Looking at the returns this morning, it is right where I thought it would be– 54.3-45.7 (with 9,203 out of 9,264 districts reporting), about a an 8 1/2% margin of victory for Hillary (I consistently predicted 8-12%, so this is neither a surprise nor a huge win in my book- this is about what I expected from the ideal state for her- not to mention the drubbing Obama has taken from Hillary, the media, and the GOP). A big enough margin for her to fall into the “gray area” as to what she needs to keep fighting on, but not big enough to really accomplish anything regarding the delegate count. And while her win does fall in that gray area she needed, it is probably important to note she has lost the Gray Lady.
What is shocking is the turnout- 2.5 million Democrats versus 750k Republicans voting statewide. That can not be good for the GOP down-ticket this fall.
Hillary’s campaign now seems to boil down to her playing the role of Lucy, with little more than catcalls that Obama “can not close the deal.” “Sure,” she seems to say, “he has kicked my ass in every measurable metric this campaign, but why, oh why can he just not finish me off? Clearly that means you should make me the nominee.”
Regardless, Hillary’s vanity campaign will continue on, trailing in delegates, trailing in the popular vote, trailing in enthusiasm and money, but not lacking in the firm resolve that only Hillary can save us all from our selves. I can not tell you how much I am looking forward to more Clintonian triangulation and McCain worship and plans to nuke Iran over the next two weeks as we wait for the super-delegates and the voters of North Carolina and Indiana to break out the wreath of garlic and wooden stakes so we can finally be rid of this menace.
And donate here. It sure will be nice when my money is going to something useful, like beating up on McCain, but such is the price of Hillary’s ego and inevitability. It will be worth every penny to send her packing.
*** Update ***
This is weird. According to the crack Balloon Juice research staff (aka the comments section), it appears that the official PA state election page is inaccurate. The actual margin of victory is 9.4%, and not the previously reported 8.5%. Duly noted. Nothing changes.
Incertus
Look at it this way. John McCain has had about as good a six weeks as he can possibly hope to have this entire election season, and he has neither raised money nor crept up in the polls. A good candidate would have gotten a lead in the polls by now.
cleek
and those trends have been present in pretty much every primary this time around. so, you would think that means great things for the Dems.
but McCain is actually beating both of them, in national polling.
gypsy howell
This morning I feel like a Munchkin in Munchkinland, hiding under the flowers from the Wicked Witch, and waiting for Glinda to tell us “It’s all right! You can come out. She’s gone!”
TR
The Hillary campaign tells me it’s sexist to say her lead was just 8.5%. You need to round it up to 15%.
Incertus
Cleek,
Polling Report has it as neck and neck at best for McCain, and with leads for both Obama and Clinton–small leads, but leads nonetheless–in some polls. One exception gives McCain a one point lead over Clinton nationally. I don’t see how that translates into McCain leading both of them in national polling.
Cyrus
I’d say you’re both right. High Democratic turnout doesn’t mean as much as it looks like it means, because the Democratic election is still contested, unlike the Republican election. But it still means something, and the polls still aren’t entirely reliable, because the Democratic candidates have been attacking each other while the Republican candidate hasn’t been attacked much, and also because turnout is likely to be higher on the Democratic side.
Kathy
I just made another donation…thanks for the suggestion!
flyerhawk
John,
While I think the GOP is going to get smoked in November I don’t think that voter turnout from last night tells us anything.
I watched about 5 minutes of Hillrod’s speech last night. She kept on gushing about how she is winning this one for all the women out there. She once again mentioned the legions of nongenarians that still recalled the days when women couldn’t vote(Note: A 99 year old would have been 11 years old when women were given the right to vote).
Imagine if Obama were to say that he was winning this for all the African-Americans out there and point to the days of slavery?
Imagine if Obama said he was winning th
wvng
The NY Time’s editorial slammed Hillary this morning. That means that a major newspaper that endorsed her is now horrified by her behavior. That’s exactly how her behavior affected me, starting with the Commander in Chief b.s a few months ago. She drove me away, as she appears to be driving the Times away.
I will vote for her if she is the nominee, but I’ll have to hold my nose when I do it. And that is entirely her doing.
It is certainly a part of her political calculus that Dems will vote for her regardless of what she does. But she needs money, and I just made my first donation to Obama. That’s another kind of a vote, and she won’t get mine.
Soylent Green
Turnout will be a key factor in the GE, but these numbers overstate its degree. People don’t come out to vote in the primary when the choice of their candidate has already been decided.
nightjar
We have officially entered Alice IN Wonderland. The wingnuts are weighing in on who’s ahead in the dem primary. Of course, it’s Hillary. This is based on some fuzzy math, that among over things gives Hill 328,000 votes in Michigan and 0 for Obama who wasn’t on the ballot.
