2008 Primaries Thread

Newt's veep picks are Crist, Sanford and Huckabee.

Start the 'Newt is not a real conservative' calls.

Cleveland Plain-Dealer: Bill Clinton says his wife excelled at "making positive changes in other people's lives." Consider that construction. Then listen as Obama talks of bringing people together to change their own lives.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080209/capt.37e15e00cf584d47971c72ac6b53fa95.clinton_2008_meck1331.jpg?x=272&y=345&sig=Rf_HSdplZytnK1PTSe_iGQ--

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2399/2254087522_d19f770070.jpg?v=0

Are these 29% "Other" WA Reep votes (more than for any actual candidate) Romney supporters? Undecided? Someone make sense of this.

To be fair, here are pics from the GOP caucuses in Washington.

First pic is an entire precinct in Bellevue. All three.

http://i31.tinypic.com/33adsma.jpg
http://i27.tinypic.com/280l15k.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/2mmhlwx.jpg

http://i28.tinypic.com/2qtan2o.jpg

("SPOUSE BUG"?)

that last Hillary picture is as Tracy Flick as it gets

I know it's a dick move to make fun of these pictures, but republicans always look like stereotypes of themselves!

I wish I had a pic of the inside of the Civic Auditorium to show just how crazy it was in there. My precinct had to go outside because we couldn't hear each other over the 3,500-4,000 people in one room.

To me, the big story today is how disappointing McCain was today. Not that it matters as far as his inevitable nomination, but the fractures in the GOP remain more persistent than ever.

Huckabee staying in is a cleverer move than I first suspected.

He took a good hard look at the list of primaries coming up, I suspect.

Apparently Paul is scaling back the Prez run cause he's facing a legit challenge to keep his own seat in the House. He still maintains he won't run 3rd party.

I still wanna know wtf he's gonna do with all that money.

Pizza party.

Yeah, seriously, it's not like he's blowing all those millions on tv buys. Is he just going to funnel it into a re-election campaign or hookers n' blow or silver coins minted with his own image or what...

xp: Pizza standard.

ron paul being ron paul, he is funding think tanks that will surprise everybody by producing a libertarian president in 2024.

i mean longterm i think ron paul is the underreported part of the whole campaign so far. i guess because he doesn't represent anything that matters this year, this is like the least libertarian election ever: pro-tax liberals vs. pro-torture conservatives. but that's just gonna fuel his political martyrdom. whoever the next republican candidate is after mccain, it'll be someone sprinkling a few libertarian words into the standard rhetoric.

Canadians to blame for today

hello obama.

http://www.republicaupdate.com/images/2007/06/06/hillary_and_obama.jpg

man Obama bringin it with that VA speech, really well done.

it'll be someone sprinkling a few libertarian words into the standard rhetoric.

but, hell, that's already been happening for a coupla decades. I mean, what was it, the main tenets of the John Birch Society years ago were now policy aims for most republicans, some of which were achieved.

So, schedule is, i guess, Maine is on sunday, MA/DC/VA on tuesday, and Hawaii and Wisconsin on the tuesday after that.

the republicans haven't really tooted the libertarian horn too loud since reagan. bush sr. was a libertarian disaster, and aside from tax cuts bush jr. has been much more attentive to social conservatives and hawks than libertarian interests. i'm assuming that after this election people are going to be looking for new coalitions to put together, and that persistent 10-12 percent paul's pulling could look attractive. not to mention the money, and support from independents.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080210/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_rdp

Obama's winning margins ranged from substantial to crushing.

He won roughly two-thirds of the vote in Washington state and Nebraska, and almost 90 percent in the Virgin Islands.

joanna newsom endorses:
http://media.www.lawrentian.com/media/storage/paper409/news/2008/02/08/ArtsEntertainment/Joanna.Newsom.Wraps.Up.Tour.In.Grand.Fashion-3190780.shtml

obama and the court - http://www.slate.com/id/2183930/pagenum/all/#page_start

Obama outperformed the exit polls in Louisiana. Might this mean some whites lied when they claimed not to have voted for him?

this sweep is what obama needed before the next round of primaries; I know clinton is favored in a few (does anyone know which)...possibly this could tip the other states for him? i feel like clinton's luster is starting to really fade at least as far as the media coverage is concerned

Frank Rich predicts in civil war in the party.

Meanwhile superdelegates are getting nervous.

Doris Lessing says: Obama will be assassinated if he wins

of course it's a consideration to take in mind, but wtf does she know?

by who, bill? grow the fuck up, doris lessing

By Doris Lessing, that's clearly a threat.

Maybe she's making a play for the VP spot.

crazy old lady

Thought this was worth highlighting from Rich's piece:

Mrs. Clinton did pile up her expected large margin among Latino voters in California. But her tight grip on that electorate is loosening. Mr. Obama, who captured only 26 percent of Hispanic voters in Nevada last month, did better than that in every state on Tuesday, reaching 41 percent in Arizona and 53 percent in Connecticut. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign’s attempt to drive white voters away from Mr. Obama by playing the race card has backfired. His white vote tally rises every week. Though Mrs. Clinton won California by almost 10 percentage points, among whites she beat Mr. Obama by only 3 points.

Tad Devine's op-ed today might be more significant - a Gore shot across Hillary's bow?

southern states still show a significant racial divide ... 70% of whites in LA went for clinton

Do they even do political assassinations anymore? Thats so 1968

http://www.digischool.nl/kleioscoop/bhutto%20benazir.jpg

O HAI

So as a measure of how fucked-up the delegate shit is, check out the Times' helpfully transparent breakdown of the count:

http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/delegates/index.html

They have Clinton over Obama 912-741. But that includes the "surveyed" superdelegates, giving her 202 and him 99. So take those away and it's 710-642, a gap of 70. Then look a little more and see they don't count any delegates from a whole bunch of states Obama's won: Washington, Nebraska, North Dakota, Iowa, Louisiana, Colorado, and Alaska. The AP projection has them within 25, but looking at that breakdown, I think (counting out the superdelegates) Obama's probably made up enough ground in the uncounted states to be pretty close to tied. Actually, going with CNN's count (http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/scorecard/#val=D), he makes up 71 delegates in those states. Soooo...

By Iowa I meant Idaho, but they don't have Iowa on there either turns out, so give him another 1.

Which means by my count, ignoring the superdelegates, he should be up by 4.

the whole concept of 'pledged superdelegates' is retarded

I'm really curious what their methodology was--what constitues "committed"? What question did they ask? (For isntance, was it "Who are you supporting" or "Of the candidates, are you entirely committed to voting for one, and if so, which one?") Did they call all 800 within the same timespan, or are they relying on old answers? Seems real fishy.

The campaigns provide them with lists. Anyone can change their minds. Chuck Todd's math, which I'm guessing is better than any of ours, says O's ahead 65 without supes, and Hillary's ahead 24 with.