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When Winning is Losing
The crescendo of campaign talking points and punditry has turned to Ohio and Texas, a series of contests that could change the narrative -- or perhaps, end it. Recent polls have differed, but have generally shown Obama gaining on what were substantial leads for Hillary only weeks ago. Bill Clinton has repeated what James Carville had said earlier, that without wins in both states, the campaign would be over. At last night's debate, Hillary expressed a similar sentiment, suggesting that it was Texas that would choose the nominee.
If Obama's resource advantage and organizational strength lead him to upset victories in either state, the Clinton campaign will be deflated beyond repair. Her concession that night will signal a shift in tone, her withdrawal announced within days. There is little doubt she will be gracious and touching, her humanity on full display.
But what if she wins?
What if the steady increase in Obama's polling numbers plateaus, shy of what's needed to overcome her once sizable lead? Surely if Hillary wins both states she will continue onward, hoping that after 36 contests, there is still such a thing as momentum. But win or lose, the math is still daunting. In the remaining contests where Hillary is viable, she will have to win nearly two-thirds of the delegates to regain her lead, a feat that no combination of her dwindling coalition could muster. In every contest since February 5th, Obama has systematically eaten into her traditional base of women, Latinos, and low-income voters. Of the remaining states, Obama is favored to win many, with none of her victories assured. Ohio and Texas may change the story on March 4th, but they will not change her reality. When fourteen more states are added into the mix, the numbers will change, but the calculus will not. She cannot overtake him.
And yet, the race continues.
Having staked out Ohio and Texas, Hillary Clinton cannot admit publicly that the nomination was lost before they arrived. Ohio and Texas are not must-wins for Hillary. After ten staggering losses in a row, there are no more must-wins.
If Hillary wins Ohio and Texas, it will just prolong the inevitable decline of the once inevitable candidate. She will continue to advocate the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations; she will continue to call for super delegates to overturn the public will if needed. She will continue to deepen the animosity she has encouraged from within her own base, showcasing the very politics they have chosen to reject. The irony will be that her greatest losses will be suffered as a result of her wins. With no end in sight, her attacks will look selfish and subversive. The empathy and respect she could have regained with a graceful exit in March will be replaced by a bitterness and frustration, with wounds unlikely to heal.
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If McCain can be discredited in various ways to the point where he slips to the 30's, then Hillary has a chance to prevail. You know, lesser of two evil scenario. McCain seems to be vunerable to Rovian attacks, and I think it's his karma to spend the rest of his political life in his current position after being shot down in his bid for president. Timing (like in the stock market) would make all the difference for Hillary. So let's see how much traction the Jew York Times story gets. Maybe McCain does his best to help Obama.
If it does wound McCain, but he still holds on to high hopes, then the delegates might say "bite the bullet, Barrack", you're still young enough to do it again. The sheep will bahh for awhile, but then they get back to whatever they were doing. The answers are out there. If the delegates are truly independent, and this thing turns ugly, they should draft the deserving Gore. I mean draft, like the Army. 4 years would be enough. Closest thing to a parliamentry election. All's well that ends well.
Dylan do the math. While I am not a particular fan of either candidate surely from the standpoint of experience Senator Clinton is the better candidate.
Mathematically over the last several weeks Senator Obama has climbed into a lead in delegates but only a marginal lead. If the remaining races go either way this margin will not change much. The margin I am talking about is a percentage of delegates and that percentage has persisted in the range of from 3% to 4%. By any stretch of the imagination 3%-4% is not a mandate and it would be my hope that the "super" delegates take their position seriously and vote to seek a solid,experienced, candidate who can win the general election against what will surely be a nasty vicious campaign. The visible signs are before us already.
I would hope that somewhere in the Democratic party there is that right person who can be drafted. After all what he or she will need is the sense to accept the fact that the chips in the coming general election are too high and important not to accept the draft and the party behind them.
