2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

can someone explain to me why SUPERTICKET is so laughable on its face

It isn't so much laughable as improbable. IIRC, the last time a nominee put his nearest challenger on the ticket as veep was when JFK offered and LBJ accepted. Since then similar offers have been made, but always rejected. Once a candidate sets his or her heart on the office of POTUS, being the vice seems like small beer and a step into obscurity.

It is only recently (post 1980) that the vice president has been given any real work to do at all. Reagan started it, mainly because he didn't care to work very hard and liked to delegate as much as he could.

Don't forget: Reagan's people floated the idea of a "co-presidency" with Ford in 1980.

I'd say it started with Carter, who actually, you know, MET with Mondale and treated him as a member of Cabinet.

IIRC, the last time a nominee put his nearest challenger on the ticket as veep was when JFK offered and LBJ accepted.

Uh, Kerry/Edwards?

And before that Reagan/Bush 1980.

SUPERTICKET

clearly you just like the sound of that word.

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/030508DailyUpdateGraph1.gif

bahh i'm kind of reaching burnout right now. i need to take a break from reading about this election

lol voters are mindless drones

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/030508DailyUpdateGraph1.gif

-- Mark Clemente, Wednesday, March 5, 2008 1:37 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

motherfucker! what is wrong with you people

good analysis here - way to fuck it up Democrats

I take comfort in the fact that the existence of this thread and just the hysterics and paranoia means that, hopefully this year for once, the Democrats actually have energy for this presidential election. (lol, except maybe for "omg I was too busy on ilx to vote!!!1")

Was the 2004 Primaries thread anything close to this on a level of micro-micro-micro-tea-leaf reading?

Just looking back at Democratic nominees for the past three decades or so:
Kerry
Clinton
Clinton
Dukakis
Mondale
Carter
Carter
McGovern

..I mean, there isn't a precedent for 2008 for the Democratic nominee candidates. There definitely isn't a precedent for the GOP situation in 2008 too, which is more key and more overlooked.

There definitely is a precedent for nominee races lasting until June as recently as Bill Clinton, fwiw.

So, follow Tracer's advice. Be vigilant yet chill. This is going to last until the convention. Enjoy Spring and Summer 2008 while you can. I love you guys.

Also, you can never use mccainbushhug.jpg enough this year

Dems wasting time (and most importantly $$$) in-fighting while McCain consolidates campaign resources/money/hones message = C/D

this is bad bad bad for the Democrats in the fall, there's no denying it. all of us are feeling election fatigue, and there's SIX MONTHS to go. this "enthusiasm" will not last that long, it will be replaced by bitterness and disenchantment.

And either way, a huge segment of the Democratic base will feel bruised.

and the fact that Hillary is ensuring this in the hopes that she can finagle a coronation via some procedural loophole in defiance of the popular vote = FUCK YOU I HATE YOU ARRGHGHGHGH

I'll vote for McCain over Hillary just to say fuck you to her and the DNC. xpost Hi there!

and honestly I really am beginning to wonder to an uncomfortable degree how much racism factors into Hillary's voting bases of old white women and blue collar whites, etc. Much as I hate to say it.

this is bad bad bad for the Democrats in the fall, there's no denying it. all of us are feeling election fatigue, a

I disagree – this is healthy! For the next two months the press, to McCain's annoyance, will focus on these two fools squabbling. Meanwhile the politicrats might actually air some useful Obama or HRC laundry.

but... the money. this is draining all the Dems financial coffers, they won't have much left for the GE.

Alfred will like this, then: Lots more negative campaigning to come from HRC, under the guise of "contrast" and "vetting."

Hillary, for instance, is white.

Hillary, for instance, is white.

I'm sure this is true. I mean, I take her at her word that she's white. I have no reason to disbelieve it. As far as I know, she's white.

the thing thats so weird about the 'hillary comeback' is that there was never a point at which it looked like obama was really gonna do better than he did last night - maybe in texas by, like, a percentage point. but nothing unbelievable. we all knew this was the likely result going in

again i gotta credit her strategists for making her perform as expected into MASSIVE HRC VICTORY HALTS OBAMA MOMENTUM

but... the money. this is draining all the Dems financial coffers, they won't have much left for the GE.

If you nominate, they will come.

he thing thats so weird about the 'hillary comeback' is that there was never a point at which it looked like obama was really gonna do better than he did last night - maybe in texas by, like, a percentage point. but nothing unbelievable. we all knew this was the likely result going in

Exactly! So everyone: enjoy the weather! It's March!

This is more or less what everyone else has been saying, but I just tried the Slate Delegate Calculator and had Hillary winning 60%-40% in every remaining contest, and she's still behind by 15 pledged delegates.

