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Hillary manages to stay in the race with big wins in Ohio and Rhode Island and a squeaker in Texas. Democrats take that next step closer to a contested convention.
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I must admit, I didn't think Hillary could pull out the major wins she needed yesterday to stay alive in the race. I wrote off Hillary because she couldn't run to the left of uber liberal Obama and because the fawning press and huge crowds Obama was drawing to his "post-partisan" neo-religious movement seemed unstoppable.
So what happened?
Hillary's "Who do you want to answer the phone at 3 a.m." advertisement was apparently quite effective. Obama is the weakest of all the viable presidential candidates on national security and this ad drove that point home while side-stepping Iraq. Exit polls showed that voters in Ohio said she would make a better Commander in Chief by 57% to 40%. Then there was Hillary's appearance on Saturday Night Live where the skits ridiculed the press corps for being in the tank for Obama. That clearly had an effect as the press corps finally begin to treat Obama as a candidate rather than the second coming of the messiah. Add to that the stumble by the Obama campaign on the NAFTA issue and it obviously made a huge difference, particularly in Ohio where Hillary far outperformed the pre-election polls.
And then there was another surprise. I listened to Obama's speech last night. There was a distinct lack of emotionalism in the crowd - which is the very fuel of Obama's candidacy - let alone the adoration I had heard from the crowds during his past speeches. The rhetoric was the same; the crowd response was not. It may just have been that the Texas crowd was depressed by the reality of an Obama loss in the state's primary. But if Obama has peaked and comes to be seen as another politician rather than a movement above the political fray, his problems are just beginning.
So what now?
Hillary stays alive and picks up a few more delegates than Obama. She is still far behind on the elected delegate count. The super delegates will come under ever more pressure to declare for one candidate or another. Hillary will continue to press for seating delegates from Michigan and Florida. And the Democrats will move ever closer to what has the potential to be a visciously contested nominating convention in late August. That is, at least, if Hillary can continue to cut into Obama's delegate lead. Wyoming (18 delegate - Democratic only) and Mississippi (40 delegates) hold their primaries in the coming week, with the next big prize, Pennsylvania (188 delegates), not scheduled until April 22.
Update: In what can only be considered a horrendous omen for Obama, Hillary, with her win in Rhode Island, has captured the mantle of "Hope."
Rhode Island State Flag:
(H/T: Instapundit)
Showing posts with label delegates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label delegates. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
The Force Was With Her
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
McCain & Obama Sweep The Potomac
McCain and Obama sweep the primaries in Maryland, Washington D.C. and Virginia. Huckaboom failed to fire. Clinton got clobbered worse than the C.S.A. at Antietam.
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The Republicans:
McCain convincingly defeated Huckabee in all three primaries held today: Virginia (50% to 41%); Maryland (56% to 30%); and Washington D.C. (68% to 17%). McCain now has 812 delegates of the 1,191 needed to lock up the Republican nomination. He will likely reach the magic number in March, and possibly as early as March 4. The base seems to be uniting behind McCain.
The Democrats:
Obama crushed Clition by margins of up to 50% in the three primaries held today: Virginia (64% to 35%); Maryland (62% to 35%); and Washington D.C. (75% to 24%). It takes 2,025 delegates to wrap up the Democratic nomination. Obama now has a slight lead in consideration of both elected delegates and committed superdelegates with a total of 1,208 to Hillary Clintons 1,185.
Thoughts:
1. I don't think Hillary can overcome Obamimania. He is now eating into her demographics. Her only hope is the Rudy strategy - to hope that she can withstand the bleeding until the Texas and Ohio primaries in March. And we saw how well the Rudy strategy worked for Rudy.
2. Obamamania is a toxic combination of an inspirational speaker, identity politics and liberal guilt. His positions do not matter to those responding to his rhetoric, nor do his lack of any experience or complete lack of any accomplishments. In that sense, Obama is the penultimate affirmative action candidate.