Personally I cannot and will not vote for a person who does not have those qualities.I can no longer accept a weak unprepared candidate. I will support the rest of the ticket and hope that the Congress has that strength.
Amen! If Clinton wins the nomination with this negative dishonest campaign - which shows how lacking in character both she and her hubby are - McCain will be our next president. I had held out hope that she could elevate herself at this point but that looks to be beyond her. Seeing how difficult it would be for me to vote for her I can not imagine the millions less partisan than I doing so.
What concerns me most are those ready and willing to end this competition before "we the people" have ALL had a chance to use our voice. Regardless of what many project the inevitable outcome to be, is it truly democratic to shut down the polls before everyone votes?
Isn't relevancy one of the reasons many states opted to move their primaries up on the calendar. In "our" democracy every vote should count (ie. popular vote vs. electoral college; popular vote vs. delegates).
With a popular vote spread of less than 5%, does it make sense to end this race prematurely? What kind of example does this provide to the next generation, to those aspiring U.S. citizens and to the growing democracies around the world? How does this make our democracy legitimate?
Real Clear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
2/22/08
Popular vote
-
Obama - 10,300,410
Clinton - 9,375,213
---------------------------------
Total - 19,675,623
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Difference of - 925,197 or 4.7%
This is not a rock concert. It is an election. If you compare the FACTS of what these two have accomplished, Obama is the CLEAR winner. Hillary should do the decent thing and quit. We should do the intelligent thing and compare the facts of the their accomplishments:
Amazing....What do you folks think she expects to gain by dragging out the fight to a brokered convention? Even if she were to somehow wrestle the nomination from Obama in a nasty convention fight, she won't have a chance in hell of winning the general election--and SHE KNOWS THIS. She's not nearly as evil as you make her out to be, and she's surely not as stupid.
If she loses Texas and doesn't do well--or possibly loses also--Ohio, she will most definitely concede and do so graciously.
And I hope that most of Obama's supporters aren't so wacked-out that they can't accept her concession graciously as well.
If you don't, you're hurting your candidate. Think about it.
I am so sick of hearing about Cinton & NAFTA. NAFTA was started in 1989 by GHW Bush. It went into full effect this Janurary 2008. We've had a Republican Congress with 40 blue dogs in it for over 20 years. Starr was sent to stalk the Clinton's to keep them off balance & the most he could get was a BJ. Bill still got more done than most any other president, & with a Democratic congress they could get alot more done. There is a huge Republican smear conspiracy & it will eat Obama alive. Right now it's eating the Clinton's again & sooooo many of you are falling for it. And war vote? What war vote? It was a vote to let inspector's in, & GW used it to "OCCUPY" Iraq & profit as he killed the middle class here. Mission was accomplished. I can not believe anyone who's not profiting from this occupation would even think about voting for more of it,
If Obama had been the frontrunner and Hillary came along and won ten contests in a row, people would be telling Obama to quit. Many people. But somehow Hillary Clinton gets a pass. Why? How is it that the media allows her to dictate the rules of the game. To wit: if she wins Texas and Ohio, she'll go on to win the nomination. The numbers are indeed daunting, and the only way Clinton can become the nominee at this point (because we all know she's not going to clean up with a necessary 60% of the vote from here on out) is to divide the Democratic Party, which is a party, I might add, that is addicted to implosion. More states, more delegates, more votes, better polling against McCain, momentum, zeitgeist. Obama has it all. Why could close wins for Hillary in Texas and Ohio possibly change?
Super delegates? Another back room deal? just another way to take the public out of the mix. Do any of these so called delegates show up on lobbyists payrolls? Who tells them how to vote? The almighty dollar? Sorry but, i have lost all faith in America, Veterans treated like shit. And Hillary said social security won't work unless everyone is enrolled Well, She isn't paying into it. Congress has its own plan. thats why they are taking the money, more for their pockets. This will all come to a head sooner or later.
