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.

Lest ye forget

[drsmall17]

Umm, did you all forget that Ron Paul is still running in the race as Republican?? McCain has sealed nothing yet..

Re:Expect a Clinton surge per the Republicans

[Pizaz]

the good news is that in Pennsylvania they have a closed primary. Only Democrats can vote for other Democrats. Unfortunately in Texas and Ohio, they had open primaries. I'm hoping the media will pick up on these stories because it's important that people understand what's going on.

Re:Expect a Clinton surge per the Republicans

[shoemilk]

Ummm... You do know that you have to be registered with that party to vote in it's primaries, right?

Re:Expect a Clinton surge per the Republicans

[spleen_blender]

Not in Texas and Ohio, hence OPEN PRIMARIES.

Carry on.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[ourcraft]

In the foot...
Obama leads in actual vote overall by 600,000. After all is said and done last night Obama leads by about 150 Delegates.
Before last night, Obama lead by more than 160 Delegates, and 1000 delegates where left to picked, about a third were picked last night. Clinton picked up about 10 possibly 15. Clinton needs =/- 150 delegates from the remaining =/- 660 delelgates available. Obama would need to be kept to about 200 for HRC to win. Meaning she would need, on average, to win roughly 70% of the vote. Although it is not a statistical absolute, I cannot imagine Obama to start getting 30%.

The race is over, Obama has won, except for the ugly fighting that is about to come. Im sure you can see what kind of tactics are about to be launched.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[fishdan]

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:Meanwhile...

[Spad]

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

Re:Still about Florida and Michigan.

[Mechagodzilla]

Detroit is a little more apathetic (or pathetic) than you think. The Mayor used 9 million dollars to pay off two ex-cops he fired because they caught him in an affair with his Chief of Staff. he still has over a 50% approval rating. They can't get a recall organized and the City Council is at a stalemate. On top of that, the Mayor lied on the stand in court (on live TV) and the City prosecutor can't figure out if she should charge him with perjury about the affair.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[mbrod]

She will NOT have more delegates (even with Super Delegates thrown in):

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

Delegate Math

[Gailin]

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.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[AoT]

Obama is going to win the caucuses and close up some of the gap in Texas delegates. Maybe all of the gap. And he's still significantly ahead in delegates when you take out the super-delegates. In fact, if the Dems didn't have the super delegates He would have a fool-proof delegate count by now.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[univremonster]

Actually, she doesn't have more delegates now... she's still behind by almost 100...

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[qw0ntum]

No she doesn't [cnn.com]. That is a false statement. Please check your facts before you make statements like this.

Obama still has a lead in overall delegates (86) and pledged/non-superdelegates (130).

Please mod parent down (-1, wrong).

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[Soporific]

Don't freak out on me, but I thought thought in some states if you were a registered Republican that you couldn't vote for a Democratic primary candidate, that you had to pick someone from your own party?

~S

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[SomeGuyTyping]

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#TX [cnn.com]

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[JudgeFurious]

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:You'd think...

[DrXym]

As an outsider, the Clinton administration looked successful so I'm not sure why anyone would hate on it. Certainly Clinton had his faults (e.g. the sex scandal) but he was smart, articulate, managed the country well, didn't start any major wars, was well respected internationally and left the country in better shape than he found it. The Bush administration on the other hand was and still is a total disaster.

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[Kierthos]

Oh yeah... this is the first Convention since superdelegates were added (in 1968) where they probably will play a significant role in the matter. It also might be the first brokered nomination since 1952, which resulted in Adlai Stevenson getting the Democratic nomination, and you can see how well that went for him....

I'm betting that there are some Democratic party leaders who really wish Obama had won Texas and Ohio yesterday, just so they wouldn't have had to deal with the possibility of the scenario you lay out.

Re:Nash Equilibrium

[srussia]

There just is no place for guys like me in the political process anymore. I'm a civil-libertarian, social-liberal, fiscal-conservative, non-bible-thumper with no place to call my own.

Ron Paul Nation?

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[totallyarb]

I think you've misunderstood your parent post. "She has more delegates now" means she has more delegates than she did before the primaries in Texas, which is obviously true. I don't think the parent poster meant to suggest that she has more delegates than Obama - that's obviously not true.

So, please *don't* mod grandparent post down.

Re:Goddamn you Hillary

[teknopurge]

You sound like one of those fruits that cries "I like candidate A but he won't win, and I don't want to waste my vote so I'm voting for the cool and trendy candidate B."

What.

The.

Fuck.

People should vote for who's policies they agree with REGARDLESS of who they think will win. The same holds true for the current scuffle in the democratic party. How dare you bitch and moan about the party being "fractured". If it's registered democrats at the convention [fist]fighting for their beliefs more power to them - this is what America is about, having the right to punch-out your fellow democrat at the convention because you don't agree with their candidate's policies.

Regards,

Re:why is texas a win for her?