Barbara
I doubled down for Obama and am now maxed out. Thanks for being the voice of reason. So here is my small contribution to the discourse: It has struck me for some time now that Clinton hasn’t changed. Her response to adversity is to fight like a cornered animal, but she is not strategic and she is unyielding. Per the ABC debate, she also doesn’t seem to know that, sometimes, you gain an advantage by making the other guy look good. She would govern the same way: when the inevitable opposition arises to health care or other programs, she would go into attack mode and never be able to deliver. I think it’s funny that she said in reference to LBJ versus MLK that “it took a president to get it done,” because, in my book, she is about the furthest thing from LBJ that a politican can be. I can’t imagine her “getting it done.”
Neal
That’s the problem though – she doesn’t care if you hold your nose, wvng. It’s all about winning. 50 + 1 is all it takes (and even less if you were Bill in the 90’s and had Ross Perot to help out) and that’s all she cares about…
…and that’s the sort of mindset I am so fucking tired of.
zzyzx
“Looking at the returns this morning, it is right where I thought it would be- 54.3-45.7”
It looks like the PA site is misreporting Lancaster County for some reason (or Lancaster County is misreporting its own results… I suppose that’s possible too). It’s actually about a 9.4% lead.
chopper
so what’s her net gain in delegates lookin’ like?
PK
What is shocking is that any republican would turn out to vote at all. They have their nominee. Their vote is not going to make any difference. Yet 750K show up. Why?
paradox
Here in the Golden State of California, part of the land of milk’n honey where the consumer is allegedly deified, there is no rice or salmon. Global warming (Australia drought) and stupid ag policy drove rice from the shelves, while 100 years of raping the land–laced with a little more warming–took our amazing migratory fish from us.
We do have plenty of foreclosure, of course, up a paltry 300%. 300%? Huh. That Hillary, she has no chance, dern ain’t it something. Gas is at $3.99 down the street where four houses are shuttered, students marching and protesting in rage on campus.
Republicans don’t raise taxes, they raise fees. Borrow and issue bonds like it was only printing paper, then dismember our students and our future with horrendous fee hikes, sneering at Democrats all the while as tax’n spend leeches. The Terminator acted his way perfectly to another term, and his mission is perfectly clear: drown one of the greatest republics the world has ever seen in a bathtub, Jonah is at the LA Times to cover for you, no worries.
Seen the war casualty lists from California? Call us San Francisco hippies and fags again, USA, go right ahead. Obama has the power to inspire us out of this, right?
[shows hands helplessly] I can only plead with Senator Obama to completely forget about that corporate militarist twit Clinton after instantly forgetting this “positive campaign.” What is happening to our people and children in California is not positive. Lying criminals with lakes of blood at their feet are responsible in a sick revolutionary movement these monsters laughingly call “conservative” and “Republican” for what has happened to us.
Times have very much changed since the “positive” strategy was born (300%). New evidence of horrendous torture felony has come to light. Please excuse me, constantly telling me a “transformative” politics is here without directly confronting the terrible criminal acts responsible for what got us here reeks of childish evasion.
I simply plead my case for justice and fighting. I really do get tired of being a provocative, angry individual. Our people are dying, being crushed and their futures stolen this very moment, have been for a long time. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Really?
John Cole is a very good man, he tolerates my rambling here so I don’t embarrass my Blogfather when I need to speak. I’m grateful for the trust he’s earned, I hope he knows that. I don’t what to do, hell, except try as best I can to get rid of the Republican freaks who have stolen the country.
They’re knifing California like hell, right now. That is our reality, and as one of the little people I only know to ask Senator Obama to forget about Clinton and remember who did this to us. That is the path to leadership and victory.
Billy K
Except that the numbers were very similar before McCain secured the nomination.
Billy K
Poor Hillary. Everyone is out to get her. Probably a man behind this outrage.
cleek
i was looking at 538, which shows solid wins for McCain in the electoral counts.
Quibbler
Looks like “The Final Tally” wasn’t final. According to TPM, the spread is currently at 9.39% not 8 1/2 %.
uh_clem
Well, 128,188 of them showed up to vote for Ron Paul and 91,211 came to vote for Mike Huckabee. I think they may be trying to tell us something – I don’t recall 4 years ago 25% of the GOP primary votes going to protest candidates…
Conservatively Liberal
The wife and I dropped $50 each on Obama last night, and our daughter will do so later today (sleeping off her first legal drunk…lol). We are going to keep giving as best we can, and we are not quitting until he wins or we max out. I like the idea that we have lots of room left to give, unlike Hillary’s donors who are mostly maxed out.
Obama has managed his money much better than Clinton has, and he has got a lot more bang for the buck. She has spent about $180 million, and what does she have to show for it? Divide what she had by the number of states she has been in, and then compare that to Obama and his per state investment.
