Posted on 02/10/2008 5:26:32 PM PST by jdm
**EXCERPT**
Hillary Rodham Clinton had hoped her strong showing on Super Tuesday would halt Barack Obama's momentum - but that notion was shattered yesterday as Obama scored blowouts in Washington state, Louisiana and Nebraska.
The Clinton camp had tried to downplay the widely anticipated losses as old news - and her campaign had ceded Louisiana and Nebraska to save their resources for the bigger March 4 contests in Texas and Ohio.
But the big wins for Obama could fuel the perception that he's on a roll, and victories could be scarce for Clinton over the next few weeks if she doesn't prevail in today's closely contested Maine caucuses.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Thanks.
The 500 in the AK primary were delegates, not voters. There were several thousand voters in Alaska.
I don’t know where you got your Maine numbers either. There were estimated to be over 40,000 votes, even when the weather was really horrible.
This is where I got the numbers:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#ME
About 3,000 people voted in the Demcrat causus in Maine.
I dunno blackdog, the system has its merits. If we had something similar it might have stoped the mess we are in. Instead of having open primaries and all our delegates being pladged that way we would have a list of officials and congressmen and mayors etc that we could hold to the fire and say “YOU HAVE TO SUPPORT A CONSERVATIVE” and then they could have pushed whomever over the edge. Instead we are stuck after super tuesday with McCain as the mathmatical nominee and the only way to move forward is to sabatoge him and therefore ensure a dem presidency or roll with it and watch the party move center left. With these super delegates the DNC and the base of the party is never going to let the Democratic party shift center right.
Like the Perception that the Titanic was taking on a little water??
Pray for W and Our Troops
IMHO the superdelegate thang is just a system for quid pro quo. If you're a contender with good shmooze and a majority of the voters like you, a superdelegate delivers a list of patronage job demands and special items in exchange for their count. Do you really think DNC hacks, which are most the superdelegates, have intentions beyond the financial/power gain for themselves and that of those who brung em?
This is where I got the Alaska numbers. Alaska is a good Republican state.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#AK
This is from about.com
CAUCUS:
Caucuses are simply meetings, open to all registered voters of the party, at which delegates to the party’s national convention are selected. When the caucus begins, the voters in attendance divide themselves into groups according to the candidate they support. The undecided voters congregate into their own group and prepare to be “courted” by supporters of other candidates.
Voters in each group are then invited to give speeches supporting their candidate and trying to persuade others to join their group. At the end of the caucus, party organizers count the voters in each candidate’s group and calculate how many delegates to the county convention each candidate has won.
So that number you’re getting from CNN is the number of total state delegates (different from the national delegates going to the convention in August). NOT the total number of people who voted.
“In the end, excitement over the races prevailed over the weather with more than 40,000 votes, far surpassing the old record of 17,000 set in 2004 when John Kerry and Howard Dean were vying for the party’s nomination, party executive director Arden Manning said.”
“Wasilla is about 40 miles north of Anchorage, which had its own overflow problems. Police threatened to tow cars from Begich Middle School, the caucus site for the state’s largest city.
More than 4,000 voters showed up, easily beating the record of 254 set in the 2004 caucus, said Alaska Democratic Party Chairwoman Patti Higgins.”
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/306364.html
You are using delegate totals instead of votes. Caucuses don’t always have vote totals, because the point is to elect delegates to the state convention. Once the delegates have been selected, they are reported as the final numbers. I believe that Alaska had over 6,000 voters, and Maine had 40,000. Both were record setting numbers, and both states had bad weather for the primaries.
The Obama and Hillary Show is like a rock concert set up. The stage is set out in the "court", the lighting guys, sound guys brought along with them, the local politicians intro them, security, handlers, 20 year old clean cut, dark suit seemed in charge. Chairs set up, balcony seating, VIP seating. Media staging. First woman President, first black President.
The actual caucus is made up of the same local and state people that spend endless amounts of time volunteering as they always have. Those same people are the ones that have always worked long and hard on local, state committees, hold office, and have worked with these candidates before. Repubs caucus was mostly the older generation in attendance. Youth in attendance was just usually helping out a parent with set up. Cake and coffee in the cafeteria. Get the picture? Which one would you go to?
The youth for Obama were mostly clean cut, typical college look University students (not Berkley types), the students for Hillary were mostly young women, high-school students with moms, young girls with moms which the message seems geared at. Male and female college students were in over abundance to the Hillary and Obama shows. But locations gave way to college/university settings. Republicans were more high school gym settings. Maine by the way is 98% white. No big vote of color for Obama to depend on.
