SLOW to war!?! Compared to “the mob”, he may have been. It would not surprise me if there was greater than 50% support for nuclear strikes against suspected terrorist countries at that time. (That is not fact, I have no links for Branden, just Jason’s gut instinct.:)
Thankfully, we don’t have a pure democracy. Even someone like Pres. Bush CAN be more level-headed than the people.
The reason this is on-topic is that is seems that a winner-take-all type of primary keeps more in line with the American Way of running government. The way the Democratic Party does it seems to fool people into thinking that we run this country by majority vote.
Both the EC and the Senate are undemocratic.
Interestingly, most states used to have bicarmel legislatures where one body was set up like the senate (undemocratically, say, giving each county a seat in the Indiana senate). That was ruled unconstitutional long ago.
If each state can’t do it, why can the Feds?
Buzzcut:
Bicarmel legislatures? Please, God, no.
One Carmel is more than enough.
Jason,
To me ‘winner take all’ is a moral view which says: ‘We won,you go to hell’.Government is a process which takes works best with many views at least heard,if not enacted. Especially when we have a constitution,with 200 years of established precedents which outlines very well procedures for coming to agreement.Everyone of us has a moral code and we see everything through our moral( or personnel) value system.(I have never accepted the religious right’s interpretation of a morality that hangs out there in the sky and we all latch on to it when we ‘see the light’; we must always take personal responsibility for what we believe). Hopefully our moral code also includes good will with good intentions so we can come to honorable compromises.All these tricky parliamentary procedures that both parties have resorted to have also cheapend and undermined and government.The most aggregious in my opinion was Republicans setting up a legal trap involving Paula Jones so that they could impeach Clinton for moral reasons.That was part of ‘winner take all’ mindset.
I honestly don’t understand what Doug is posting above with 3 units of liberty for one person and 10 out of 10 units for another and is it permissible for one person to have zero units of liberty so that everyone else can have maximum liberty? In a functioning constitutional democracy that situation should never occur.DNA has freed many locked up prisoners who were railroaded to jail by zealous prosectuors and probably with the approval of a grateful,moral, God-fearing citizenry,so science is also part of a functioning democratic process and hopefully no person is so moral that he rejects science on moral principle.So the point being that even someone stripped of his civil rights and thrown in jail through due process should benefit from new insights that science gives us,but which never would come to fruition unless we respected everyone rights under the law.I have always greatly respected our Constitution and our system of law.