Trouble with the likes of Florida is that Obama just has to get the word out there that if he’d have known that the rules would be changed to stop his victory he would have actually campaigned in Florida. I can’t really see there being any positive outcome from the two states being allowed their delegates for the party. It even gives the republicans ammo.

Hey, it’s off-topic, but I came upon this site at htt://obamawill.com and it’s wonderful and funny. And…my wife, a Clinton supporter, read it and said it’s the first thing she’s seen that inclines her towards Obama. Go figure.

The Clinton campaign would do better to close this issue down – and quickly

I agree, but I doubt they will. Bringing in Florida and Michigan is the only thing likely to give her a boost now, given that Texas and Wisconsin look neck to neck.

It’ll be more clear after tonight I guess. I hope Obama wins, obviously. Clinton won’t give up without a fight. Unsurprisingly, given that Democrats are so close to victory this year, I don’t think they have the appetite for infighting. I expect the blogs to get even more angry at Clinton for dragging it on.

I don’t think we will truly see an end to this type of stuff until after Texas. The news about Texas is encouraging, and Wisconsin is now moving even further ahead for Obama. The trouble is that if you look at the head to heads, McCain massively outstrips Obama in Florida while only marginally does against Clinton.

This is the only area that I feel Clinton could make a case, and that is that she can argue Obama has disenfranchised democrats in Florida, and being such a key state it’s important that they aren’t disenfranchised further.

But then it is a weak argument based on supposition, in reality we’ve not seen enough state head to heads, and this year it could be a case the Florida really isn’t all that key come the end.

Another tactic might be to go after pledged delegates – that is, those delegates already allocated as a result of the sates’ primary and caucus processes.

Imagine if Clinton wins the nomination by such undemocratic means. This could hand McCain the presidency, but could also hand a more experienced Obama the nomination and the White House in 2012.

Lee Griffin,

please do not forget that the candidates allllll agreed to write off michigan and florida last year. what, does she think a “gentlemen’s agreement” exempts her?

that move of the DNC was just as distasteful and disenfranchising to the voters of those states back then as their non-counting delegates are crucial to Shrillary now that she desperately needs them.

she agreed to the act of the DNC back when she was the inevitability. now her maneuvering just plain smacks of Dubya Lite.

the only reason she won by the margins she did in those states is because she and Kucinich were the only Dem candidates on the ballot in Michigan, and Edwards and Obama bypassed Florida in their own campaigns.

so, i could see her making a real case on behalf of the voters, requesting that there be a two-week period allowed in either June or July for herself and Sen. Obama to campaign, glad-hand and debate there specifically, followed by a re-balloting. but she seems to just want the delegates seated because she thinks they’ll vote for her.

this woman is not any kind of role model for my children. i wouldn’t mind a woman as president, but not this particular woman. i find her conduct desperate, unconscionable and pathetic.

hopefully, her efforts will ultimately prove futile, as well.

–yet another female democrat who will gleefully vote GOP if Shrillary is the Dem nominee

6. I’m completely with you, I’m just stating from the perspective of attempting to win a general election after the democratic contest there is a case that could be made for that argument. It is a small argument and has it’s flaws, and is completely over arched by much better arguments in the opposite direction, but it’s there none the less.

Your statement is anecdotally relevant though in that while it may gain florida voters back for the democrats, perhaps the overall loss caused by such dirty politics in other states means that it’s no argument at all. But be clear that I’m not talking about her wins, I’m talking about her head-to-head polls with McCain vs Obama’s, she is clearly much more liked by Florida, whether because she still campaigned the state or not in any small part, than Obama is when it comes to voting against McCain…and both of them still lose out to Droopy.

Hillary’s call to seat the Michigan and Florida could actually backfire in terms of pledged delegates. Let’s say the DNC decides to seat those delegates. That would not give her all of Michigan’s delegates. 39.9% of the voters were uncommitted, so I would assume, then that you’d have to give those delegates to Obama. Hillary can’t argue that you can’t give those remaining delegates to Obama because that would raise questions about the credibility of the votes from Michigan, contradicting her argument. Even with those extra delegates from Michigan, she still would not have the lead.

