Why Barack Obama Has Already Won (and Hillary Has Become a Republican)
In spite of the Clinton campaign's latest outlandish claim that Barack Obama must win all four contests this Tuesday or he's in trouble, those of us still residing in a place called reality understand the actual picture is much different.
According to most major news networks, Barack Obama now has a 100 point total delegate lead. Among pledged delegates the lead is now over 150.
What does this mean? Barack Obama could lose every state this Tuesday and as long as he kept the contests reasonably close he would still maintain a commanding lead.
In this way, he has already won.
He is leading in all the latest polls in Texas by a margin of 2-6 points. He is blowing Clinton out in Vermont. And he has now drawn within two points in Ohio.
After these contests, there are simply not enough states or delegates for Hillary to catch up. The margin is now within 4 points in Pennsylvania.
Where else can she win and collect a total of 100 delegates? What big states can she rout by 20-30 points?
The answer is: she can't. She can draw this thing out, continue to make spurious attacks, continue to sell low expectations. But now that Obama has clearly established there won't be blowouts this Tuesday, SHE CANNOT WIN.
Meanwhile, before our very eyes, she is becoming a Republican. The latest example is this blatant manipulation of fear to convince voters that only she can make Americans safe.
Unbelievable. I pray Americans are smarter than this. Fear carried the day in 2000 and 2004. It's gotten us nothing but war, torture, corruption, secrecy, and abuse of power. Hillary might have different policies (though on foreign affairs I have serious questions), but her methods are really no different than the last eight years: she surrounds herself with bad people, she is a top down leader, she is resentful of the press, she is secretive, she can't admit mistakes, she uses fear and manipulation as weapons...
I think America is ready to turn the page. While Barack Obama technically doesn't need to win this Tuesday, one big state (like Texas) should be enough to close the deal. Then we can respond to the real Republicans' fearmongering and failed strategy in Iraq instead of this downward-spiraling, futile civil war.
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This is straight out of Karl Rove's playbook: Make a statement that makes people think they must have misheard, because nobody in their right mind will believe it's true, but by that very unbelievability it gains media exposure and gets lodged into the public discourse nevertheless. Like most Republicans, she has found that she cannot win on issues or personality, and has to resort to fear and theft of delegates. The desperation is palpable.
Yes, it's not like she's a stranger to the Republican party. She should go back and visit her roots.
To make matters worse, Hillary's attacks are driving would be voters away from her. Yet the further she slips in the polls, the more vicious the attacks. She is personally killing her last chance to win.
Hillary is still in this only to save face. She knows she's done. She's just shaken down too many special interests and threatened too many "friends" to back out now.
If saving face is the goal, she is failing miserably.
" While Barack Obama technically doesn't need to win this Tuesday, one big state (like Texas) should be enough to close the deal. "
A realistic analysis but I think you're wrong in the above belief. The Clinton campaign, as you pointed out, have once again moved the goal posts such that he now, apparently, as to WIN BIG in all four states. I suspect that not even Wolfson, Penn & Co. actually believe such ridiculous rhetoric will be digested by the press and public, but the net result of such shananigans is to lower the bar of expectations for Mrs. Clinton. My guess is that if she wins Ohio by 5 points and wins Rhode Island (which she appears to be well ahead in), the night will be declared a tie by the Clintonians and it will be claimed that it's a " new race ". Bill's musings about her needing to win both Texas and Ohio will be explained away by the peculiar nature of the Texas primary/caucus, which " does not accurately reflect the will of the voters " or " crossover Republican voters swayed the vote in Obama's favour ".
I hope I'm wrong, but when a person with the psyche of Mrs. Clintonyou has been plotting a run for the presidency for almost 10 years having already had the sweet taste of power that a stint in the White House provides, anything other than a sheer granite road block won't stop the parade.
If, on the other hand, she does pull off both Texas and Ohio, even by small margins, no one should whine if she drags this thing out until Pennsylvania, no matter how inconvenient that may be for the party's chances in November.
This is what the superdelegates are for: they can prevent someone like Clinton from dragging things out when there is no chance of actually winning. If Clinton does not make significant inroads into Obama's pledged delegate lead on March 4th then you should expect to hear a huge clamor go up for Clinton to give up.
All the Democratic party elders I hear say that this will not go all the way to the convention. On Charlie Rose last night Nancy Pelosi said that if we go into the convention divided then we will come out of it divided. She assured Charlie that the nomination would be resolved before the convention. Joe Trippi on PBS's NOW is saying the same thing. He says the superdelegates will shift their support to decide things well before the convention.
O my goodness. So now the Obama people think the superdelegates are a good thing. Let's see if we can figure this out. Superdelegates voting for Hillary: They are a travesty and an abomination to all that America stands for. Superdelegates voting for Barack. They are the backbone of the Constitution and patriots of the highest order.
You people really are hypocrites.
News flash...... she has always been a rebublican.
Great column. 100% in agreement.
