Clinton Takes Ohio, Texas; McCain Seals The Deal

You can read it pretty much anywhere, but Clinton took Ohio and Texas meaning that the democratic primaries are far from over. Unlike the Dems, McCain has locked his nomination for the Republicans by breaking the 1,191 delegates necessary. So there it is. Talk amongst yourselves.

Expect a Clinton surge per the Republicans

[JustASlashDotGuy (905444)]

Now that McCain has clinched the nod, expect all those that would have voted for McCain 'when it mattered' to now vote for Clinton when possible. Clinton is by far the easier candidate to beat and everyone knows it. It's very possible the republicans are what helped Clinton win in the Texas primary.

We will now see McCain attacking Obama, Clinton attacking Obama, and republicans voting for Clinton all at once. I hope Obama is up for the fight.

Re:Expect a Clinton surge per the Republicans

[spleen_blender (949762)]

Not in Texas and Ohio, hence OPEN PRIMARIES.

Carry on.

Republicans voting against Obama

[Pizaz (594643)]

There's plenty of evidence that in both Texas and Ohio, Republicans are voting for Hillary in order to "bloody Obama" politically. Rush Limbaugh has been urging his listeners to do that for weeks. http://www.middletownjournal.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/03/04/mj030408switchweb.html [middletownjournal.com] Similar stories are coming in about Ohio. The political machine is starting to conspire against Obama from both sides. But I still believe that Obama will win the nomination because Hillary has a math problem. http://www.newsweek.com/id/118240 [newsweek.com] But the feeling of dread comes from the notion that even if she loses the delegate count, that she'll still be able to pull out a victory via her usual shenanigans. She's going to fight to have Michigan and Florida's delegates seated even though in Michigan for instance, Barack's name wasnt even on the ballot.

Still about Florida and Michigan.

[Average (648)]

The nifty thing for Obama, is that he is far enough ahead in pledged delegates that he still doesn't have to go sharply negative. Notice the things he hasn't talked about. Tax returns? Bill's last minute pardons (against the advice of the Justice Department, but for people who paid consulting fees to Hillary's brothers)? Kazakhstan? Clinton library donors? Lincoln bedroom guest list? Norman Hsu? Trying to win the nomination without getting these matters in the mainstream media is a kindness to the Democratic Party that the superdelegates would be blind to ignore.

The only question left is Florida and Michigan. Particularly the latter. If she manages to seat her Michigan delegates and none for Obama (since he wasn't on the ballot), I will be disappointed if Detroit doesn't take to the streets.

Texas is hardly a win

[Dekortage (697532)]

TFA: In the Texas primary, [Clinton] won with 51 pecent of the vote compared to 48 percent for Obama.

3% is winning the state? Remember that Democratic state delegates are divided up by vote percentages, unlike the Republican "winner take all" delegate process. So Clinton's win in Texas is fairly thin, and frankly a poor showing after all the money and campaigning she's spent lately in a state that was always considered an automatic win for her.

Expected it

[cryptoluddite (658517)]

The media was playing it up as Clinton's "last chance", so naturally that will energize people who are emotionally involved with that candidate and get them out to vote... just like in New Hampshire, where women came out strong for their candidate.

Personally, I find the level of racism and sexism involved in propping up Clinton's campaign disgusting. I'd like to think of Democrats as above and beyond that. If you look at the facts, Obama is a better speaker, more motivational, more liked overseas, less divisive. Obama has more experience in public service, he's made better decisions, and he's more likely to win against McCain. He's run a more organized and effective campaign. So given that he pretty much outclasses her in every way as a candidate, you have to ask yourself why people are voting for Clinton, and is it right.

Some people say that Obama is benefiting from being half-black by winning the black vote 10:1. I don't think that's really true, I think he'd be winning the other groups that much if not for the factors working against him. For instance, the Hispanic community has historically been at odds with African Americans. And whites and women, obviously, have a bias for a white woman. It seems to me that by merit he should be winning close to that ratio among most groups.