If a campaign is indicative of the kind of person behind it, I want Obama to win. Hillary has been a mess, and she has lost her way in this campaign. She has forgotten who the enemy is, and she has been attacking her own party for way too long. She has forgotten that she was to win on her strengths, and that strength was not supposed to be trashing another party member, his supporters and the states they live in.
She has been the worst thing to happen to the party in years, but what is really horrible is that Hillary and her supporters are proud of what they have done.
That is really sad to see. Divide and conquer, that is all that is left for them. Well, when you campaign like that, even if you win you have wiped out the enemy rather than co-opted them in to your fold. A Pyrrhic victory indeed.
dr. bloor
Looks like “The Final Tally” wasn’t final. According to TPM, the spread is currently at 9.39% not 8 1/2 %.
Who cares? Make it an even 10%. Or 12%. Or bigger. As Hunter said over at GOS, Obama has the nomination unless he’s eaten by a bear.
He’d be nuts to even mention Clinton’s name in his campaigning from here on out. He’s running against McCain now.
ThymeZone
I’m almost donated-out for Obama, approaching the legal limit for the primary. Putting aside the money I give to ACLU and to Antiwar.Com, it’s more than all the money I’ve given to politicians in my life put together. But I will cough up the rest of my remaining dollars here in the next week or so. Who needs food when there’s a country to save?
I’m disappointed in the PA outcome, to say the least, I thought we’d get the Beast down to 4-5 points. But I didn’t count on the mountain of shit they would throw in our way, and the crass manipulations. I have relatives in PA, in Lancaster County, and forgot what it’s like out there and how hard it would be for Obama in some of those districts.
I’m completely tired of politics at this point and I don’t really know where the campaigns are getting their energy right now. I give them all a lot of ‘spect for slapping on those toothy smiles and keeping on keeping on.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Heh, that is a good analogy. So is McCain the Smiler?
Jake
I second the calls questioning the turnout here. I would be curious to know just how many Republicans switched sides just for this primary to vote for HRC and keep the fight alive. Perhaps that info wasn’t polled or the impact isn’t viewed to be significant, I’m not sure.
Anyway, yeah, I’m going to throw the Obama campaign another donation this morning.
Zifnab
The primaries aren’t all just about Presidential Candidates. I voted as a Republican in Texas in order to pick my preferred candidates for state and national Congress (since the Dem tickets were uncontested). I also voted on a few amendment proposals.
Those types of races typically draw in a much smaller electorate. But they are arguably just as important – if not more important – than the Prez nominee vote.
The Huckabee / Paul protest vote is cute, though.
AkaDad
Because
they’re running Operation Chaos.SHUT UP, that’s why.ThymeZone
The Smiter? That’s how I think of him.
The grumpy old guy who will kick those ragheads in the shins just for the fun of it? No not ME, McCain, dammit.
I’ve been listening to some of his unedited speeches lately on XM radio …. the man is really a disaster. In every aspect of disasteriness. Yes, I will vote for the HBeast if I have to. But I’m not planning on having to do that.
PeterJ
While my dislike for Clinton has skyrocketed, that’s not true. Exit polls from 1992 showed that Perot voters would have split evenly between Bush and Clinton. The idea that Perot was a spoiler canidate is a GOP talking point. If you want a real spoiler canidate look no further than 2000 and Nader…
Zifnab
I’ll say. You’re still just as misogynistic as ever. Hillary hater trying to smudge the vote by .9%, hmph! Hey John, why do you still beat your wife?
chopper
perot didn’t pull votes from the GOP, but his presence in the race sure as hell helped bill.
Zifnab
Woo! Transmetropolitian reference for the win! I have him pegged more as The Beast, in so far as he’s got that wicked temper and the superiority complex, but is still interested in seeing that at least 51% of the country doesn’t come crumbling down around his ears.
Cain
I’m with TZ, I feel tapped out and I’m not eve in the campaign. Several more contests to go. I’m going to be glad when this is all over.
cain
rob!
as a die-hard Obama supporter, i do believe there are some justifiable reasons to question his getting the nomination at this point. he’s lost a lot of big states, and that counts.
its dishonest for any Obama supporter to act like it doesn’t matter, ‘cos it does. (we don’t like it when Hillary dismisses states she loses, so we shouldn’t do it, either)
the problem for Hillary is (other than having to *sigh* deal with the rest of us mere mortals–Hillary, you are too good for this world) that, if Obama doesn’t deserve the nomination, then Hillary REALLY DOESN’T DESERVE IT.
if you’re behind in every way these things are counted–# of states, popular, delegates, charm, honesty, etc.–then you lose. sorry, go home.
so then we’re left with no one!
thanks, Democratic Party! wonderful system you’ve got here!
and you wonder why i avoid your fundraising calls?
