Posts with the tag 'Superdelegates'
NRO got a statement from the Clinton campaign about the delegate decisions…and it ended with this:
We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan’s delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast.
A credentials fight at the convention. As noted earlier, there are efforts in the Obama camp to ease Hillary out, but I don’t thin she wants to be eased out. They are going to have to force her out, and the only way to do that is to have Obama secure a majority of delegates as if FL and MI were fully represented at the convention…in other words, I don’t see Hillary quitting even if Obama gets to 2025…he’ll have to go 100 above that, and I don’t think he’ll be able to do it, because as long as Hillary hasn’t conceded, there will be some superdelegates who will stick with her no matter what, and others too afraid to vote against her (they don’t know what Obama will do if they don’t help him out, but anyone in politics over the past 16 years knows the sorts of things Hillary WILL do to them if she’s crossed).
I don’t see this ending on Tuesday - certainly not before late June.
UPDATE: Hillary wins Puerto Rico by a convincing margin. Obama is still acting as if he won. Does this work to Obama’s advantage? I mean this treating Hillary as a negligible quantity and all this orchestrated talk about how Hillary has to back out? Does it make Obama seem strong, or does it make him seem disrespectful of a gallant opponent? Contemptuous of Hillary’s continuingly ardent supporters? The MSM is entirley on Obama’s side here (the linked AP story calls Hillary’s win today “largely symbolic”), but I wonder if Obama is getting into an echo-chamber much as Kerry did in 2004 and doesn’t understand that outside his ardent supporters, he’s a much diminished figure?
Tags: Democratic Convention, Florida, HillBama, Michigan, Superdelegates
June 1st, 2008
Hillary scores big victory Kentucky while Obama has won a majority of pledged delegates.
Clinton won Kentucky by more than 30 points, but Obama’s share of the state’s 51 delegates was enough put him over the threshold, according to CNN estimates.
Obama’s top strategist, David Axelrod, said this was an “important milestone,” but not the end of the trail.
A candidate needs 2,026 delegates to win the Democratic nomination. Obama has 1,932 total delegates, while Clinton has 1,753.
After Kentucky’s results came in, Clinton thanked her supporters for handing her a victory “even in the face of some pretty tough odds.”
“Tonight we have achieved an important victory,” Clinton said in Louisville.
“It’s not just Kentucky bluegrass that’s music to my ears. It’s the sound of your overwhelming vote of confidence even in the face of some pretty tough odds.”
Clinton beat Obama across all age groups, income groups and education levels in Kentucky.
Eighty-nine percent of Tuesday’s voters in Kentucky were white, according to the exit polls. Among them, Clinton won 72-22 percent. Nine percent of the voters were African-American and they overwhelmingly broke for Obama, 87-7 percent.
While Camp Obama may be patting themselves on the back for hitting their milestone, there’s some bleak news that may or may not influence superdelegates:
The exit polls from Kentucky also suggest a deep division among Democrats. Video Watch how Clinton’s win could affect the race »
Two-thirds of Clinton’s supporters there said they would vote Republican or not vote at all rather than for Obama, according to the polls.
Forty-one percent of Clinton supporters said they’d cast their vote for John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, and 23 percent said they would not vote at all.
I’m looking forward to November.
Tags: Democratic Nomination, Hillary Clinton, Polls, Superdelegates
May 20th, 2008
The media is calling it a symbolic victory. What do you think? Looks like Camp Hillary sees things differently.
Clinton’s aides contended that her strength with blue-collar voters—already demonstrated in primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana—makes her the more electable candidate in the fall.
“After tonight, we will have one more proof point, if you will, that Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate Democrats can nominate,” said Ann Lewis, an aide to the former first lady. “We’re going to go back starting tomorrow and talk to those superdelegates who are still uncommitted and say, ‘You know what? She is the candidate who expands the electoral map.’ You look at West Virginia, you look at Kentucky, you look at Arkansas, you look at Tennessee. You look at what’s at stake and that’s a very powerful argument.”
Clinton arranged a meeting with superdelegates for Wednesday.
And so it goes.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: In my view, Democrats are very scared. All over TV and radio and even here on the blog, the endlessly repeated talking point is that if we GOPers want to win, we have to stop talking about Obama’s questionable past and associations…meaning that the Democrats have done polling and focus groups and found out that Obama’s past and associations are radioactive when brought up against McCain. Democrats have to get Obama’s past off the table - one might think this would turn them towards Hillary, but she’s got her own radioactive past and failure to nominate Obama would probably mean a collapse in the number of black voters in November, with incalcuable consequences down ballot for the Democrats.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: From Patrick Ruffini via NRO’s The Corner:
Wow. Obama only wins 53% of WV DEM PRIMARY VOTERS in a matchup with McCain
This means that Obama can’t win West Virginia…and likely means that he won’t be able to win a single Southern State, all else being equal and nothing massive changes between now and November (which is a loooong way off). Bad news for Obama - and for the Dems, who may have picked a loser.
