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More on Hillary's Texas problem....
2008-02-18 15:06:00
System Worries Clinton Backers Supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are worried that convoluted delegate rules in Texas could water down the impact of strong support for her among Hispanic voters there, creating a new obstacle for her in the must-win presidential primary contest. Several top Clinton strategists and fundraisers became alarmed after learning of the state's unusual provisions during a closed-door strategy meeting this month, according to one person who attended. What Clinton aides discovered is that in certain targeted districts, such as Democratic state Sen. Juan Hinojosa's heavily Hispanic Senate district in the Rio Grande Valley, Clinton could win an overwhelming majority of votes but gain only a small edge in delegates. At the same time, a win in the more urban districts in Dallas and Houston -- where Sen. Barack Obama expects to receive significant support -- could yield three or four times as many delegates. This gets back to a point I have made over ...
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Trouble for Democrats in Ohio
2008-02-18 02:48:00
It is axiomatic in Presidential elections that for the past several election cycles no candidate has won without winning Ohio . While shifting demographics suggest that Ohio may become a second tier state in coming decades, for now it is one of the key battleground states. In 2006, Democrats won four of five state wide offices, replaced Mike Dewine with Sherrod Brown as US Senator and ousted the discredited Bob Ney in my own district. Recent events suggest that the victory may not be as secure as some in the party would like to believe. For starters, there is a long standing feud between Governor Ted Strickland and Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman. Coleman was thought to be the strongest gubernatorial candidate for the Dems until Strickland entered the race. Coleman's wife, Franki, was arrested on DWI charges the led--at least in part--to his withdrawal from that race. Then last year Mrs. Coleman was fired from her state job for falsifying payroll records and has subsequently ...
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A nice piece on Governor Pawlenty
2008-02-18 02:44:00
... from the Politico. I happen to agree with most of what they say.
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Some observations on the NIU masscre.
2008-02-17 15:24:00
The liberal that I am, there is one major area in which I often find myself agreeing with Republicans more often than my fellow Democrats. That area is second amendment issues. I had been waiting for one of the conservative posters here to post on the massacre at Northern Illinois University so I could agree with them, but since none have I would like to make some observations: 1. The University by all accounts handled the situation exactly as they envisioned. They had taken seriously the need to develop a plan after the Virginia Tech shooting, and Thursday they implemented it like clockwork. Within three minutes the police were on the scene, the campus was in lockdown, classes were being dismissed and alerts were being received and displayed on all campus computers. 2. None of that mattered. The police may have gotten there in three minutes, but Steven Kaczmierczek had murdered five people, wounded nearly two dozen more and then killed himself in less than two minutes. 3. Ther...
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Clinton Advisor says Hillary will have nomination locked up before the conv
2008-02-17 04:54:00
Of course, Harold Ickes' bravado has nothing to do with his belief that Hillary will win more pledged delegates than her rival, but rather that the Superdelegates would be the ones who would put her over the top. In fact he stated quite frankly that the amount of states Obama has won is "irrelevant" to who will win the nomination. (Ickes, btw, is the guy in charge of winning over Superdelegates for Hillary). On top of that, he believes that they would eventually convince the DNC to change the rule regarding the stripping of Florida and Michigan of their delegates... a rule he voted in favor of at the beginning of the process. The one thing that I found very odd was the fact that Ickes didn't boast of how strong Clinton will be down the stretch, but rather suggested that she would simply keep things close. I have to wonder out loud if the Clinton camp is reevaluating their changes to pick up the amount of delegates needed to really change the pledged delegate race. Ickes predict...
More About: Nomination , Locked , Notes

McCain's nomination already putting Arizona's 2010 races in focus
2008-02-16 05:29:00
An Arizona poll out earlier this year showed that if John McCain were running for re-election to his own Senate seat against Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano he would lose handily. And with Napolitano term-limited out in 2010, the same year that McCain's Senate seat is up, such a race seemed likely. But such a race is very unlikely to occur at this point. Obviously if McCain wins the Presidency then he will vacate his Senate seat. State law would ironically require that Napolitano name his replacement, from a list of three candidates submitted by the state GOP. Given her landslide win in 2006 and the unbelievably low 9% negative rating she had in a poll earlier this year, it is unlikely that any of the top tier Republicans will want to go up against her in a Senate run, but rather that the state GOP will submit a list of lesser-knowns who are willing to serve for the next two years in the Senate. If the Democrats win then things become much more interesting. Napolitano, who w...
More About: Nomination , Post , Putting , Focus , Races