AxelDC
McCain hasn’t had a good 6 weeks. He has had the good fortune of being ignored for 6 weeks. Because of Clinton’s relentless attacks on pointless issues, McCain’s ignorance on Iraq, Iran and the economy have gone unreported.
54% of PA voters called the economy the #1 issue, followed by Iraq. McCain is severely flawed in both those categories. He has embraced Bush has his patron, and Bush is at -41 in popularity (28-69).
All this means is that unless McCain dramatically improves his game soon, Obama will eliminate Clinton and the spotlight will be back on him. How would he fair in a debate that starts off with the Keating 5, his association with Abramoff, his wife’s missing tax returns, his infidelities, and then finally focuses on his ignorance on Iraq and simple Econ 101?
McCain is floundering during his honeymoon, still behind Clinton and Obama in the Gallup polls. Once the spotlight shines on his weaknesses, and they are many, he will not have time to pick on Obama for lapel pins and church bulletins.
Raenelle
If Hillary had ever fought this hard for something that benefited the American people–like say, opposing the fucking Iraq War, or opposing giving creepy W. more power of any kind ever–then I wouldn’t be so alarmed at the prospect of having her around for a couple of more months. But she never did, and I have come to really despise her for her calculation and tired centrism and insincere personal moments . . . She can fight; she just doesn’t do it unless it benefits her directly and personally. Fuck her. Though, if the unlikely happens and she steals the nomination, I’ll vote for her. It just makes me nauseous to think about that.
Doonhamer
Sully has this posted; like him, it cheered me a bit.
PeterJ
Very interesting result from the special election in MS-01 (a R+10 district).
les
Why is it so hard to remember that this is a primary. Losses, wins–it’s only within one party (except for Hil’s natural republican/centrist support). Neither (despite the hilbots and concern trolls) is predictive of the general. Jebus.
Conservatively Liberal
That clip says it all Doonhamer, that is just so funny! “Lead the Union army to defeat…”, now that is gold! The voice-over sounds like a someone I heard in school films in the sixties.
Her campaign IS history.
Incertus
Who you lose them to makes a big difference, however. Clinton’s win in PA doesn’t mean Obama won’t win there in the general–it just means they liked her a little more. Is CA going to go red if Clinton isn’t the nominee? Not likely. Nor is Illinois likely to go red if Obama isn’t the nominee. The real question–and the primaries can’t really answer this–is which candidate is likely to do better in close states.
Dreggas
Face it. This is the kind of power her and bill only wish they’d had when he was president. If she gets her hands on these powers you can bet she won’t repeal a damn one of them and will use them just as much as bush has. I always said to republicans I knew imagine what would happen if Hillary had these powers (this was before she ran FWIW). Barack has already said he’d pursue investigations into torture and the like with his Justice Department. Notice Clinton hasn’t said a word because she would keep the torture chambers open and use all of the warrantless surveillance to spy on perceived “enemies” ala Dick Nixon.
merrinc
In some of those big states — CA, NY, MA, NJ — I could dress up my dog as a donkey and he would win. Those working class salt-of-the earth types in PA and OH probably will choose the white man, but fuck ’em. The MUP will put other states in play.
Unless the Monster manages to totally disembowel him before November. And that’s the real worry.
Dreggas
one thing I find totally laughable here is the whole “he can’t win big states” bullshit. First off this is a dem primary meaning only dems are voting and they are splitting to vote for their preferred dem candidate.
One of the exit polls last night talked about whether the voter would vote for the nominee in the fall if it wasn’t their preferred candidate. More Hillary supporters said they would not, something like 20+%. so 20% of her voters, which was 54% is roughly 10% of all the dems voting in the primary. That means that Obama would get about 90% of the dem vote in the general election against the republican candidate. if 2.5 million voters turned out to vote for the dem candidate vs. 750k for the republican candidate that means that in Penn, if Obama got all the votes he received last night plus the Hillrod supporters who would vote for him he’d trounce the republican candidate in Penn. This “big state” bullshit is just that, bullshit and as the old saying goes “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with bullshit”.
Cain
So, I’m thinking Clinton has raied what? 2-4 million or something like that yesterday? I think Obama need to get Clinton pwned in money. If he goes into Indiana with his war chest refilled, that would deflate the sails of the Hillary camp.
cain
Martin
Even when it was contested on the Republican side, the Dems blew them out of the water. It’s never even been close – even in red states.
It says something qualitative about the state of the two parties. But it also raises a point for the Clinton supporters that think the primaries are reflections of the general election: If they were, and vote percentages stayed consistent across the board – Obama would win in a landslide. It’d be the biggest blowout in half a century. But the polls don’t reflect that. They show a fairly tight race with McCain. So which is it? Do the primaries tell us something about the general or don’t they?