In Florida, she won 49.7% of the vote to Obama’s 33%, with Edwards getting 14.4%. If Edwards decides to give his delegates to Obama, not Hillary, then Florida is pretty even (49.7 to 47.4). This would essentially make Florida a bet on Edwards’s support for Hillary. If he chooses to endorse Obama, then she went through the trouble of seating the Florida delegates for nothing.

The way I see it, seating the Michigan and Florida delegates will most likely not help Hillary at all. It comes down to today and March 4th for her. If she does not end up leading or right up on Obama’s heals after March 4th, then she has nothing left and should step down.

People worldwide are watching our election process at work. People worldwide are seeing the dirty politics and slash-and-burn tactics the Clintons are playing. Believe me, these do NOT sit well with America’s citizens and I am sure they do not sit well with the rest of the world. Should Hillary somehow. unethically, be chosen by the superdelegates to be the nominee and should she perchance win over Mr. McCain, she would enter the White House with high negatives and a keen and greater dislike from “WE, THE PEOPLE” and countries all around the world.

Today Mr. Fidel Castro resigned as President and as Chief of the Cuban Military Forces. For all his notoriety and rule as a dictator, he has the vision to say he wants Cuba to be led by the younger generation. Perhaps as he approaches the Pearly Gates, he has acknowledged that his dictatorship is probably not the best for Cuba in this day and age. Hillary should follow suit. This is a new century with new generations beyond the rule of babyboomers and our country needs a NEW President of the younger generations; one who will truely move our country forward. We do not need to remain under the “rule” of old and stagnant politicians! It is time to turn the page and start a new chapter in our own lives and in the betterment of our country for our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. “WE THE PEOPLE” want a President who truely believes in “A GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE”! Mr. Obama is that President!!

.

I continue to be shocked as how the American people continue to be awed by Mr. Obama’s rhetoric which seems to be so full of empty promises. Certainly Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain are also guilty of this type of empty platitudes (to borrow a word from Mr. McCain). What really surprises me is how Mr. Obama seems to get a pass from the media and from politicos in general. Actually I should not be that surprised as it is very hard to walk that fine line of being critical of Obama and avoid appearing racist (or being accused of racism). How on earth is Mr. Obama, a man with very little governing experience, going to walk right in and change the way Washington works? At best this will be a repeat of 1992 when a younger Mr. Clinton walked into office and proceeded to blunder about for two years, and that happened at a time when the country was at peace. Can we really afford that kind of president after what has been going on for the last seven years?

What really makes me laugh is how Mr. Obama’s supporters believe that his victories in red states will translate into wins come November. Who are you guys kidding? There is no way that Mr. Obama could ever win a significant part of the South, no matter how many African-Americans and yellow dog democrats turn out. As for the West, Mr. Obama has large negatives among Mexican-Americans and Asian-Americans which may move a Democratic stronghold like California into a contested area.

Do you really think that the Republicans are going to pull their punches like Ms. Clinton has? Ms. Clinton has had to try beat Mr. Obama without angering the African-American voters who the Democrats need to win in November. The Republicans will not have this problem.

Finally, whatever happened to the issue of sexism in this country. With everyone so fired up about the first African-American president, the issue of the first woman president has been dampened. (The Democrats need a good turn out among women voters to win in November too.)Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, one of the two core Democratic constituencies (African-Americans and Women) will be very upset at having lost their historic opportunity.

Hillary’s options boil down to winning ugly versus losing gracefully. I’m not convinced the Democratic Party would ever forgive the Clintons if they muscled their way into the nomination and then lost to John McCain (which I think is a likelier scenario than most Clinton supporters would care to admit). The albatross that Hillary has been unable to rid herself of is that she is the first viable female presidential candidate, but she is running as the incumbent. At this watershed moment in history, the lasting confusion of her defeat will be why she ran so heavily on the always-ineffectual message of “experience”.

A few small points.

Technically, Obama did campaign in Florida by quite extensive use of TV campaign ads within Florida. His campaign team has said that they couldn’t ‘unbundle’ Florida from the CNN package they had bought.

