[Calbeck]

Although many pundits (particularly Democrat loyalists) are insisting that once it all washes out Hillary will completely and totally back Obama --- not to do so would be political suicide --- that sort of logic would tend to indicate she'd already have ceded the race.

Instead, what we see is pretty much what I've been expecting: she's shifted to badgering the party leadership for special consideration in an attempt to seize victory from the jaws of Barak Obama. She wants Florida and Michigan added back in, she wants the "overall vote" to be considered more important than delegate count, she's making references to Florida 2000 and Zimbabwe, and she's even tossed Robert F. Kennedy's assassination into the mix by way of "explaining that races have historically run into June". That's true --- in races where there was enough of a margin remaining to leave the question open.

All of which leads me to believe she's prepared to fight it out tooth and nail at the convention, leveraging her party-insider status to cut deals behind closed doors while bellowing about her peculiar interpretations of "fairness" in the public spotlight. There's already some small indication of this, with the delegate from the Virgin Islands recently having shifted his support BACK to Hillary having already declared that Obama was the best candidate. He's being mum on his reasons for the return to her fold, too, saying essentially that it's no one else's business.

It might be no one else's business, but it is definitely funny business.

[CanadianJeff]

Hillary is a woman of oportunity and prey. Simple and plain. I can't help but shake my head at her constantly nowadays. I've hated her for years ever since her stint with Jack Thompson of "Video games kill people! I'm a lawyer so It's true!!".

Franky Hillary has proven to stop at nothing and stoop to no low to get votes. It makes her highly election capable sure but I think the Democrats have realized that putting an oportunistic whore in the white house for 4 years isn't going to get a lot done when she's changing her mind every 5 minutes for what she thinks it the public will to get more votes.

Let's hope that this whole primary ends soon so we can cut to the chase of the election race. Although with the republicans taking both the last 8 years of Bush and a war into an electoral race their odds are pretty slim.

I just hope to heck and back that even being fairly new Obama can be a fantastic president....Let's face it at this point the USA needs a strong leader that can turn the country around economically and militarily.

[Scape]

I think she stayed in because she knew that she would still end up winning some major primaries and is holding off just to appease her supporters. Dean may have told her to stay in till June 15 and then she would get a consolation at some later date. It would look horrible for the winner and the party if she pulled out and ended up losing but won several states because her name was still on the ballot. It would be like the election where the dead guy on the ballot wins the election. The loser to a dead guy ends up with shattered clout and the party is weaker because of it.

[dog77_1999]

She is trying to overturn the rulings over stripping the delegates in some states(like Florida). There is a small chance that it might happen, and if they decide to use the votes casted, it would give her a huge bump because most Obama supporters didn't vote.

[Biron]

And part of why Obama supporters didn't vote is because he wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.

Now, while I'm pretty sure that Obama is going to win the nomination, I have only one thing to say about relying on odds too much "Dewey Defeats Truman".

[CanadianJeff]

What is the entire story with Michigan anyway?

The only things I can find on it are very crude and dont' explain the situation very well outside of "Someone broke the rules so Obama took his name off the ballot"

[commanderkai]

CanadianJeff wrote:

What is the entire story with Michigan anyway?

The only things I can find on it are very crude and dont' explain the situation very well outside of "Someone broke the rules so Obama took his name off the ballot"

A watered down version is that Michigan and Florida voted to push up their primaries earlier. The DNC voted to disqualify them both because they broke the rules. Hiliary decided to keep the name on the ballot for the new times, but agreed to not have either of those states count, Obama and whoever else said not to put them up.

Now since people never EVER guessed this would go this far, Hillary would have won (both by using polls today, and with the vote back then) would of won a majority of delegates in both states...and that would mean she basically won all the swing states , however, with the DNC's bullshit voting process, it's gone this far with no victory, while the GOP are basking in the glory of the Democrats choking each other to death.

Just goes to show that the Democrats are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Kjorteo]

commanderkai wrote:

Just goes to show that the Democrats are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Eh. If the general election were held tomorrow, then yeah, maybe. However, this is politics, where stories that are all over every pointless squabble show on TV one day are pretty much forgotten by next week. With the kind of speed involved, there's still plenty of time.

Clinton will concede when Obama reaches the 2,026 mark and becomes the presumptive nominee, and she'll endorse Obama, and I give it no more than a week or so before this happens. Clinton's general supporters will have until November to get over it, especially if she drops an endorsement here and there, and the rabid feminist supporters will have until November to realize what a truly dumb idea it is to spite-vote for McCain after taking a look at his abortion record.

In short, Obama will have the nomination in about a week, and will then have plenty of time to put this whole thing behind him, especially considering his legendary fundraising ability.

