Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Did Obama Just Win the Primary? [Tar Heel/Hoosier Open Thread]

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No! Holler the supporters of Senator Clinton: he hasn’t won 2,025 pledged delegates, and until that day comes he hasn’t won the election.

True enough, but even though we can’t be sure that the sun will rise tomorrow morning until it actually does, we can be reasonably confident that it will in fact come up.

Similarly, the laws of electoral physics suggest that, with his big win tonight in North Carolina, and Senator Clinton’s inability to beat him by a wide margin in Indiana — perhaps her inability to beat him there at all — following her failure to win in PA by a wide enough margin fundamentally to alter the calculus of delegate math, tonight may have been the night when Senator Obama won the Democratic nomination.

In any event, enough fulminating from me. People read this blog to see what you have to say. Here is an open thread for tonight’s primaries. What’s your take?

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  2. that is Obama at his best.  I expect Clinton will give a similarly gracious uniting speech.    Indiana is going Clinton’s way– still tight with Obama closing well

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    p>Hats off to NC and IN.    

  3. I’m really irked by the fact that this “operation chaos” crap may actually have affected the results in Indiana.

    • to find out what the hell that was.  Please, if that’s what you are reaching for you are in trouble.  If he doesn’t win Indiana he’ll give Hillary new life.  There is no reason why he should have lost Indiana.

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      p>That being said, Indiana might still go to Obama, Lake and Laporte haven’t reported their election results.  Those counties are fairly populous and are in the Chicago television market.

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      p>North Carolina was an impressive win.  

      • My only point is that I vehemently oppose these open primaries. Those ethically challenged Republicans should not be allowed to vote in the DEMOCRATIC primary.  

        • If Hillary wins it’s because of Republicans tipping the scales because of some blow hard radio guy.  (But if Obama wins the he has reached out across the aisle and gaining support of Independents).

        • I have changed my registration a half dozen times in the past decade, each time in order to vote in a particular primary.  Why wouldn’t other people do the same, especially if all of the same day registration initiatives go through?

          • As a registered independent, I have also voted in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. But I have never voted in a primary to select the weaker opponent of a candidate in the other party, to water down the competition.

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            p>Rush Limbaugh essentially upped the ante by encouraging voters to do this very thing. When people aren’t voting in good faith, the open primary system breaks down.

            • If I can register TODAY as a Democrat in order to vote in the Democratic primary that is TODAY, it is in effect an open primary anyway.

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              p>If you have to be registered for X period of time before election day, then you no longer have same day registration.

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              p>If X period is too long, then an appealing Obama-like candidate has no ability to draw independents and party-crossers into his fold.

    • Its been mathematically impossible for Senator Clinton to win the nomination since the Potamac Primary.

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      p>it was SHE who failed to seal the deal on Super Tuesday, and if the media didn’t just print her propaganda most people would have realized that. She was inevitable, she couldn’t and hasn’t won the majority of the support of her own party there is no way she could win the general election at this point.

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      p>In any case today just makes this all the more clear, the math all that much harder. It looks like Obama will be within 2 pts of Clinton at the end of tonight and he will have blown her away in North Carolina. Any other politician would be asked to drop out at this point, hell even a Kennedy dropped out when the odds were clearly against him.

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      p>For the sake of party unity, a nice unified party at the convention, and a general election victory over a harder but still easy to beat Republican I say its time for Clinton to concede and offer Barack Obama her support. And it would be nicer for her and the party if she were to go out with a win in Indiana rather than a loss in Denver.

      • Huh?  Yes, if you are under the premise that the person with the most pledged delegates should be elected, then you are correct.  But if you go by the Democratic party, that’s not the case.  I understand that you are pushing the Obama meme here but nothing has been decided.  

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        p>IMO Obama will win the nomination, but that’s opinion, there is still a race to be decided.  That’s includes courting super delegates, which Obama has been doing as well as Hillary.  You can say that most pledged delegates is a pretty good arguing point, but that doesn’t mean that he has won anything.  

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        p>The fact of the matter is that both candidates will not have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination outright.  Both candidates need the help of the super delegates and they are free to select a candidate on their own, there is nothing that states that they much choose the candidate that has the most of this or the most of that.

