Liveblogging the Kentucky and Oregon Primaries
7:03 (all times are EDT)
Even though the early returns are tight, it's clear that Senator Clinton will win Kentucky by a West Virginia-sized margin. Speaking of which, I didn't liveblog last week's West Virginia primary, but my post mortem was basically: Senator Obama lost with only 25 percent of the vote. However, on February 5, Senator McCain lost West Virginia, too. What was Senator McCain's percentage of the West Virginia caucus results? One. One percent. Why aren't there any questions about Senator McCain's "white working class problem"?
7:08
And by way of tradition, here's my prediction for tonight's results:
7:10
Kentucky results so far:
Clinton 52
Obama 45
Everyone has called Kentucky for Senator Clinton.
7:11
Back to the "white working class problem". The subtext is that white Appalachian voters are racists, regardless of party, because they refuse to vote for a black candidate. Other white Appalachian voters are stupids because they've been duped into believing these ridiculous e-mails about the Senator's religion. So my question is: Why is this a problem for Senator Obama and not a problem for the racist/stupid white Appalachian voters?
7:14
Terry McAuliffe on MSNBC now. "Let everyone vote" -- this is an interesting talking point from the Clinton campaign. Correct me in the comments if I'm wrong, but even if Senator Clinton had dropped out, wouldn't her name still be on the ballot in the remaining primaries? Meanwhile, McAuliffe just said that he believes Senator Clinton will have more delegates before the convention. Yep.
7:21
McAuliffe is fear mongering now: "Who's going to keep me safe? Who will be the best on national security? And if you look at the exit data, Chris, you know -- it's not about race and gender, it's about who they best think can deal with these economic issues and keep us safe." OLBERMANN: "Isn't that essentially a Trojan horse you've brought in on Senator McCain's behalf?" McAULIFFE: "Hillary beats John McCain on these national security issues." So much for the so-called cease-fire.
7:31
Kentucky margin:
Clinton 58
Obama 38
7:35
Chuck Todd: Oregon is only 3 percent African American. By the way, Oregon is also 3 percent Roloff.
7:46
Plug! Plug! Cliff Schecter is liveblogging over here. We'll be stealing each other's snarky observations tonight.
7:48
Cliff reminds us that Alex Castellanos is on CNN again tonight (and looking especially Robert Goulet-ish, by the way). For those of you unfamiliar with Castellanos' race-baiting work... Watch this:
Why does CNN allow Castellanos on the air when they know that race is an issue in this election?
7:55
Following up on Castellanos' creepy Goulet vibe:
7:56
Senator Clinton to make with the talking any minute now.
8:15
Senator Clinton speaking now. Some kind words for Senator Kennedy -- "one of the greatest progressive leaders in our nation's history."
8:19
"We're winning the popular vote." No she isn't.
8:26
Via the comments... Josh Marshall on the popular vote argument:
"Even if you change the rules and fully seat Michaigan and Florida and count them for the popular vote totals and don't count any portion of the Michigan "uncommitted" (which were understood a the to be for Obama) vote for Obama, Hillary is still behind in the popular vote total. The only way she moves ahead in popular vote is if you do all that AND don't count four of the caucus states...Some stuff is just too ridiculous to let pass."
8:35
MSNBC is projecting 29-14 delegate split in Kentucky. 1 delegate away from surpassing a majority.
8:36
Also, Gallup's tracking poll has Senator Obama now leading Senator Clinton among women and Hispanics nationwide.
8:43
Russert just noted that Senator Clinton's electoral math is literally drawn from Karl Rove's electoral map. Weird. To that point, it's worth noting that according to Quinnipiac's latest numbers, Senator Obama is only one point behind Senator McCain in Florida and Ohio. One point. That's statistically nothing. And it's only May.
8:46
Schecter at FDL: "Knocked Up is on HBO. But I'd rather be watching Candy Crowley."
9:01
Norah O'Donnell just reported that 9 out of 10 voters who thought race was important selected Senator Clinton. But, of course, that's Senator Obama's "problem" -- all that racism. His problem. Racist white people are his problem. Yeah. What the hell is wrong with people?
9:15
Matthews to Lisa Caputo: "Senator Clinton can't seem to win people who are educated. What's the problem?"
9:19
CNN reporting that Senator Obama has officially won a majority of pledged delegates. The Senator has reached 1628 pledged delegates.
