Looks like the Obama and Clinton campaigns will be rolling into the state in earnest now. Clinton won Pennsylvania as expected and there probably isn’t any reason for either campaign to give up. So, it’s on to the next round — Indiana and North Carolina on May 6. Obama appears to have a formidable lead in North Carolina and it’s not clear Clinton has the cash to make a run in hostile territory. Indiana’s polls have shown a close contest with Clinton likely having the lead at the moment. I suspect she’ll devote most of her efforts trying to hang on here, and Obama will spend his resources trying to bury her.
Today, Obama and Clinton both announced they would be attending the state Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Indianapolis on May 4.
Update Looks like Clinton beat Obama by about 9% in Pennsylvania and picked up about 10 delegates, reducing Obama’s overall lead to about 125. She still has no realistic path to the nomination. As a matter of state pride, I’d enjoy it if Indiana’s vote brought the Democratic nomination fight to an end.
Update #2 And, by the way, I’m a political genius. I predicted “Hillary by 10” on Monday. Somebody should probably put me on TV as an “analyst” now.
Wow–that dinner will be the center of the political universe that night. Howard Dean will be there, too. Good for Indiana.
I just got back from a large, spirited Obama rally. He has a nice firm handshake, that Obama. My hip was disappointed that “standing in one place for four hours” was on the agenda tonight.
Continuing a previous thought on tax policy… I disagree with Obama’s plan for the payroll tax and recognize that it would offer a disincentive for me to work as hard as I currently do. If I designed the system, I would probably apply the tax for income from 50k up to 100k, phase it out for 100k up to 500k, and then over 500k tax it at some level (how much? I don’t know). That would tend to leave the work incentive in for most workers, while providing needed revenue with a hopefully reasonable tax on higher incomes. So I disagree with him on one issue, and it’s an issue that could cost me tens of thousands of dollars in taxes. Yet I support him.
What would I expect to be worse in a Republican administration? The environment, energy policy, workplace safety, foreign policy, the economy, the budget, the advancement of science, to name a few things, all of which are important to me.
What would I expect to be better in a Republican administration? My tax bill.
For me, it’s not a hard choice at all. I want a better nation and world more than I want a larger bank account. Besides, the current adminstration hasn’t enacted Obamaesque payroll tax policy, but has run up a similar charge in my name for a war I was opposed to from day one, which will be paid for by taxing me at some point–sooner, or later and larger. So even a “win” for me personally on tax policy by going with a Republican can be offset by other boneheadedness on their part.
The other reason I can support him is that on this one policy I disagree with, I think there’s a reasonable chance that he won’t get his way on it. I could be wrong. But if McCain’s worst ideas became enacted, I would be far less happy than if Obama’s most objectionable plans became law.
“…no realistic path to nomination”?
Senator Clinton is a master manipulator of rules, a behavior that harks back at least to her Watergate days. Don’t count her “out” until the fat lady is singing in the aisles of the nominating convention.
I believe that her strategists are working on scenarios that paint her as the primaries “winner” and that Senator Obama should collapse under her wing for the general election.
Perhaps. But, absent a complete collapse by Obama in the remaining primary states, I don’t see how you get to a Clinton nomination without a 1968 level destruction of the party. And, it seems like this sort of internecine warfare is more likely to be tolerated when your party has been holding the White House. As your party spends time in the wilderness, party members get hungrier and less tolerant of impractical diversions.
For the Republicans, you had the Buchanan challenge to Bush I in ’92 and the Reagan primary challenge to Ford in ’76. For the Democrats, you had the RFK challenge to Johnson in ’68 (which led to Johnson’s decision not to run for re-election and a lot of craziness in the party after RFK’s assassination) and you had Ted Kennedy’s challenge to Carter in ’80.
I don’t wish to “puke” on this conversation but since I come at this from a more consrvative point of view I look at the coalitions(in general according to exit polls) of these two candidates.Obama has wealthy college educated democrats,african americans and young people.Clinton has hispanics,White women,white men,senior citizens,and in general blue collar moderate and conservative Reagan democrats.In states like PA.,Ohio,Ky,and West Virginia this will matter.Many of these voters I believe will switch over to McCain not as many as stating they will now in polls but there will be a fair amount in my opinion.
Mr.Obama lost almost every county in PA.last night and was “thumped” according to John King on CNN which for some reason was very slow to call this race.I surffed between Fox News,CNN,and MSNBC.Fox called it first,then MSNBC, CNN was really late.
Looks like Indiana is a tossup,KY and West Virginia will go Clinton and North Carolina Obama and still I just don’t see anyway Clinton will win the nomination but that won’t stop people from voting for her.The rural areas of this state will most likely go Clinton.I still say this Wright stuff and all this other character related stuff had a effect in PA. even if people said it didn’t.
