Okay, Lake County threw me by reporting basically all of Obama’s precincts first. The results are in and Clinton still has a 22,000 margin. My mistake and apologies for jumping the gun. There are a lot of absentee and provisional ballots to count and I do expect this margin to narrow, but not by 22,000 votes. I will say that I called this race yesterday and today, before the polls closed, at 51-49 for Clinton. I also called North Carolina as 56-43 for Obama. So, I got that right. Who else did?
It looks as if this result was good enough to decide the campaign. Clinton has canceled her television appearances for tomorrow and she sent out an email that didn’t bother to ask for more money. Many pundits are talking about the race in the past tense, and, obviously, the math just got more impossible.
The immediate problem is that the West Virginia primary is only six days away and Clinton is poised to win it in a blowout. That would not be helpful in bringing closure to this campaign. So, Clinton really needs to make a decision about whether she is going to concede or fight on. If she fights on I have a feeling that the tolerance for negative campaigning in going to be about nil among all but her most diehard supporters. She needs to find a good time to bow out, and now is much better than after killing Obama in a meaningless primary.
I know I am ready to call off the dogs and stop criticizing Clinton and her campaign if she will do the same in return. This campaign has been rough and it will take some healing to bring everyone back together. I hope we can start that process soon.
let’s hope she shows some class tomorrow, and bows out of the race.
I even called the margin on this race.
link
Do you think the Limbaugh voters may have handed this to Clinton, given the margin?
maybe. I don’t really care. People vote strategically in every election where there are more than two candidates (or one party). We did it to McCain in Michigan when Kos (stupidly, IMO) told people to vote for Romney instead of uncommitted in the Dem primary.
I have to wonder if Limbaugh would have had the candlepower to come up with this on his own if Kos hadn’t suggested it first.
Considering the wide distribution of this idea, and its previous use (George Wallace, pre-hit) I suspect that this was in the bag of tricks somewhere farther up the chain of command than Limbaugh.
I really have no clue what she’ll do — the Clintons hate like hell to lose, though. Her money situation can’t be good, she’s either in the hole or close to it. And when her camp acknowledges that MI and FL can’t help her, watch her burning desire to have those “votes counted” magically disappear. Her speech was pretty sad, and telling just in body language. I’m ready to wind it up and move ahead. McCain awaits, and the RNC is gonna be all over Obama now, full bore.
Ok booman, I’ll still trust your instincts and the research you do on this kind of stuff anyday…but I’ll bet like everyone else here I’m so wound up I could puke sooooooooo I’m gonna go start Terry’s(Boston Joe) new book that I just got today and see if I can calm down some and maybe just maybe by tomorrow morning all the stray votes will be in and it will be a win after all for Obama. As far as I’m concerned he won anyway-Clinton gains nothing by this.
And hope your hand is doing better.
Make no mistake, this was a win. Clinton needed to get a big victory to justify going on. 22,000 votes and 3 delegates ain’t gonna cut the mustard. She might still keep going, but this race was over weeks ago and now it’s just overer.
Overer? I’m waiting for Overest!
Yeah, same here. LOL
Clinton is slated to win those, so just for Obama’s sake, I think she should stay in an win them. Obama will look stupid losing those states to a candidate that isn’t there, KWIM?
I do think both campaigns should go ahead and let Clinton have WV and KY. Obama could go in a few days and give policy townhalls and speak up Democratic reunification and that’s it. He spends all his time in OR doing the campaigning.
Clinton wins and she bows out when she gets her ass handed to her in OR. Then we all win and hopefully will never have to hear a peep out of anyone named Clinton for the rest of their lives.
Well, I think if I was Obama and she dropped out I’d still keep my remaining campaign appearances in not only West Virginia and Kentucky, but Oregon, Montana and South Dakota as well. (Am I missing anybody?) There’s no sense in depriving voters in those states of the chance to see their candidate while it’s still reasonably easy to do so and there isn’t a lot of time pressure like there will be after Labor Day.
