Running Primaries Thread

But wouldn't the two then be neck-and-neck with McCain, thus making it a three-way race?

 

If many folks' idea was to bet (invest in/curry favor with) the sure-thing winner, and the sure thing's no sure thing anymore . . . the mass backpedaling may have begun, in earnest.

 

I think you're spot on BR. For me -- and it appears many others -- the idea of Hillary is much, much more appealing than the actual Hillary. I'm not sure she's done a single thing in the past three months to make me like her any more than I did a year ago, a time when I was dead-set on voting for her. Instead, she's more than likely lost my vote.

 

Some great stuff in there, but whomever wrote it (since you didn't provide a link to it) has made a factual error. Hillary got 70% of the vote in Arkansas. Plus she got 55% in Oklahoma and 54% in Tennessee.

 

Very interesting AP article on the Superdelegates

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_campaignplus/on_deadline_clinton
ON DEADLINE: Chickens come home to roost
By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press WriterTue Feb 12, 10:30 PM ET

For years, Bill and Hillary Clinton treated the Democratic National
Committee and party activists as extensions of their White House ambitions,
pawns in a game of success and survival. She may pay a high price for their
selfishness soon.

Top Democrats, including some inside Hillary Clinton's campaign, say many
party leaders - the so-called superdelegates - won't hesitate to ditch the
former New York senator for Barack Obama if her political problems persist.
Their loyalty to the first couple is built on shaky ground.

"If (Barack) Obama continues to win .... the whole raison d'etre for her
campaign falls apart and we'll see people running from her campaign like
rats on a ship," said Democratic strategist Jim Duffy, who is not aligned
with either campaign.

The rats started looking for clear waters when Obama won Iowa, narrowly lost
New Hampshire and trounced Clinton in South Carolina before holding his own
in last week's Super Tuesday contests. He won primaries in Virginia,
Maryland and the District of Columbia on Tuesday to extend his consecutive
win streak to eight.

Obama has won 23 of 35 contests, earning the majority of delegates awarded
on the basis of election results. The remaining 796 delegates are elected
officials and party leaders whose votes are not tied to state primaries or
caucuses; thus, they are dubbed "superdelegates."

And they are not all super fans of the Clintons.

Some are labor leaders still angry that Bill Clinton championed the North
American Free Trade Agreement as part of his centrist agenda.

Some are social activists who lobbied unsuccessfully to get him to veto
welfare reform legislation, a talking point for his 1996 re-election
campaign.

Some served in Congress when the Clintons dismissed their advice on health
care reform in 1993. Some called her a bully at the time.

Some are DNC members who saw the party committee weakened under the Clintons
and watched President Bush use the White House to build up the Republican
National Committee.

Some are senators who had to defend Clinton for lying to the country about
his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Some are allies of former Vice President Al Gore who still believe the
Lewinsky scandal cost him the presidency in 2000.

Some are House members (or former House members) who still blame Clinton for
Republicans seizing control of the House in 1994.

Some are donors who paid for the Clintons' campaigns and his presidential
library.

Some are folks who owe the Clintons a favor but still feel betrayed or taken
for granted. Could that be why Bill Richardson, a former U.N. secretary and
energy secretary in the Clinton administration, refused to endorse her even
after an angry call from the former president? "What," Bill Clinton
reportedly asked Richardson, "isn't two Cabinet posts enough?"

And some just want something new. They appreciate the fact that Clinton was
a successful president and his wife was an able partner, but they never
loved the couple as much as they feared them.

Never count the Clintons out. They are brilliant politicians who defied
conventional wisdom countless times in Arkansas and Washington. But time is
running out.

Two senior Clinton advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss
the race candidly, said the campaign feels the New York senator needs to
quickly change the dynamic by forcing Obama into a poor debate performance,
going negative or encouraging the media to attack Obama. They're grasping at
straws, but the advisers said they can't see any other way that her campaign
will be sustainable after losing 10 in a row.

Clinton strategists are famous for poor-mouthing their own campaign in order
to lower expectations, but these advisers have never played such games.
They're legitimate, and legitimately worried.

The fear inside the Clinton camp is that Obama will win Hawaii and Wisconsin
next week and head into the March 4 contests for Ohio and Texas with a
10-race winning streak. Her poll numbers will drop in Texas and Ohio,
Clinton aides fear, and party leaders will start hankering for an end to the
fight.

Clinton should find little comfort in the fact that she has secured 242
superdelegates to Obama's 160.

"I would make the assumption that the ... superdelegates she has now are the
Clintons' loyal base. A superdelegate who is uncommitted today is clearly
going to wait and see how this plays out. She's at her zenith now," Duffy
said. "Whatever political capital or IOUs that exist, she's already
collected."

Few Democrats want to cross the Clintons when they're on top. But how many
are willing to stand by them when they're down?

 

I was thinking the same thing when I was reading about the super delegates. They're loyal to the Clintons because the Clintons are powerful and they're scared to cross them. But if Clinton is losing (or loses) then they lose their power. So why should they fear them?

The Queen is dead. Long live the King!

 

In the stark light of early afternoon, this is pretty damn impressive. Since Feb. 5th, Obama has won:

DC +51
Washington +37
Nebraska +36
Virginia +29
Maryland +23
Louisiana +21
Maine +19
U.S. Virgin Islands +82

 

Yep, but he figured to win those -- perhaps by not as much.

Mo's the key, now. If HRC can stop the slide, she still has tangible shot.

But if they split Texas and Ohio, think it's over.

 

You mean Texas and not Florida, right?

 

Texas and Ohio?

 

I think McCain takes the state 55-45.

I would've given Obama a shot in the early 1990s, when the coal miners' unions still pulled a ton of weight in the south and there was more organized labor activity in the north.

Now? Indiana's such a conservative state that even its Democrats come off Republican. (Think Ellsworth). It's not a state where dramatic change is so warmly received.

If Bill Clinton couldn't win Indiana in the atmosphere of the 1990s, Obama doesn't have a shot.