The truth is that they really don’t. I think they show that there is more energy in the Democratic party, but it says fairly little about who can win what states.
And there were some comments about Clinton possibly losing the AA vote if she wins this. I may not have been clear with my point. My point wasn’t that she would lose them if she won delegates in the next contests and the supers broke for her. My point is that if FL/MI get seated or if an overt case is made that she should be the nominee in spite of a delegate lead for Obama, then she’ll lose them. It would be viewed my many as the party gaming the rules to make sure that the black guy doesn’t win.
One of the things that has most pissed off the AA community is this constant narrative of alternate rules for Hillary. It’s not helping her win voters when it looks like white people get to make up their own rules. I can’t tell you how much of a losing argument that is with a group of voters that have been asking for a level playing field and the right to participate fairly.
Dreggas
According to MSNBC her email to supporters was, essentially, a pitch to have them send in 5 dollars.
Notorious P.A.T.
Who was it that said “shut up, that’s why”? I forgot.
horatius
Notorious P.A.T. Says:
Who was it that said “shut up, that’s why”? I forgot.
The Ass of Spodes
Martin
Very, very few. Obama won the recent registrants by a wide margin. I think Rush played essentially no role here.
I noted the white Catholic vote yesterday. Clinton won 70/30. If you are looking for the Archie Bunker crowd – that’s it in PA. Not all of them, mind you, I think she would have won the group regardless, but if you want to see the voter subset that Obama almost absolutely cannot win, they are in there somewhere. I don’t think they are a terribly big group and there is some room for Obama to win some of them, but they’ll make it harder for Obama to win in certain states. By comparison, Obama won the Protestant demographic by a small margin. That’s good news for him – that’s the tougher demographic for Dems in general and he improved in almost all other categories but that one. That was his worst loss among Catholics in any state that I’ve found so far.
More telling on the ‘keep the fight alive’ is the regular media. Clinton’s delegate win is smaller than her popular vote win would suggest. She was at +11 late last night and might run as high as +14, but will probably finish at +12. Again, Obama worked the delegate game to his advantage, but the media are trying to gloss over that and the challenge that she still faces.
empty
This is really silly. Did Obama ever fight this hard opposing the fucking Iraq War? Of course not – he gave one speech. These are both centrist politicians – neither is a saint or a devil. Obama showed better sense than Clinton about the public position he took on the Iraq war and he has clearly shown he can run a winning campaign. Both are good arguments for him. This crap making out Clinton to be the she-devil is just that. Crap. Both Obama and Clinton have spent many many more hours working for the American people, especially those less fortunate, than most anybody posting here. You might find Obama to be the leader you want but supporting him by disrespecting her demeans both you and your choice.
Svensker
The e-mail I got from The Hill was just a straight forward — we’ve won! the tide is turning! important time to send money! e-mail. Nothing about the amount.
Didn’t Ace of Spades do the “Shut up, that’s why” thing? When he was talking about why it was critical that Spitzer consorted with prostitutes but not at all critical that Vitter did?
Billy K
No, the real question is, who does the Democratic party want to represent them in the General? We determine that by primary voting and caucuses, which translate into delegates. The first to 2025 delegates wins the nomination.
That’s it. This isn’t about deciding who would run best in which color of purple state. Sheesh – how did this process get so fucked up? And moreso, how did peoples’ understanding of it get so mangled? (Oh wait….I know the answer to that one.)
PK
I don’t think it is justified to question Obama getting the nomination. He has “won” the nomination. He leads in the pledged delegates and the popular vote. Just because the system allows Hilalry to keep on contesting and not facing reality does not change reality itself.
I have not heard Obama supporters ever say that certain states do not matter (in fact Obama said yesterday that a win was a win).
I am by no means a die hard Obama supporter, but would call myself anti Hillary at this point. I went from admiration to intense dislike for the Clintons in two short months.
She knows she has lost the game at this point, but she wants the referee to call it for her, just because….. ! Unfortunately for the democrats they set up a system which allows the referees (superdelegates) to decide the game.
Rick Taylor
Yet another argument, this time from Damozel on the moderate voice, Hillary’s win in Pennsylvania and Obama’s inability to close the deal show that they must form a unity ticket, with Hillary at the top of course because of her experience. Cue the outrage from the commenters at Taylor Marsh and Hillaryis44 for suggesting that Hillary would have to share her victory with anyone.
ThymeZone
Um, no. Two things.
One, Rose Law Firm Billing Records.
Two, I’ve watched her and her husband closely for 16 years now, and I don’t need any help figuring out what they are. They are shitstains as far as I am concerned, and my opinion is based on rational and fact-based evaluation.
