The battle for pledged delegates is now over and Barack Obama has won. There is now only one fantasyland scenario remaining where Obama has not seized the most pledged delegates.
Option 1: No FL & MI: Pledged Delegate Majority (PDM) Clinched with the Oregon polls closed.
Option 2: Seat MI as 69-59. PDM Clinched with the Oregon polls closed.
Option 3: Seat FL with 1/2 votes (supers get full vote). No Michigan delegates. PDM Clinched with the Oregon polls closed.
Option 4: FL 1/2 vote, MI 69-59 split. PDM Clinched with the Oregon polls closed.
Option 5: Seat FL & MI based on the elections that have taken place. Not clinched tonight.
The decision on what to do about Michigan and Florida will be made on May 31st. Unless they go with Option 5, Obama will be able to count on the endorsement of the Pelosi Club of superdelegates that have pledged to endorse the winner of the pledged delegate count. Former President Jimmy Carter is in this group. Obama maintains an insurmountable popular vote lead of over half a million votes, although if you count Michigan (and give him no votes) and the flawed results from Florida, Clinton has a popular vote lead of 71,000 votes. Of course, it makes no sense to give Obama no votes from Michigan, and if you give him a reasonable share of those votes, even this strained lead for Clinton is erased. There are many superdelegates that have pledged to wait and see if Clinton can win the popular vote before endorsing Obama. It is now clear that she cannot accomplish that task except by counting all her votes from Michigan and Florida, while denying Obama any votes from Michigan. That situation cannot change in the remaining three contests.
What will be interesting to see today is how many delegates come out for Obama. Thus far, the trickle strategy of announcing two to five delegates a day has been quite effective. But I think that strategy is no longer a good one going forward. It will be best to erase any lingering doubt about the nomination now that Obama has won the pledged delegate count and the popular vote count.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t look like Clinton is going to concede any time soon.
She has also disputed the notion that, by staying in, she was unintentionally fostering a racial divide with white voters in some states overwhelmingly supporting her.
Rather, in private conversations and in interviews, Mrs. Clinton has begun asserting that she believes sexism, rather than racism, has cast a shadow over the primary fight, a point some of her supporters have made for months. Advisers say that continuing her candidacy is partly a means to show her supporters — especially young women — that she is not a quitter and will not be pushed around.
Indeed, she is headed to Florida today to undermine the legitimacy of Obama’s lead, even as it has already been demonstrated that Obama leads under all but one worst-case scenario even if you count the results from Florida. It is, in fact, her decision to make a huge issue out of Florida and Michigan that is probably the most dangerous aspect of her continuing campaign. When the DNC Rules Committee meets on May 31st, they will face the choice of giving Clinton everything she wants or furnishing the final blow that ratifies Obama’s pledged delegate lead. It’s clear that she will then rile up her supporters into some kind of Al Gore sense of outrage, and alienate them from our nominee. And, to be clear, Barack Obama is in no way responsible for the fiascoes in Michigan and, especially, Florida. I think this delegitimization of Obama’s victory is the act she will be most remembered for. And if Obama does not win the election in November, Clinton will join Ralph Nader in the left-wing Hall of Shame.
She is not delusional. She is wrecking the Democratic Party on purpose. That is her job now. She is an agent of reaction.
that was the plan all along. She could not win it, so Obama can’t have it. She knows that in this environment, whoever the Democratic Party’s nominee is will end up as President.
Selfish. Selfish. Selfish. She’s waiting for a surprise and she’ll get it but not the one she wishes.
I hope the remaining uncommitted super-delegates see her for what she is…aka Joe Lieberman but worse – at least he sabotages in the open, Hillary does it on the sleaze.
At this hour, Obama needs 62 superDs
This scenario is so very sad. In a time of global crisis on every frontier, Arctic and Antarctic included, we have this bravado of ego occurring in the US. It’s a shame, the Clinton’s are shameful to be dividing up the Left/Progressive/MOR into camps for their ambitions. Regardless of who (global capitalists) stand behind Hillary, they should have conceded a long time ago and thrown their support to Obama. We have to keep out Bush III. Or would Billary become Bush III and that’s why she’s staying in the race.
In any case, so sad to see such ego projection in a time of severe Earth crisis. CO2 is coming . . .