9:23
Back to the Senator's so-called "problem." Put another way... If someone runs up to you right now and sucker punches you in the throat because of the color of your, say, hair -- is that your problem or the sucker puncher's problem?
9:25
Something I've learned during this process that really, really sucks: Some Democrats are still very racist. Others, who believe every e-mail they receive, are also not very smart.
9:39
Fun fact: Senator Dodd says the word "here" a lot.
9:52
MSNBC reporting that former Carter Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan has died after years of fighting various forms of cancer.
10:00
Before Senator Obama speaks tonight, here's a flashback to Senator Kennedy's endorsement speech.
10:04
SCHECTER: "Alex Castellanos is babbling again. It can be hard to talk when you're not used to talking through the blow-hole of a white pillow case."
10:05
And this video just in from Kentucky:
10:06
Russert saying that Senator Obama has won a majority of pledged delegates.
10:08
Whoever has the beeper/pager at MSNBC... Please stop it!
10:12
Senator Obama getting ready to speak.
10:19
Senator Obama declares that he has achieved a majority of pledged delegates. "Within reach of the nomination for president..."
10:22
SENATOR OBAMA: "We all admire her courage and committment and perseverance. And no matter how this primary ends, Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughter and your daughters will come of age, and for that we are grateful to her."
10:35
Schecter:
Obama is again hitting McCain on lacking the courage to sit down with our enemies. I love that frame. Because it is TRUE. And it is what we should have been saying for a while. It is the cowards who resort to violence immediately. They don't have the guts to work things out in a complicated world, instead of bombing people on false evidence....
10:36
That was a HUGE speech. I haven't seen that much energy from the Senator in months. That's not to say his speeches have been weaker, but this one was particularly strong in terms of his delivery.
10:42
CNN's John King just used his magic-marker fingers to draw what appeared to be a large bowel across "rural" Kentucky. That's about right.
10:55
Is it me or is Begala sounding more and more like Lionel Hutz? Speaking of The Simpsons, if you're planning on selling a monorail to a small rural town, check out the exit polls and find the towns that believe the Manchurian e-mails. Monorail... Monorail... Monorail...
11:03
Results coming in from Oregon. 11% reporting. Senator Obama leading with more than 60 percent in the counties surrounding Eugene and Portland. However, there don't appear to be many racists there so, naturally, these results don't matter.
11:09
MATTHEWS: "There's a problem here for Barack Obama... the Appalachian whites... He didn't even try to reach them..." RUSSERT REPLIES: "They were reachable in Oregon and Wisconsin...." Huh-what-now? Appalachian voters from Oregon? That's crazy! Appalachia is more enormous than I thought! But to Matthews' point -- yes, why can't Senator Obama reach the racist white hillbillies? What's Obama's problem!?
11:17
No exit poll news yet on Oregon's all-important Roloff vote.
11:20
29% reporting
Obama 60
Clinton 40
Also, on CNN, Gergen wondering why Senator Clinton hasn't told her voters (paraphrasing): if you're voting for me because you won't vote for a black candidate, I don't want your vote.
11:26
Chuck Todd: 115 of the 212 remaining undeclared superdelegates are from states that went for Senator Obama.
11:35
Schecter notes: "Rudy Giuliani got 1.5% of the vote [in Kentucky] and he has been out of this race since his old combover went out of style." Why can't Senator McCain win over all of Giuliani's voters? What's his problem?
11:48
Norah's exit polling... In 2004 32 percent of Kentucky Democrats voted for President Bush. The exact same number said they'd vote for Senator McCain over Senator Obama.
11:50
Video flashback to last week. The crossover rural white Democratic voter:
I'm selling Janice a monorail.
11:51
That's all for me tonight. Three more primaries to go. Speaking of which, I have two requests... Can we stop calling them "contests"? They're primaries and caucuses, and they're supposed to be important electoral events. A "contest", on the other hand, involves throwing a baseball at a clown in a dunk tank -- or betting your friends that you can go the longest without masturbating. Second request: now that the primary season is nearing a conclusion, can we stop calling the candidates "Barack" and "Hillary"? I don't hear anyone calling Senator McCain "John."
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I won the popular vote. Michigan and Florida. 2210 delegates. Ready on day one. Keep standing up for what you believe is right. The highest and hardest glass ceiling in the land.
