2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

no, you're not reading the article dude! the key to the whole article is that its about how HRC offers community leaders access to the halls of power, which barack cannot do; in return, those community leaders deliver the votes of their communities to HRC. He explains what emergent and insurgent means, and he doesnt imply that this covers all voters - he's just speaking about communities of immigrants (aka communities that do not have access to legislative power already)

whats so hard to understand?

So he's just saying that she got the latino and asian vote because she got the endorsement of community leaders? Well sure, but duh. I'll definitely agree that Obama's handling of those communities was a weak spot. I do disagree that he couldn't have gotten their endorsement, and again, if it's looking like Obama's going to be the nominee then I think community leaders might have more of an interest in backing him, at least by Chang's logic, no?

...yes but she got those endorsements early. the point of the story is that this is the ultimate reason why so many latino and asian voters went for hillary.

Does she have endorsements in OH/TX/PA yet?

I want to feel good about the upcoming election, and I'm personally elated that Obama is winning, but does anyone really believe this will be a blow out?

You mean in the GE, Fluffy? I think McCain will win it, narrowly.

if obama gets through mccain is gonna go into full bully mode, mittzings 2.0 except they won't be as funny. mccain will be at his loosest and most formidable against someone he sees as an upstart, which is the view that's getting drilled into his head right now.

My cynicism has got to stop at believing that McCain would beat Obama, because Obama has a real chance and a gift at inspiring people -- at least long enough to vote for him. But I'm sure we're still agreed that McCain would show Hillary the meaning of pain.

i cant see mccain winning the GE, even if hillary somehow pulls it off

We keep coming back to this. Understandably, I guess. Half of us think Hillary has enough support to win for whatever reason, and the other half of us keep saying, "You don't understand how many people sincerely hate this woman."

no, i do understand that, i think most people here do. i think what they dont understand is 1. mccain old lol 2. mccain crotchety (nervous.jpg) 3. this guy wants ... MORE wars??

seriously the republican party is in shitty shape for a reason and mccain is awkward, gruff and OLD. he 'sold out' in the eyes of most of the independents who once thought he was a maverick. dems are voting in record numbers (or record numbers are voting dem)

seriously no matter how the dem primary plays out i think mccain is the long shot here

I don't want to do any fundie-nutjob blogger's job for them, but why haven't we seen "insurgent candidate" deployed with a disparaging 'terrorist' connotation in regards to senator iraq hussein osama?

uh, we have, haven't we?

I don't think McCain is a long shot. I think this election will be close. I feel cautiously optimistic about Obama. If I had to bet, right now I'd probably bet on Obama.

To restate things from the last thread, I might seriously sit out the election if it's McCain/Clinton. I couldn't sleep either way, I don't think.

McCain with his war, which I think he would handle better than Bush, but that might also be like saying that the Bismark sank and the Exxon Valdez didn't. And his pro-life stance -- I said before that he wouldn't be concerned with acting on it, and he has in fact SAID exactly that, but that was a few years back, and winning that bile-filled conservative base is looking pretty important to him. To throw a juicy bone to that base, he might in fact aggressively pursue to overturn Roe v. Wade. In lieu of a thank you card. Or if not abortion, some other frightening issue that he's always been a "maverick" about, but is kinda willing to give up now that he has to get more staunch conservative love.

The best argument against Hillary was by someone else, and I'm sorry that I forgot who. Elmo? Basically that she might actually prove to be a more divisive president than W, if that is even possible. Reaching across the isle would be finished. The so-called "culture war" would feel a pretty real "surge." And the government would be just as ugly, nasty, untrustworthy, and depressing as the last eight years. Shit, McCain can as least find the aisle.

From MSNBC the night of the Florida primary:

Pat Buchanan: "What's McCain said he's for? 'The jobs aren't coming back. The illegals aren't going away. And we're going to have more wars.'"

Joe Scarborough: "John McCain's stated platform: 'Fewer jobs. More war."

A calculus-changing military/terrorism incident or an unexpected gaffe/implosion from the Dem nominee is the only way McCain has a legit shot at either Obama or Clinton.

You mean people are going to vote for a Democrat because they don't like illegal immigrants?

prob not, but they may stay home.

hillary has actually worked fairly well with republicans in congress. too well, many dems would say.

...a little too quiet.

Joe Scarborough: "John McCain's stated platform: 'Fewer jobs. More war."

It's true, conservatives want to win this war, because RAH RAH, but they don't want any more of them. A lot of that base is wanting "real" conservatism back, and by "real" they mean isolationism. You have to go pretty far back to get to a time when conservatives really devoutly wanted that, before Bush (because, terrorists!), before the Cold War (because, Communists!), maybe all the way back to, say, NEVER.

WWII though...

hillary has actually worked fairly well with republicans in congress. too well, many dems would say.

oh bull, Hillary works well with corporations who have shit-tons of money. Learned the trade from Bill, dontcha know.

WWII though...

Heh. Yes. Everyone now understands that getting involved in that war was totally foolish.

You mean people are going to vote for a Democrat because they don't like illegal immigrants?