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Primaries, Superdelegates, West Virginia
May 13th, 2008
While it has not been a good week for Obama, this news doesn’t exactly make it a good week for Hillary.
Hillary Rodham Clinton was jolted Thursday by the defection of one of her longtime superdelegate supporters, a former national party chairman who urged fellow Democrats to “reject the old negative politics” and unify behind Barack Obama.
“A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue” a long, self-destructive Democratic campaign, Joe Andrew added in a letter designed to have an impact on the turbulent race nationally as well as in his home state of Indiana, site of a primary next week.
“A vote to continue this process is a vote that assists John McCain,” Andrew wrote.
Well, I say the process is going to continue. Hillary ain’t going to quit. Dick Morris believes Hillary knows she’s lost but is sticking in regardless.. but I’m not so sure. I think Hillary still believes she can pull it off.
Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Superdelegates
May 1st, 2008
The Democratic battle weakens the Democrats day by day, and Dean is worried:
An increasingly firm Howard Dean told CNN again Thursday that he needs superdelegates to say who they’re for – and “I need them to say who they’re for starting now.”
“We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time,” the Democratic National Committee Chairman told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “We’ve got to know who our nominee is.”
After facing criticism for a mostly hands-off leadership style during much of the primary season, Dean has been steadily raising the rhetorical pressure on superdelegates. He said Thursday that roughly 65 percent of them have made their preference plain, but that more than 300 have yet to make up their minds.
Translation: “We’re burning through money like its water, our candidates are getting more and more damaged and our party more and more split…if this thing doesn’t end quickly, we’re looking at potential catastrophe.”
The advantage in 2008 still lies with the Democrats - but not nearly as much as it did even a month ago…and if this goes to a convention fight, then the whole playing field is completely levelled any literally anything can happen by November.
Tags: HillBama, Howard Dean, Superdelegates
April 18th, 2008
Interesting:
Former Montana senator John Melcher said he hadn’t felt any urgency to take sides in the race between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama until late last month, when Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called on superdelegates to make up their minds by July 1.
“So after two days of that, I agreed with him that maybe I should, so I did,” said Melcher, who announced Wednesday that he will support Obama, based on the candidate’s early opposition to the Iraq war.
Though Melcher and a handful of high-profile Democrats have recently chosen sides in the presidential nominating contest, few others of the party’s uncommitted superdelegates appear likely to budge before Pennsylvania’s primary on April 22 — and many have indicated that they will wait until the primaries end in June before picking a candidate.
Many of the 320 or so party leaders and elected officials who have yet to commit cite a number of reasons: They can’t choose between two good candidates, they don’t want to interfere with the will of voters, and they think the extended contest will strengthen the party.
There’s a word for what “strengthen the party” actually means, but I’ve banned it from the blog…think of what bulls do after dinner.
My view? They’re scared - scared to death that if they don’t vote for the black candidate, they’ll never be able to live it down…and terrified that if they don’t vote for Hillary, and she ends up winning, that she’ll be merciless to them once in office. They are caught between the rockiest of rocks and the hardest of hard places - and I can’t help but laugh at them. This is a huge “we told you so” moment for the right - we told you liberals that if you kowtowed to leftwing ideas on race and gender that it would just mess things up…and now it has. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving political party.
How it will come out will be determined by a calculation - as superdelegates move to commit, whom do they think likely to win the nomination? In this, of course, their biggest problem will be the fact that they believe polls and MSM punditry and this could result in a lot of really mistaken choices. The other factor in the calculation is how effectively Hillary can offer bribes and hint of threats behind rejection. How ever it is, we GOPers will have a ball watching it…
Tags: HillBama, Superdelegates
April 6th, 2008
Hillary reportedly said to Bill Richardson that Barack Obama “cannot win,” but has since given a rather unconvincing denial that she ever made such a comment. Honestly, I don’t see why a denial is even necessary. Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. If Obama does get the nomination it wouldn’t look good at all if Hillary had made the comment. But let’s face it, the longer she and Obama campaign against each other, they both move further and further away from being electable.
