The New Republic

I thought the Bugs/Daffy thing was completely moronic, illogical, and non-falsifiable.  It took four minutes from my life that I'll never get back.

But hey, that's just me.

- achester99

March 5, 2008 at 2:09pm

Her 'dillemma?' Michael, really.

- Ivanova

March 5, 2008 at 2:11pm

Once again Andrew Sullivan does an excellent job of encapsulating what's happening in this race, and his evaluations of the Clintons are dead on.  With each passing day I find them more and more reprehensible, and after seeing what some of the people that I know in the blogging world have done to try an manipulate voters, dirty devious underhanded filthy smear tactics of Barack Obama, I don't think I could stomach her even as vice president. I don't want the Clintons or any of the slime they trail behind them anywhere near my White House.

Yes He Can

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.../who-won-the-del.html

[....It's also vital for the Clintons psychologically to undermine Obama's appeal. He represents a systematic rebuke of their style of politics, their tactics and their worldview. If they can manage to damage him enough, even if he wins the nomination, their own sense of their own historical importance will be assuaged. Maybe they can damage him enough to ensure that McCain beats him in the fall. That would, at some level, satisfy them. To be beaten in a Democratic primary is bad enough; but if their opponent goes on to win the presidency, it would be unbearable for them, close to an indictment. That is what is fueling them: the terror of an Obama presidency and history re-written with Clinton as a minor footnote in the minor 1990s.

Obama supporters should not be dismayed.

Obama has a tougher, nastier opponent in the Clintons than he does in McCain. If he wins this by a long, grueling struggle, he will be more immune to the lazy, stupid criticism that he is some kind of flash in the pan, he has more opportunity to prove that there is a great deal of substance behind the oratory, he has more of a chance to meet and talk with the electorate he will need to win in the fall.

I think the argument for Obama is easily strong enough to withstand the egos of the Clintons. The more people see that her case is almost entirely a fear-based one and his is almost entirely a positive one, the more he will win the moral victory as well as the delegate count..... ]

- AaronBBrown

March 5, 2008 at 2:19pm

I'm telling you, Hillary doesn't actually know how many states there are in the Union. She really believes that if she can just stay in the race, eventually enough new states will vote to let her catch up. Like most Americans, she was probably shocked to learn that there is both a North and a South Dakota, and once you've come face to face with the absurd number and variety of American states -- really, an island in middle of the Pacific, with no bridge or anything to connect it? an identically square state right next to Colorado? Delaware? -- the notion that she might run out of states before Obama runs out of delegates just doesn't make sense. If it's taken her 41 contests just to "warm up" and secure second place, then surely there must be at least another 40 or so states to go, right?

- rhubarbs

March 5, 2008 at 2:34pm

Here's what keeps me up at night as an Obama supporter (and I welcome your thoughts on how to push back against this): Clinton is making a push for the popular vote, not the pledged delegate vote.  

The not at all impossible endgame for Hillary:  it's June and Puerto Rico finishes voting.  Neither candidate has Obama has enough delegates to win it without the superdelegates.  Obama will obviously argue that they should vote for him since, as the pledged delegate leader for them to do otherwise is to overturn the will of the primary/caucus voters.  The problem is that Hillary may have an even better argument for the supers to swing her way: "More people in this country voted for me than Obama -  therefore the superdelegates should follow the will of the PEOPLE (as opposed to the pledged delegates)."

In a matchup of pledged delegate leader vs. popular vote leader, things don't look nearly as good for Obama anymore.  And Pennsylvania is the key for her to catch him in the popular vote ...

- tylerf2

March 5, 2008 at 3:37pm

How does Obama gain legitimacy?

I guess if  he:

1. Wins Pennsylvania

2. Wins a re-vote in FLA and/or MI.

3. Super Ds coalesce around him.

Thing is, I don't see him winning Pennsylvania and I see him losing either/or FLA or MI re-votes.

If HRC wins those next 2-3 big states consecutively, his small pledged lead won't matter, the Super Ds will (appropriately) coalesce around her.

