When the choice was between her and Obama for the nomination. If the choice is between McCain and Obama the way in which they vote will be different.

This is akin to the “if the primaries were winner take all she’d have it sewn up” argument. You’re changing a fundamental condition yet. assuming nothing else would happen differently.

In Obama vs McCain matchups and Hillary vs McCain matchups polls vary, but show at best that she doesn’t’ do substantially better against McCain than Obama would.

Hillary’s position on Iraq is the same as McCain. She talks big to Petreaus but does little to curb the abuses. Troop pullouts are inevitable next year as there are few combat ready troops on the sidelines. And with Hillary’s sabre-rattling against Iran, surely the unrest from Shias will require significant numbers of troops indefinitely under a Hillary presidency.

Face it, Hillary agreed with McCain in 2002 when she voted for the war authorization, and she agrees with him now. She also agrees that McCain would be an effective commander-in-chief. America disagrees.

McCain’s position is still out there in a flak jacket saying “We can WIN in Iraq!!”

The “Most Liberal Senator in Congress” tag was given to Obama by the National Journal Magazine last month.

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

The GOP attack machine is going to town on it already. I AM a proud Liberal who can knock you on your ass, but that tag is going to hurt Obama in swing states for sure.

AS to who wins moderates and middle-of-the-road? Take a look at the demos from PA last night: Gun Owners, church goers, working-class, high-school educated, below $50K a year, all went for Hillary better than 60%. Hillary speaks their language. Obama speaks to college professors and Blacks and the idealistic young, not to the middle class.

Non answer on point 1 noted.

In point 2, you said “who takes on McCain on National Security, on Iraq”

Not Hillary. She agrees with McCain on those points.

“WHo wins the fight for the moderate, middle of the road voters better?”

Really? Because the moderate independents HATE her with fury. Unjustified, but harmful at the ballot box.

“Obama’s alerady been tarred as “the most Liberal Senator in the Congress””

What is your problem with liberals (even arguing that ridiculous tag)?

“Somebody asked me for numbers on my assertion that Hillary wins if you count only Democrats. This blog dissected and proved it:”

That blog proved nothing, except that the author has a significant blinding love of Hillary. How can I refute it? Scoreboard.

Now, to substance:

1. “How does winner-take-all prepare a candidate for the General?? You have to be really ignorant to pose this question. The General is ALL winner-take-all, baby, It’s called the “Electoral College”, where there are no caucus babies to bring the biggest banners and shout other people down.

2. I have always said that Obamabots who reveled in massaging “The Math” for each pther were only indulging in “Nomination Masturbation”. The ONLY METRIC, once again, is who beats John McCain in the fall: Who brings the Dem base to the ballots (57% of Dem voters are women, Seniors who are over 1/4 of the vote turn out to vote in higher proportion than any other group), who takes on McCain on National Security, on Iraq, on theEconomy? WHo wins the fight for the moderate, middle of the road voters better? Hillary. Obama’s alerady been tarred as “the most Liberal Senator in the Congress” and as I posted earlier, will be a disaster in the swing states we need to win.

3. Somebody asked me for numbers on my assertion that Hillary wins if you count only Democrats. This blog dissected and proved it:

http://mithras.blogs.com/blog/2008/02/clinton-leads-i.html

Sorry, channeling Fred Thompson there for a sec.

If the Democratic Primaries were winner-take-all like they should be, to prepare candidates and campaigns for the General Election, like the Republican Primaries do, Hillary would have put this away months ago.

If I were famous and had six pack abs I would be Jessica Alba’s baby daddy. But we here on earth are operating within the confines of reality. The DNC barred the results of FL and MI, rules Sen. Clinton signed on to before she begun losing the race.

