The Hillary Clinton campaign will barely live to fight yet another day, as she has defeated Barack Obama in the Indiana primary by the slimmest of margins. Her popular vote margin of approximately 22,000 represents less than 2 percent of the record turnout of well over a million voters. It is far from the convincing win she needed to maintain her momentum, and the "tiebreaker" state of Indiana ended essentially in a tie.
The battle for the 72 Indiana delegates is also a draw. Because they are proportionally elected, it appears as though Senator Clinton will gain very few, if any, delegates. Because of this miniscule margin, Clinton finds herself farther behind Obama in the delegate count than she started the day.
Coupled with North Carolina's results, Obama's net gain of delegates significantly extends his lead over Clinton, and his total pickup for the night means that he needs fewer than 190 additional delegates to gain the nomination. There are 221 delegates at stake in the remaining primaries and over 260 uncommitted superdelegates.
Clinton is expected to win next week's 28-delegate West Virginia Primary, which means that the next chance Obama will have to knock Clinton out of the race comes in two weeks, in the May 20th Oregon and Kentucky primaries, which award 52 and 51 delegates, respectively. However, Clinton's weak showing imperils her chances to convince superdelegates and donors of her electability, and she may be forced to suspend her cash-strapped campaign before much longer.
MSNBC announced that she has canceled her scheduled TV and public appearances for Wednesday except for a Washington fundraiser.
As in Pennsylvania, Clinton's victory relied heavily on two factors: the strong political machine of a local Democratic bigwig (in this case Evan Bayh) and a populist approach to white, low-income, rural voters. As anticipated, Obama won in the heavily urban northwest corner of the state, around industrial giant Gary. Its high proportion of black voters, coupled with its proximity to Obama's hometown of Chicago, virtually guaranteed that he would finish strongly there.
Lake, St. Joseph and Elkhart Counties, along the Interstate 80 corridor, all fell into the Obama column, as did the I-65 corridor from Purdue University to Indianapolis.
But virtually every county south of the Indianapolis Speedway except for the Bloomington area came in strongly for Clinton. In what has become a pattern recently, Clinton did well in counties that traditionally vote Republican, and, as in Ohio and Texas, her margin of victory may have been provided by the Republican crossover vote: approximately 5 of her 51 percentage points came from Republicans.
Anybody who believes the Limbaugh B.S. has no idea what they are talking about. Yes, I'm talking to you Chris Mathews.
Too bad.
Not a single one of you.
I guess it's one of those things because you're angry. You don't mind seeing soldiers in body bags being shipped home. Or your children and grandchildren going off to this same war. People with no health care in their time of need, etc.
But you would have gotten out you revenge and you'll be able to sleep nights.
Obama won hugely in some caucus states. In Kansas, as I've posted before, he bested Hillary with 74% and the turnout was something never before seen in this state. Thousands standing in freezing rain for hours and people scrambling to find additional locations. Many never did get in to caucus including my whole group.
I supported the Clintons through all of their years in office, but their bad behavior in this campaign caused me to take another look at their behavior through the prism of what I know now, and the picture is not a pleasant one. Especially with respect to NAFTA, her doomed-to-fail (on purpose?) healthcare plan, and the way they robbed Gore of resources that ought to have been his for his presidential race, but were diverted by them to her senatorial race.
Narcissists. Pure and simple.
Barack Obama: Now more than ever, choose change...
Nicely observed, though that's hardly unique to Hillary. It's true though, you see that a lot, and while I think that people who happen to know the politician are often put somewhere in the front, I also wonder if it's politician's training, whether there's someone there that they know or not. After all, it conveys a sense to onlookers that the politician is familiar with someone in the crowd, is liked by them, and by extension that the politician is likable.
Anyway.
But your observations about why she does this are dead-on. It doesn't mean it's any less creepy or distrubing in my mind, though.
http://binx101.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/obama-endorsed-by-obama-japan-v-clinton-karl-rove-limbaugh-and-fox/
Binx101
The Almost Daily Binx
http://binx101.wordpress.com
HILLARY, I LOVE YA HON. You're the one who teaches little girls that they can play ball with the big boys. The one who shows older woman there are possibilities beyond fetching beer for the hubby and scrubbing toilets. You're proof that women can choose something else other than the slow inexorable slide toward death in a nursing home in our later years. And you know something about 'inexorable,' Hillary: its other definition is relentless. And, yet, Hil, it's over.
It could be mere coincidence that the news that the co-founder of Baskin-Robbins, Irvine Robbins, who created the chewy cold confection known as "Rocky Road,'' hit the web Tuesday. Crabby, who confesses to be superstitious, thinks not.
I'm still willing to dream along, Hillary. But you can't have any more of my money. I'm barely able to scrape together the few crumbs to feed my own delusions (think early 401K withdrawals!) and you've got $109 million in the bank.
The road has been treacherous, and you have traveled it well and far. But it looks like you won't make it to the finish line first. Unless you can rightly convince Floridians and Michiganders that their votes have been stolen. And, yes, Crabby does believe in miracles. But maybe...now...is...the...time...to ...surrender. The sky will open wide, the road will become smooth and clear, and maybe you'll still have time to become part of history.
CrabbyGolightly.com
Hilary should not be demonized. She did, after all, win the support of millions of voters. And while I, a staunch Obama supporter, was insulted and repulsed by some of her campaign tactics, the time has come to move forward and not hold any grudges. Her instincts told her that, after all the grief she went through in the 1990s, and after watching with shock and horror at Bush's re-election in 2004, she had not choice in this election but to go negative, pander, and scare people ("as far as I know," free gas until Labor Day, if I'm not answering the phone at 3am you and all of your children will DIE). Fortunately her calculus was proved wrong, and people are indeed embracing change and a new generation of leadership.
But part of this process of reconciliation and building bridges must start from within the Democratic party, with Obama supporters laying off the heated rhetoric, recognizing some of the blatant misogynist media bias that has cropped up along the way, and reach out a hand of fellowship to anyone who's voted for Clinton. Some may have done it for nefarious reasons, but many did it sincerely, and their choice should be respected.
Let's build a big tent here and work on the 50-state strategy!
Personally I have a lot of resentment toward the Clintons after this horrific campaign show that they put on. The supporters are really not whom I harbor resentments toward. I tend to think that many of themwhose essays that we have read here and elsewhere, were looking for a job in the Clinton administration. That's just my opinion.