Go Paul Go
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Yes, Clinton won. Doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Obama leads in money, states and most importantly – delegates.
Ron Paul has 22% of the vote so far in the GOP primary. Yes, they had one. I can’t wait for them to raise a ruckus at the GOP convention. Truthers, untie!
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
“Yes, Clinton won. Doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”
Who are you trying to convince?
Sounds a lot like whistling past the graveyard.
Look. This isn’t the Rumble in the Jungle. It’s not World War II. It’s not even Tom & Jerry. It’s more like Wrestlemania. A little bit of fireworks and a laser display. But it is really just make-believe. A show. A show that happens every few years. Lots of noise and lots of action. But fundamentally still just a show. Nobody gets hurt. Yes, I am talking about the US Presidential election. http://angryafrican.net/2008/04/22/storm-in-a-teacup/
My god, did she really play a song called “This is MY country” after her victory? Feel entitled, anyone?
Untie?
Damn, he played that song too. Ugh.
Not trying to convince anyone, just stating a fact. Sen. Clinton has no path to the nomination without stealing it.
Oliver, I think duros was asking what the heck “Truthers, untie!” means. It sure as heck goes over my head.
By the way, I’m not sure if this is just because all the results aren’t in yet or not, but pundits have mentioned that the way delegates are allocated by district will favor obama, and it sure looks that way. Accoring to CNN’s election center [http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#PA] at 11:35PM EST, Clinton has 55% of the popular vote and 40 delegates. Obama got 45% of the popular vote and 37 delegates, with 93% in. Or put another way, Clinton is leading only 52% – 48% in the delegate count,
Clearly this is not a very democratic way to do this, but I won’t complain all that loud until after Obama takes office
Put another way, that’s about 4 or 5 free delegates for Obama
Voters were turned away from the polls in Philly.
See Brad Blog at this link ELECTION PROB WIRE: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5918
And read John Gideon’s (of http://www.votersunite.org ) commentary:
What is wrong with election officials in Pennsylvania? They knew that voter turnout was going to set records today yet many precincts only have two machines.
Two machines equal long lines and voters turning around and going home. On top of that there were wide-spread machine failures.
And, on top of that, in areas like Philadelphia officials will
not allow voters to use a paper ballot unless both machines are
out-of-service and then, the paper ballot is a provisional ballot that may or may not ever be counted.
At the same time that voters are reporting problems to the local news blogs and the voting assistance groups, local officials were telling the broadcast media that there were very few problems and they were all expected (normal).
In fact the problems were numerous enough to warrant VoterAction to go to court in an attempt to keep the polls open for two extra hours. That attempt was denied.
PA: Pennsylvania Primary: Polling Place, E-Voting Problem Wire…
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5918
PA: Voter Story: Battling Administrative Incompetence And Technical
Failure At The Polls
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-fine/voter-story-battling-admi_b_97891.html
PA: Reports of disenfranchised and uncertain voters
http://blogs.phillyburbs.com/blog.php/?p=28239&cat=197
PA: Heavy Turnout In Pa.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/heavy-turnout-in-pa/
PA: Obama camp charging voting problems in PA
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_camp_charging_voting_problems_in_0422.html
PA: Election Protection in Full Swing in Pennsylvania
http://newsblaze.com/story/2008042212030400006.pnw/newsblaze/POLITICS/Politics.html
PA: Voting Problems In Pennsylvania?
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/22/politics/horserace/entry4035618.shtml
PA: Breaking: Voter Group Requests Extended Poll Hours
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/politics/Extended_Hours_Paper_Ballots.html
PA: Poll problems: The case to extend hours
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/politics/Poll_Problems_the_Case_to_Extend_Hours.html
PA: Judge: Polls Will Close As Scheduled
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/politics/Judge_Polls_Will_Close_As_Scheduled.html
PA: Allegheny County – Early Polling Issue Reported In Green Tree
http://kdka.com/local/Poll.Green.Tree.2.705572.html
PA: Bucks County – Downed voting machines caused delays in Falls
http://blogs.phillyburbs.com/blog.php/?p=28259&cat=0
“Truthers untie!” is teh Intarweb joke.
Unite.
Regarding delegates vs. popular vote, it is clear the rules to capture a pledged delegate is not the popular vote. But supers get to vote their hearts and minds. Demanding supers vote by pledged delegates is the rule change. If Clinton can convince supers to break the tie her way, that is not a stolen election.
The remedy is to repair the superdelegate system. We need tiebreakers, but there are far too many supers.