What won’t HRC sacrifice upon the altar of her bruised and damaged ego? The primary process, her opponent, the nation, the world? I think the Clinton couple will be forever associated with shame and ignominy by a disturbed and troubled planet.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
Well, her husband already embodies the “lah lah lah I can’t hear you!” feel-good era of environmental denial for many. He spent the ’90s fiddling while Rome burned, or even occasionally throwing oil on the fire.
It’s not her ego, it’s not her ambition, it’s not her marbles.
She is doing this deliberately to damage the Democratic Party.
i agree with Bob. She has to know what she’s doing is wrong for the Democratic Party. And everytime the DCCC calls for a donation, I say when “Hillary withdraws from the Primary campaign then I know what my budget will be”
Otherswise, I need to save my money until Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee.
These temper tantrums make me think twice about supporting ANY female candidate for ANY office.
Oil on the fire=Babbitt
Even notorious web-cartoonist David Willis recognizes that Hillary has clearly lost not just the election, but her marbles.
Joe ‘Landslide’ Courtney has endorsed Obama. I hope they don’t do the trickle thing today. We need a bloc.
The three Clintons need to be grilled about their stance on Florida and Michigan. No where have I seen their answers to such simple questions as:
She showed her character by keeping her name on the ballot in Michigan when the other candidates removed theirs in support of the Rules Committee’s decision.
It would be unconscionable for the Rules Committee to go back on their decision now in a way that gives an advantage to the one candidate who didn’t act in good faith.
Actually, it’s even worse than that — she said she was going to remove her name from the Michigan ballot, and then left it on while commenting to the effect that it didn’t matter because it wouldn’t count anyways.
I regarded her move then as a ploy, and it seems even more obvious now. She and her campaign were merely using the fact that her main contenders weren’t on the ballot as her ace in the hole (or joker). The Clinton campaign’s comments regarding the legitimacy of the process are a sick joke. And what makes it even worse is the attempts by some supporters, and even the campaign itself, to smear Obama because he removed his name. There are various versions of the “kissing up to the DNC on Michigan” theories being pushed, presumably by the campaign.
Last I checked, Appalachia did not extend into the Carribean Ocean.
A strong showing in the last 3 contests could shut up Clinton once and for all.
I’m sticking with June 6 as the day it will be over.
I predict that not enough superdelegates will commit until after the last primary. They won’t want it to look like the superdelegates put him over before the last state voted.
If they are smart, they will get enough superdelegates to commit so that the last primary puts him over the top and makes it look like pledged delegates gave him the nomination. He can stand in SD and thank them. Then a couple of days later Clinton can graciously concede.
Although I’m not sure how they manouever that, not knowing how many they’ll need counting FL and MI.
Sigh. Still waiting for the “Pledged Delegates can switch at the convention” line to emerge.
Hillary has no way of gracefully bowing out anymore, in my mind. Her sense of entitlement is staggering. To push this fictional “popular vote” nonsense, while openly playing the race card all year, and now playing the “It’s all because of sexism” card, it’s pretty clear that her move is to rob Obama of the legitimacy of his win.
Look, she’s a nut case. A lot of her supporters are nut cases, too.
about 15 minutes ago on MSNBC.
Of course, and why not? The way McAwful’s treated, you’d think he’d spent half his life doling out hand-jobs to the punditocracy.
The poaching strategy was reported on earlier in the campaign. The logic by the Clinton campaign, although they denied the effort even while Clinton conspicuously noted that delegates were free to vote as they chose, was the same same electability argument.
Their logic therefore was and is that voter’s wishes should be obeyed although they should be ignored — in this case. No hobgoblins of consistency here, of course.
Hillary’s willingness to cherrypick the math here hits this old broad’s memory cells like a baseball bat as I’m reminded of GW & Co’s willingness to cherrypick intelligence that gave us his goal, not ours. I’m just a little sensitive about leaders who so brazenly manipulate reality to the public.
Your Option 4 seems most likely as it is a compromise that avoids “disenfranchising” voters will keeping the deterrent and outcome in place. the 1/2 and 69-59 split is a little random, but any partial number is as well.
Hopefully this ends 31 May with a DNC ruling and the rest of the Supers going to Obama.
If it is option 5, I actually see this going to Denver. I also don’t see Obama wanting to offer her much to stand down and I don’t think she wants anything less than the nomination anyway.