Texas Polling
2008-02-15 18:58:00
There have been four new polls released in Texas in a matter of just a few hours. To say that they have been inconsistent would be a mild statement. According to Rasmussen... Hillary Clinton enjoys a whopping 16 point lead, but According to ARG Obama actually leads by 6 points. That, folks, is a swing of 24 points. Two other polls show Hillary with a 7 and an 8 point lead respectively (probably fairly accurate at this point). The oddest thing about this is that ARG especially has been very pro-Clinton in their polling results. They have almost in every case shown Clinton doing better than other pollsters. So what is up with the Obama lead? Are they just fairweather pollsters? Also, Rasmussen more than ever seems to continue to provide outlier polls, making me seriously doubt if they can regain their swagger as the most accurate election pollster. I realize that Primaries are hard... but for crying out loud! Pollster Clinton Obama Insider Adva 02/14/08 48 41 Rasmussen ...
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Former failed President endorsing next failed President?
2008-02-15 18:03:00
Former President Bush to endorse McCain Just when I thought I had all the reasons I ever needed to not vote for McCain, one of the washed-up paleocon bastards of the smoke-filled room persuasion decides to endorse the guy. Oh, and one more thing... I don't understand the meaning of what's on that shirt in this gratuitous Summer Glau pic...
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New Spreadsheet
2008-02-15 17:49:00
... on the right sidebar under the Spreadsheet area called upcoming primary polls. At this point in time I am only looking at the Democratic side and therefor concentrating on the Obama/Clinton race. So far I have polls from Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsyvania. Take a look: Upcoming Polls
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Two Hillary defections....
2008-02-15 16:22:00
We now have seen two previously committed Hillary Superdelegates defect and publically change their support to Obama. Rumors are that there are plenty other Superdelegates previously committed to Hillary who are wavering on that support, at least off the record. Her Superdelegate lead (which was once in the 120 range) is now only 77 according to AP (241-164). According to CBS (which is a bit more conservative in their Superdelegate projections) her lead is now only 57 at 214-157. Again, her best and only chance to win the nomination will likely come from Superdelegates as well at the Florida and Michigan delegates being seated. She needs to upset Obama in Wisconsin or win big on March 4th. Otherwise she risks losing even more support from the Superdelegates, something that could make Florida and Michigan moot.
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Remember this?
2008-02-15 15:25:00
House finds Bolten, Miers in contempt of Congress The House voted Thursday to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before a panel investigating the firing of several United States attorneys. The contempt vote raises the stakes between the White House and Congress in the battle over the fired U.S. attorneys and could set up a constitutional showdown between the legislative and executive branches. Again, the missing ingredient from this case is that the U.S. Attorney for D.C. still has to enforce the contempt charges, and in these cases the Justice department has some authority to determine if the U.S. Attorney should (or should not) investigate. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has indicated that the Justice Department is going to take the stand that the executive priviledge argument was warranted and that no contempt charges should be persued. This effectively leaves congress...
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Super Tuesday Finally Over (Yawn)
2008-02-15 01:39:00
The news that everyone's been waiting for has finally arrived. Hillary Clinton has defeated Barack Obama in the New Mexico Democratic primary! The final tally, released this afternoon, has Clinton winning the Land of Enchantment by 1,709 votes out of roughly 150,000 votes counted. What? Nobody cares? But... But... Oh, yeah, the election was NINE DAYS AGO. We've known who won the other 19 or so Democratic contests that day for, well, nine days. There have also been eight Democratic primaries and caucuses since then and we've known who won each and every one of those contests for days now as well. Oh, and a bunch of Republican contests as well for which we've known the winner in each within hours of the polls closing. But this is New Mexico, where it's an unwritten law that ballot-counting should take ten to twenty times as long as the actual voting. Observers outside the state may look at the closeness of the race and say that that alone is reasonable justification f...
More About: Super , Finally , Tuesday , Super Tuesday