Clinton is deliberately working to create a backlash against Obama with this nonsense.
Yes, I noticed too that she used a lot of gender specific terms. I wonder if Geraldine Farraro is watching..
I am really starting to disike her. I have been trying so hard to like Hilary Clinton but she makes it so hard. She wants to tear the party apart and she may just do it.
AGREED!
How is she tearing the party apart? She has won three in a row including a +200K win tonight. She has won 7 out of the last 10. If Obama wants to unite the party, he needs to drop out and support Hillary.
Are people chanting yes we can and yes we will at the same time? somebody is messing up the cue cards. Same page people. I guess it's time for HRC to show her true Democratic Party loyalty and run as an independent.
I heard "Yes, she will"
I'm an older woman but hearing Hillary thank women simply leaves me cold. She's making it a female thing, like it's an insider thing amongst us women. It's not. I don't know one woman who isn't disgusted with her at this point, and though I know many women still support her, Obama has now passed her in female support. She is truly the empress with no clothes. I am disgusted that she cries no fair no fair, as if everyone is supposed to walk on eggshells around her. And you notice they are doing that now. She's a loose cannon and people are being so careful, like the BPD narcissistic person she is.
2,210 delegates? God help us.
Clintonian Calculus. It's being taught now in the Kentucky and West Va. school systems. That's why the rest of the country doesn't understand it. It's really quite simple. All you need to do is pick out a number you want and say its correct long enough and the people in these states believe it.
and again the moderators allowed McCauliffe to get away with the 'she's got the popular vote' comment without the correction that this is only a contrived value using the Rovian abacus ... when are they going to just call him/them on this every time it is said and ensure that the stupid, prejudiced and ignorant are not deceived by this voodoo math. Discussing it afterwards is NOT enough - you have to correct it AT THE TIME for this illusion not to take force in people’s minds.
Jeez...
It's the Rove playbook - create a lie, and repeat it over and over again. The media doesn't question squat any more.
Josh Marshall over at TPM is blogging and this is what he wrote about the "I'm ahead in the popular vote" nonsense:
"Even if you change the rules and fully seat Michaigan and Florida and count them for the popular vote totals and don't count any portion of the Michigan "uncommitted" (which were understood a the to be for Obama) vote for Obama, Hillary is still behind in the popular vote total. The only way she moves ahead in popular vote is if you do all that AND don't count four of the caucus states...S
thanks!
TPM really does a great job of cutting through the crap. Clinton keeps implying that the popular vote should count, and at the same time trying to get the superdelegates to override an Obama primary victory. ANything for a win with that crazy chick.
People in Kentucky ought to bow their heads in shame! I am embarrassed to be an American. Its the year 2008 and 20% of Voters in Kentucky refused to vote for Obama not because of issues but the color of his skin. A total embarrassment.
There are no issues on which Obama is the better choice. His grandiloquence versus her stridency is the only arena in which Obama trumps Clinton's wife, and his affinity for unsavory associations makes him a poor choice indeed. In nearly two decades of listening to hate-fueled anti-America spew from his "spiritual guide," Obama lifted neither finger nor tongue in its defense, yet there are otherwise wide-awake people who think he should be Commander in Chief. Among them, of course, are his racketeer pal Rezko, his friend who thinks he didn't bomb enough Americans, his alleged communist "father figure," and of course the wife who has only recently had a brief episode of respect for her country.
Anywhat, notwithstanding Obama's issue deficit and those associations, I'm trying to imagine how embarrassed you must have been when 90 to 97 percent of blacks vote for Obama. When that proportion of any demographic vote the same way, there was clearly only one attribute in play. The other 3% mismarked their ballots. Hang your head.
THEhillbilly said ".... I'm trying to imagine how embarrassed you must have been when 90 to 97 percent of blacks vote for Obama.."
Let me remind you that Blacks voted for Bill Clinton, Gore,, Kerry, Carter too in these exact same 90-97 percentages.
hmmm based on these facts one cannot raise has anything racial with blacks vote but goes a long ways towards explaining the KY and WV vote.
justbecause, dont be embarrasse
Hillary Clinton just claimed that she's winning the popular vote. Of course, that's a complete and utter LIE!
