And so the Quadrennial Fun Begins...

ghostdancer

as expected really. tight race, Clinton taking most of the states she was supposed to, Obama doing the same. only unexpected were Obama taking CT and Missouri. did Clinton get any unexpected wins?

according to RCP currently, pledged delegates figure comes to Obama 696, Clinton 689. if pledged superdelegates are included, Clinton up 76 (900-824). Tim Russert on MSNBC reckons it'll come out around Obama 840, Clinton 830.
either way, i can't see the Clinton campaign being particularly happy with the final results....

a few weeks ago the CC should have easily taken a large chunk of the delegates, which makes the fact that they could finish with less than Obama, seem to indicate a pretty disastrous result all things considered.

with Clinton seemingly low on money according to most of the major news/political outlets, and the next few states, in theory anyway, favouring Obama, the CC has a real fight on their hands.

RonMexico

The momentum is with Obama and more importantly he is more electable than Clinton, especially when up against a 72 year old.

Manic Moran

CNN currently has Obama with a slight lead in delegates, 603 to 590, but Clinton's winning on the Superdelegate side right now bringing her to 783 to 709. Got to love the Party Elite. However, this will change in her favour when California's numbers come through.

NTM

ghostdancer

interesting graph showing the overall polling, with the actual results then displayed (blue line). the original graph based made by RealClearPolitics using the polls they were tracking.


Obama did better than expected in almost every state, some by huge amounts. Clinton did better than expected in 2/3 states by small amounts, California, Arizona, New Mexico, all states with large numbers of Hispanic voters....

ghostdancer

Clinton bailing out her campaign to the tune of $5million:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/Clinton_loaned_her_campaign_5_million.html


The Field blog, which is one i've found one of the most informative, and broke/reported a few stories before anywhere else, say that this money is already spent, and her campaign may now be $10million in debt....

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=520


meanwhile Time reports that some Clinton staff are now working unpaid:
http://thepage.time.com/


so much for fiscal responsibility.....

Manic Moran

The pundits say have figured out how it was that the polls seemed to indicate only a couple of percent difference between H and O in CA, but the results came out nearly 10%.

The difference was the absentee balloting. They had Clinton leading by some 22%, they had been mailed in before the recent swing to Obama. When the pollster calls (They called me, incidently), the first thing they will ask is "Are you going to vote on tuesday". As soon as you say "No", even if you've already voted, it's "Thank you for your time. *click*" As a result, the poll is a snapshot of current opinion, not reflective of what happened three weeks ago when the ballots were mailed.

NTM

Manic Moran

Oh, if I were a voting Democrat, I'd be really bloody pissed.

ABC News: Super Schmooze: Breakfast With Chelsea

This college student, who has never voted in a Presidential election, is one of the SuperDelegates. As a result, he has as much weight in choosing who the Democratic nominee is as almost 10% of the the entire population of the State of Wyoming, and over 8% of the populations of states like Montana, North Dakota, Alaska...

The parties have every right to use whatever method they like to put forward a candidate, but this sortof makes a mockery of things.

NTM

banquo

The black chick on CNN is a superdelegate and has said that she'll resign from the party if it comes to a brokered convention.

Manic Moran

Washington Post has an article today which states that the Hillary campaign has just realised that due to the rules in Texas, her advantage is not as great as it appears.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/17/AR2008021702461_pf.html

What Clinton aides discovered is that in certain targeted districts, such as Democratic state Sen. Juan Hinojosa's heavily Hispanic Senate district in the Rio Grande Valley, Clinton could win an overwhelming majority of votes but gain only a small edge in delegates. At the same time, a win in the more urban districts in Dallas and Houston -- where Sen. Barack Obama expects to receive significant support -- could yield three or four times as many delegates.

Here are the 28 pages of rules for distributing delegates.
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Texas_delegate_selection_plan_021508.pdf?sid=ST2008021702479

Can they make things any more complicated?

NTM

Manic Moran

An amusing opinion piece from the Aspen Times.

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/2008198091324

In election 2008, don’t forget Angry White Man
Gary Hubbell

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

Article continues.

Though somewhat tongue in cheek, and though I'm not sure they're quite going to vote in as bloc as he suggests, much of Angry White Man's complaints are valid if you ask me.

NTM

ghostdancer

Manic Moran wrote: »

Oh, if I were a voting Democrat, I'd be really bloody pissed.

ABC News: Super Schmooze: Breakfast With Chelsea

This college student, who has never voted in a Presidential election, is one of the SuperDelegates. As a result, he has as much weight in choosing who the Democratic nominee is as almost 10% of the the entire population of the State of Wyoming, and over 8% of the populations of states like Montana, North Dakota, Alaska...

The parties have every right to use whatever method they like to put forward a candidate, but this sortof makes a mockery of things.

NTM

ah he's not a bad kid:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/21/superdelegate-schmoozed-by-chelsea-backs-obama/

Manic Moran

Hmm. I don't know if California really can go to McCain, but he's got the best chance in quite some time.

A brand new poll commissioned by the National Campaign Fund shows that McCain can win California. The findings show, if Barack Obama is the nominee, he is in trouble on two issues in California. For Hillary Clinton, one issue in particular poses a problem for her in that state. First, the poll, which was written by Adam Geller of the respected National Research Inc., shows that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are stuck under the magic 50% mark against John McCain in California.

The poll concludes: “when voters learn of Obama’s support of licenses to illegal aliens, they become far less likely to support him. They are also far less likely to support Obama when they learn of his support for more spending, to be funded by higher taxes.” McCain puts California in play for Republicans for the first time since 1988, or 20 years.

Hillary, likewise, has a big problem in California. As a state with a large retired population, “when voters learn the details of Clinton’s failed health care proposal -- which she has tried to resurrect -- they become far less likely to support her. These messages are especially effective among swing voters,” Gellar’s poll says.

The incessant fighting amongst Democrats is beginning to take its toll: “Democrats are showing the signs of split due to the contentious primary between Clinton and Obama. McCain is benefiting, receiving a decent number of votes from Obama favorables versus Hillary, and from Hillary favorables versus Obama,” the Gellar poll shows.

Hillary won the Democratic primary in California and in Texas relying heavily on Hispanic voters. These voters are much friendlier to McCain than Obama. McCain has traditionally done well with Hispanic voters in Arizona, his home state. Hillary Clinton’s Texas victory has even been called by one political pundit the “triumph of the red necks and Hispanics over the inner city blacks that have come to dominate Democratic primaries.”

NTM