Some quick math...
2008-02-14 22:24:00
Warning: If you never cared for math problems, algebra formulas, or solving equations that can't possibly exist with imaginary numbers that don't exist... this post may not be for you! So... the Obama camp is saying that Hillary Clinton cannot win the pledged delegate count regardless of how well they do in the upcoming states. Now obviously, they cannot make the statement with any degree mathematical certainty. After all they only hold a 135 pledged delegate lead (according to my latest numbers) and there are still 1092 pledged delegates yet to be determined. But the question becomes, can they make the statement with any logical certainty? First let's set up the scenario and make a few assumptions. I would first like to offer that any Hillary surge will take place not until March 4th. Now certainly she could upset Obama in Wisconsin, but even if she does it will not be by any margin large enough to take any real delegate win out of it. In fact, even if she did win in Wisconsin...
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Romney to Endorse McCain...
2008-02-14 20:16:00
I guess he really is a flip flopper!
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Let me say this...
2008-02-14 17:58:00
Apparently John McCain voted "against" the bill that would have banned waterboarding. Seems sort of hypocritical to me and it opens up some easy criticism from his opponent for "flip flopping" on the issue. Who, if it turns out to be Obama, was actually not present for the vote. Surely he should have learned from 2004 that people would rather feel like someone adheres to a set of principles, even if they sometimes don't agree with them. John Kerry certainly said and did things in the run up to the 2004 election that he didn't do before and hasn't done since. No doubt it helped him win the nomination, but it doomed him in the general election. McCain shouldn't make the same mistake. He should dance with the girl he brought to the dance, not make a fool of himself trying to impress the one who rejected him.
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Battleground states...
2008-02-14 16:10:00
One of the arguments being floated by the Clinton camp is that delegate count aside that Superdelegates should be considering which of the two candidates won what they are calling the "battleground" states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania. The obvious question that comes to mind is why is it that the Clintons are the ones who should "define" which states are considered battleground states? The reality is that you could put pretty much anyone on the ballot for the Democrats and they would win New York, Massachusetts, and California. They are no-brainers. Likewise, they could bring JFK back from the dead, put him on the ballot and he will likely lose in Texas by a wide margin. So why exactly are they considered battleground states? I actually went back to my 2004 election stats and decided to look at which states were actually "battleground" states in terms of states that could have gone either way in that general election. I h...
More About: Truth , States

Two Incumbents Defeated Tuesday
2008-02-14 00:26:00
Two long-time members of Maryland's congressional delegation were defeated in Tuesday 's primary. Nine-term Republican incumbent Wayne Gilchrest of MD-01 and eight-term Democratic incumbent Albert Wynn of MD-04 were each defeated in multi-candidate primaries by opponents who were more ideologically extreme. Gilchrest was defeated by State Sen. Andy Harris while Wynn was defeated by Donna Edwards in a rematch of their closely-contested 2006 primary race. Neither primary defeat signals a potential party switch, as Bush won MD-01 by 26 points in 2004 while Kerry won MD-04 by 57 points the same year.

Final numbers from yesterday
2008-02-13 18:47:00
I got two different numbers depending on the source: Obama 111 Clinton 57 Obama 109 Clinton 59 I split the difference: Obama 110 Clinton 58 - a 52 delegate victory yesterday. This puts Obama up 126 pledged delegates. And also puts him up 44 total delegates (including Super delegates). Link to spreadsheet
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The McCain speech.... If you can call it that?
2008-02-13 17:35:00
Certainly it is never a good strategic move to talk "after" Obama. First you had Obama giving his usual inspirational Tony Robbins style motivational speech in front of 12,000 people in some arena... then you cut away to Senator McCain giving a relatively boring talk in a room where there looked to be more people standing on stage with him than were out in the audience. I was watching MSNBC at the time that the McCain speech ended, and they were still gushing over the Obama speech while almost mocking the McCain speech that followed. I believe it was Chris Matthews who made some statement about Obama making his leg tingle.... which I doubt he will live down anytime soon. The truth is that if winning an election really was about giving a good stump speech, then Obama would win all 50 states by double digit margins. But fortunately for John McCain, a good stump speech is not what makes or breaks a candidacy. Unfortunately for Barack Obama, he will need to come up with some subst...
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About Clinton and Obama's Foreign Policy Advisors
2008-02-13 15:42:00
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4940 As we all know, the people who advise the candidates tells us a lot about who they are, and what we may expect from their administrations. I came across this article this morning, and am posting it for those who are interested. When I find a good one about McCain, I'll post that too.
More About: Post , Policy , Foreign Policy , Foreign , Clinton

Some polls from upcoming states... Are we expecting some closer contests?
2008-02-13 15:08:00
Wisconsin Polls ter Obama Clinton Pub Pol 2/11 50% 39% Strat Vis 2/10 45% 41% ARG 2/7 41% 50% Average 45.3% 43.3% +2.0% Obviously the ARG poll and the Public Policy Poll are showing two different contests, much like the Zogby and SUSA polls showed two different contests in California. While I know very little about Public Policy I know enough about ARG to discount their results significantly. At this point I am expecting an Obama victory for no other reasons than he has over performed the polling in nearly every state since Super Tuesday. I expect at the end of the day that it will be somewhere in the ten point range. Ohio Pollster Clinton Obama SUSA 2/10 56% 39% Average 56.0% 39.0% +17.7% Only one poll... but Survey USA has been pretty much spot on in many of these races. 17 points in a big state like ...
More About: Democrats , President , Contests , States