On the other hand insisting the game is only about pledged delegates and should not take into account the popular vote is actually very similar to the way CEOs fuck up their company’s long range abilities by ensuring a constant stream of short term profits. As investors, as citizens we may complain that company’s always work for the short term, and never for the long term, but the reason is clear: their only incentive as far as the game rules are laid out is to maximize short term incentives, regardless of what path that takes the company down, and what that eliminates in the future.
So yes, Obama has more pledged delegates, but I think it is very reasonable for superdelegate tie breakers to consider the counts of pledged delegates AS well as the popular vote and the various patterns that analysts can squeeze out of that.
Truthers untie!
Hey, somejackass,
It’s “This is OUR Country.” Not exactly as bad as you made it sound.
In fact, Edwards, Obama, Clinton, and McCain have all used the song at some point or another over the past 12 months.
PS: If you haven’t heard this song over the past two years, you’re really out of touch – it plays in roughly 3,000 Chevy commercials a day.
I didn’t hear the offending song–is it the song you always hear during Chevy commercials as sung earnestly by some country singer?
The one that Randy Newman wrote ironically (as he does with many of his compositions)?
Somewhat shocking seeing the numbers RuPaul got…22% of the Lancaster county Republican vote, and when combining his with Huckabee’s, the total jumps to almost 1/3 being “not McLame”. Definitely could be a spoiler if RuPaul decides to switch to independant.
This kind of underscores the problem Republicans are going to have getting their own to the polls to vote for McCain.
Jojo – I am out of touch, I don’t watch TV and I’m damn proud of it.
But it looks like you were certainly right about the song.
For a second there, I saw the headline and thought you were going to expound upon on the greatness that is CP3.
But as to your point, Hillary wouldn’t be “stealing” the election if the Supers decide it for her. The system doesn’t say “Superdelegates are bound by whichever candidate wins the popular vote/most pleged delegates/etc.”. Supers get to vote for whoever they want. And if they want Clinton, that’s the rules. Don’t like it? Take it up with Dr. “AAARRRGGGHHH!”
I missed when we amended the Constitution to just count number of states and hand the White House to the candidate with the most.
What a silly statement, but I keep seeing it, so I know when I am seeing silly people who happen to have bandwidth available to them.
Nor does either candidate lead in delegates, since we don’t really know how many delegates are held by the candidate who exploited the caucus strategy — and now has to deal with problems from it. All we have are media projections of possible delegate counts, because caucus states keep recaucusing with changes in delegate allocations into the summer. Plus, unpledged delegates already committed can switch — as some have done before and can do again.
As for money, HRC has three times as much reserved for the general election than does Obama, with her $24 million to his $8 million. And until then, as last night proved, all she has to do is ask and more millions come flowing in for her and for each primary.
So “money, states, delegates” are silly reasons on which to try to win a general election. Interesting that at least the popular vote plea has disappeared here — since HRC now leads by more than 100,000 in primaries in all the states so far that will vote in fall (including FL and MI, which the DNC cannot prevent from voting in fall). Plus, BO’s entire lead in any other reckonings of the popular vote is from his own state of Illinois. His. Entire. Lead.
What’s left, then, to discuss? Well, perhaps how the presidency will be won — by electoral college ballots, which means by big blue vs. big red states. And who has won most of the big blue states?
Not trying to convince anyone, just stating a fact. Sen. Clinton has no path to the nomination without stealing it.
Oliver, do you understand the rules for the nomination?
They aren’t “whoever gets the most pledged delegates available through the caucus/primary process.” Its “you gotta get a supermajority of the caucus/primary delegates, because we saw what happneed when its just ‘more delegates than anybody else’ and we don’t want a repeat of 1972 — that’s why we changed the rules”.
The fact is that Obama is looking less and less electable for November — see http://www.correntewire.com/obamas_sour_apples_to_apples_part_one he’s losing support against McCain in states that Dems can/should win — and losing ground to McCain, while Clinton is gaining support and holding her own.
And seriously — do you really believe that the 13,225 more people who showed up for Obama at the Idaho caucuses should be given more weight than the 110,390 more people for CLinton who showed up to vote in New Jersey? Because that is what you are saying when you say “stealing the election — Obama’s victory in Idaho got him a net 12 gain in delegates, while Clinton win in NJ got her a net 11 gain.
I mean, there were only about 1100 caucus goers per delegate in Idaho, and about 10,200 voters per delegate in New Jersey.
And lets not even talk about the insanity of awarding the nomination based on victories in states that the Democrats aren’t going to carry.