“If the rules were different, Hillary would be winning!” I’ve heard it too many times from Hillary supporters. It’s a ridiculous assertion to make. First of all, as Sean points out, you don’t know that it’s true because Obama (and likely Clinton) would have run a different campaign if the rules were different. You just can’t say at the beginning, “Delegates are what matters”, and then when losing say, “Votes matter.. no, votes in big states matter… no, votes in swing states matter… no, we should follow Electoral College rules for the primaries… Caucuses aren’t fair, we shouldn’t count them… despite them breaking the rules, we should count Michigan and Florida now, because they voted for Hillary in an uncontested primary…”

Give it a fucking break, man! Hillary has lost. She lost in part because she’s up against an extremely charismatic, likable candidate, and partly because she’s run a less-than-stellar campaign herself. It’s over. Quit your incessant bitching.

Are you saying that was OK, or are you objecting to it?

If you’re saying it’s OK, then what is your complaint? That tehy did something you’re OK with?

If you’re saying it is NOT OK, then how is it also NOT OK for Hillary?

Unless you’re either Al Gore or the Florida Supreme Court!

Sorry, had to be done.

“If the Democratic Primaries were winner-take-all…”

Then Obama would have changed his strategy. You can’t change the basic rules of the game and then say nothing else would change.

“That is why I call Hillary’s base REAL Democrats: She wins hands down if you only count registered, reliable Democrats.”

In other words, she wins if we define “real” democrats or “reliable” democrats as those who vote for her and ignore the rest.

“Funny how your OBAMAJORITY refuses to add the MAJORITY of voters in Florida and Michigan! If you add these in, Hillary wins that MAJORITY too.”

Hillary wants Florida and Michigan counted because they went for her. But remember Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan and didn’t campaign in either state. If he had then the results would be different. Again, you want to change the rules (the well-understood agreed-to-by-all-candidates rules) while ignoring all others things that would have changed given the different conditions.

Hillary wants Florida and Michigan counted because they went for her. She wants caucus voters, students in Iowa and smaller states ignored because they didn’t vote for her. Can you truly not see the hypocrisy and double standard at work here?

That does it for me. Never mind breaking bread with Scaiffe, never mind the gushing words of Rupert Murdoch, never mind that states and voters don’t count if they don’t vote for her.

That. Does. It. For. Me.

“Funny how your OBAMAJORITY refuses to add the MAJORITY of voters in Florida and Michigan! If you add these in, Hillary wins that MAJORITY too.”

Yea, because if Obama had actually been on the ballot and campaigned in these states (after being told not to by the DNC) he would get the EXACT same number of votes. /snark

The only majority that counts is delegates. Hillary loses.

The other flames are much more effective than mine would have been, so I’ll stick with this: How does winner-take-all prepare candidates better for the general election? Details, please.

Because to me, winner take all means you only have to build constituency among large blocks in a state. Someone can win NY with little support outside of NYC and Long Island, for example. Isn’t it better preparation to build a broad constituency among rural, suburban, and urban voters alike? And when elected, doesn’t it go farther to promote a mandate behind your policies? We’ve had 8 years of Bush thumbing his nose at urban voters in favor of exurban and rural voters, and its caused a lot of divisiveness in this country.

FWIW, I’ll bet that Taylor Marsh is a Republican operative, if she isn’t she’s being bankrolled by them.

Stop whining about what you think ’should be’, we all agreed on these rules. They have been the rules for decades. Without these rules, every last primary would have seen it’s results altered significantly. You pray for the SD’s to save your candidate from the massive mistakes she’s already made, and you ignore the fact that she will likely make similar mistakes in the fall. Mistakes like: submitting that Experience, age, and ‘whiteness’ are what matters when John McCain stomps the shit out of her on all those metrics. Mistakes like wasting money like my senile grandmother (sorry grams) wastes water. Mistakes like seceding 40 states to her opponent, because she doesn’t think those states matter.

Go sell your nutjob ramblings to people who might actually believe the load of bullshit your selling.

Shorter Wellstone: Boo hoo hoo! Why can’t we do it like the nice Republicans do?

Wellstone, will you vote for McNovocain if Hill doesn’t get the win she feels entitled to?

But it’s the Obama supporters who are delusional.

Whatever, pal. You’re sounding more like a freeper every day.