[TheRaven64]

Which is why it's beneficial for the Republicans if Hillary gets nominated. Moderate Republicans and the all-important swing vote might well consider voting for Obama. If Hillary gets nominated then the Republicans pick up all of the anyone-but-Hillary votes, which is likely to be a much larger bloc than the anyone-but-Obama group.

Re:You'd think...

[DigitalDame2]

All I know is, everyone kept saying that Clinton wasn't going to win Ohio or Texas, and sure enough, she did! I just think that the democratic party makes it so confusing to actually win a state in terms of delegates. A Republican who wins a state automatically wins those delegates. Not so for Democrats. Even if you win the state, you still have to win delegates. In Texas' case, Clinton wins 2/3 of the delegates since she won the state, but there is still 1/3 of delegates up for grabs in the caucus. And we already know that Clinton is trailing behind Obama with delegates. All I know is, go CLINTON!!!!!

Re:Looking Forward..

[Zephyr14z]

Have you actually listened to any of his speeches, or just seen 5-second clips on the evening news? Both speeches I've seen in person have been very heavy on substance, and not just empty rhetoric. It does seem to be a common misconception, perpetrated by the clinton campaign, that he doesn't actually address issues, but it's just flat-out not true. Don't just parrot what you hear, do a little of your own research.

Re:Nash Equilibrium

[Cornflake917]

It never ceases to amuse me how McCain supporters will paint Clinton & Obama as hardcore Democrats and call McCain a moderate conservative while Clinton & Obama supporters paint McCain as a hardcore Republican and argue their candidate being a moderate liberal.

According to the Political Compass [politicalcompass.org], all the remaining candidates are more or less moderate conservatives. If only the candidates were actually politically different, maybe U.S. would have a reasonable voter turn out.

Re:Texas voter here: This is simply untrue.

[SimplexO]

The goal of the presidential primary process (right or wrong) is to obtain delegates for the national convention in Denver. The delegate results for the primary seem to be Clinton 65 Obama 61 [burntorangereport.com]. That's a net of 4 for Clinton. Obama looks to win 21 of the 31 [txdemocrats.org] state districts (which is how the remaining 67 remaining delegates get allocated). I can't speak as to how the TX caucus processes works from here forward. I know it's complicated and not as straight forward as the 21/31 senate districts number I sited above. But I would guess that Obama is going to net more than 4 delegates from the caucuses, and actually come out of Texas a delegate winner even though he lost the popular vote (see Nevada for details).

Also, don't think that only Texans understand how silly and convoluted the process is. Everyone outside of Texas also thinks "y'all are doing it wrong." However, it's the process that the state democratic party came up with, and that's the way you do it down there. Complaining about the disenfranchisement of voters because of a system that was created before the race began is a bad argument. You should complain about the incompetence of the plan on its own merits. However, it's the system Texas Democrats decided upon and that's the way it goes. (I have similar feelings about Michigan and Florida.) Lets all learn from our mistakes and get it right next time.

Re:Damn

[Nimey]

You're using the conservative-talking-head definition of "liberal", son.

IMO it's because libertarians are in general socially liberal, and so is the average Democrat voter, while your average Republican is socially conservative/authoritarian. Libertarians know that neither large party is going to curtail spending, so it's a case of holding one's nose and going with... yes... the lesser of two evils.

Re:You'd think...

[SoupGuru]

You must be listening to different news outlets than I. I heard Clinton was expected to win Ohio and it was going to be close in Texas but she was expected to eke out a win there too. The question was if she could win by a large enough margin to make an impact in the delegate count. It doesn't appear that she has. In fact, she was leading by 25 points a few weeks ago in Ohio so it appears she's lost ground...

Re:Texas voter here: This is simply untrue.

[tyrione]

Check the exit polls. The majority of voters were post-college years. It doesn't matter. She won the majority of votes in every pay grade.

Are you insane or just inane?

[BlackCobra43]

Unles she wins it by a 99-to-1 margin, no, she won't get the nomination. In fact, unless she gets 72-25 wins in every single primary left, she won`t get the nomination. That is, assuming Obama's super-delegates aren't bought out by Clintonites.

Re:You'd think...

[will_die]

Clinton order the US military to attack over 15 different countries over 5 of them with no other attempts to solve the problem. So far Bush has attack around 4, 2 where weeksor years of negotiating was done, the other 2 have been at the request of the legal government. The US is at this time in a war stance with over 5 of countries that Clinton order attacked.
Based on leaving the country in better shape I guess you mean economy, the US still has a better economy under Bush then at Clinton and Clinton had the dot com bubble. Clinton had nothing to do with the dot com bubble and Bush does not have anything to do the house market. The thing economy wise the US was better at would be the exchange rate, the dot com bubble was nice.
Will give you managing the country, he basically signed everything the conservative congress send to him. Now we have a president who is just pushing liberal ideas and getting them signed by a liberal congress.
He is a better speaker but what is there to indicate he was smarter, well except for him accepting the conservative laws pushed by Congress?