According to GOP talking heads, that guy was not qualified
2008-02-13 08:04:00
Tonight, Feb. 12 (though this post will show up as Feb. 13) the talking heads, at least those who are talking from the GOP side, seem to enjoy discussing the role of Commander in Chief and suggesting that maybe Barack Obama is not qualified for the job. They picked a bad night to do it. Tonight is the 199th birthday of that other guy who was a little known lawyer from Illinois before serving four years in Federal office (Congress) before being elected President. Maybe they would have preferred a second James Buchanan term instead?
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Delegate Count?
2008-02-13 04:37:00
So far in the three contests tonight: Obama has won 99 Clinton has won 44 with 27 left to calculate. That's a 55 delegate pickup... meaning that for the first time according to my counts he is ahead in total delegates... and his pledged delegate lead holds up even if you add in Florida and Michigan. Plus he picked up about about 430,000 votes so far on Clinton in the popular vote count and will likely end up beating her tonight by around a half a million. No longer can Hillary claim she is the popular vote leader... even adding in Michigan where Obama was not on the ballot.
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Republican Race in Virginia Close
2008-02-13 02:37:00
With 51% of precincts reporting in Virginia John McCain holds a narrow 47%-45% lead over Mike Huckabee in the Republican presidential primary, and I'm not aware of any news outfits that have called the race yet. While a Huckabee win - taking the 60 winner-takes-all delegates at stake - won't derail McCain's path to the nomination, it would likely force McCain to more aggressively campaign against Huckabee to get enough delegates to end the race so he can focus on the fall campaign. Huckabee is the last remaining non-McCain on the hustings, as even Ron Paul has skedaddled back to Texas to save his congressional seat. What McCain can't afford to let happen is to allow the anti-McCain forces in the party to strongly coalesce around Huckabee for the next few months. Today's Virginia primary is a test, and a Huckabee victory will empower those in upcoming states - such as North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania - who are dissatisfied with McCain to support Huckabee as a not...
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Wow... it is 5 minutes after the polls close and...
2008-02-13 01:07:00
They project Obama to be the winner in Virginia... and that was supposed to be Hillary's best state.
More About: Notes , Polls , Close , Minutes

Deja Vu all over again?
2008-02-13 01:06:00
Exit polls showing huge wins for Obama... of course they showed him doing much better than he actually did last Tuesday as well. But I doubt the 3-1 and 2-1 sort of exit polling will be off enough to help Hillary pull off any miracles. Do the final results for Obama fail to live up to early evening expectations?

Hillary: Not Dead Yet
2008-02-13 00:23:00
First, thanks to Cold for giving me posting privileges. I'll probably be a rare poster since my main home is at Race42008, but what the heck, I'm flattered. There's been a lot of debate here about whether Hillary will be the nominee or Obama. The argument against Hillary is pretty simple: Obama is on a roll. Primaries are like 9-ball: The first shot alters what the next shot looks like. The problem with this is that we have no idea whether that principle holds in later contests, because we've never had a primary race go on this long in the modern primary election. I can make the argument that it doesn't, and it would run along the lines that the reason momentum matters at first is that it is the first time people really look at some of these candidates, but after time peoples' impressions become more rigid and less susceptible to momentum. In other words, in January there may have been voters who saw Obama as a good candidate but not viable, but who swung to his side wh...
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The world of Rush...
2008-02-12 20:43:00
I had the opportunity to listen to a little talk radio over the weekend, and lo and behold I happened to tune in during the Rush Limbaugh show. Now to be completely honest with you I find Rush Limbaugh to be about 10% brilliance and about 90% bullshit. He often makes great clarifying points that branch off into tangents that ruin the original point he was making. That being said, Rush is what Rush is... an entertainer. Taking him any more serious than that can be bad for your mental health. A couple of things stuck with me as I listened to his constant bashing of John McCain, people who support John McCain, and pretty much any Republicans who do not hold 100% of his conservative views. The first is when he suggested that John McCain's maverick status was really just a mirage. In fact, Limbaugh argued that McCain swam downstream with the masses, while it was the conservatives who did the hard duty of being in the minority of swimming upstream. His message was that perhaps it was th...
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Dem Total Delegates:
2008-02-12 20:30:00
Obama - 1272 Clinton - 1228
More About: Delegates , Total

Switching my methods...
2008-02-12 17:08:00
I am now taking the popular stance that Obama is more likely to win the nomination than Hillary. So in what may appear to be a counterintuitive move by some, I am now looking at that AP version in terms of Superdelegate counts because they actually show highest number of Superdelegates (243) committed to Hillary. The way I figure it... giving the benefit of the doubt to Hillary on this will actually be a more accurate way to determine if and when there comes a time that she might be best served to get out of the race. In other words, rather than RCP's method of using the delegate counts that most favor Obama, so I could show him leading... I will instead show methods that favor Clinton so if in fact Obama does actually take the lead, he will truly be in the lead according to pretty much everybody. I am also favoring the AP Superdelegate count because it shows the highest total out there. I would rather know if there are 50 or so Superdelegates who have told "someone" that they ...
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