Delegate Math

[Gailin (138488)]

This was shamelessly copied from this post:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/4/162042/3056/80/468751 [dailykos.com]

This assumes that Hillary somehow magically wins by 10% in every race. Which is NOT going to happen unless Barack gets caught with a dead girl or live boy.

After today, there are 10 states left, plus Guam and Puerto Rico.

Number of 3 delegate districts left: 1
Number of 4 delegate districts left: 19 (including all 8 in Puerto Rico)
Number of 5 delegate districts left: 21
Number of 6 delegate districts left: 14
Number of 7 delegate districts left: 10
Number of 8 delegate districts left: 1
Number of 9 delegate districts left: 3
Number of 10 delegate districts left: 1 (Montana)

Setting aside Guam with its 4 delegates, there are 11 delegate apportionments based on statewide popular vote totals.

Wyoming - 5 statewide
South Dakota - 6 statewide
Montana - 6 statewide
West Virginia - 10 statewide
Mississippi - 11 statewide
Kentucky - 17 statewide
Oregon - 18 statewide
Puerto Rico - 19 islandwide
Indiana - 25 statewide
North Carolina - 38 statewide
Pennsylvania - 55 statewide

In order to cross all thresholds except the initial break that give you a +2 delegate swing, you need to win by an extra 200/X%, where X = the number of total delegates at stake. Let's see how this works by easy example - West Virginia and its 10 statewide delegates. 200/10 = 20%. To go from 5-5 to 6-4 there you have to win by over 10% (55-45). But to get ANOTHER +2 you need to add 20% to your win and win by 30% (65-35).

To work through one more example, Indiana and its 25. You start with someone winning 13-12. To get an additional +2 swing (ie, 14-11), you have to win by 200/25%, or 8% even. 54-46 + 1 vote is a 14-11 split. You can also calculate this way: 13.5/25 = .5400. 14.5/25 = .5800 (58-42 is a 16% win).

So, let's look at if Clinton wins every statewide total by 10%:

Wyoming +1
South Dakota 0
Montana 0
West Virginia +1, giving her the +1 vote benefit of the doubt.
Mississippi +1
Kentucky +1
Oregon +2
Puerto Rico +1
Indiana +3
North Carolina +4
Pennsylvania +5

Total +19 delegates.

Do you see how totally impossible it is, and how completely significant Obama's South Carolina and February blowouts were? Remember, Obama beat Clinton by 8% in Iowa (a huge win) and netted only 1 extra pledged delegate.

Now, let's assume, in a very unsurgical way, that this 10% is exactly the margin in all the congressional districts.

1 3-delegate district: +1
19 4-delegate districts: 0
21 5-delegate districts: +21
14 6-delegate districts: 0
10 7-delegate districts: +10
1 8-delegate district: 0
3 9-delegate districts: +3
1 10-delegate district: +1, let's give her the 1 extra vote benefit of the doubt.

Total +36 delegates

Overall total +55 delegates.

And it probably is +58, see below.

Obama currently leads by 160 pledged delegates.

Not by delegate count

[Mark_in_Brazil (537925)]