Neither Obama nor Clinton can win the nomination through the primary/caucus process. And Obama has shown that he can’t make the sale in the states that Dems need to win when Clinton and he both seriously campaign in them.
The only people trying to steal the nomination are people like you who flat out lie about the appropriate criteria for awarding the nomination,
Now I see TWO scenarios whereby Clinton hopes to benefit from her stoop-to-anything, if-I-can’t-have-it-nobody-can tactics. The first one occurred sometime ago.
1. Clinton loses the convention, she and hubby sit on party machinery during the fall campaign, or maybe snipe from the sidelines. Obama loses to McCain and Hill runs again in 2012.
2. Clinton convinces the superdelegates, steals the top spot. Asks Obama, for the good of the party (which she’s largely trashed at that point), to be veep. Clinton knows Obama knows the only way for Dems to win in Nov. is with his participation. So he agrees.
Please somebody convince me neither will happen.
SaveFarris:
Yes she would. If Obama leads in delegates won through the elections, leads in popular votes and has won more states(and won them by wider margins often times), it would be the same as stealing were the SD’s to gravitate towards her. Not only that but it would make 1968 look like a tea party compared to what would happen in Denver. It would also destroy the Democratic party. Is that what you want?
Oliver:
By your logic, won’t Obama also have to STEAL the election?
If the use of superdelegates to reach the required threshold is your definition of theft, both Obama and Clinton will need to do so.
But glad you’re so objective.
Also, if we’re talking about STEALING, what about disenfranchising the voters of Florida and Michigan? After all, it was Obama and Dean that stopped any possibility of a revote (because, among other things, mail in ballots are so undemocratic).
Obama 08 = Bush 00. They’re both unity candidates that are Rorschach blots. Both received great support from the rich. And both are not above disenfranchising the voters of Florida to win.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
I’m sorry, but no she wouldn’t.
The rule is: you reach 2025 delegates and you are the nominee. Otherwise it means the race is close, almost tied.
That 2025 is the threshold that if not reached imply the race is very close.
What happens when the race is close? Supers get to choose… the one they want. They can have their choice based on several factors: pledged delegates, popular vote count (including or not including Florida obviously, since in Florida votes have been casted), electability, simpaty, whatever.
When the race is close, like this one is, the decision belongs to supers, so stop bitching about stealing. These are the rules.
Dyslexics of the world, untie!
Calvin: yes, that is what Farris wants.
anotherbozo
This Hillary’s tactics are non exixstent.
1) Repeatedly Hillary said, in an extremely clear way, that she will do anything to help Obama become president if he is the nominee. Did you heard something similar from Obama? Not. What Michelle Obama said when asked about this thing? “I’m not sure. I have to think about it”. Good way to unite the party…
2) As I said in my previous comment, if Hillary gets the nomination she wouldn’t have steal anything. And, as every polls irrefutably shows, also Obama can’t win in November without the votes of Hillary (whose voters are more likely to vote McCain or stay at home than Obama’s voters).
The only way Sen. Clinton can get the nomination is by convincing superdelegates to go against the delegates chosen in the 40 something contests so far. I didn’t like it when the Supreme Court did it in 2000 and I wouldn’t like it if Hillary Clinton did.
You guys can try to justify it any way you can – apparently the voters in Illinois don’t matter because that’s where Obama’s from and I guess you guys are ok with stripping Sen. Clinton’s NY delegates using the same standard – but there is no way for Sen. Clinton to now overtake Obama in delegates. I believe she’s supposed to get about 12 or so net delegates out of PA, which still gives something like 140-150 lead to Obama (although even if it were 1 delegate he still has the lead).
Oliver:
What happened in 2000 is completely different. The Supreme Court should not decide the president.
On the other hand, super delegates are entitled to decide the nominee when the race is close.
The problem with your comment is that you implies that supers should not exists. What’s their role if they can only confirm the lead in normal delegates?
They’re there exactly to subvert a small (where small is “not enough to reach 2025″) lead in pledget if they want so.
Tell me what the supers are for?
The 2000 election was stolen because the Supreme Court practically decided to assign delegates to Bush that in reality should have been assigned to Gore. Sorry but I think this is steal election. Make the super delegates have their choice as provided by the rules, is not stealing, get over it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/last-night-clinton-won-th_b_98165.html
“Theft” presuposes that all the remaining Supers somehow “belong” to Obama. Why? Where’s the criteria? Where is it written that the leader after the primaries gets all remaining undecideds? Where is it written that the Supers HAVE to vote for someone based upon whatever criteria Oliver decides?