So it’s not “crap” just because you don’t agree with it.
p.lukasiak
Well, in nine states that Dems could/should win, Obama is hemorrhaging support against McCain, while Clinton is holding her own….
http://www.correntewire.com/obamas_sour_apples_to_apples_part_one
Since late february…
In california, Obama down 4 points against McCain (to +6%) while Clinton is up 3 points against McCain (to +13%)
in massachusetts, Obama is down 5 points (to +2%), while Clinton is down only 3 points (to +15%)
In Missouri, Clinton gained 5 points (to now lead McCain by 1%) while Obama lost an additional 2 points (and is now at -8%)
In New Mexico, clinton went from a tie againt McCain and is at -3% now, while Obama lost 13 points … going from +7% to -6%.
And on Ohio, both Clinton and Obama lead McCain by 10 points in February. Clinton added 1 point (to +11%) while Obama lost a net 12 points, and is now behind McCain by 2%
But yeah, he’s the guy the Dems want at the top of the ticket.
OniHanzo
God, this is priceless. And utterly predictable.
Where is our resident drama queen anyway?
p.lukasiak
Two months ago a Clinton/Obama ticket made sense — but not anymore. Obama is going to be radioactive by the time the convention comes around — TM just put up two GOP/conservative ads being used in NC that trash Obama, and they are pretty devastating.
(an Obama/Clinton ticket never made any sense — the media would obsess over Clinton, and Bill’s role as 2nd Gentleman, which would have made it harder for Obama to get his own message out.)
OniHanzo
I’m dying to know where this ‘radioactive’ b.s is going to stand come Indiana and NC, when Clinton’s blown out for good.
cleek
this one, too:
PeterJ
I always value the advice from lunatic Clinton supporters on the impact of GOP attack ads on other democratic candidates.
Yes, the democratic candidate that can’t win even the democratic primary should be the democratic pick. The candidate that’s in the red, that’s losing votes.
Are you selling bridges too?
Scrutinizer
Oh noes! Publikans Attack! We’re DOOMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ‘Cause we know those nasty Publikans will NEVER say anything bad about Hillary.
Go away, ph.uk, if that’s the best you’ve got.
Dennis - SGMM
And why would the GOP be running attack ads against Obama? Couldn’t be because they’d prefer to have McCain run against McCain-in-a-Pantsuit could it?
cleek
i’ve always said we need a candidate with GOP pre-approval… so sad that the Dems didn’t listen!
ThymeZone
Lukasiak sets new records for (a) having nothing to say and (b) saying it over and over and over again, at length, to anyone who doesn’t want to hear it.
Poll numbers against McCain … in April?
Gee, why not anecdotes about how your dog walker heard that Obama is gay? Why not throw that in?
Fucking wanker.
What a surprise that a contest between two people who are household names has a different look, in April, than a contest between a household name, and a new black guy with a funny sounding name!
That’s penetrating analysis, folks! Really!
GTFO lukasiak, you suck.
PaulB
Really? And you have the poll numbers to back up that assertion?
Yeah, I thought not.
PaulB
Yup. So nice to have you aboard.
Ted
Damn, that is seriously funny.
Bob In Pacifica
lukasiak, an Obama/Clinton ticket never made sense because she brings nothing to Obama’s ticket. (Please, does anyone really think that she’ll pull in the big “important” states for him?) Besides, if the reactionaries who want Republicans can do business with a Clinton but not an Obama, Barack will have to be looking over his shoulder all the time. I lived through Dallas 1963.
chopper
besides which, if obama wanted a veep who brought more of the working-class and white vote he could do a lot better than a woman who 40 percent of the population wouldn’t vote for if she were on fire.
what obama is lacking would not realistically be made up for by hillary. several things hill is lacking would be made up for by obama, but that still doesn’t mean that a clinton/obama ticket would be better than another veep choice if she were to get the nod (which she won’t).
in other words, while obama would bring far more to hill’s ticket than hill would bring to obama’s, either would do better to get someone else.
Tax Analyst
‘Cept for having relatives in PA and almost being maxed out we’re on the same page. Considering I never-ever made a political contribution in my life and am a notorious cheap-ass I’m crediting myself with a tremendous leap in the amounts I’ve contributed so far – not to mention what I plan to toss in as things progress. There’s just too much at stake and I sense a very real possibility of positive change with Obama. The number of everyday people willing to make a tangible investment in Obama is really the point here. That’s a phenomenon I’ve never seen before here in America.
And I think you have to be really uninvolved, unobservant or just plain obtuse to miss that component.