Funny enough, right AFTER McAuliffe said this crap about who can best "keep us safe", he trashed the Bush 2004 tactic of scaring the American public on the issue of "who could keep us safe".
The Clinton surrogates will say whatever knee jerk reaction remark that comes out of thier desperate mouths. I hope the VP slot is not offered to HRC, but it seems that is the name of the game. Anyone who votes for Mc Same, as the exit poles say, rather than BO gets what they deserve. Kentucky, Ohio, Pa, W Va voters , look at HRC's promises to NY in 2 Senate campaigns that never came to pass. I repeat you will get what you deserve, ask anyone in NY State how effective she was in bringing 200,000 jobs to upstate and WNY.
Let this end tonight. If anyone's watching MSN, Eugene is trying nicely to step around the crap that flies out of Herr Buchanan's mouth. Will someone please just say out loud, there are a lot of white people that will never vote for Obama. In West Virginia, their all getting bummed out because the year's over at wvu, I mean, the economy' isn't doing so good. In Kentucky, umm, the Derby was a couple of weeks ago, and basketball doesn't start until October or something.
Ouch.
I don't really care which gender you are, your age or much of anything else about you except the ethic with which you approach the world, gbht12. Please think about that when you comment on public threads.
Do liberals on this post have any ideas that aren't reactionary?
"McAuliffe is fear mongering now: "Who's going to keep me safe? Who will be the best on national security?"
Liberals and the left practice fearmongering as well as anyone else. There won't be health care available, the economy is going down the drain, jobs are being shipped overseas, we are going to kill the planet with SUV's (LMAO), etc, etc.
Liberals need to put down the stones and exit the glass house!
Yes, legislation based on global warming and carbon emissions is equivalent to the fears that stemmed the Patriot Act.
If you read this article without knowing who wrote it you would think it was written by a aristorcratic, snobbish, elitiist conservative. But no, the person calling appalachian democrats stupid is a fellow democrat. How amusing. Think this is lost on the 70% of voters in West Virginia and Kentucky now voting for Hillary? Think they won't cross over to vote for John?
Correct. They all deal with national security.
McAulife is a clown. I can't stand listening to him. He is so obnoxious. Herr Buchanan is dispicable as well. He's salivates at the mouth trying to destroy Obama.
By definition, liberals are NOT reactionary.
And, for this liberal personally, I working 3 (white collar) jobs, have no health insurance, and have seen chucks of glaciers dropping into the ocean, so all that stuff you mentioned isn't "fear mongering", it's reality. But since I have a college degree, I'm elitist and, therefore, my opinion doesn't count.
So when a liberal complains about it, it's fearmongering. But if a liberal agrees with it, it's valid?
ceu, you want me to believe that liberals can't fearmonger. Nice try.
You're drowning in your own hype, ceu: No health insurance for 47 million Americans doesn't equal NO health CARE. Jobs in this country are cyclical-industries come and go over the span of decades. Yet we still enjoy low unemployment rates among industrialized nations. And man-made climate change is exceedingly UNPROVEN!
Terrorism is very real. It has real consequences. Hillary's campaign and some others have called Obama naive on foreign policy and it is not fear mongering to highlight that.
Anyone catch Lisa Caputo evoke 2000 and the Supreme Court regarding the popular vote?
Did anyone ever see the Saturday night live episode about Appalachian area? This is the mentality that we are dealing with. These are bigots who will never vote for any color except white.
By the way Democrats this is a very RED state, not a swing state. Obama will have crossed the milestone of PLEDGED DELEGATES. That is how we pick a nominee.
Appalachia, pleasee... these people are not very intelligent and for some reason Clinton attracts these people. Oregon will be Obama's and guess what : These are WHITE VOTERS, for all you RACIST people out there. How stupid can you be? It is all about the demographics of the country.
They are letting her play this out because she is a whiney woman. Before you jump on that , I am a white woman over 50 and I am sick of her sh*t!! She is been playing the racist card ever since she figured out that she could not win.
The superdelegates will come over after the last vote is cast. Hang on Obama people, the dumb people in Kentucky have spoken along with W. VA. They are non-educated people that don't even know that the gas tax holiday is frea*king PANDERING.
Very well said.
Nightmare on Hill St.
I have heard one senator after another come out for Obama. I have yet to hear one endorsing Hillary. Shouldn't this tell us something?
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