I agree. The first 45 minutes of that debate the other night is exactly the Republican playbook– because they don’t have any other way to win, but to scare the American people about mostly inconsequential stuff. Ewww.. beware the black man.. he has nutty thoughts.. he can’t be trusted…. etc.
Again, please define “character.” Whatever folks mean by it in the context of a political campaign, I want to make sure we get it hammered down before the general election so that “character” can be used to evaluate Obama and McCain equally. What I don’t want it to mean is, “LOOK! OVER THERE! (And please ignore the actual condition of the United States because I don’t like this Obama fellow for some reason I can’t fully articulate.)”
T, thanks for a good answer there, I know it was from the previous post.
You know, you have books like “What’s the Matter with Kansas”, where blue collar voters are trashed for not voting their “economic interests”, for being “bitter”, yet still “clinging to guns and religion” (Obama clearly has read the book!).
Yet guys like you, who by income, education, and just about any socioeconomic measure, should be Republicans, and nobody writes books about that.
Doctors used to be the most reliably Republican group out there. And now they’re more and more like you, not only being Democrats, but voting for guys that raise their taxes and are going to socialize medicine.
The first thing that will happen when medicine is socialized is that doctor salaries are going to be cut significantly. The next thing is that control of medical schools will be taken away from the AMA so that the annual cap on new grads can be eliminated (which will over time greatly diminish doctor salaries).
So be careful what you wish for.
The primary yesterday sealed the deal for me. Hillary needs to be the nominee.
Look, you had a closed primary. Hillary trounced Obama as a result. She is the CLEAR choice of DEMOCRATS.
Obama can only win when independents and Republicans can interfere in the primary.
He is also very well organized, and that completely explains his caucus wins. I’m at the point where I’m ready to say that caucuses are total BS, and those results need to be heavily discounted.
Look at the exit polling, Hillary wins among every key Democratic demographic except African Americans.
She has proven herself time after time in key Democratic states.
Why on earth shouldn’t she be the nominee?
Because she’s losing the contest under the rules set before the contest began. It’s as simple as that. I understand that if you tilt your head and squint your eyes just right, Hillary can be perceived to be winning. But, to do that, you have to discount all the caucus states. You have to discount the black vote. You have to discount the city vote. You have to discount the red state votes. And, you have to count the unsanctioned contests in Michigan and Florida.
In this election climate, I don’t see traditionally Democratic states voting for McCain over a ham sandwich, let alone Obama. And, I see Obama challenging McCain in red states — maybe not winning, but helping the down ticket candidates in those states and forcing McCain to defend himself there.
It’s really the difference between the Dean 50 state strategy and the Bayh/Clinton/Lieberman/Daschle DLC strategy where you secure big margins in a respectable number of blue states but then have to rely on a triple bank shot to try to win that last purple state to get you over the electoral top in the Presidential. Meanwhile, every other part of the Democratic Party starves and atrophies.
Because she’s losing the contest under the rules set before the contest began.
I understand that. But the superdelegates are there. They can and should decide this thing for Hillary. They have the power, and it is completely legitimate that they do so. That is EXACTLY what they are there for!
The superdelegates can disregard the caucuses. The superdelegates can disregard the red states. The superdelegates can take Florida and Michigan into accout. The superdelagates can do any thing that they want to!
Doug, I think that you overestimate Obama’s appeal. Hillary has shown that Obama does not appeal to a good part of the Democrat electorate. He isn’t going to get the Reagan Democrats.
Obama has what he has: African Americans and rich, white liberals. He can get them in any state, Red or Blue, but is that seriously enough to win?
Again, look at the exit polling. 15% of Hillary voters said that they’d vote for McCain if she were not the nominee, and 10% said that they will not vote.
Kerry won Pennsylvania by 51%.
You guys are delusional if you think Obama can lose 25% of the Democrat electorate and still win a crucial state that Kerry squeaked by on.
I love when someone says he lost almost every county. True, he lost almost every county except for a few where the most people live. It reminds me of the “Bush Country” T-shirt that conveniently ignores the fact that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 by a million. Acreage doesn’t vote, people do. Currently Obama is still up in the popular vote.
Otherwise, many valid arguments in the above posts. I think an Obama/Hillary ticket becomes more and more inevitable the longer this goes. I would prefer not to have her negatives on the ticket. But I when I look past the cackling laugh and the freaks working her campaign, I have to admit she’s probably earned her way onto the ticket.
Gore won’t come out to be on it. Edwards has been a real nowhere man the last few months. Richardson doesn’t excite that much. Am I missing some other obvious choice for running mate?