Voting for Hillary (and yes, I will if she somehow gets the nomination) is really accepting the way things are now and hoping things get better. There would be little else to do considering how dismal the prospect is of a John McCain presidency. But she hasn’t said anything that made sense in that last few months about how she was going to do that, just a lot of “50 + 1” pandering that sets that 50+1 against the other 49+everybody except that “1”, and what she has said in many cases has shown a level of cynicism that I find completely distasteful. The crap she was blowing off about Iran was absolutely pointless and totally idiotic. But she apparently thought it might solidify her support among American Jews (I happen to be one, and no, it did not serve to recommend her candidacy to me) and that was all that mattered. I don’t like that type of thinking…it just doesn’t serve anyone except Hillary Clinton. Israel certainly didn’t need it and neither did America.
Barbara
Regarding Raenelle: The Clintons had the opportunity to take those goodies that the Republicans wanted for a long time, like Welfare reform and NAFTA, and leverage them to fight for things that the Clintons earnestly professed to believe in — most notably health care reform — and they never even tried. It’s true that the Congress was different, and even the Democratic Congress that Bill inherited was quite hostile to him, compared to the Republican Congress that Bush inherited, for instance, in its utterly servile relationship with him. But this fighting spirit was notably absent when it meant fighting for workers, unlike fighting for welfare reform and NAFTA, and getting re-elected and avoiding impeachment (hard to argue with that), where Bill and Hillary pulled out all the stops. It doesn’t matter whether you supported any of these — my only point is that the Cliton’s actions are a much better indication of their true priorities than their noble sentiments are.
The Other Steve
As opposed to Hitlery, who has no baggage at all and is well liked by everyone.
Brachiator
Actually, I think that Obama should seriously consider offering the VP slot to Hillary after he has locked up the nomination. It might go a long way towards soothing the sentiments of those who believe that it is “time” for a woman president, and that Senator Clinton should be that president. I was listening to a woman who called in to one of the local public radio stations note that she had tears of happiness in her eyes as she thought that voting for Clinton in the CA primary might also be a vote for the first woman president. This sentiment among some voters cannot be dismissed or ignored, and Obama will have to deal with the sense of disappointment here, and will have to do it with grace.
Also, there are a lot of Friends of Bill still out there, who will need to be brought in line for the general election. It would also be fun to see Bill leashed in and put to work in service of an Obama campaign.
Obama could even sell Senator Clinton as his more capable, and only slightly less ferocious Dick Cheney. After all, apparently they both love to hunt. But whereas Cheney only nicked his buddy in the face and chest, Hillary (as those old GOP tall tales claimed), nabbed her some Vince Foster.
More seriously, I think it might be important for Obama to at least offer the VP slot to Clinton, even if they both know that she will decline it.
chopper
has to suck for hillary. when she walked into this race, she felt so ‘inevitable’ that she wasn’t even geared for a primary battle. her campaign wasn’t a primary campaign, it was a general election campaign taking the long view.
put yourself in her shoes; you’re about to start the first primary and you think you’re a shoo-in. the problem you face in the general is, 40% of the population either doesn’t like you at all or plain hates your guts.
but some of those people are independents, who can be swayed.
how? well, just look at the choices against which you’ll be running in the fall; all of them are nuts in different ways. its like a perfect storm of crazy that’s guaranteed to put you in the white house. all of them have major, glaring weaknesses that are going to drive independents away from them. i mean, the least crazy one of the bunch is john fucking mccain. aka bush II: electric boogaloo.
and the only person independent voters hate more than you is george w bush.
so it’s easy, nail down the big blue states, paint mccain as the second coming of george bush and peel off enough independents to get one or two extra states and you’re golden. 50+1 at its easiest.
then obama comes along. suddenly you’re behind, you can’t even win the primary and you have to stop and rejigger your whole campaign and fight a fellow dem just for the right that you thought was yours by fiat.
Martin
I will again assert that there are better candidates for first woman president than Hillary – and there are better candidates ready right this second if we take the time to look. Hillary’s greatest benefit (which she should not be faulted for) is that everyone has known her for 20 years. It’s also her greatest weakness (which I also don’t fault her for).
But if we are going to take a purely pragmatic view here that a woman should be put forward, I would also put forward a pragmatic argument that it should be a governor and not a legislator. Not only to balance Obama out, but a woman with executive experience is going to be perceived as stronger than a woman with legislative experience. I would also pick someone with low negatives (because we attack and rule out in the general) and someone with high approvals with the other party. There are actually a few candidates that are possibilities and they’ve all been in politics about as long as Clinton has – but in elected positions all this time rather than a mix/match.
I’m sympathetic to those that would like to see a woman at the top of the ticket. At the start I thought Clinton was the right choice, but as this has gone on, I have my doubts that she is right. Most of those doubts, quite frankly, are due to the internals of her campaign not as much as the things she’s said. I take issue to those things, but that’s more personal and I don’t fault others for not taking them personally.