Other states were also in violation of the DNC rules and their punishments were not so draconian.

However, I agree that these decisions were bad when they were drawn up – arbitrary and inconsistent in treatment of various states and very problematic poltically to disenfranchse millions of voters. They were bad then, bad now but the fight should have been carried out when they were made. Now either these bad decisions have to be accepted or some weird and wonderful ‘replay’ is required. Clinton should withdraw this proposal; Obama should be censured for violating the campaigning ban,

If Ife and Lee will ‘happily’ vote for John McCain, I must ask what your commitment to Obama’s policies means: I see some small but signficant differences between Obama and Clinton on policy but clear blue water between them and McCain.

If you both find it convenient or amusing to straightforwardly use the Rove handbook – by adopting their oft-repeated labelling of Clinton as Shillary — what does Obama’s post Rovian politics mean to you?

BTW Interesting and serious discussion Sunder. Thanks.
There are some really important issues here to debate – on your site probably?

Yay, Obama wins Wisconsin!

10. Obama is actually very popular with the evangelicals and the devout Christians, so it’s not unreasonable to expect good competition in the South come November. As for your Mexican-American statement, I think that all depends on how much Clinton plays ball. Does she want another shot in the future? if so she’d be best doing as much as she can to shore up the low economic and hispanic vote that she commands much more readily.

This is about whether the Democrats want to win or not, and if they do…which I assume Clinton must even if she loses this race…then they have all of the cards in their hand to really shape a win.

But play down Obama as much as you like, the man is ahead of McCain in the overall head-to-heads and is fairing very well in purple state head-to-heads as well which only goes to show his command over the independent voters, people that mean a whole lot more to both sides than petty demographic struggles.

I’d say the other issue is the way that Clinton completely neglected the Caucus states- basically as Mark Schmitt argues here, the Clinton campaign were incompetent in their targetting and understanding of how the system works. The Florida and Michigan thing strikes me as a similar lack of competence- which reflects I think a problem with Hillary’s leading claim to the Presidency that she is the competent candidate with policy detail. Given that the Presidency is a job of managing emergency not passing leglislation, how much confidence can we have in a candidate who proved incapable of running the campaign despite such a magnificent win? I do think she would be much better than McCain though- but that’s not difficult.

Incidentally anyone else think that this election is an exact reprise of the final season of the West Wing- with Hillary as Russell and Obama as Santos. The idea that Obama is policy lite I think is actually wrong- he has the policies (McCain is much more policy lite he has almost no economic policy for example and got elected as Byron York argues here because he looks like a commander in chief. It isn’t that the Republicans know what McCain would do, but that they feel he would be a good commander in chief because of his experience of war etc. Obama does have the policy detail, most people who vote against Obama vote about character and its lack of experience that they are really talking about.

I’ve written a little more about my thoughts on where this will end up going over here. Needless to say, I think Clinton now has an impossible task. If she had won Wisconsin it really would have changed the tide enough to give her a shot.

16. I’d agree with what you’re saying for certain. But I always take a bit of umbrance with the idea that a new face with less experience can’t do a good job. I think it would be naive to say that the risk isn’t any lower, but there are real benefits to not having an old hand come in and truly try to change the systems. There are few preconceptions and more vision. As long as he has a good set of advisers I really can’t see his “inexperience” being a problem.

Thanks for the comments.

Elaine, thanks. Happy to discuss issues both on liberal conspiracy, or on my world after bush blog if and when comments come in there!

On Wisconsin, have been very impressed with analysis by Jay Cost on the Horse Race Blog, which has really got behind the numbers during the race, and often showed how the immediate media orthodoxy about several results hasn’t really stacked up. His Wisconsin analysis suggests a significant development, confirming the shift from a tight race to Obama being favourite.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2008/02/how_obama_won_wisconsin.html

Previous results have often been about electoral demographics in particular states, ie more about whether the state is a better bet for Obama or Clinton than about shifts in their relative voter base.