David --

Our projections show the most likely outcome of yesterday's elections will be that Hillary Clinton gained 187 delegates, and we gained 183.

That's a net gain of 4 delegates out of more than 370 delegates available from all the states that voted.

For comparison, that's less than half our net gain of 9 delegates from the District of Columbia alone. It's also less than our net gain of 8 from Nebraska, or 12 from Washington State. And it's considerably less than our net gain of 33 delegates from Georgia.

The task for the Clinton campaign yesterday was clear. In order to have a plausible path to the nomination, they needed to score huge delegate victories and cut into our lead.

They failed.

...[lots of stuff about how i should send them money]

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Donate

I'm glad David Greenburg agrees:

Like the calls for Al Gore to concede the presidency to George Bush in November 2000, this anxiety about the imagined consequences of a protracted fight misreads both history and the calendar. In 2000, pundits seemed not to know that contested elections in previous years—notably the 1960 race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon—remained officially unresolved until barely a month before Inauguration Day, and so they talked as if each hour of uncertainty brought the republic nearer to doom.

The calls to wrap up the Democratic primary race show a similar amnesia. To suggest that March 5 marks a late date in the calendar ignores the duration of primary seasons past. Indeed, were Hillary Clinton to have pulled out of the race this week, Obama would have actually clinched a contested race for the party's nomination earlier than almost any other Democrat since the current primary system took shape—the sole exception being John Kerry four years ago. Fighting all the way through the primaries, in other words, is perfectly normal.

i'm starting to realize that the pledge delegate, while a very strong argument, isn't a foolproof one. what if HRC succeeds at "vetting" and "contrasting" to such an extent that he's painted as a very, very weak candidate by the media?

let's say they split the remaining contests, and let's say hillary picks up a few a long the way. any delegate lead he's got won't really matter much if obama's viewed as a weak GE candidate

i.e. while the superdelegates are surely more likely to break for the pledged delegate leader, it's not absolute by any means, especially if hillary succeeds in painting obama as a candidate with serious faults

err *flaws not faults

I think you're right. What most likely what will happen is that, barring some unforeseen scandal, they'll finish primary season about where they are now. Obama will have a 100-delegate lead (roughly 1,650 to 1,550), so it will be up to the superdelegates to decide this thing.

i'm starting to realize that the pledge delegate, while a very strong argument, isn't a foolproof one. what if HRC succeeds at "vetting" and "contrasting" to such an extent that he's painted as a very, very weak candidate by the media?

That's her endgame. She'll most likely be well-behind in pledged delegates by the convention. Her goal will be to say that the latest votes -- the ones that took place after she and Obama were "fully vetted and contrasted" -- favor her, show her momentum and show him to be weak. This, she hopes, will give her leverage over the superdelegates.

Next, we should explain the nuances of the NBA salary cap.

Bill Bradley dropped out on March 8 - no one but Gore was left after that, right?

when he wins wyoming and mississippi that will be kind of hard to maintain, that the 'momentum has shifted!!!' she'll try to pull the same thing going into every state. "But now its shifted ... for real!!!"

Next, we should explain the nuances of the NBA salary cap.

im pretty up on this if you have any questions

Can we lock this thread until Saturday then?

I once corrected the NBA cap wiki.

lol

Robert Reich fears HRC will damage the party. Funniest Line: "When (Dick) Morris was subsequently discovered to have a penchant for the toes of prostitutes the White House dumped him but kept (Mark) Penn on." And Reich doesn't strike me as normally being a funny guy.

when he wins wyoming and mississippi that will be kind of hard to maintain, that the 'momentum has shifted!!!' she'll try to pull the same thing going into every state. "But now its shifted ... for real!!!"

Good point. It's hard to see her winning more than two in a row. For instance, he wins WY and MS, she wins PA, they split IN and NC, she wins WV, they split KY and OR, etc.

they split KY

obvious lol

living in a swing state that could possibly go Dem if all the born-agains stay home because of McCain (which I honestly don't think they will) I don't have the luxury of sitting this one out, but I really, really don't want to vote for HRC.

(Reich) made his first video blog (vblog) debut on Vimeo.com on March 7, 2007 where he revealed he dated Hillary Clinton while in college.

wau

I DID NOT KNOW THAT!

He certainly doesn't seem to favor her now.

sex b/w them was like Yoda and Dooku fighting.

xp Hillary is like 8" taller than Reich.

obama is up twelve percent in the caucuses on forty percent reporting, incidentally

here we go:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Florida_and_Michigan_governors_speak.html