        • scream for Clinton to stop withholding what is Obama’s apparent birthright. đŸ™‚

        • You could write a thoughtful post speculating what Senators Clinton and Obama need to do to unite Democrats around whichever one of them wins the nomination, and whether you think either would have an easier or harder time and why… Or just have a beer.

          • …I’ll spend the next ten minutes yelling at the refs at the Celtics game.  Johnny Most taught me everything I need to know about that (turn the volume up):

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            p>

  5. Yes, I’m going to holler that he hasn’t won the delegates.  Politics is most emphatically NOT physics!  We can be alot more than “reasonably confident” that the sun will rise tomorrow since natural laws.  Social sciences are alot less consistent because people are involved.  There was never going to be a big alteration of the delegate difference tonight or in PA.  She is going to convention and that’s all there is to it; at least that’s what one can infer by comments she has made.  I’m really tired of calling for a coronation before it is warranted.

  6. Taking a quick gander at cnn I find it revealing that Clinton’s numbers are – 494,914 Obama’s numbers are – 459,536 and heeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny at 260,311. I'll just shit if we lose the big one.

    • 20-25% of GOP voters are still casting protest votes against presumptive nominee McSame.  The presumably xtrian right still is voting for Hucksterby & Willard.  Paul continues to get his wedge of votes, too.  The GOP remains split and unsatisfied with McCranky.  some supporting numbers here.  On top of that, as you point out, they just aren’t showing up to vote in the numbers that Democrats are.

        • Kerry lost.  Dems were not particularly enthused over him.  Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

            • remember the famous florida vote, the gop-dominated state in which no dem candidate campaigned, and in which dem voters knew their vote was unlikely to count?  clinton pulled in something like 150,000 more votes than did mccain.

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              p>in washington state, huckabee actually won the caucus, but the state gop chair made sure to rig the results for mccain.  

              <

              p>the story goes on and on.

  7. After tonight is over, just like that last, lingering guest at a cocktail party, Hillary will not take the hint and will move the goalposts once again to declare herself “still relevant” and “still in the race”.

     

    Joy. 

  8. Obama won the primary/ nomination on February 9th when he swept the Washington and Nebraska caucuses, and the Louisiana primary.  Or perhaps on February 12th, after candidate selection events in Maryland and Virginia.  I think he’s won the nomination several times, if only Hillary and the 45% of the party that supports her would shut up already.

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    p>If Obama wins with a majority of superdelegates combining with a majority of pledged delegates, putting him over the top on June 4th, I can live with that.  It’s suicide for the Party to so energetically spurn Michigan and Florida, but it’s the popular will.  

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    p>If he and/or his campaign try to effect such a maneuver a single day before the Montana and South Dakota primaries occur, he forfeits the support of anybody who holds to the most basic democratic tenets set by the OSCE or Council of Europe.

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    p>PS:  I like that Clinton’s margin in Indiana has been growing slowly for the last 45 minutes, the fact that the Bloomington area (which CNN sold as Obama territory) is going for Clinton, yet all we hear is that “Obama is closing the gap in Indiana”.

    • I’ve been convinced by her supporters here that Senator Clinton has the right to run as long as she wants.

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      p>That said, the physics, or the walls closing in, or however one wants to phrase the mathematical aspects of this process we all are involved in, are trending in Obama’s direction. That’s just an interesting fact that one can discuss.

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      p>As to whether Senator Clinton or Senator Obama win Indiana, that’s of secondary importance (although important), it seems to me, compared to the fact that the two were close to tied. That means Obama adds to his delegate lead including NC, which is what this contest is about.

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      p>Now, remind me what the Europeans have to do with this đŸ˜€

      • We prefer European things, y’know.  That said, of course the OSCE is as much an American organization as anything else.  Better if I’d referenced the OAS?

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        p>In other news:

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        p>”Is there anybody here that believes that Hillary Clinton is going to win white, working class males in the general election?  It’s just not going to happen.”  — Jamal Simmons, Obama strategist on CNN

        <

        p>Shorter Obama campaign: Don’t bother trying to win over Reagan Democrats.  We’ll get by with the Dukakis coalition.