I think it's over, I think she's the nominee (unless he shocks me in Pennsylvania).

And when you start flaming, be aware that I'm an Obama supporter, contributer, and volunteer.

- mmathog

March 5, 2008 at 3:38pm

tyler makes a good point- if she wins the popular vote she has a very good case for getting the superdelegates, and even I, an Obamatonkoolaiddrinkingidealisticsimpleton, wouldn't call it stealing.  I don't think there is- nor should there be- any pushack from that.  Obviously, the delegates so matter, because those were the rules, but the rules also state supers can vote however they want.  It is a question of narrative.

Now, the supers, at least many of them, are politicians.  And they know that HIllary has dangerously short and toxic coattails, that might hurt some of them.  And they also might not want to be seen as "stealing" (rightly or wrongly) the nomination from a truly exciting candidate, the first AA to boot.  So the supers aren't in her bag whether or not she wins the popular vote.

- boneill

March 5, 2008 at 4:30pm

"Gain legitimacy"? He's won the most contests, the most votes, and the most delegates. That does it by every measure but the one Mark Penn wants you to use, namely, "most states that Mark Penn considers relevant."

- ralphnelle

March 5, 2008 at 4:53pm

hog, but why do you ignore the rest of the states?  

Saturday, March 8

Wyoming Caucus 18 delegate

Mississippi   Primary   40 delegates

Tuesday, April 22

Pennsylvania Primary 188 delegates

Saturday, May 3

Guam Other 9 delegates

Tuesday, May 6

Indiana Primary 84 delegates

North Carolina Primary 134 delegates

Tuesday, May 13

West Virginia Primary 39 delegates

Tuesday, May 20

Kentucky Primary 60 delegates

Oregon Primary 65 delegates

Tuesday, June 3

Montana Primary 24 delegates

South Dakota Primary 23 delegates

Saturday, June 7

Puerto Rico Caucus 63 delegates

So if Obama wins most of these states, and besides Kentucky and W. Va. he probably will, how can Hillary claim only Pa matters. North Carolina and Miss. alone equal Pa.

Now obviously, the question is how bad this loss will affect him. If he wins Wyoming and Miss. not as much. Obama can run out the string after Pa. with victories, while Hillary will be crowing about Pa. Unless Obama does collapse, then there is no way Hillary can steal it on the convention floor.

And don't forget, Hillary will have to release her taxes before Pa. How much will her multimillion dollar portfolio hurt her? How will they spin Bill's multimillion pay checks from cronies for speeches and backroom deals.

- blackton

March 5, 2008 at 5:25pm

ralphnelle: Indeed. Obama has already won an absolute majority of nominating contests. His lead in delegates is almost mathematically impossible for Hillary to reverse. The only "legitimate" measure of "winning" that Hillary has a reasonable chance of attaining is reversing Obama's lead in total votes cast.

When a candidate reaches the three-fourths mark in a campaign trailing in second place by every measure of success, it's not her opponent who needs to "gain legitimacy."

- rhubarbs

March 5, 2008 at 5:28pm

Neither have gained legitimacy. What about the legitimacy of the 1st place candidate who walks onto the field of two HUGE states and gets his clock cleaned?

"He's won the most contests, the most votes, and the most delegates."

'Most contests' doesn't matter, 'most votes' matters a lot, but it's basically tied right now, 'most delegates' also matters, but the margin is too small to confer legitimacy. The winner needs to clearly win, the win can be by a small margin (e.g., Bush/Kerry '04) but it needs to be clear.

If Obama mops up Mississippi and Wyoming but gets blown out Ohio-like in Pennsylvania, we're still basically tied. In fact, at that moment, we might be actually tied in popular votes and he'll hold a small delegate lead.

My point is, it's not enough, it's not a legitimizing victory.

The only way I see one of them claiming a legitimizing victory is through a FLA and/or MI re-vote. Two big states, two big battlegrounds.