It is only one weekend. Those there were highlighted by Hillary were nurses, teachers, doctors for Hillary, vets all of 3 maybe in the crowd. It is handled as a town meeting where the audience can ask questions. Some had a message for her which fit her too perfectly into her repertoire which left me suspect, but clearly she is a good speaker, respectful crowd. I cringed a lot, but some of her emerging platform, I hate to say, I would agree with.
The vote in Maine is not like in Illinois, NY etc where everyone runs to vote. (R) does not and is more the opening act to build the momentum for the (D) which take another weekend and they do the play-vote thing on Sunday if you choose, most as you can see out of 1.2 mil are doing other things. Your delegates decide. It's all just a dress rehearsal for the real thing, the touch was the Obama/Hillary concert which would be like the semifinals of American Idol, same visual make up of crowd, big energy, different place. ;)
It's a Saturday afternoon couple hours of seeing that people do care about what the candidates and upcoming election. It's good that the youth do want to be involved. Guess that is what it is all about. I think the Republican party has already lost their touch with younger Americans. At least Romney could relate when it came to the Olympics, business leader, down to earth family of sons like one of the crowd. The rest all have an image problem in that respect. McCain might have pulled this crowd but he did not bother to appear, he sent Collins. The Republicans seem to TALK AT the audience, while the Democrats seem more TALK WITH towne hall in forum with audience participation. The latter gives off the demeanor, that they care.
Bush, however, always pulled a big crowd!!
Maine: Saturday was a sunny day for the H and O Speeches at the University/College locations. Foot traffic was heavy. Couple Thousand could not get into the Obama speech.
Sunday was not a good day to travel. Absentee vote available. Repubs don’t have polling places, least of all I never saw them and are less organized if you have never been, so most do not go or even know about it.
We are talking about 16 delegates and 24 delegates here, that’s all. It is not a primary.
BIDDEFORD -- The caucus here was moved from a community center to the high school gymnasium today where two seperate lines of voters waiting to check-in extend to the parking lot.
"Those that were with Hillary in the past are sticking by her, but those that are making up their mind today are going with Obama," said Mike Brennan (D-Portland), a Congressional candidate backing Obama.
Hillary will now try to cheat and get the delegates seated for Michigan and Florida. You see, it is not in Hillary’s ego to lose, or Bill’s either. They will have no problem with doing whatever they have to do to win even if it means tearing the democratic party apart. She will have to drug, kicking and screaming, out of the room.
Look at that sneaky nonsense they tried in Nevada and Clinton playing the “race” card in South Carolina. They’ll get dirtier yet.
The dems are hoping that her highness will “grace” Obama with the VP spot and he’ll go away that way. I don’t see it happening.............
You are probably right as I have never lived in a caucus state. So I guess it is definite that we don’t know the total numbers of voters in each caucus.
I can say I learned something tonight. Thanks.
Thanks for your reply as it was very informative of your culture in Maine. I have never been there but have lived opposite for the last 20 years, the Texas border.
Texas is a primary state and that is the way I want it as a caucus would cause too many problems. The South Texas area is approximately 95% hispanic. A large precentage speak Spanish only thereby presenting the probem of using an interpreter. Man, can you imagine using an interpreter at a political meeting? So many of the interpreters are not qualified to interpret. Spanglish just doesn’t get it and that is what most speak.
I liked your description of all sitting around and listening. Actually, South Texas is a huge population of Democrats. All the Representatives on the border are Democrat and they are moving northward. Ruben Hinijosa was in Maine today. He is the Representive from Higadalgo County.,Texas. I imagine his being there with Hillary has something to do with the hispanic campaign manager that was discharged today.
Hillary or Bill have managed to visit this area at least once a year when he was in office and afterwards. The Clinton machine is well established here.
I have to agree with you that the Republicans are not going after the youth vote which is a mistake.
Cake and coffee sounds like a good social. Cokes and tacos would be better here. LOL!
I don’t see how caucuses could be a good idea in more populous states. I watched the Nevada caucus but they weren’t large groups. However, I can’t imagine large cities such as New York City caucusing.
Again, thanks for your informative post.
Your fired...
Steinbrenner, Trump... Must be something in the NY water.
"REMAIN CALM...NOBODY PANIC!"
She's not a stupid woman. I think she knows it's over, that momentum has swung against her, but she's holding out faint hope for Ohio and Texas. But I think that's a forlorn hope on her part.
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