Obama has done well with black voters, higher-income white voters, young voters while Clinton has had strong support from white women, lower income voters, Hispanics and the traditional Roosevelt Democrat coalition (except black voters).

However, the breakdown of the Wisconsin result suggests that this was not about that, but about Obama performing much more strongly with groups which were leaning towards Clinton. If that persists, it is bad news for the Hillary Clinton big state strategy as the momentum of losing ten in a row is hurting her, which makes holding on to early March more difficult.

Lee (18) I agree with you. In part experience doesn’t matter as much as what kind of experience it is- experience you approve of or disapprove of. I’d also say that the HIllary experience thing has been over done- she has only been the wife of a President and a one and a third term senator. Obama has a longer leglislative record going back into Illinois politics. And McCain may have served in the senate for a long time, but as Yglesias pointed out its hard to think of anything he has got through apart from McCain Feingold. the interesting thing about this race is that there were far more experienced candidates on offer on either side (Richardson, Romney even) and they were rejected because of flaws in their appeal as candidates. Obama’s advisors are also rather good- I quite like Austin Goolsby who is the economic advisor for example.

Sunder,

Thanks for the link to Horse Race Blog. I had thought the ‘momentum’ arguement was already proven, prior to Wisconsin, now I’m having second thoughts. Quite persuasive!

Is it not however the case that, where the Obama meme gets a chance to flourish, over a bit of time, that it takes root and grows?

In other words the better candidate is making the better ‘presentation’ and where time allows, folk are swung by that?

Performance on the stump matters, maybe.

Lee @ 18,

Obama, it seems to me, has an excellent CV. There is little or no point in reprising it here, but it is one of solid achievement and advancement. Without, apparently, giving up on what he started out with.

And at the highest levels of US society available to him at that time in his life.

I actually think his ‘experience’, in the sense of meeting the challenges that faced him, is somewhat better than that of HRC.

Not to mention the fact that he actually seems to be able to run a successful campaign, whilst hers is stuttering.

I used to admire his rhetoric, then I admired his commitment, now I admire his organisational skills. I doubt he’d have got anywhere without all three of them

Elsewhere, someone mentioned that, despite all that, he could still end up as a lame duck President if he can’t get the 60%+ he needs in the Senate and the House to push his legislation through.

I think that might be the real issue?

It could certainly be a big issue, but one would have to ask how America wouldn’t vote how he would wish if he carries this inspiration all the way to the white house? I think the US would be a very stupid place to buy in to what he is offering and thus a new Democratic leadership and then suddenly be turned off by the idea of democrats actually ruling.

Or maybe I am misunderstanding the situation! Either way I agree, I’m not saying he is inexperienced as such, and any man…let alone an underdog with questions about how far prejudices in a country may stop him…that can get as far as he’s done shows that he has the ethos required to go in to the job. I wasn’t trying to down play what he’s done, merely to state that traditional experience, that of “I’ve been here for years and so I’m clearly the best person for the job” as if insider knowledge is all that makes you a good commander-in-chief, is not all it’s cracked up to be. Indeed in this circumstance I’d argue it’s a hindrance since the public are obviously impassioned, even through the way McCain has been arguing he is a different type of republican to Bush, to have someone that isn’t afraid to shake out the cobwebs.

Lee,

I doubt there is a cigarrete paper between you and I about what the objective is. The point I think, is not just about winning the Presidency, but it also has to be about winning both leglisilatures, I think. What is your take on that?

I’d agree with you Douglas, I’m not well versed in the American system but as I understand it there has already been a swing in the right direction in recent times for the Democrats, and as I say, I think that if you have America voting for Obama as they are getting caught up in the passion of it all, I’d fail to see how they also wouldn’t carry that on. But again, I don’t know what the minds of the American people are like, I can’t imagine they’d vote for Obama and then get cold feet, but perhaps more than a “majority share” in it’s most marginal way is unavoidable.

If these 2 are the best candidates Democrats can run….November will signal the end of the Democratic party as we have known it. Political pandering is destroying this country from within.

George Callas

Bar, maybe Ron Paul, I’m struggling to think of a worthy Republican either.

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