Rep. Joe Courtney just pledged to Obama. He’s from CT, and represents the only district that went for Clinton. But he’s choosing Obama. That’s a big blinking sign.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/gGCGJM
You know what? F*K FLORIDA. Everyone knew the deal going in regardless of whether it was the GrOPer legislator’s fault or whatever. We wouldn’t have been subjected to EIGHT GDN YEARS OF W in the first place if it weren’t for Florida. And if it wouldn’t have been for Bill’s inability to keep it in his pants the GrOPers wouldn’t have gotten the stranglehold on our government they have had for far too long. So, FK THE CLINTONS, too. And fk this f*king country that is inhabited by so many addle-pated morons that care about stupid sh*t like flag pins and whether or not god is in the pledge and on our money and think a man getting grilled over his christian pastor is a muslim. The majority of citizens in the US don’t deserve their constitution or their country any more.
Here’s a site that should really brighten your day
http://www.newnation.vg/forums/showthread.php?t=67526
There is a story in the ozone that Clinton is doing this in order to become the VP on the ticket. How illogical is that? “I’m gonna keep beating you up so you pick me for your team.” And like others have said, Obama would need to have a food taster to have Clinton next in line for the big seat.
No, this is the end of the line for Clinton and the Presidency. While she may still have some friends, and there are certainly enough big pocketbooks for other Senate races, I think her campaign has made way more enemies within the party than impressed anyone to embrace her for her broken bottle style of campaigning. She should have won the primaries early and lost ugly. Lost long and ugly.
One of these days I’ll write an alternative history of Bill and Hillary Clinton. From a corporatist standpoint (I think it’s Lisa who’s got that great quote from George Seldes) Bill Clinton did as much or more for the powerful and the wealthy as many of the Repubs precisely because he worked from within the Democratic Party. Considering the kind of game that Hillary played I would expect the same from her. And I don’t think it’s crazy or irrational. It’s intentional. That’s why Bill and Hill have 109 million in their bank account and you don’t.
Where are the Democratic leaders? Do the Democrats actually have leaders? Watching the foot get blown off (again) BEFORE the race even starts is almost too much to endure. Can’t someone reason with this woman?
The “popular vote” (PV) lead, as cited by the Clinton campaign, also conspicuously ignores four caucus states; Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington, three of which were won by Obama. So this is a blatantly disingenuous attempt to account for the popular vote.
Being that I come from a caucus state, I usually come to the defense of the caucus system, which has many merits, although those merits are generally neither understood nor appreciated by those unfamiliar with this type of electoral system.
One unusual advantage to the caucus system that wouldn’t occur to many people is the fact that they don’t rely on easily hacked computers, which are currently is use in many areas — hardly a trivial consideration.
The obvious flaw with lumping caucuses and primaries together is that it diminishes the importance of those contests, and they’re already somewhat overlooked as is. Caucuses always draw far fewer participants, so there would be a disincentive to holding caucuses if it were to result in a disadvantage for using this system. Moreover, it’s clearly self-serving for the Clinton campaign to cite a fictional metric that diminishes the importance of states where the Clinton campaign was weak. It’s also quite self-serving to use a metric that rewards the campaign for its poor strategy choices.
Another problem with using the PV is some states use open primary systems. The logic behind their use isn’t in question, but the resulting inflated turnout numbers under a PV metric would provide leverage to voters from outside the party thus further adding to the party raiding effect. A similar effect also occurs when states have unusual turnout in the primary, which is the result when an unusual amount of state & federal races are contested (or not) or when referendums & initiatives are part of the primary process.
One of the disturbing aspects of naively using raw PV totals is that it further accentuates the importance of early contests, which is the reason Florida and Michigan moved their primaries to before the allowed window, and that’s also why they were then sanctioned. When turnout is further inflated by the presence of an important referendum, as occurred in Florida this year, there is a combined effect.
Even more offensive is the amount of disinformation being employed to obscure the reasons for the sanctions on Florida and Michigan. Both states blatantly ignored the calender restrictions and refused to come back into compliance even after they were sanctioned. The state Democratic Party of Florida remained defiant and played chicken with the national party rather than obey the rules. During the month of March, there were attempts to spin the reason for Florida’s sanctioned move. Curiously, I see that they’ve now dropped some of that pretense and gone back to defending Florida’s ‘right’ to violate the national party’s rules.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/25/AR2007082500275.html?hpid=topnews
Here are the Democratic Party’s delegate allocation rules.