Buzz– That’s 25% of 55%, which is 13.75%
Also you’re assuming that McCain won’t lose votes to “anyone but McCain”, which he will. What percentage? Who knows, since right now his gaffes are drowned out by the din of the Democratic primary process.
varangianguard is right about Clinton (except Watergate? I think you’re getting your -gates mixed, and that -gate meme for every scandal needs to die anyhow). She already twisted the figures around this morning on Today:
“More people have voted for me than any other candidate in Democratic primary history” or something to that effect. The host pointed out that since she is behind in the popular vote, she must be counting Michigan and Florida, and those were not real elections. She responded that those votes were registerd and valid, just that the party didn’t count them.
She is squinting her eyes just right to lie without lying.
As for support for her if Obama doesn’t get the nomination? I don’t think the question has been asked right. I think many Obama supporters would support her if she would win the votes. However, if Obama leads in popular votes & delegates, and then Clinton is appointed by the supers, many Obama supporters will stay home. Bitter about their party betraying them, clinging to their guns, and praying. :)
I spend much of the summer months now in Bethlehem PA,fomerly a city which never got dark at night and never was without constant noise due to 24/7, 3 working shifts .Now the rusted steel mills are being converted into family entertainment,including gambling casinos,for the New Yorkers,80 miles east.
I didn’t know Bethlehem in the steel days,but I sit often with retirees of steel waiting to get my haircut for $3..The barber shop opens at 4 am and there’s already a line..anything to save a few bucks.It’s often a long wait.These are guys who feel they were cheated out of what was theirs, and they speak in a bitter way sometimes about the demise of steel. They are democrats,pro-life practicing catholics,ethnic and life-long proud union members,and many speak English with accents.
They would vote pro- union and economics before they’d vote against abortion,because abortion ‘ain’t nobody else’s business’.
I can guess why they wouldn’t vote for Obama.I won’t say it’s bigotry, which can be defined so self-servingly,but I don’t think any of them can relate to a Black man who is educated,and speaks as Obama does. It’s like ‘guilty of being elite by default’.I don’t know how many would vote for McCain over Obama,if that’s the choice,as many of them consider today’s Republicans as their worst problem.
But I think overall many who voted for Clinton statewide in PA will vote for McCain in November,and even though we can’t define what it means, it will be because of ‘character’ and ‘culture’
Doug’s point is valid. Obama is losing at times to the Democratic alternative. Likewise, Clinton. Meanwhile, Democratic numbers are way up, which is rarely taken into account in these discussions.
When fretting about how some of these states will go in the general, it’s helpful to remember that it will be D vs. R, and polling such hypotheticals without a nominee and in the middle of an acrimonious primary is unlikely to be that accurate. And talking about some hypothetical percentage that may defect doesn’t paint an accurate picture unless you also address the actual numbers of R’s or D’s that are going to be voting.
This is also presuming the party won’t come together, or McCain won’t suffer from increased scrutiny, or the general election debates won’t matter, or McCain won’t make a boneheaded veep pick. All of these variables will also move numbers.
Nice insight, Lou.
Obama got less votes last night. But I think the votes he has, he will keep.
How many of Hillary’s votes were “not Obama” votes that would elude her in the general?
And the fact that the polling this season hasn’t been accurate even for events that were in the near future with most of the variables having been resolved.
Buzzcut is right that the superdelegates are authorized to vote however they damn well please. However, they’ll have to deal with a considerable backlash if they select Clinton because they’re speculating that she’ll beat McCain in the fall even though she didn’t beat Obama in the spring.
There will be a fair number of people who support Clinton but won’t support Obama (and vice versa) just because of pure candidate preference; which is fine. But, I think that a Clinton nomination will suffer considerably more from a loss of Obama voters, not based on candidate preference, but based on a perception that she obtained the nomination unfairly. Because of the pledged delegate situation, I don’t think Obama would have to deal with as much attrition on that basis.
As I was driving around yesterday, doing visits, I flipped over to hear what Rush had to say. (Needed my monthly blood pressure and stress test). Anyway, I guess his cult-follwers were asked to do something called “Operation Chaos,” in which they would go out and vote in the democratic primary for Hillary. One guy called in and blathered on about his experience doing this.
So, T, to answer your question with another question: I wonder how many of the “not Obama” votes were from ultra-conservatives who want to stretch this thing out to the convention?
But, I think that a Clinton nomination will suffer considerably more from a loss of Obama voters, not based on candidate preference, but based on a perception that she obtained the nomination unfairly.
Doug-good point. And I also think that you’d loose a number of the young and first-time voters that Obama has attracted. I think the base that Hillary has will be more likely to stick it out and vote for whomever the democratic candidate is.