The Obama campaign appears to be much better organized than the Clinton campaign. Clinton tried to run an "inevitability" campaign like Bush did in the Republican primaries in 2000. When that didn't work as well as expected for Clinton, it really looked like they weren't ready with any kind of backup plan. Also, Hillary Clinton is still following the strategy that allowed Bill Clinton to win the presidency twice: ignore huge parts of the country, take others for granted, and focus on a few "swing" states to get the minimum amount of votes to win. Obama's team appears to have understood the rules of the primaries and caucuses better than Clinton's, which is surprising, given how much Clinton plays up her experience as a Senator, an activist, and yes, as the wife of Bill Clinton. I can't imagine how they could not know how Texas's apportionment of delegates works, and yet they claim they didn't. While Clinton won the popular vote in three of four states (Rhode Island, Texas, and Ohio, but not Vermont), Rhode Island and Vermont basically canceled each other out (each was a blowout and both states have few delegates). Clinton won the popular vote in Texas and Ohio, but the final delegate count will be either a very small (single-digit) number of net delegates going to Clinton or even possibly Obama padding his three-digit lead by a few more delegates.
Obama's campaign ran hard and organized even in the states where he was way ahead. The result was blowout victories, which makes a difference in the primaries, because the apportionment of delegates depends on the margin of victory. Clinton scored one blowout yesterday and was blown out in another state, so the net effect is probably about 1 net delegate for Clinton. In the bigger states, Clinton scored two narrow victories, and in Texas, the combined primary-caucus may end up giving Obama a net win in delegates.
Clinton's campaign has tried to change the rules during the contest more than once, which is really lame. There's talk that the Clinton campaign will now sue over the nature of the Texas caucus-primary, but they had the same access to the rules as the Obama campaign did. They just seem not to have planned as well.
Obama appears to be more of a party-builder, like Howard Dean and his "50 State Strategy." While moron pundits like Paul Begala derided paying party workers to "pick their noses" in places like Montana and Mississippi, Dean set up the structure not only for the Democrats' retaking both houses of Congress in the 2006 elections, but also for extending their majorities and making gains in the state legislatures nationwide. Obama seems to have embraced that strategy, and it would make a difference in places like Texas, where Rick Noriega could have a chance of unseating Senator Cornyn if the presidential candidate doesn't ignore the state, and at the very least the Democrats could force the Republicans to spend money to defend what previously would have been considered a very safe seat. Clinton's campaign, as recently as last week, when it thought she might lose in Texas, was saying that "Texas does not figure into the electoral calculus of a Democratic (Presidential) candidate." That is a ridiculously narrow view, and since so many of Hillary's advisors and consultants also worked for Bill, I wonder if the Clintons' philosophy is responsible for the fact that Bill Clinton managed to win the White House, but then the Democrats almost immediately lost control of both houses of Congress, setting the stage for the Bush presidency, when White House power was basically unchecked by a Congress all too willing to let Bush and Cheney do whatever they wanted. Including taking a surplus and making it into record deficits. Oh, and a multi-trillion dollar war that destabilized the region and created more terrorists by making bin Laden and his ilk look really smart as the US government acted just as al Qaeda and others said it would.

Here's the thing: I'm pushing 40, and Bill Clinton was far and away the best president of

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[AoT (107216)]

It means that she won the popular vote, which is translated by the media into a win these days. Obama is set to win the caucuses. What this is really is the media finally turning on Obama. From Russert's vile line of questioning about Farrakhan, "Why won't you say that you would stab him in the face, huh?" He would never have asked Kerry about the endorsement from LaRouche, yet he feels the need to act like Farrakhan actually matters.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[callistra.moonshadow (956717)]

Well, Texas has a caucus. She took the primary but Obama took more in the caucus which is a smaller percentage of the delegates. As to her actually *winning* one must wonder if Rush Limbaugh may have contributed to Republicans cross-voting just to up the contention between Clinton and Obmana and further muddy the outcome for the Dems. --cally

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[Shotgun (30919)]

one must wonder if Rush Limbaugh may have contributed

I just have to wonder if Limbaugh's advice is counterproductive.

From what I've seen in this election cycle, more than any other is that people are basically led around by the talking heads on TV. The will vote for whoever is getting the most press. With the Republican nomination cynched by McCain, the only thing that will be in the news will be Obama/Clinton. Come November, people will be saying, "McCain? Who is that?"

It isn't a matter of the media reporting badly about McCain. It is a matter of them simply overtly shutting him out of the news coverage altogether, like they did with Paul, Kucinich and later Huckabee. The talking-head, 24-hour news cycle is an extremely powerful tool that amounts to free political adds for whoever the network controllers consider a "front-runner", whether that be Giovanni or Thompson. Having Obama/Clinton being the "news of the day" for the next few months will not help McCain.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[JudgeFurious (455868)]

Where I work I've spoken to 6 different dedicated Republicans who said they also voted for Clinton on the Democrate side. They all agreed that they did so for no other reason than that they'd rather face her than Obama in the general election.