Obama won Texas

[globaljustin]

I don't need a "firsthand account" from anyone to know what happened in the Texas primary last night...Obama won

Hillary won the popular vote, yes, but as we all know from the 2000 election, the popular vote doesn't matter in the end. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE DELEGATES, and Obama has won the majority of Texas delegates [nytimes.com], when the caucus is figured into the equation.

Let me repeat, Obama won the majority of delegates from Texas, therefore, in all the ways that matter, HE WON TEXAS.

The newsmedia gave Hillary the 'victory' checkmark for Texas b/c it makes a better 'story' and allows them to tie everything up in a nice bow before it gets too late into the evening. I don't want to hear any more bitching about a pro-Obama bias from the media.

Re:Expect a Clinton surge per the Republicans

[nahdude812]

And if in Pennsylvania, you want to register to vote, or you want to change your party to democrat (I just changed mine from non-partisan), you have until March 24th to do it. You can do it at this website: https://www.pavoterservices.state.pa.us/Pages/VoterRegistrationApplication.aspx [state.pa.us].

Note, after you fill out the form, you have to print out the PDF they give you, sign it, and fax it to the appropriate county voter registration office. The form is pre-populated with your values, and includes a barcode to help them process it faster.

Again, your registration has to be processed by March 24, so do not delay, fill out, print, and sign it today so that you don't get caught in a backlog and miss your chance to shape the future of our country!!

Re:Still about Florida and Michigan.

[The One and Only]

Well thats the thing. To me Obama feels like a Manchurian candidate. He has no background... He was pretty much out of the blue. Its almost if he could just finish taking the oath for office and then pull off his mask and its Jeb Bush for all we know.

He isn't fresh off the boat from the planet Mars: he has a long record in the Illinois State Senate and was a public figure in the area since before that. Just because you haven't gotten off your butt to research it says nothing about Obama.

Re:Texas voter here: This is simply untrue.

[bladesjester]

In Ohio, Hillary "trounced" Obama in the rural areas which are predominately white and conservative

Southern Ohio is a hotbed of racist sentiment. It's really rather infuriating at times.

I could also go on about how foolish it is for the general populace in this area to be so conservative because it only hurts them economically and in other ways, but there's really no point...

Re:Meanwhile...

[doktor-hladnjak]

Here's some stats from 2003 [kff.org] about per capita spending on health care by nation. If anything, the gap has only widened in those past five years too.

"Has no background?" Totally wrong.

[namespan]

Well thats the thing. To me Obama feels like a Manchurian candidate. He has no background... He was pretty much out of the blue. Its almost if he could just finish taking the oath for office and then pull off his mask and its Jeb Bush for all we know.

This is simply wrong, and I'm almost to the point where I think anybody caught repeating it ought to be completely stripped of their right to vote for the rest of their lives, if not actually institutionalized for drooling idiocy.

YOU may not know anything about Obama's background, and that's okay, I can forgive that. You may DISLIKE aspects of his recorded experience, rhetoric, and positions, and that's fine as well.

But to repeat the idea that he "has no background" with 10 years of elected office -- not to mention time as a community organizer in Chicago, time living abroad, degree in Political Science from Columbia stint teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, among other things -- that's the kind of corrosive disinformation that may pass for conventional wisdom but actually saps the ability of the country to make useful decisions about candidates for elected offices.

There is plenty of meat to Obama for anyone genuinely interested in learning anything about him as a candidate to bite into.

Re:Nash Equilibrium

[NMerriam]

The 24% approval rating of the Democratically-led Congress may have something to do with it. By the way, the President's is 32-34%.

Congress as a whole always has low approval ratings, "everyone else's congressmen" are always hated. People rate their own congressmen in the 80s-90s, which is all that matters come November (unless Congress does specific, party-driven ideological things that turn off voters as a whole, which hasn't happened, the only affect this Congress' unimpressive record might have is to suppress voting by Democrats who feel let down).

electoral-vote.com

[doom]

Let me tell you one you know already: if you're interested in following American elections you should be reading electoral-vote [electoral-vote.com], Andrew Tanenbaum's site. One guy, working on his own is doing a better job of election reporting than the entire US media.

There was a Time magazine poll less than a month ago that showed that Obama could beat McCain, but with Hillary against McCain it would be a tight race. Apparently independant voters like Obama, but not Hillary -- it seems unlikely to me that Hillary can manage any backroom deals that can conceal this fact: Obama is more electable, so the PLEOs (aka superdelegates) will back Obama.

Note that Rush Limbaugh suggested to his listeners that they should cross-over and vote for Hillary, just to mess up the Democratic party.

These trememdous "wins" and "loses" you keep hearing about are usually just symbolic: the assigned delegates are breaking nearly evenly between the two democratic candidates, with on average a slight preference for Obama. Neither candidate is going to reach the cut-off that puts the election in the bag: it's going to be a brokered primary (all praise the highly democratic Democratic party).

Re:Still about Florida and Michigan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, you could go to his website and read his freely downloadable PDF [barackobama.com], his economic plan starts on page 10. Amazing what a little research will find.