According to Kos’s math, Sen. Clinton may have picked up 2 or 3 delegates on Obama. As expected, she won Ohio and Texas, though not by anything like the margins she had 2 weeks ago when these contests were gearing up. And, ultimately, she failed to cut into Obama’s delegate lead in any significant way.
I’m not losing faith Obama, but I think these shifts in Ohio and Texas tell you something: the reason we get crappy politicians is because we have a cynical electorate that is susceptible to nasty attack ads, fear mongering, and outright lies.
In other words, it isn’t the politicians that are bad – it’s the people who pick them. It’s ridiculous to me that a few days of hate, fear, loathing and lies can beat out a long running positive message. Hell, its downright sad. If there was anything that makes me worried about the future of America, it’s the fact that “good” doesn’t win.
Can we really call them shifts? He was down like 20% in these states a couple of weeks ago and he closed the gap almost entirely in Texas and significantly in Ohio. Perhaps his final push was blunted at the very end, but certainly his gains were not eliminated.
Obama did have a couple of setbacks this week. Naftagate, for example. Rezko is going on trial, which raises the profile of that scandal and Obama’s connection to the corrupt Crook County Democrat machine.
Let me put an Indiana spin on it:
If Hillary is the Democratic candidate for President in November, Mitch Daniels will be re-elected.
If it’s Obama, well, the Democrats got a chance.
And, personally, Hillary as the candidate is the best thing in the world for McCain. I don’t think Democratic voters are keeping in mind how divisive Hillary Clinton is.
And she’s busy knocking down Obama in the primary; while he’s trying to go after McCain a bit. This could endo up having negative effects on the democratic party; especially if this continues on all the way to the convention.
I don’t buy the conventional wisdom that Obama needs to start slinging mud to fight the Clinton Slime machine. I think he needs to stick with his message and continue to contrast himself with John McCain (maybe more so than he is now) – that is how a frontrunner should act.
This idea that there needs to be some sort of knee-jerk reaction after every primary contest just seems like a media-created strategy and not one based on sound political judgment
I agree with John– ands the slime-sling doesn’t work for Obama if he wants to be seen as a new kind of politician. Just contrast ALL the things he’s actually done. And the list has been posted in dailykos many times.
Clinton hinted on CBS this morning talking with Harry Smith that a Clinton-Obama ticket might be a possibility,but she added that she should be on top of ticket because she won Ohio,a prerequiste for any Democrat to be elected president.Everyone has added up the delegates and neither candidate probably will have enough delegates to be a clear cut winner at the Democrat Convention regardless of what happens from now on.So maybe Clinton will try to force a deal? Clinton-Obama would be a very strong ticket,but imo, a stronger one would be Obama-Clinton, and the leader in delegates should be the head of the ticket,and why would some other arrangement even be discussed?
This business Clinton keeps dragging up about “I won Ohio” or “I won California” or whatever is ridiculous. It’s arrogant of her to assume that those who voted for her would not vote for Obama if he were the nominee.
I feel her “win†shows that negative politics works. If they keep battling, the machine behind her will keep it ugly and people will start to tune out. That is my biggest fear.
What I like about a Clinton-Obama ticket is the potential of him being in office for 16 years.
It is short-sighted to think they can’t work together. On many issues, they are not that far apart. She does bring a certain value to the table if the job is undoing the muck. Heck, she created part of the muck. What she lacks, he has; strategic vision and the ability to motivate people.
Taming the muck will take years and require some crafty, tedious, manipulation that might be better accomplished with her background and his apparent charm and vision.
In eight years, he can run for President, there will still be plenty for him to accomplish.
There was an interesting story on CNN tonight showing that, mathmatically, neither Clinton nor Obama can win the nomination before the convention. This, the story maintains, is true even if one of them won every remaining state by a 60-40 margin. With the Florida and Michigan results disallowed, there aren’t enough votes left to take either candidate over the top.
I would find an Obama-Clinton ticket intensely amusing.
1) Hillary Clinton as VP would be good assassination insurance for Obama, as any lunatic nutty enough to want to knock him off has likely spent years listening to right-wing talk radio and single-handedly escalating the female Antichrist to the Presidency wouldn’t be worth the satisfaction of putting a darkie back in his place.
(On the other hand, maybe I don’t truly understand wingnut assassin logic. Maybe someone else here has a better grasp of it?)
2) More seriously, it would be a blast to watch the mortification wash over the neocons as Vice President Hillary Clinton rolled up her sleeves and set about exercise all these nice new Veep powers that Dick Cheney has so kindly pioneered for her. You think we’re hearing about a lot of Republican pederasts now, wait until Hillary’s “Fourth Branch” of government has unreviewable wiretaps and surveillance going 24/7 on every Republican politican in the country.
The conservative movement, will establish a nationwide movement to lower the age of consent to 12 (10 for gay sex), decriminalize solicitation, and install glory holes in all public restrooms.
Really, it’s the only way to prevent a deeply un-American “criminalization of conservatism”. How else are all those white guys gonna stay out of jail?
oh no … there’s that pesky ‘nonsense’ about counting Florida and Michigan votes again.
Adding Clinton to the ticket would completely undermine the message of change he has worked so hard to establish. Nothing says status quo like a DLC democrat using nepotism to run the country
AJB: Hillary is willing to destroy the Democratic party to win the nomination. In that way, she’s exactly like the Bush machine, and in that way, she’s sure as *&^% not “change”.
Hillary winning is the same as McCain winning – more of the same old same old.
Wouldn’t it be a total hoot if Indiana’s primary actually ended up having an impact?
The commentary threads on this blog point out a real problem if Clinton is the nominee. A substantial number of Obama supporters have no allegiance to the Democratic Party,and they see Obama as a populist beyond party who would bring about a different way of doing things. They most likely would sit out the election if Clinton were the nominee. Not so much they they are ‘anti-Hillary’ , but that Clinton is more of the same old party politics,and what’s happening currently with ‘kitchen sink campaigning’ confirms these suspicions. . The Democratic Party, imo,has always been, and is still closer to the people than the Republican party, and offers the many unaffliated people who have no one speaking for them more of chance of a fair shake,so it does matter which party is in control for some of us. But for many other potential voters,’Hillary’ is just a liberal Georges Bush,beholding to a different set of special interest groups with party politics ruling the agenda. .Obama may not be as he seems,or he may be soon corrupted as just about everyone else in elected or appointed political office,but I’m willing to give him a chance to see what he can do. Also,every conservative who can vote, would vote against Hillary,and the Bush administration would get an automatic free pass for everything they has done,and their campaign rallying call would be variations of of the theme ‘protect the country from Hillary’. I can see the campain posters already.
…even more of a hoot to be a part of giving Sen. Clinton a share of Indiana delegates!
Tomorrow’s Borgman pretty well hits it on the head for me:
Lou,
You always have such interesting things to say, but the one big paragraph is intimidating… can I make a request that you break your prose up a bit for ease of reading?
ok, ok, I’ll admit it… it’s hard on my aging eyes as well (sigh).
Brenda,
Yes, it’s hard on my eyes too to re-read my own paragraph. Thanks for the tip.