2008 Primaries Thread

well, yes. and hillary clinton is also a superdelegate, and so is her husband.

The DNC’s credentials committee meets this summer, probably in July, and it is not clear which candidate’s representatives will be in control: the committee’s seats are allocated through a formula linked to the candidate’s performances in the states. If the committee winds up being controlled by Hillary Clinton – if, that is, she has a delegate lead in July, the Florida and Michigan delegations will be credentialed.

But if Barack Obama controls the credentials committee, and his committee is given the opportunity to deny Hillary Clinton delegates from Michigan and Florida that could put her over the top – that’s his prerogative.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/dem_fla_michigan_revote.php

Are any ilxors going to be delegates to their senate district conventions?

Hypothetically, if Clinton wins because of Michigan and Florida, shit is gonna get real ugly within the Dem party.

hey stealing elections is a grand American tradition

I will personally run over Mark Brewer (head of the Michigan Dems) with a pickup truck.

funny thing is, if michigan and florida had kept their show in march, they'd be even more relevant now! way to go.

losers

hey stealing elections is a grand American tradition

http://www.simonsays.com/assets/isbn/0743255526/BC_0743255526.jpg

lovin the RBH beard

he even looks a bit like Hils.

I don't think we're going to have a brokered convention, and I don't think the nomination will be decided by super delegates. By the time the credentials committee convenes in July, whoever is behind in pledged delegates will probably be under tremendous pressure to concede. If Clinton is ahead even slightly, Michigan and Florida will be seated and she'll have a big victory. But as of today it seems far more likely that Obama will have a slight edge, a few delegates from Michigan and Florida will be seated as a compromise, and the vast majority of the super delegates will vote for whoever won in the pledged delegate count. I'd like to think that either Clinton or Obama would step aside with dignity in July, and I imagine that either one of them will have no choice but to offer VP to the other. I can imagine Obama accepting if Clinton is the nominee, but I think she'd decline the VP slot.

I'd like to think that either Clinton or Obama would step aside with dignity in July

I cannot conceive of Clinton doing this

Re: FL

Just so everyone's clear, it was our Republican-heavy state legislature who moved the primary date up to 1/29 and state law dictates that both party primaries must be held on the same day. FL Dems could've balked at a primary and held a caucus instead on any day of their choosing, but found the idea of a caucus in FL to be a huge clusterfuck in the making. However, Howard Dean didn't care and stripped our state's delegates, prompting the candidates to vow against campaigning here. As much as I would've liked my vote to count this time, it wouldn't be at all fair for it to count after the fact when the results might have been entirely different if campaigning had gone on as usual in FL.

As for Michigan, where Edwards and Obama weren't even on the ballot? If they count, that's the most fucked up thing EVAR!

they were not on the ballot in MI, Clinton was the only one

I noticed upthread that folks are referring to Minnesota as a Republican state. Um, no.

wow, obama now the establishment candidate? nice one, penn. i could see it with the ted kennedy endorse., etc., but it just doesn't line up - no way in hell you can portray hillary clinton as the insurgent candidate, come on! this is the candidate whose whole bloody point is that she has all this insider washington experience!

Lots of buzz out there today that the Clintons are now trying to buy this nomination, Mitt Romney style. Clinton's campaign manager was asked this morning if Bill and Hill had started pumping their own millions into the race before Super Tuesday and he dodged the question.

What would be more interesting would be, say, a person with dual citizenship, like my cousins who have both US and Italian citizenship...would they be able to run? I'm thinking yes.

Lieberman likely has dual citizenship, so probably yes. Though if he'd been ruled ineligible he'd have broken off and formed his own country to be elected President of.

"millions"? Bill hasn't made any mashed-potato-circuit speeches this quarter, has he?

Eli Sanders of Slog has a great post about what to expect with the Washington Dem Caucus this Saturday

http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/02/welcome_to_washington

Two choice, corny quotes from former Dem WA state party chair Paul Berendt...

Our state is the home of independent, cranky, edgy Democratic liberalism. We are the home of a labor movement with muscle and workers tough enough to fight for their rights. People here get pissed off when you don’t respect the environment. We have more hikers and bikers than just about anywhere. We have a progressive social conscience that cares for those down on their luck. We are willing to fight hard for the equal rights of people who march to a different drum… There is a profound feminist ethic in our Democratic politics. Polls show that the percentage of women who vote Democratic in our state is one of the highest in the nation.

...and former Edwards co-chair and Seattle attorney Jenny Durkan...

We love to vote. We vote on everything, and anything. We love it so much, we sometimes vote several times on the same issue. Blend that love of voting with the fact that we all have opinions, and an abundance of coffee and it all adds up to a very raucous caucus. But we are also the true bell weather—when Obama sweeps here Saturday, the handwriting will be on the wall. Little ideas grow big here—just ask Costco, Microsoft, Nordstrom, and Starbucks.

Until Durkan's final line, she's more OTM than Berendt, even though Berendt's last line shouldn't be ignored. WA = tons of white older liberal women in the big cities i.e. Hillaryrama.