    • Hillary’s chances took a big blow on Super Tuesday, and continued to dwindle throughout February, but I believed she still had a realistic chance until the March 4th primaries.  A big win in both Ohio and Texas would have enabled her to both partly close the delegate gap and regain enough momentum to have a chance of pulling even later on.  But with the tie in Texas, that chance went away forever, because so many delegates were decided on that day and Hillary’s gain was so small.  It was at that point that I think Obama won.

  9. I want Obama to win, but the whole damn thing is a dead heat. There’s too much grey area with superdelegates, Michigan and Florida, etc. to make a first-past-the-post claim.  

    • But if Obama gets the convention with more delegates than Clinton, and the nomination is then given to Clinton after (a) FL and MI are seated in violation of Party rules, and (b) Superdelegates override the choice of the elected delegates, it is hard to imagine that there will be much left of the Democratic Party to challenge the Republicans.

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      p>Thus, the conventional wisdom, according to my understanding, is that FL and MI will only be seated if their votes don’t influence the outcome (for example are split 50-50), the Superdelegates will split roughly along the same lines as the delegates, and the candidate who comes to the Convention with the largest number of delegates will be nominated.

      <

      p>That increasingly looks to be Obama, although it might still be Senator Clinton.

      • If FL and MI are seated it will be, by definition, according to party rules, which make the convention the judge of its own membership.

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        p>Clinton’s long shot has lengthened, but expect her to stay in until someone wins a majority of delegates.

        • The party will have set the precedent of changing the vote-counting rules after the votes are in.  And to the great benefit of one candidate.  Who was the only one on the ballot in one of the states.  Yikes.

        • The decision will be up to the credentials committee at the convention.  And the candidate with a delegate lead at that point (that is, before any decision on MI and FL) will control a majority on the credentials committee.  In other words, it will be up to the Obama campaign how to handle those two states.

    • Watching Bill Clinton’s face while she was giving her “victory” speech, you could see he was doing the math in his head and didn’t like the numbers.

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      p>Per MSNBC, Clinton’s cancelled ALL of her public appearances tomorrow. In my experience watching the end-games of campaigns, that usually means that a few folks are going into the back rooms of HQ (or perhaps the back of the campaign plane) to work out the language of the I’m-outta-here speech.

        • Watching GMA — Stephanopoulos — who knows Bill Clinton as well as anyone — said that he could see Bill mentally running the numbers, drifting away, and reminding himself to smile. Hillary is apparently going to have an event in West Virginia after all. The campaign is now trying to move the goalpost again, saying that the “new number” has to take into account FL and MI delegates. Even Harold Ford — head of the DLC– sounded conciliatory on MSNBC this AM, noting that Obama had taken a high road and could have chosen to tie the Clintons to various unsavory characters, but didn’t.

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          p>Dogged determination to see things through is one thing. But insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over again, hoping that the result will be different. Absent Obama keeling over from a heart attack between now and the end of August, or, as the old saying goes, “being caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl,” she can’t mathematically win.

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          p>Over a year ago, Terry McAuliffe was saying that any state which broke the rules and moved up its primary should be barred from the convention. Now he wants to change the rules. The best she can hope for is that the FL and MI delegates will be seated — but the Credentials Committee is could easily split the delegations roughly 50/50 as a compromise. That just won’t help her enough. She could win WV and do well in KY, but that’s not going to help her in either OR, SD, or MT.  

          <

          p>At some point, a reasonable politician in this position needs to ask him- or herself how continuing on under these sorts of circumstances will contribute to what he or she wants to accomplish over the long haul. If she and Bill can get past their egos, Hillary has to think about the fact that she may need to continue being (gasp!) a senator who may need to get help for her constituents from an Obama administration. She will need to continue to work with colleagues who have come to dislike –even quietly despise–the way she ran her campaign, and who may have power in the Senate leadership. And she IS a first-term senator, so there may be forces in the NY Democratic Party who would be happy to shove aside what they perceive as a liability in favor of someone else.

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          p>Genug.

          • I don’t think she’s going away.  

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            p>But what could bring on an earlier departure is if the money stops rolling in.  It will be interesting to see what she can do with donations after a disappointing primary in IN and NC.  She eeked out IN, but there were some signs that she might make NC close and win IN by 5+.  Didn’t happen.  