And it’s not just the Democratic Party that is divided over the Hillary/Obama race… The liberal blogs are getting even more nasty than they usually are if you thought such a thing was possible.
Things aren’t looking any better for our friends on the left… The party is looking to Howard Dean to bring end to the primary stalemate.
I’m loving it. Hillary has repeatedly declared her intention to stick to it until the bitter end, and since this race is ultimately going to be decided by the so-called super-delegates, it’s going to get even nastier at the convention. I didn’t watch the Democratic National Convention back in 2004, but I think this year it will be worth tuning into. Hillary is now saying she’ll try convert Obama’s delegates.
Sit back and enjoy the chaos. They’re going to destroy each other.
Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Superdelegates
April 4th, 2008
It looks like Nancy Pelosi got the message from Hillary supporters and is now saying super-delegates should vote their conscience.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the superdelegates who may ultimately decide the Democratic party’s presidential nominee have a right to vote as they wish, and that the drawn-out contest between candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama should be allowed to reach its conclusion.
“These superdelegates have the right to vote their conscience and who they think would be the better president, or who can win, but they also then should get involved in the campaigns and make their power known there,” Pelosi said in an interview aired Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
So really, how do you all feel about the whole super-delegate business?
LINK OF THE DAY: Super-Delegates
Tags: Nancy Pelosi, Superdelegates
April 2nd, 2008
This will surprise no one, other than starry-eyed leftists who think that the Democratic party is other than a machine for dispensing government swag to the highest bidder:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign who voted for Democratic Party rules that stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.
In a conference call Saturday, the longtime Democratic Party member contended the DNC should reconsider its tough sanctions on the two states, which held early contests in violation of party rules. He said millions of voters in Michigan and Florida would be otherwise disenfranchised - before acknowledging moments later that he had favored the sanctions.
Ickes explained that his different position essentially is due to the different hats he wears as both a DNC member and a Clinton adviser in charge of delegate counting. Clinton won the primary vote in Michigan and Florida, and now she wants those votes to count.
No chance that Ickes would have advised Hillary that, hey, them’s the rules and you have to live by them - nope, none of that at Clinton, Inc. Its whatever works - as I said last year, short of rape and murder, there is nothing Hillary and Co. won’t do to win.
Now, Hillary doesn’t really need the Florida and Michigan delegations - the super delegates would still be enough to swing the nomination her way provided she can have a plausible story that she, and not Obama, won the primaries. Its already pretty much a given that Obama will have won more States by convention time, and he’ll probably have a higher number of pledged delegates - but if Hillary can come in with more popular votes as well as victories in the crucial-for-Democrats blue States (such as California, New York, New Jersey, etc.), she’ll have a strong argument to the super delegates for their coming down on her side.
This doesn’t mean all this would work (Hillary will still have to do well in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas to keep her popular vote total high), but it shows that Hillary will not go quietly. Get ready for a political brawl for the Democratic nomination.
Tags: Florida, Hillary Clinton, Michigan, Superdelegates
February 17th, 2008
How typical of the Democratic party:
Many of the superdelegates who could well decide the Democratic presidential nominee have already been plied with campaign contributions by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new study shows.
“While it would be unseemly for the candidates to hand out thousands of dollars to primary voters, or to the delegates pledged to represent the will of those voters, elected officials serving as superdelegates have received about $890,000 from Obama and Clinton in the form of campaign contributions over the last three years,” the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reported today.
About half the 800 superdelegates — elected officials, party leaders, and others — have committed to either Clinton or Obama, though they can change their minds until the convention.
Obama’s political action committee has doled out more than $694,000 to superdelegates since 2005, the study found, and of the 81 who had announced their support for Obama, 34 had received donations totaling $228,000.
Clinton’s political action committee has distributed about $195,000 to superdelegates, and only 13 of the 109 who had announced for her have received money, totaling about $95,000.
Come on, Hill! You’re being out-bidded! Since when has a Clinton ever let the other guy bribe more people! You should be ashamed of yourself! Get out there and bribe!
I’d like to say that I’m shocked about this - but as the co-author of the book on Democratic corruption, I can only utter a weary sigh when I see things like this. Naturally there would be a money angle in anything which might decide a race which includes a Democrat - its just the way they operate. Passing ’round the cash is like breathing for Democratic politicians. Or did you think Rep. William “Cold Cash” Jefferson (D-LA) was one of a kind?
You want ‘em, you got ‘em - these are your Democrats, brothers and sisters; those who presume to be President. One word of advice - this sort of thing will not stop if one of them gets into the White House.
Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, questionable campaign finance, Superdelegates
February 16th, 2008