Nay sayers suggest it is over because they want her to back out and make it an easy win for Barack. I hope Hillary never backs out. I hope she fights to the end. Because in the end, I can never vote for Obama.
How nice it is for obama supporters to ignore such big states as Florida and Michigan. We need them in November. If we do not seat them at the convention, we will not get them in November. hillary won them and with millions of voters. Hillary supporters can do the math. Our party is not telling us the truth and they need our support too.
Now, you know better than that. Obama supporters are not ignoring Florida and Michigan. BOTH candidates agreed not to allow their delegates as directed by the DNC. Hillary didn't fake this outrage or concern until AFTER she won in the races - an easy thing to do when your opponent did not campaign in one instance and wasn't even on the ballot in the other. Allowing these votes now is typically dirty and nasty and absurd and you should be ashamed of even putting it forward.
Hillary Clinton was a household name coming into this thing, nobody knew Obama. In states where he's had a chance to campaign and introduce himself to voters, his support rises meteorically (as we're seeing in texas and ohio).Try and claim that it's more democratic to have an election where outsider candidates aren't allowed to campaign. you're fooling nobody.
This is one of my favorite threads....Hmm, Michigan. WHY did Obama pull his name off of the ballot? It wasn't required. It wasn't illegal to remain. But he would get NO delegates as far as he could see. Therefore, the good people of Michigan had no count with him. Remember their election day tho...when Hillary(tho never aired anything nor visited Michigan) was in line to get ALOT of votes, both Obama & Edwards called everyone they could & had LOTS of national media broadcasting that they wanted their supporters to vote "Screw Hillary",oh wait, it wasn't really called that...At one point one of the news shows actually reported that it was close, she might have lost. NOW, Obama disregards that vote because he didn't win it. In Florida he had national ads airing. Hillary didn't. She won there too.
I think every voter's vote should count. It takes a hella nerve for ANY political party to remove ANY Americans vote. That is our God given right. I really don't care what the candidates name is, nor what party. If this were happening in ANY other country we'd ALL be raising hell about it. Why? Because the PEOPLE were not allowed to be heard.
Can you describe a scenario where you seat Michigan and Hillary gets the nomination, and the party doesn't fracture as a result?
Would you be pushing to seat MI if Hillary hadn't been on the ballot?
Why does this feel more like opportunism than any concern for the party?
The Clintons have always been after money as well as power. Getting donors to cough up money so they can get back their $5 million, with interest, will be a factor on the timing of her withdrawal from the race.
Winning may be losing for Clinton, but winning still isn't winning for Obama. He can't get the 2025 delegates needed for the nomination no matter what happens in the remaining primaries. They're going to the convention, as well they should. As much as the Obamaites on HuffPo call for HRC's bowing out, she has every right to see the Democratic process through. His supporters are ecstatic about seeing Obama use the Dem Party's processes to his advantage, but would love to deny Clinton the same opportunity going forward.
The Clintons and her DLC'ers wrote many of the rules the party has been operating under since Bill was elected. Hillary's inability to use that to her advantage doesn't speak well to her ability to handle the bureacracy.
Dragging the process out to the convention would show utter contempt for what is best for the party... even if it's her right.
GObama! I have been waiting since JFK to cast my vote for someone who inspired me, someone who brought tears of pride to my eyes. As Oprah says, "This is the one!"
Obama just received another superdelegate (from PA). Seems there has been a lot of them this week.
When is the last time a superdelegate announced for Hillary?
Who wants to buy the last ticket on the Titanic?
It's called "jumping ship"
Actually, if HRC wins TX and OH by even small margins, she would prove to me that she is the one. Obama's momentum and wins in small Red States mostly raise the question as to whether or not he can beat McCain or Huckabee. I will go out on a limb (actually a very thick limb) and predict that we will not win the Presidency this year if we don't win all of the Blue States that Kerry carried in 2004 and add something like Ohio. Red States will rally around the GOP nominee again. Just look at their response to the McCain-Iseman story. Even Lush switched his support to McCain.
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