          • But if she tries to push it to the convention, I have to wonder if her strategy is to damage Obama as much as possible so that he loses to McCain in November, allowing her to run again in 2012.

            • since it would be clear what she did and people would not support her in 2012.  she’s smarter than that.

              • Her own spokesmen have conceded that even if FL and MI count she cant catch up with pledged delegates, up until Super Tuesday the only barometer they consdiered. The whole popular vote argument thats been popular with their campaign since PA is a wash since making up that deficit is now an unattainable goal as well. So basically the only argument left is the superdelegate argument-that Obama is basically less electable than Clinton.

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                p>That argument is flawed with one exception.

                <

                p>He has gotten more delegates, more votes, more independents, more youth, more minorities, more Republicans, more new voters, etc. than Clinton has in more states and I might add redder states than she has. By all accounts just based by the numbers he is more electable.

                <

                p>With the one lingering exception-are we ready for a black president?

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                p>Hillary attacking Obama on Wright, calling him an elitist, and blatantly tailoring her campaign to working class whites can now be reduced to saying that the answer is no and THAT is why she should be the nominee.

                <

                p>Other than that at this point their is no contest literally and figuratively, she can’t be the nominee by any conventional means, only by convincing the superdelegates she is more electable and the only area where he is less electable than Hillary is his race. And if we are to overturn the will of the majority of Democrats on an argument that America is too racist to handle a minority candidate than we cease to truly represent all the values we claim to represent as Democrats and i for one will no longer support the party were they to do that.  

  11. We absoulutely LOVE the Great State of North Carolina in Nebraska.

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    p>North Carolina is helping investigate the past crimes committed by Omaha serial rapist, heroin pusher, and former Bush Admin SS Advisor Harold John “Hal” Daub.

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    p>Daub came from Cumberland County prior to his settling in Omaha.

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    p>He became a serial rapist and heroin pusher just prior to his Congressional career in Nebraska.

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    p>Nebraska Republiscum think rapists have “The Right Stuff” to represent Nebraska, apparently.

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    p>This isn’t heresay, this is all true with the USDOJ weighing in on the crimes to the man who is single handedly bringing the serial rapist to justice, Mr. Trent Stewart of Omaha.

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    p>Stewart isn’t a law enforcement officer. He doesn’t even have a job at the moment. On his free time, he has been bringing one of the most vile and cowardly men ever to rise to power in America to justice.

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    p>With no help from Daub’s protectors in the Omaha Police Division. They must all be Republicans, too.

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    p>Daub assaulted at least three happily married Catholic Democrat mothers in their own homes in the early 1970s. One is the mother of an Omaha Police Division officer. Another is the mother of an Omaha Fire Division Captain. The third was Stewart’s own mother.

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    p>Hal Daub is bad, Cumberland County should be glad they are rid of him (Ft. Bragg).

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    p>Read more and let YOUR Congressman know you want an investigation into the sexual assaults, heroin trafficking, and cover up by the Bush Administration from the GOPig stronghold of Nebraska.

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    p>Nebraska won’t do it, they don’t want the bad press believe it or not. So they a serial rapist named Hal Daub walk the streets to find more victims.

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    p>Visit USENET (newsgroups) and check out the virus free JPG photos and scans attached to posts entitled “Boycott Nebraska” in alt.mothers, alt.firefighters, alt.support.rape-survivors, talk.rape, alt.law-enforcement, nebr.gov, soc.veterans, and a hundred more.

    <

    p>The Republican Rapist and Heroin Pusher
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…

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    p>The Cover Up
    http://www.lawguru.com/cgi/bbs…

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    p>http://thebird-copwatch.techie…

    <

    p>The Crime
    http://cellphoneforums.net/alt…

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    p>http://nmail.telcomplus.net/pn…

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    p>The Republican Rapist’s Hunting Ground In Omaha
    http://www.omahaourladyoflourd…

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    p>The Church’s  Name Sake, The Miracles of Lourdes, France
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O…

  13. The March 4th primaries (TX, OH, RI, VT) were the day that Clinton’s dwindling chances of winning turned into practically impossible.  Obama won then.

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    p>Here was my take on it before Pennsylvania, with detailed numbers and analysis.

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