In particular, she does not seem to be in control of her campaign. She’s got guys like Penn running rampant in there like Gonzo and Rummy did with Bush and isn’t doing shit to shut him down (like Bush didn’t do with Gonzo and Rummy). She never stayed on top of spending. She rejected good ideas to campaign in smaller states where she should have been able to pick up delegates. She is allowing Bill to encroach too much on her operation. I heard lots of arguments early on that one of Hillary’s strengths would be the people that surround her, but she hasn’t done a good job of picking good people, or heeding their advice, or managing them. And her husband is one of them. I think all of these things are quite relevant to how she would run the White House. This is, after all, the easier management task, and competently executing the job is, as we have seen recently, a big deal.
It’s here that I’d like to see a candidate shine that gets the VP slot. I’d like to see someone that has a proven record of actually running a government effectively. We won’t be able to judge them through the campaign itself, so I’d like to see prior evidence.
John Cole
After her performance the last few months, I don’t want her anywhere near the god damned White House.
p.lukasiak
well, the one ad is an attempt to tie two Democratic gubenatorial candidates to a “radical” Barack Obama – both endorsed Obama, so there is a connection they can use.
The far right does want to run against Obama…. but they see how poorly he does under pressure, and the longer the race goes on the more likely that Obama will continue to do stuff that alienates working class Democrats.
And one way to prevent the race from being over is holding down Obama’s margin in NC. They don’t want Clinton to win, and she won’t — not with 38% or so of the NC Dem electorate being African American. The GOP wants a win for Obama overall, but also for the exit polls to show that once again, Obama has lost the white and working class votes by considerable margins.
The Other Steve
It’s enough to make you bitter.
Andrei
So by some twisted logic you employ, if she’s President, the media *won’t* obsess over her and Bill *won’t* make it harder for Hilary to get “her message out?”
Seriously. You and myIQ need to go back to college and take some basic logic courses.
mere mortal
Nothing about reportedly being outspent by Obama by 3-to-1?
Seems like there would be space in your post for that relevant information, since you pose the idea that PA was an ideal state for Clinton and noted several factors that went against Obama.
Brachiator
I agree that there are a lot better candidates than Senator Clinton. But a lot of people appear to be emotionally invested in Hillary as The Woman, and the symbolism of her candidacy has to be dealt with. In addition, the Clintons still wield considerable clout, and they have to be defused lest they continue to infect the Democratic Party like a nasty boil.
I am surprised that Clinton did well in PA even though it has become increasingly obvious that she is running more on her husband’s achievements and the vague promise that she can both continue and surpass his accomplishments than on her own very insubstantial qualifications. I am also surprised that she did well despite outright lying and nastiness on her part, made worse by even more outrageous denials of the degree of negative campaigning that she was engaging in.
But as has been pointed out in the news reports
If these voters want Clinton, not just a woman candidate, their sentiments have to be dealt with, particularly if Clinton keeps hanging on the the remaining primaries.
As noted, I don’t think that she would accept the VP slot if she were offered the position. However, if she did accept, it would give her an opportunity to actually earn the apprentice position that she has falsely claimed throughout the primary season. And it would make use of her real strengths demonstrated as a senator.
It would also be the ultimate unity gesture from Obama, who has made magical unity his strongest attribute.
I disagree here. She has been consistently on message, and her campaign staff have relentlessly sold that same crappy message. Even when she reins in Bill, Penn, Carville and others, she lets their poison keep dripping. It is this venom combined with her essential emptiness that convinced me that she was not presidential. However, she and Bill still have to be dealt with, and the last wisps of support that they have among voters also must be acknowledged because they are not ordinary people, but master politicians who cling to their status as former president and First Lady.
chopper
dude’s been under hell of pressure this whole primary season, going up against the clinton machine and all, yet he’s consistently been in the lead since day one. he didn’t just take the lead, he’s held onto it since iowa.
besides, everybody was calling his candidacy finished during the wright flap and he managed to turn the dropping poll numbers around. looks like he does pretty damn well under pressure.
reid
I’m with John. After this is over, Hillary needs to slink back to NY and lay low for a long time. She’s acted pretty assholeish this campaign. Call me crazy for supporting the non-asshole. (Do other people not care if they elect an asshole? Do they not see it? Is it a virtue in a politician to some people? Is a white asshole always better than a black, muslimish, un-American non-asshole? Am I WRONG?! Questions, questions….)
I may change my mind later, but I expect I’d opt for an Obama write-in if the unspeakable happens. Put that in your pipe, media blowhards.
Porlock Hussein Junior
Shut up, he explained
Ring Lardner
Note how much more elegant this is than the current corruption of it.
Sort of like Mies Van der Rohe’s beautiful “God is in the details” morphing into the Reagan Administration’s lazy-ass whine “The Devil is in the details.”