  I usually vote Republican but after the last 8 years under GWB (I confess that I voted for him the first time. Who knew he was going to turn into "Big Bubba" on us?) I am so disappointed in the right that I'm actively searching for a Democrat to support. I like Obama and I'm voting for him in the general election if he gets the nomination. If he doesn't I'm going to go ahead and throw my vote behind McCain. I know several people who feel the same way I do, in particular my wife. She's a lifetime Democrat but she swears that if Hillary gets the nomination she's voting for McCain.

  I can't believe the Democrats will be stupid enough to run Hillary. She's the one candidate that the Republicans will pull together to keep out of the White House. Obama's pulling in Independents and liberal minded Republicans (yes, we exist). Hillary will send us all into McCain's camp.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[fishdan (569872)]

Both sides are fascism. As Ron Paul said : "We're not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we're moving toward a softer fascism: Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military-industrial complex, you have the medical-industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars."

Ralph Nader put it best: Republicans and Democrats are competing to serve their corporate masters.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[PoliTech (998983)]

It would be really interesting if the super delegates do continue to support Clinton despite the popular vote.

If Hillary Clinton were to win the nomination by only the super delegates vote, and have lost the popular Democratic vote, would it be fair then for the opposition (Democratic as well as Republican) to label her the "Selected" rather than "Elected" Nominee?

Will Democratic Party leaders think that the risk of ignoring the popular vote is worth the possible reward of nominating someone who the party leaders think may be the more "electable" candidate in the general election?

Regardless of the above, it looks to be an interesting Democratic Convention coming up.

Re:Damn

[aredubya74 (266988)]

Indeed, not counting the Texas caucus results (which are likely to favor Obama), Clinton's likely to come out of last night's victories net'ing less than 10 delegates, and possibly even losing ground if the caucus goes particularly well (60-40 or better) for Obama.

I'm not a registered Democrat, though I do vote for their candidates more often than not. The inconsistencies of the state party mechanisms, plus the proportional voting, does seem highly illogical. In the general, it's winner-take-all, and there's no superdelegates (unless you count the Supreme Court - 2000 election says hi). I hope the party recognizes this flaw in the system, which only stands to keep them stigmatized as the party of political procedure and not of coherent action.

That all said, if John McCain makes it through to Election Day without a single health scare, I would be very surprised. He's 72, and has a relatively poor health history. I certainly wouldn't wish ill health on him, but I do think there's a strong likelihood of at least one incident on the road.

Re:Damn

[MLCT (1148749)]

The super delegates will decide it all - the actual raw numbers don't make much difference. Winning Ohio and Texas wasn't important to Clinton due to the number of delegates she would win, but rather has very strongly reinforced the stall she is going to set out to the supers, namely "I win in the "big" states, Obama wins in the "little" states". A piece in the NYT laid it all out yesterday, pointing out that if she lost both Texas & Ohio it wouldn't make a vast difference to the numbers - due to PR - but it would leave her with virtually no storyline to present to the supers. Since she won them she has now quite a potent storyline to present - and it may end up handing her the title.

Re:Damn

[elrous0 (869638)]

There is no "thankfully" to it. This pretty much ensures an ugly floor fight which will fracture and humiliate the Democratic party and put John McCain in the White House. It's truly amazing just how far Democrats will go to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even in the face of the most unpopular war since Vietnam and the most hated Republican president since Nixon, the Democrats still can't pull it together for a win. And even when they do win (as they did in 1992, 1996, and 2006) they immediately fracture, cave-in, sell-out, and generally squander any potential for any real improvement thanks to their laughably weak party discipline.

Frankly, I wish they would just go the way of the Whigs (and take the Republicans with them while they're at it). This country desperately needs a REAL party for liberals, libertarians, and progressives. And God knows neither the undisciplined, spineless Democrat party nor the bible-thumping, war-mongering Republican party are truly serving the people.

Re:Nash Equilibrium

[Da Fokka (94074)]

The reason negative campaigning is used so much is basically because it works, no matter how much people hate it. Negative emotions tend to be more salient than positive emotions. In Dutch there is a saying 'Vertrouwen komt te voet en gaat te paard', which can be roughly translated as 'Trust arrives in little steps but leaves with large strides'. Politicians have to make a lot of good impressions to counteract a single bad impression.