3. On paper, McCain should walk all over Obama in the general election. But between the insane MDS and the Obamamania cult of personality, McCain could very easilly lose this election without a very effective strategy to put Obama on the defensive and show that the emporer has no clothes. And critical to this, McCain needs money, money, money. The one thing the far left does well is raise money for their favored candidates. And Soros will be spending a lot of cash this election cycle. If Republicans don't step up with not only their vote and support, but with their cash, McCain will not win the general election.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
McCain Cements Front Runner Status; Clinton & Obama Split (Updated)
Arizona, California, Connecticut, Deleware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma. We won't know the final delegate count for McCain until tommorow, but it should about twice as many delegates as the next closest competitor - Romney. McCain at a minimum has cemented front runner status. If, as I suspect, Romney ends campaign shortly, then McCain will be the putative nominee and can start focusing on the Presidential race. Given that nearly twice as many people are showing up to vote in the Democratic primaries as the Republican, McCain's focus needs to quickly shift to energizing Republican voters. Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Utah And the Huckster managed to sell his snake oil in my neck of the woods . . . much to my chagrin. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia The Huckster has served his purpose in splitting in the Romney vote. Look for his to fade away until he receives his quid pro quo and McCain names his as his Vice Pontif nominee. Update(2) - Delegate Count: Needed to Win - 2,026 Arizona (51%), Arkansas (73%), California (55%), Massachusetts (56%), New Jersey (54%), New York (57%), Oklahoma (55%), Tennessee (54%) Obama keeps the Obamamania going. He won 13 states to Hillary's paltry 8. That is a big spread, even though he lost the delegate battle a little bit. There is no question how this will be spun tomorrow. Alabama (56%), Alaska (73%), Colorado (66%), Connecticut (50%), Deleware (53%), Georgia (66%), Idaho (80%), Illinois (64%), Kansas (73%), Minnesota (67%), Missouri (49%), North Dakota (61%), Utah (56%) Update: One of the nice things to see is the value of a Ted Kennedy / John Kerry endorsement for Obama. Both of the Massachusetts Senators endorsed Obama. Clinton won Massachusetts. Heh.
Update(2): Delegate Count: Needed to Win - 1,191
McCain: 680
Romney: 270
Huckabee: 176
McCain has won - or is projected to win nine states, including the big three of Califoria, Missouri and New York:
Romney won six states:
And On The Left . . . . . A Split, edge HillBill, but O has the Mo and can claim the most states won
Clinton: 818
Obama: 730
Clinton came away with winning less states, but she took the biggest ones and is expected to hold about a 100 delegate lead when the dust clears tomorrow. She won, or is projected to have won:
The next primaries will be Kanasas, Louisiana and Washington state on Saturday, and a week from today, Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C.
All I can say is this Democratic battle is really fun to watch. I look forward to enjoying it until a candidate is chosen at the Convention.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Reading Tea Leaves & Contemplating Doomsday
If you want intelligent discussion of politics, Rick Moran provides it at Rightwing Nuthouse on a daily basis. Today, Romney's win in Michigan has thrown Rick into overdrive as he consults the oracles, reads the entrails and posits a possiblity that is looking ever more likely - that Republicans might not have a nominee prior to the convention held the first week in September. You will find Rick's worried musings in this article at PJM.
The exceptional site The Green Papers memorializes everything you want to know about the nominating process. They document that, to win the Republican nomination for President, a nominee will need to earn 1,191 out of 2,380 available delegates. If no candidate has that number of delegates locked up by the end of the primaries, then the matter gets decided at the convention.
That possibility would be a nightmare scenario for several reasons, as I see it. The ramifications are:
1) Republicans would have very little time to coalesce around a single candidate before the November election.
2) Coalescing around a single candidate would be all the more difficult becasue of a lot of raw and open wounds in the majority of Republicans whose favored ox just got gored.
3) The Republican candadate would have only two months to raise money and campaign nationally for the Presidency.
4) It would see the nomination of a Presidential candidate not on the democratic basis of a simple majority of those who voted in the primaries, but rather on the back room dealings of those several thousand people sent to take part in the convention. This would likely result in some perception that, whomever the candidate is, he is lacking in full legitimacy. This would be particularly true if the chosen candidate was not the person who had gone into the convention with the most delegates to begin with.
We are not there yet. As Rick points out, there are a lot of state primaries - most importantly the eighteen that will occur on Super Tuesday - to go before the doomsday scenario is upon us. Let's hope that the matter is setteled long before the doomsday clock reaches the midnight hour in September.
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