She is squinting her eyes just right to lie without lying.
Dude, she’s had so much plastic surgery, she can’t close her eyes, much less squint!
Buzz– That’s 25% of 55%, which is 13.75%
Sorry, good catch.
No dounbt, there are Republicans that will not vote for McCain. Is that going to make up for the Democrats who won’t vote for Obama? Who knows.
Is McCain going to make a gaffe? Is he going to survive increased scrutiny? The guy has done this before. He should be as capable as Obama or Clinton.
On the other hand, what other skeletons does Obama have? How about Ayer’s wife?
Hey T–what about Wesley Clark as Obama’s VP? Just throwing that out there (although I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere). Would seem to give serious national security cred to counteract McCain?
I doubt he’s interested, but I’d like to see Brian Schweitzer as Obama’s VP — he’s the Democratic governor of Montana. He comes across as a charismatic, shit-kicking good old boy. I like what I’ve heard from him and I think he’d play really well in the western states where I think McCain is vulnerable.
Broadway Baby? Good grief what a sorry piece of shit article. By halfway through, I wondered if by the end *I* would be implicated in the damn thing. I’m also loving the burying of the lede in about the nineteenth paragraph.
And where was Obama in 1979?
Finally I’m forced to concede that I will not vote for Ayers, or his wife, for President.
I suppose if Obama were some kind of FBI agent, he would have gotten the background checks necessary to know that Ms. Ayers or Doan or whatever was deeply involved in something none of us have ever heard of. Or not deeply involved. Or, who cares? If she didn’t say, “Hi Barack, I’m Ayers’ wife and I’m kind of notorious for stealing ID’s from my Broadway Baby store as part of a global revolution, or so it is alleged, and nice to meet you!”, then what does this have to do with Obama?
Ummm, the above rant was in reference to Buzz’s link about Ayers’ wife.
T,
Interesting thought that Obama lost almost all of the counties except where the most people live,the Philly region.The only problem is that the sum of the rest of the states rural population and the Pittsburgh area handed Obama a nearly 10 point loss by over 200,000 thousand votes.Not a bad victory by Mrs.Clinton considering she was out spent two or three to one.I’m just saying that even though Obama did win the Philly area where all the people live, I believe somehting like 60-40 or 65-35 it doesn’t really matter if the entire rest of the state is voting against him.
I also see new hit pieces(ads) are out against Obama.I saw the one the N.C. GOP is running against a democratic candidate for governor involving reverend Wright.Of course they say the ad is aimed at a Obama supporting governatorial candidate but really if you ask me it’s against Obama.McCain of course denounced the ad and told the N.C. GOP to take it down but they won’t do it.This is also silly because you just know the McCain campaign in private is all for this type of ad while publicly denouncing it.
I like how some of the people scandalized and howling, and otherwise shitting their britches about Bill Ayers’s purported revolutionary attitudes 40 years ago reverently memorialize the “heroes” who fired on Fort Sumter.
Yup, they’re about as self-reflective as a charcoal briquette.
what does this have to do with Obama?
A number of things.
First, Ayers and Dohrn are fixtures of the Hyde Park community. But it’s not like they hide their past associations from anyone. Ayers and Dohrn have been in Chicago magazine and the Chicago Tribune. That’s how I know about them. Obama should have known about them to, and stayed away. Far away.
As Kass asks, how does a convicted felon get a job at a prestigous law school? In fact, Dohrn does not have a law license. Yet she can teach at Norwestern Law? What’s the deal with that?
How did Ayers get his job? Ayers is a public employee of the State of Illinois, for god’s sake! As such, what did Illinois State Senator Obama do about a terrorist working for the government he represented?
I like how some of the people scandalized and howling, and otherwise shitting their britches about Bill Ayers’s purported revolutionary attitudes 40 years ago reverently memorialize the “heroes†who fired on Fort Sumter.
Name one of these mythical people. Show me one.
Ayer’s did not have a “revolutionary attitude”.
He was a terrorist.
What, and guys firing on a federal military installation aren’t terrorists?
Did I say that?
Brandy said that the same people condeming Ayers call the people firing on Ft. Sumpter “heroes”. I called him on that. I don’t think there’s anyone doing that.
But maybe Brandy can find me a quote by Shawn Hannity saying that those who attacked Ft. Sumpter were heroes.
Obama should have never lived in a neighborhood. He should have never served in governance in Illinois unless he was willing to micromanage the hiring and firing of faculty at schools in the state. He should have read the paper more. Northwestern’s employment actions reflect very poorly on Barack Obama.
We now rejoin reality, already in progress.