[commanderkai]

Yeah, but like it or not, the GOP has an amazing PR machine, and no offense, Obama keeps tripping over himself...over, and over, and over. And believe me, there are alot more than rabid feminists that would go for McCain, like older voters, blue collar whites, and others. I mean, no offense, his quote about small town America WILL destroy any support off university campuses and cities.

[CanadianJeff]

You seem to be under the impression that everyone votes.

Sadly that's not true. Only people who accually CARE go out and vote. Namely a larger portion of educated or urban people rather then lesser educated or rural peoples.

Obama isn't stupid. He knows just who to target. Just like his fundraising. Instead of targetting the party paychecks he targetted the small people who would give that 60 dollars again and again and again. In turn by changing targets he raised more money then Hillary.

He's employing the same strategy with voters. He's spending his time and effort on those more likely to get out and vote. Frankly the man has to be one of the smartest people I've seen at plotting a campain.

As for that "small town America" quote if that's honestly the best you can come up with as for a reason not to vote for someone then your scrapping the bottom of the jar.

But hey you know what. This is one of the first elections in years that I honestly think both candidates for president (assuming Hillary is defeated in the primarys) could do a wonderfull or at least decent job. There is no loss either way.

[Kjorteo]

And it appears that Obama has now clinched the nomination, and Clinton has announced being "open to the idea" of being his Vice Presidential pick. Even in giving up, she never gives up.

1) Big I-told-you-so on how this thing is pretty much over and Obama has plenty of time to shake the dust off and focus on McCain.

2) Obama is a colossal idiot if he takes her up on this offer. Moving on and having people forget about this bloody primary does not mean keeping the person you've been squabbling with at your side all the way through the general election. The feminists will come around when they take a closer look at McCain's abortion record (among other things,) so the angry "I'm voting for the other guy if Hillary isn't the nominee" crowd is more or less throwing an empty and untrue tantrum and really does not actually need to be appeased.

Personally, I think Bill Richardson would be a good pick: he has by far the largest resume of all the candidates we've seen and would thus nicely counterbalance the "Obama has no experience" claim. Latino support was one of the things Clinton did have over Obama in the primary, and she had a point in bringing up how important that was in places like Florida, but tapping the wildly popular governor of New Mexico is a great way to help with that without resorting to picking her, and it puts the southwestern US in play as well (where McCain would have otherwise had a huge homefield advantage, being from Arizona and all.) He also has a ton of clean energy/renewable resource/energy independence/etc. credentials, which is shaping up to be a particularly huge issue. Plus, Richardson already broke with the Clintons' legacy (being Bill's energy secretary, etc.) and endorsed Obama back before it was this clear he would win, so his favor status is secured, and he really has nothing better to do since term limits stop him from being Governor again and he opted not to go back to Congress.

Also, some of you may remember that Richardson was my favorite candidate back when the field was crowded because of his experience, but analysts and such are saying what did his candidacy in was simply being uninteresting. What better way to sneak good ideas and experience and policy past the "you must be at least this charismatic to enter politics" marker than to attach yourself to rock-star Obama?

Really, the more I think about it, the more I really like an Obama/Richardson ticket, and the sadder I'll be if it turns out any other way.

[Pseudonym]

I have also heard that Hillary's campaign is also seriously in debt and she might be keeping up for a little bit to get contributions to cover this. Feel free to verify or negate as you will.

Oh, and hi, I'm new here.

[Lunchbox]

Pseudonym wrote:

I have also heard that Hillary's campaign is also seriously in debt and she might be keeping up for a little bit to get contributions to cover this. Feel free to verify or negate as you will.

Oh, and hi, I'm new here.

You're right, I honestly can't see any other reason, and I haven't believed any other reason. She was some $40 million in debt, and figured she could squeeze some extra money if she held out until someone threatened to drown her or something.

For vice presidents, I'd really like the rumors to be true and for Obama to pick up Webb. He's the perfect counter to McCain on Iraq, as he's a war hero with a son who fought there, so it would be really hard to fault the campaign about their support in the war. Webb can also be Obama's version of JFK's LBJ and help Obama grab some southern/rural votes. Either that or Richardson, because you can't really get a much bigger resume of "experience" to counter the criticism of Obama on that front.

[Les-R]

Quote:

You seem to be under the impression that everyone votes.

Sadly that's not true. Only people who accually CARE go out and vote. Namely a larger portion of educated or urban people rather then lesser educated or rural peoples.

Speaking as a 'rural peoples', get bent!

[CanadianJeff]

Hey I'm not blaming the individual just stating the statistics. Frankly if your coming out to vote then your helping to change that. Frankly I salute you. It would be fantastic if everyone voted.

Sadly there are demographics just more likely to vote. That's all I'm saying.