Posted on 05/01/2008 6:07:17 AM PDT by kellynla
Unless the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has caused him more damage than is evident, it’s impossible to see how Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) can lose the popular vote, the delegate race or the Democratic nomination to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).
Specifically, I’ve calculated the possible popular vote in eight of the nine remaining primaries (excluding Guam), giving Clinton the benefit of every doubt, and can’t see how she gains more than 150,000 votes on Obama ��" not enough to catch him except in the most extreme circumstances.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
I think XZINS is pulling our legs :)
You know how leftists view rules, though.
If the rules don’t supply the outcome that they desire, there must be something wrong with the rules, and therefore they need to be ignored or changed until the desired outcome is supplied.
So Clinton cheated, and now she gets rewarded?
Actually, I think Hillary did visit Florida, but that is a moot point. The campaigns were national and all over the media.
The Dem Voters went to the polling booths those primary days, and they had names on ballots. They voted for the name they wanted. Those are votes cast, and they count in terms of total votes cast for a particular candidate.
Obama was wrong to write off real people in real states.
From Fox News:
Hillary Wins Uncontested Michigan Primary
by Aaron Bruns
No surprise here; Sen Clinton was the only top-tier Democrat on the ballot in Michigan today, and should end up with about 60% of the vote. “Uncommitted” is currently sitting at about 35% — driven up, says the Clinton campaign, due to a radio campaign by Obama backers to get supporters to go to the polls, even though he’s not officially running there.
Why go to any effort to get more “uncommitted” votes? With Clinton nearly guaranteed to win the state, the best her opponents could hope for was an embarrassingly small margin of victory that the press might see as a defeat. Either way, the Obama campaign says MI doesn’t matter — and accused her of ignoring the spirit, if not the letter, of a campaign pledge not to compete in states like Michigan and Florida that moved their primaries into January.
The Clinton campaign shot back that Obama shouldn’t be belittling the voices of voters in Michigan and Florida. Check out the full Clinton campaign response after the jump.
To: Interested Parties
FR: The Clinton Campaign
RE: Michigan and Florida Presidential Primaries
The Obama campaign today circulated a memo regarding today’s Michigan primary and the January 29 Florida primary. This memo was concerning on several levels.
Let us be very clear. Senator Clinton signed a pledge that she would not campaign in any state that violates the DNC approved calendar. Therefore, we did not campaign in Michigan, nor will we campaign in Florida in violation of the pledge. We have two small scheduled fundraisers in South Florida on January 27, as explicitly permitted by the pledge, but we will not hold any open public campaign events. The Obama campaign has also held numerous fundraisers in Florida since signing the pledge. Contrary to the Obama campaign’s memo, there are no events at large venues, nor have we organized in the state. We intend to do so as our party’s nominee in the general election, but will honor our pledge not to campaign there in violation of the pledge.
Let us be clear about something else, however. While Senator Clinton will honor her commitment not to campaign in Florida in violation of the pledge, she also intends to honor her pledge to hear the voices of all Americans. The people of Michigan and Florida have just as much of a right to have their voices heard as anyone else. It is disappointing to hear a major Democratic presidential candidate tell the voters of ANY state that their voices aren’t important.
Make no mistake — the Obama campaign had no problems when its supporters and allies in Michigan ran radio ads and other campaign activities urging people to vote for “uncommitted” as a way to register their support for Senator Obama — and to give him a chance to compete for those delegates at the national convention (http://facts.hillaryhub.com/archive/?id=5218). Now, with polls in recent days showing that effort and their candidate running far behind in both states, the Obama campaign has shifted tactics to say that those who cast a vote in either state don’t matter. We couldn’t disagree more.
Senator Clinton intends to be President for all fifty states. And while she will honor the pledge she signed and not campaign in either state, she intends to continue to give every American a voice during this election and when she gets to the White House.
Some (probably unreliable) polling has Clinton up by 2 points in North Carolina. If Clinton takes Indiana big and squeaks out a win in North Carolina, based on these figures she can take the popular vote, particularly if people start abandoning Obama, who will suddenly have the stink of a loser.
It's not like Hillary has any FBI files...
YOu need to brush up on your facts. The DNC stripped both MI and FL because they moved their promaries up too far. ALL candidates at that time agreed not to campaign in either state (Hillary ‘forgot’ that promise and did it anyhow). How can you blame H. Obama when all he was doing is playing by the rules set out by his own party?
“If” ... the biggest word in the dictionary. LOL
The Popular Vote argument has no official weight. By considering FL and MI in the Popular Vote argument, it in no way violates the DNC rules or sanctions, since it is not an argument to seat those delegations. To put it another way, those people were permitted to vote by the DNC, and even though their votes will have no effect on the seated delegation, they are still votes. Not counting them in the Popular Vote tally denies that they even exist.
Which leaves the Obama camp making the much weaker argument that the votes in MI and FL were distorted by the lack of campaigning and the fact that Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan. The Clintons should be magnanimous and agree that the Michigan totals should be adjusted to reflect the exit polling data, but should stick to their guns in Florida, because Obama ran advertising in Florida prior to the election, and Clinton did not.
Of course, the nationwide Popular Vote means nothing, but every Democrat in the country has been whining about the supposed miscarriage of justice of 2000, when Gore lost even though he won the Popular Vote (not really, but work with me here...). It will be a powerful argument for Clinton to say the same standard should work here.
People who were whining last week that McCain should have gone after Obama hard over Wright should consider this. It is much more important that the Republicans have clean hands when Obama falls.
Well, Hillary can huff and puff all she wants. The way things stand today is that unless Obama manages to get himself indicted for some crime, he is going to be the nominee. Her best shot for the White House will be to try and oust McCain in 2012.
Joe Andrew, former Indiana Democratic National Committee chairman, appointed superdelegate by Clinton, just switched his SD vote from Hill to Barry.
I agree with you. If she somehow gets the nomination, she wins the WH. Of that I am sure. I don’t think Obama is a threat in the general.
You are so wrong!
Many many of those Michigan DemonRAT voters in fact don't exist. A fact which hasn't prevented them from voting several times each, and in multiple precincts.
I rather enjoy watching the CommiecRATs destroy their own.
Obama didn't blacklist them, the National Democratic Party did. Both Obama AND Hillary also pledged to abide by their ruling and not campaign in Florida and Michigan.
Those people didn’t do anything wrong, and they DO count in the election.
Those people elected the officials that moved their primary in violation of party rules.
Their vots do count in the general election, but the party makes it's own rules about the nomination of their own candidate.
For what it’s worth, Hillary saw that correctly and did the right thing by the people of Michigan and Florida.
So that's why she pledged not to campaign in Michigan and Florida and only changed her story after the fact?
Read the article at post #24. It shows that “both” candidates were both openly and covertly campaigning in both states.
They knew.
But, I’m talking about votes cast and you’re talking about delegates.
Folks can agree all they want to about who gets which delegate, but they cannot pretend that a vote was not cast when it actually was cast.
They were not able to cancel the primary. They were only able to decree their decrees about delegates.
see #37
He was wrong to just write those people off."
He's not writing anyone off. As uncomfortable as it is for me to come to Obama's defense for the first (and likely the last) time, at least he played by the rules that were established by his own party.
How can you justify resurrecting votes declared invalid before they were even cast in Fla. or Mich. and then award them to Clinton?
That fact is irrelevant. The MSM will spin it, and the idiot demonRAT voters will believe them.
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