One of them has to do something to create a Super D swing, Obama's failure to win both Texas and Pennsylvania (and he will probably lose both) means he hasn't sealed the deal.

Since I think it will come down to a FLA/MI re-do for the legitimizing stamp, I think HRC will prevail.

Obama can seriously reverse this by winning Pennsylvania.

- mmathog

March 5, 2008 at 5:42pm

The last note of the Bugs/Daffy piece struck me as odd. I don't see Bush as a Bugs. Maybe he was a Daffy in Bugs clothing while campaigning, but he has definitely been a fear-mongering Daffy in his War President mode. Does a Bugs eviscerate the constitution, support torture, launch a pre-emptive war, etc. ?

The analogy is too superficial to work, I think. Though, I get that people prefer the cool, stable feeling of a candidate who stays calm and in control.

- asnevitt

March 5, 2008 at 7:52pm

"What about the legitimacy of the 1st place candidate who walks onto the field of two HUGE states and gets his clock cleaned?"

"What about the legitimacy of the 1st place candidate who walks onto the field of two HUGE states and gets his clock cleaned?"

First off,  Mmathog, Hillary won only 50.7% of the vote in Texas, and came in second in the overall delegate count.  So nobody cleaned anybody's clock.

Secondly, Ohio is not a “huge” state. North Carolina and Mississippi combined have more delegates at stake than Ohio.  So big whoop about Obama losing Ohio.  He'll get those delegates back and then some in Miss and NC.

I'm amazed how the Clinton camp is able to hoodwink everybody into thinking Ohio and Texas meant all that much. Texas was a wash and Obama netted more delegates in IDAHO than Hillary did in Ohio.    

- naomi88

March 6, 2008 at 2:13am

Neither Obama nor Clinton can get the nomination with pledged delegates. Both need superdelegates, and this is as the rules were designed to work. Obama's obsessive focus on his lead in pledged delegates is another instance of misdirection on his part because he can't get enough pledged delegates to win.

So whom should the superdelegates support? Marie Cocco in the Wahington Post (link leads to her piece on RealClearPolitics) points out the following:

"The [Obama} arithmetic conveniently leaves out an essential part of the equation: Neither Obama nor Clinton can secure through the primaries and caucuses the 2,025 delegates necessary to win at the Denver convention without the votes of the superdelegates. And Clinton's stunning performance on Tuesday, particularly in Ohio, makes Obama's argument that superdelegates should automatically back the will of the voters -- and not use independent political judgment about who can best compete against Republican John McCain in November -- look like an awfully simplistic calculus.

Add up all the states he has won in his historic drive to become the nominee, including all of those small and deeply "red" Republican states where the Obama supporters boast of their candidate's transcendental appeal, and so far Obama has won in places representing 193 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Add up Clinton's victories thus far and she has triumphed in states representing 263 electoral votes.

There is a reason some states are called general election "battlegrounds." It is because partisan identification is roughly even, or because certain groups in the electorate, such as Catholics, Hispanics or blue-collar whites, switch their allegiances -- or split their votes. That's why Clinton made so much in her victory speech about the "bellwether" nature of Ohio: "It's a battleground state. It's a state that knows how to pick a president. And no candidate in recent history, Democrat or Republican, has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary," she said.

There is no papering over the depth of the problem Obama faced there. He won only five of the state's 88 counties, an inauspicious foundation for a general election campaign. Clinton trounced him among Catholic voters, 63 percent-36 percent, according to exit polls. She beat him among voters in every income category and bested him by 14 points among those making less than $50,000 annually.

This is why Pennsylvania, which is demographically similar to Ohio -- and a must-win state for Democrats in November -- is considered such fertile ground for Clinton on April 22.

The Democratic Party is indeed developing a general election problem, and it's only partly because Obama and Clinton will be sniping at one another for the next seven weeks. Obama, the leading candidate, still hasn't shown he has appeal in a large battleground state that will be pivotal in the fall. In this sense, Pennsylvania is where Obama's back, and not Clinton's, is up against the wall."