If you’re a super (and what the heck, why aren’t you?), then YOU: not me, not Dean, not the voters in your district/county/state, YOU, get to decide who to vote for. Like it or not, the Democratics before you set up this system for good or for ill, and it takes 2024 to get the nomination. Obama can’t get there without “stealing” some Supers himself.
Look, I think the idea of superdelegates is stupid at best. But since they exist they should ratify the choice of the people. The choice overall is Sen. Obama.
Also, if we’re talking about STEALING, what about disenfranchising the voters of Florida and Michigan?
Look, let this go. All candidates agreed that Florida and Michigan were going to get shafted by their local Democratic machines’ inability to follow the rules. HRC didn’t make any major noise about “those poor, poor voters” until it became clear that she wasn’t just going to steamroll over the entire field.
The only fair and practical solution is to split the delegates in half, but HRC refuses this solution because–go figure–it won’t allow her to win.
The only way Sen. Clinton can get the nomination is by convincing superdelegates to go against the delegates chosen in the 40 something contests so far. I didn’t like it when the Supreme Court did it in 2000 and I wouldn’t like it if Hillary Clinton did.
When was Mr. “Kryptonite to Stupid” kidnapped and replaced by Veruca Salt?
Look, I think the idea of superdelegates is stupid at best. But since they exist they should ratify the choice of the people. The choice overall is Sen. Obama.
Sorry Oliver, but what YOU think the supers should do and what they’re actually allowed to do are two entirely different things. Don’t like it? Push Dean and the party to change the process for next time.
I suspect that if the situation was reversed and Hillary had the lead (but not a lock), you would be telling us that the supers should disregard “the choice of the people” and vote in the best interests of the party, look at electability in the general election, etc, etc, etc. In other words, vote for Obama.
There’s more stupidity than usual on this thread. What’s going on? Is there a full moon?
Listen… it’s true that the superdelegates can vote for whomever they wish. It’s within their rights. However, it would be an extraordinarily bad idea for them to overturn the results of the primaries and caucuses. What do you think will happen if Obama leads in delegates, but the superdelegates break for Hillary? Do you think that black folks are going to be excited about this development? Do you think they’ll come out in November? I’d bet my left testicle that their turnout would be minimal. How about all the young voters that just got into the political game because of Obama? Anyone who thinks that they will just smile, laugh, and happily vote for Hillary is a fool. You’ll see depressed turnout from this group too. The supers know all this (or should), and therefore will break for Obama; should they not, they know the Republicans have the upper hand in November. So they’re not going to do it. It’s suicide.
Personally, I recognize the rights of the superdelegates to break for Hillary if they so choose. However, I have the right to withhold my vote. And I will exercise that right in November if they superdelegates go for HRC. I will do this both in protest of the superdelegates’ idiotic decision, and because I feel that Hillary has acted poorly enough on the campaign trail to lose my prospective vote. But again, this is all so much masturbation… it’s not going to happen.
Yeah, but in the all-important big states (the ones w/ beaucoup electoral votes), Billary’s the man.
Actually, no. Don’t theorize what I would say. I think the candidate who is winning should be the winner. Neither candidate will have enough delegates to get to the 2025, but one candidate will have 100 more delegates than the other because he won more contests. That person should be the candidate. If Sen. Clinton was leading in delegates it wouldn’t be right for her to have the nomination taken away from her, and its the same with Sen. Obama.
Yeah, but in the all-important big states (the ones w/ beaucoup electoral votes), Billary’s the man.
Yeah, and if Obama is the nominee, McCain will carry California and New York in the GE the way Republicans usually do.
I think the candidate who is winning should be the winner.
That’s great. Unfortunatly, the rules state that superdelegates can vote for “whoever they damn please”, not “what Oliver thinks is fair”.
If you don’t play it out the whole way (to 2024) then this happens.
Heh, I love the “progressive” spin that because Republicans are running ads in NC against Obama, that means they ph34r him as the stronger candidate:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/23/175352/744/424/501984
Hello democrats: republicans can do math. Obama is going to be the nominee, either way. Kicking up dust in NC to further discomfit him is just good tactics, for the general and to prolong the dem primary season. And, if by some miracle Hillary does win there and it results in her getting the nomination, the party is fatally split, which is also in the republicans’ interest.
But nice try.
“republicans can do math.”
Thank you for enlightening me. This is indeed a shock, considering how terribly they seem to do with the basic life skill of balancing a budget.