And if she does stay in, he should still make some appearances in WV and KY, but not overdo it. He knows the score in those two states, and Oregon is a special case. They vote by mail, and I have to assume that goes for the primary as well, so he needs to make appearances well ahead of the deadline. (If I’m wrong about this, forget I ever said anything.)
Uh oh. Omir, I have a candidate for you.
Now there’s a politician I could get behind. Kind of like Pappy O’Daniel, leader of the Light Crust Doughboys and governor of Texas — one of the early visionaries of media, who realized that you could sell a politician about as easy over the radio as you could wheat flour.
I think the big factor tonite is Obama’s huge win in the popular vote. HRC is now in a position where she can’t possibly win either the delegate count or the popular vote, even if MI and FL were resolved in her favor.
The End.
and had to vote on provisionals. I have no idea if this is true. I also heard that provisionals won’t be counted for 10 days. I have no idea if that’s true either. So perhaps it ain’t over.
In this context, 22,000 is a big number.
If it were 6,000 I’d think it possible.
I’ll say this. As a Chicagoan I’m already sick of the people on TV (Yes I’m looking at you Mayor of Hammond) trying to pretend that NW Indiana is part of Chicago. There’s a town called Whiting IN that was a Sundown town and is really white still. Despite being minutes from the Illinois/Chicago border. I’m sure they take offense at it too but for a different reason.
All that to say, demographically that state favored Clinton over Obama and coming in under 2% with the Rev. on his back was astounding.
On CNN last night the guy with the magical map or one of his kin on camera was dancing around how this city in Lake County is Obama country but that town, er, isn’t.
One of the kids in the house was laughing out loud at another presentation by someone doing exit polls, about how the white, rural, non-college, conservative voters voted. I suggested that they should have broken down how hooded, white-robed voters skewed.
Don’t feel bad. You nailed it right the first go. Obama would lose, if he does, ‘by 20,000 votes.’ The feather in your cap stands tall.
what’s your take on this at – Huffpost? In this piece, Edsall points out Clinton wins Indiana by 2%:
elsewhere, ABC
yet 23% voted against McCain and Ron Paul got more votes than Mitt.
This has been going on since McCain clinched. Clinton’s victories in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and her popular vote in Texas were all aided by Dittoheads. That explains her move to the right over the last month and her surrender to the basest of Republican tactics.
Imagine for a moment if those primaries had been closed (well, I think PA was closed but people switched registration to vote Dem against Obama). Except for Fox, the rest of the corporate media pretty much ignored Operation Shithead.
Bill Clinton’s appearance on Limbaugh’s show, Hillary’s support by the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, including the biggest FOX of all, was more than coincidence.
OT: Rumor has it that the Clinton’s loaned her campaign more money.
How far back was Obama in IN when this whole thing started? This is good.
Mydd is essentially admitting that it is over. Many commenters seem relieved, and there is speculation about who should be in the VP slot.
Hillaryis44 is still going on about “Indiana is the tiebreaker” comment, and is still combative.
By the way, Jeralyn over at TalkLeft wrote something about “A Plum for Hillary, A Black Eye for the Mayor of Gary, Indiana.” She writes absolutely that the Mayor of Gary held back the votes on purpose. Anyone know that for sure, or is this her Hillaryesque speculation?
Also, what plum did Clinton get last night? If I were characterizing her win in Indiana “plum” would not be the first word that popped into my head.
plum out of ideas or plum full of shit.
Over 600,000 thousand voters in lake and porter counties were purged, and 3 heavily democratic counties containing cities such as vincennes, terra haute and Evansville had obama field offices evacuated on election day as a result of bomb threats.
In light of those facts, it wasnt much of a Clinton victory. The republicans I knew all voted obama, and said they weren’t switching back this fall.
Jill long-Thompson is a better contrast as a governor candidate than the other guy, and Indiana could actually go democratic.