Thank you. If not for the last 5 seconds of that ad, one could just as well have presumed this to be one of W.s earlier campaign messages from '04. Not withstanding her decidedly conservative outlook on foreign policy, her campaigning tactics every day become progressively less distiinguishable from those of George W., culminating in deliberate misrepresentation of the opposing candidate, drumming up erroneous fear tactics as a means of swaying an already paranoid population, and "pounding on the table furiously" whenever the prospect of losing produces outright desperation.
The Clinton campaign is like a general who is fighting the last war.
There is a profound misunderstanding in the Clinton camp about what is driving this election.
Fear is the last thing democrats are going to respond to. Indeed, it hasn't yet worked but they keep trying it.
And certainly we will see the Republicans use fear (as they already have been) in the fall.
I would ask Americans this: if you are so afraid (living in the most powerful military and economic super power the world has ever known), then people living in small countries all over the world must be existing in unremitting terror.
I have no doubt that Americans experience fear, but . . .
I know this sounds harsh or perhaps unpatriotic, but when Americans talk about experiencing fear it always seems to me to be the product of narcissism and isolation.
The fact that fear has historically been so effective in the country (i.e. Red Scare etc) is a sad testament to our culture.
Hartnett
Very well said.
Unfortunately fear works as a tactic to sway the populace.
All the GOP had to do was flash a photo of Michael Dukakis in an army helmet, and tank, to evoke the same feeling of national humiliation we experienced during the Carter administration when the supposedly greatest nation in the world couldn't get a few helicopters off the ground to save the hostages in Tehran.
That failure, that disastrous rescue attempt did more to hurt the Democratic Party, in my estimation than anything else in the last 100 years. And I don't want to get into how silly that sounds, its a gut feeling. I myself was ashamed of the Democratic Party for looking like buffoons and letting Ronald Reagan charge in like the cavalry to save the day.
Swiftboating to evoked the same fears. Especially following 911 when this nation was still trembling from the fall of the towers.
Fear of death never goes away. Barack is mistaken if he totally ignores its use as a weapon. I believe it is something we have to overcome, but cannot say with confidence we have. There's a lot of sheep out there, looking for a shepherd, with good reasons. The wolves have been eviscerating this Democracy the last eight years.
So its a smart ploy tactically by Hillary, if not ethically, and should never be underestimated.
Gee, I sure heard Obama agreeing with her on most major issues the other night. Does that mean he's a Republican, too?
For most practical purposes, the Clintons have been Republicans (albeit of the secular variety) right along.
If I were Hillary, I probably would switch parties. She's been stabbed in the back so many times by her "friends" in politics, it's a miracle she's still standing.
http://newslampoon.com/hillary_switches_parties.htm
It really is amazing isn't it?
'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study
You may recognize this quote. It's from an "anonymous" Administration "aide" (translation: Rove). Unfortunately, Clinton hasn't just become a Republican. She's been using these Republican-style tactics for the whole campaign. It's even getting hard to tell her rabid supporters (I don't mean to say they're all rabid, I mean to speak here only of the ones who ARE rabid) apart from Republicans. I guess you could say that quote embodies old-style, entrenched, entitled politics on both sides.
So far at least, the majority of Democrats seem to be REJECTING that stuff. I hope enough people are sick and tired of this corrupted and corrupting junk and see the damage it is doing to the country collectively, and every one of us individually.
Give Hillary a chance she is ready to lead us into the next stupid war and she has proved she is as dirty as any republican.
Can someone explain this video to me? It makes no sense to me. Is the phone really ringing in that house? Or what?
thanks for calling attention to the strangeness of this story: several photos of children asleep in their beds; a photo of Hillary, in beads and street clothes at 3 a.m., answering a white (not red) phone; and then a strange man opening the door of a darkened room. I hope he is really a dad. Or is he coming into Hillary's room? Awakened by the phone?
Hillary, why are you dressed like that? he asks. You look like you're going to work.
Bill, she answers, I am always at work. The American people expect that of me. I never get to wear my jammies. Not in this job! No way!
Hillary sorta has to go the fear route, Barack has laid claim to the Hope Highway.
What she fails to remember is her husband Bill was a relative unknown commodity in 1992, and his election predicated more about hope, (being the man from Hope), than revisionist historians might lead us to believe. Remember " Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow", playing as confetti littered the air for the left's newly anointed king?
If Barack played that song on his campaign, well, he'd be accused of copying Bill of course, but Hillary would dismiss it as the frivolous and naive musings of a hope monger. It's experience that counts. But Bill was pretty much a fresh face himself way back when, and someone whose charisma and eloquence were never painted as negatives, the way Mr. Obama's are today. He was never accused of trying to sell snake oil labeled hope to the American People.
Maybe she needs to be reminded, people who don't get a chance to shine, can't. We gave her husband the benefit of a doubt in 92, don't be surprised if we extend the same opportunity to Mr. Obama, despite the rubber spiders she dangles in our faces.
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