Here's the link:

www.realclearpolitics.com/.../tough_math_on_the_democratic_s.html

- Eos

March 6, 2008 at 8:40am

Here's the Dems problem:

1)  Obama is looking like he can't win the general.  Zeesh, if you can't win a major Dem state and you're counting on all those elderly Hillary voters to vote for you rather than McCain, good luck.

2)  Hillary is looking like she can't win the general -- not because of her "high negatives" with indepedents but because the African-American base will be lukewarm at best for her and certain liberals-in-name-only (comfy rich white Obama supporters who would rather McCain be in the white house than voting for Hillary) will vote against her.

3)  Accordingly, they should run on the same ticket.

4)  It won't happen.  

- Lymon1

March 6, 2008 at 11:45am

"Texas was a wash and Obama netted more delegates in IDAHO than Hillary did in Ohio. "

Delegates delegates delegates. Although pccostello frequently comes awfully close to Hillbot territory, I agree about this statement:

"Neither Obama nor Clinton can get the nomination with pledged delegates. Both need superdelegates..."

Obama's small popular vote and pledged delegate lead, albeit real, (although shrinking in the former) won't be enough to convince Super Ds that he has been chosen 'by the people.' This is what the Super Ds are waiting for, a clear choice. Even tiny victories by Obama in Texas and Ohio would've achieved this, as Super Ds would've swung en masse to Obama, eliminating HRC from the race.

Obama needs a victory that convinces Super Ds that it's over. Mississippi and N.C. are not gonna get it done. Pennsylvania would probably get it done (for Obama).

An Ohio-like victory in Pennsylvania for HRC will just keep Super Ds sitting on the fence.

- mmathog

March 6, 2008 at 12:34pm

Unfortunately by mmathog's definition, the Democrats might as well both give up and head home.  Nobody can be a "legitimate" winner by his definition.  McCain's sewn it up.  The moment Hillary gets the nod on some weird calculus about winning "big" or "important" states or getting around rules she agreed to follow (that's for you, Florida and Michigan), she shreds the Democratic party in ways it takes a generation to recover from.  It's open season on the so-called African-American bloc, and those young idealist Obamaniacs go right back to ignoring politics (which I assume is what Hillary wants at this point).  The very primary process ends up broken and untenable for multiple elections to come.  The Dems are left with nobody left to clean up the mess, and we get another twenty years of Republican presidents.  

- cspencef

March 6, 2008 at 1:24pm

"Nobody can be a "legitimate" winner by his definition."

I've offered at least 2 ways one of them can be viewed as legitimate, and I'm sure I can think of lots more. I'm just saying that Obama's current path (assuming he loses fairly big in Pennsylvania) is not one of them.

What are you arguing, that Obama can limp home with a small delegate and teeny tiny popular vote majority, leave two big states on the table, and just be the winner?

I'm an Obama supporter and don't think that Obama has 'won,' how do you think Clinton supporters feel?

- mmathog

March 6, 2008 at 2:12pm

He leads in the popular vote and delegates. Nothing is likely to reverse that trend. As a matter of fact, she will have lost four primaries before she gets to Pennsylvania. I'm a product of SC public schools, so will somebody explain to me how she's leading? And will someone explain to me how she convinces the Super Delegates to overturn the primary because she is the better choice to run against McCain when polls have that in his favor as well? This is the same sort of chicken little sqawking we started getting on TNR the week before the Democrats routed the Republicans in the last election. I think it was McCookie that advised the panic stricken to abandon their computers for fear that someone might fall over dead. Relax, she's the new Huckabee, nothing more. This is just the new narrative picked up by the press. It will be all doom and gloom next week when she loses two more states "that don't count."

- mpatrickhendri

March 6, 2008 at 2:44pm

"so will somebody explain to me how she's leading?"

She's not. She's losing, but she hasn't lost.

"will someone explain to me how she convinces the Super Delegates to overturn the primary because she is the better choice to run against McCain when polls have that in his favor as well?"