My guess, Obama and Clinton will pretty much tie in WA, which will disappoint the projected Obama victory here previously. I will be caucusing on Saturday, nonetheless, for Obama.

We love to vote. We vote on everything, and anything. We love it so much, we sometimes vote several times on the same issue. Blend that love of voting with the fact that we all have opinions, and an abundance of coffee and it all adds up to a very raucous caucus

You want to avoid her at the Target checkout line.

Hypothetically, if Obama were to be the candidate, what, if anything, would you like HRC to do in his administration, ideally? Should she remain in the Senate or would she be a good member of the cabinet?

x-post "No no no! THIS budget hair-clipper and hair-care kit is more robost! FUCK YOU!"

She'd probably try for Senate Majority Leader.

xpost - secretary of health and human services, she'd be good at it (but then she'd have to implement obama's health plan)

I posted this on the Chicago thread but thought it might be interesting here. It's super-sloppy because I could find a good map of Chicago wards and had to doctor one that was already filled in in places for some other election. Anyway:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2309/2246957518_bef606d8ea.jpg?v=0

Pink = Wards that Clinton won
White = Wards that Obama won by 50-80%
Gray = Wards that Obama won by more than 80%

This is pretty much a microcosm of how the country seems to be voting. The gray area is almost exclusively composed of wards with an African American majority. The pink area in the middle is mostly Hispanic neighborhoods. The pink area at the top and bottom is mostly older and working-class whites. And the white area is where most of the young, college-educated whites live.

(With the exception of #19, which is probably close enough to black neighborhoods to go for Obama but close enough to the suburbs to keep his margin of victory a bit lower.)

Chicago looks like a blunted Florida.

I thought it WAS Florida!

The O'Hare panhandle.

Look at the little poof ball in the northeast!

I imagine a FL map would look much the same, except Clinton would probably have the Jacksonville corner too.

ruh roh:

Pawlenty to attend Munich security conference with McCain

http://news.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?a=326831&z=16

I will never be happy until we get Sen Rodham out of the Senate, Cabinet, Chappaqua Chamber of Commerce, etc.

you will never be happy

I will never be happy until we get Sen Rodham out of the Senate, Cabinet, Chappaqua Chamber of Commerce, etc.

Fixed.

XPOST dammit

I'll give you this, Morbs, you're dogged, but I fear you're doomed to a lot of unhappiness.

I only bothered posting that since so many responses were similar.

Dennis Perrin supplies my tsk-tsk glee at the illusion of Democrat dynamism:

Of course, part of assembling the New Tomorrow is staking out permissible boundaries of discussion. Stanley Fish in the New York Times recently instructed us on the proper way to critique Hillary, assuming one must critique her at all. Party apparatchiks like Jane Hamsher immediately waved Fish's decree around, lest the poor, undefended Senator from New York suffer more sexist abuse from powerful, dark forces. Because if you despise Hillary Clinton, especially if you're male, all you're really showing is your fear of strong women. Conversely, if you distrust Saint Obama, and fail to fall to your knees as his rhetoric takes flight, you might be racist, or simply cynical and empty, incapable of understanding this spiritual moment in time.

Got it? Good. There'll be more lessons as the initial crusade winds down, culminating in the Denver coronation, where all doubts will be erased, all anxiety soothed, and the final, united march to the Promised Land begins. Aren't y'all excited?!

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/02/please-turn-to-page-44-in-your-hymnal.html

Hypothetically, if Obama were to be the candidate, what, if anything, would you like HRC to do in his administration, ideally? Should she remain in the Senate or would she be a good member of the cabinet

I'm with Morbz - Clintons out of US gov't plz

Actually, one conviction out of the many Clinton '80s/90s scandals could take HRC out of NY politics. After release, she could re-enter the fray in Chicago where she belongs!

Also, while this will be mostly ignored, the caucus this Saturday in Washington will involve Republicans too. Except only half of the total WA GOP delegates will be counted. The other half will be drawn from the WA Primary on Feb 19th.

WHY the GOP here decided this was a good idea, i have no fucking clue, but unsurprisingly, I'm not really saddened by this at all.

The one wild and crazy guy who might peep his head out this Saturday though:

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/paulheart_dees.jpg

Shakey, I respect you and Morbs' antipathy for her, even if i don't entirely share it, but she's arguably not the worst Democratic Senator, has the ear of powerful moderate to conservative forces in the party and if Obama ever were to be elected President, he'd have to deal with the world as it is, not as it should be, and I think he's smart enough to prefer her in his tent, pissing out than outside, pissing in.

Ron should just go ahead and dress up colonial style, with a wig. Can't hurt him any.

or simply cynical and empty

yeah the guy who wrote that piece is not cynical at all, no sir

realistic.

Paul has been endorsed by ... Howard Stern and Krist Novoselic.

Founding Fathers: With You Always

Actually Krist Novoselic endorsed Obama.