I agree with your assessment that the Democrats will have a real challenge, regardless of the candidate they choose. McCain does not really suffer from the huge impopularity of president Bush as much as the other republican candidates (bar Ron Paul) would have. He's got some character, everyone from left to right has to respect a guy who survived five years of torture. And the republicans can start organizing while the Democrats are in disarray. I'm really rooting for Obama but it looks like there will be no Democratic candidate until the convention.

Re:In the end, does it reallyl make a difference?

[m0llusk (789903)]

Is this the best we can do?

Referring to centrists like Hillary and Obama as Socialists indicates an intense and pervasive ignorance of all matters social and political. Socialism does not encourage private property or corporate participation, just for starters. You really should visit some places that embrace Socialism before you make pronouncements like that, but like most Americans staying fearfully within your own borders is as much as you can handle. With ignorance on this scale being commonplace it is amazing that we can do this well.

Re:Democrats

[thegnu (557446)]

Dude, the problem with the nomenclature "African American" is that not all black people are a)Africans or b)Americans. So calling them black is ok. Negro is out (though it too means black), and "colored people" sounds a little too much like "little people." And calling someone "a colored" seems insulting, as well. Black is directly analogous to white, and is the least presumptive about someone's ethnic heritage, which I think is important.

I grew up in Mexico, and often refer to Hispanics. My girlfriend at the time gave me crap because some group of them (I'm assuming it was The Council of the Wise) decided that Hispanic reminded them of the Spanish conquest, and they preferred Latino. Which I think is ridiculous, because when I say Hispanic, I mean a Spanish-speaker (which excludes Brazilians), and when I say Latino, I mean a Latin American (which excludes Spaniards).

Also, Iranians are caucasians, so calling white people caucasians is stupid. So hey everybody, let's just stop being insulted by things that aren't insulting, and stop bowing to unfounded, ridiculous reactionary pressure. And if you find out that one person prefers Latino over Hispanic, use the word they prefer when referring to them. It's super easy.

(I think it was a turban)

Close enough for the popular opnion.

Re:Democrats

[at_slashdot (674436)]

I'm tired of this American crap when people who have a drop of black blood they are considered black, he's half black and half white. But that's irrelevant, he's grey... whatever... what about judging him for what he does and what he says not for his color?

Re:Democrats

[InvisblePinkUnicorn (1126837)]

"He is black, call him black."

What the hell? I am so sick of these nebulous terms. Let's get it right. He is #935C33, I am #FEE497.

Re:Democrats

[jdgeorge (18767)]

(excuse the wording)? What the hell? This is what is wrong with America. I swear to God I am so sick of this political correct cry baby crap. He is black, call him black. I am white, why the hell is it perfectly acceptable to call me white instead of "Irish-American" or some other hypenated nonsense, but its a big deal to call a black guy black. Why the hell would you need to be excused for calling him black?

Hogwash. He is white. You say Barak Obama is "black" because his father was "black". I say he is "white" because his mother was "white".

Someone who is truly cutting through the "political correct cry baby crap" would say he is "multiracial".

Re:Meanwhile...

[dasunt (249686)]

How do you come to that conclusion? Have you seen the same ads I have? "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper" - "Healthcare for everyone". This can only translate into more of my labor going towards strangers.

As opposed to the current system where the ER is often the first, last and only choice for the poor, resulting in increased medical bills that are unpaid and passed onto wealthier hospital patrons who do have insurance?

There are places that capitalism fails. Healthcare looks like it is one of them. Even if doctors could refuse treatment until after they were paid (what a dystopic thought!), the lack of access to healthcare would decrease the total health of the population, resulting in a population that is more prone to infectious diseases and epidemics.

PS: We have the ability to wipe out polio from the world relatively easily. That's due to government, not private practice footing the bill. We also have the ability to eradicate the MMR trio if we are willing to push for an international campaign to do so.

Re:Meanwhile...

[Spad (470073)]

The US spends more than twice as much per capita on healthcare than the UK.