She'll fail to convince them on those grounds.

What argument will Obama make to the Super Ds when they say 'you lost a lot of big votes lately, you're still winning, but why are you the winner?'

Since we'll be left, in my opinion, at an impasse, and no clear winner (and no FLA/MI participation), we'll need a re-vote.

Obama can largely end this with a win in Pennsylvania. If that happens, he can seat FLA (MI is too much of a disaster) as allocated and perhaps convincingly argue that he won. I know at that point I'd be convinced, but I'm an Obama supporter.

Of course WY and MISS count, do you think they should count as much as Pennsylvania?

- mmathog

March 6, 2008 at 3:21pm

Legitimacy?  This isn't a democracy in its infancy arguing about whether a dictator should remain in power.   The office of president will confer legitimacy upon any presidential candidate that can demonstrate that he or she won based on the rules set forth before the race began.   Legitimacy is a red herring.

To that point:  Obama will win the popular vote and have the largest # of delegates.  He will then be legitimate.  HRC will have a lot of heavy lifting to do to prove that she is more legitimate than the person who beat her.  Especially, if polls are showing that he will do better against McCain.

Of course, a delegate in  Wyoming and Mississippi count matters as much as one in Pennsylvania.  Why wouldn't it?    Are you suggesting that a democrat who lives in a state that usually votes republican should have no say in who becomes president?  States differ in population size, not importance.

- Sirhc

March 6, 2008 at 6:23pm

one delegate from an idaho caucus represents about 2800 votes. one delegate from a california primary represents about 13000 votes.

- Eos

March 6, 2008 at 6:49pm

Sirhc that's clearly not what I meant. Obama people (and I am one of them) sometimes like to throw in that he 'won more contests...' that's the spirit in which my remark was meant. In that spirit, then of course Pennsylvania 'counts more' than Wyoming, but also, as you imply, that fact is represented by the fact that Pennsylvania has more delegates.

By and large, I'm ok with the notion that 1 WY delegate = 1 Pennsylvania delegate, although pccostello has an interesting point as well, it's not the one I was making.

Your point about legitimacy is interesting, and at the end of the day, legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder. From where I sit, Obama having a narrow pledged delegate lead and having an increasingly vanishingly small popular lead, and losing some 'major' races late in the game will have the effect of not conferring legitimacy on his victory.

Of course HRC won't have much legitimacy either.

Obama will have a pretty good case, HRC will have a slightly less good case.

The other side's voters though would feel a lot better, and be far more likely to turn out, if one side clearly beat the other side.

I'm sure if Obama had won Texas and Ohio, even by narrow margins, even pccostello here would have to start facing the fact that Obama's the nominee.

- mmathog

March 6, 2008 at 8:04pm

mmathog, I don't share your pessimism regarding Obama's chances.  Are you sure your analysis isn't a self-inoculation against disappointment, should he in fact lose?

Somewhere you remarked that the popular vote totals were more or less even.  Not true.  Obama leads 51-49, and with 25 million votes cast, that's well outside the margin of error.  If you factor Florida in, Obama still leads by almost 300K votes.  It's only when you factor MI in, where NOT A SINGLE VOTE was cast for Obama, that Clinton ekes out a slim, statistically meaningless lead.  If Obama retains this popular vote lead and if he retains his lead in pledged delegates, there's no way the super delegates won't follow suit, and I just don't see how even with wins in PA and PR, Clinton passes Obama in either total.  Your right, she'll probably win in Pennsylvania, but it'll be close and won't greatly alter the spread in votes and delgates.  And while she may score big in PR, that'll be more than matched by Obama blow-outs in Mississippi my current home state of North Carolina.

I'd like to see some verbiage on how well Obama does in the South, by which I mean the old Confederate states excluding Florida and Texas.  He's helped by his overwhelming support among blacks, to be sure, but my impression is he's winning the Southern white male vote as well.  

- aeromonas

March 6, 2008 at 9:38pm