No -- economy and war -- I just used the full quote, which was pretty lol when Buchanan delivered it.

a history prof pal put it like this:

prolonged obama vs. hillary fight allows gop to concentrate on congress in 2008
+
even if hillary wins, she'll stir up the base of army ants
=
2010 gop gush in congress
+
2012 gop candidate true succesor... "savior".

strange equations but...

the funny thing about obama is that i think the gop hasn't figured out how to wreck on him yet.

gopper g. guppy: oh shit, he's black, what are we going to say?
trent lott: oh i know!
gopper g. guppy: shut up trent.

it's weird cause the other night on conservative talk radio i hear phil valentine, a conservative's conservitive, say, "obama is a nice guy. he really is. i don't agree with his politics, but i can't help but like him." it's one of those rare moments where i find myself mildly shocked. (or is it a trick? "oh see, i thought obama was nice, but look at this shitwtfombg?!?"

OK. The non-cheap part of my post is that if conservatives hate McCain for being too far left (which is mostly what it's about, apart from the war), that's not necessarily going to benefit the Dems. Maybe people will stay home, I don't know.

xpost

NOBODY wants fewer jobs and more war. It's what they said -- and the truth of it -- not who said it.

It's what they said -- and the truth of it -- not who said it.

On the surface, and of course most people vote on the surface, so yeah. But man, the baggage that comes with "we want jobs and not war" when it comes from those two guys. "We want jobs, but we want the same old jobs we're used to, even if it means that American businesses can't be competitive in a world market in the long-term. And we want no war because it feels too much like a slippery slope down to treaties, agreements, concessions, trade agreements, GOD KNOWS WHAT HORRORS! We have found that the insides of our own asses are much warmer than hats."

*cue flashy Fox News graphic of a bar graph of the median temperatures of each, with one long fat red bar labeled "Your own ass" and one sad short blue bar labeled "A hat"*

The actual quotes from Buchanan and Scarborough were lotsa laffs in a schadenfreude kinda way.

The basic, obvious point is that the two biggest issues are likely to be the economy and Iraq and this is a candidate on the record as saying he doesn't know much about the economy and he wants to stay in Iraq 100 years and that there will be more wars.

Not scared of the scary old man. He's not winning the general.

here we go

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/02/clinton_counts.html

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton will take the Democratic nomination even if she does not win the popular vote, but persuades enough superdelegates to vote for her at the convention, her campaign advisers say.

The New York senator, who lost three primaries Tuesday night, now lags slightly behind her rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in the delegate count. She is even further behind in "pledged'' delegates, those assigned by virtue of primaries and caucuses.

But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.

"I want to be clear about the fact that neither campaign is in a position to win this nomination without the support of the votes of the superdelegates,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call.

"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,'' Wolfson said. "And we don't make distinctions when it comes to elected officials'' who vote as superdelegates at the convention.

"We are interested in acquiring delegates, period,'' he added.

Clinton advisers rejected the notion that the candidate -- and the party -- would be badly wounded in the general election if the nominee were essentially selected by a group of party insiders.

"This is a nomination system that exists of caucuses, primaries, superdelegates and also the issue of voters in Florida and Michigan,'' states whose delegates currently will not be seated at the convention because they broke party rules by moving up their primaries to January, said Mark Penn, senior strategist for the Clinton campaign. But "whoever the nominee is, the party will come together behind that nominee,'' he said.

oh it's like that.

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/snapgraem26wuch9.gif

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,"

You tell it. There is not a PRIMARY America and a CAUCUS America. There is a UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

AMIRITE, VOTERS?

Enh, i dunno. I get the feeling they gettin' despit'. If Obama continues to blow out these contests, then hopefully all the superdelegates that the clinton camp can either con, cajole, or strong-arm into supporting them won't matter as much.

Gunna be a long year regardless. The Congressional election fun hasn't even begun in earnest yet.

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/040819/125922__election_l.jpg

You see, you can't interfere with destiny. That's why it's destiny.

It's weird that they would put this out before Texas & Ohio. Is everyone really that certain by now that she's going to lose the elected delegate count?

Seems to be the buried message, doesn't it?

I think the buried message is that Howard Wolfson is pretty fucking sad at his job. Jesus Christ, man.

Yeah, that too. Seems a bit much that he's ready to just chuck in the rest of the primary elections just to favor whatever backroom arm-twisting they can pull off.

I wonder if he'll still be at his job in 4 weeks time.

he's probably just saying that to get off the sinking ship faster.

LOL @ Fox news' image names:

http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/021208_doomsday1.jpg
http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/021208_doomsday2.jpg
http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/021208_doomsday4.jpg
http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/021208_doomsday5.jpg http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/021208_doomsday6.jpg http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/021208_doomsday8.jpg http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/021208_doomsday9.jpg http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/021208_doomsday10.jpg

yay layout

If Hillary doesn't win the popular vote, then she's not going to get the superdelegates she needs to swing it her way. Because everyone understands that if there's any perception that she played dirty to get the nomination, it would be a fatal blow to her GE chances.

she might actually prove to be a more divisive president than W, if that is even possible. Reaching across the isle would be finished. The so-called "culture war" would feel a pretty real "surge." And the government would be just as ugly, nasty, untrustworthy, and depressing as the last eight years. Shit, McCain can as least find the aisle.

why do you think this kenan? it's not a rare thing to think, i've just never understood why people think it

btw sy hersh came to speak at the university of tennessee recently and my parents went. they said he was shambling, absent-minded, hilarious and said basically anything that came into his mind

the two big points they came away with were these -

1) nobody -- not obama, not hillary -- is telling the truth about how fvucked america is in the middle east, about how it will be impossible to just withdraw anytime soon, regardless of how brilliant the plan is or how well executed, nor about how the recent drop in violence is real but based on strategies that don't work long-term

2) if there is a successful terrorist attack on american soil the republicans are going to win the election

nobody -- not obama, not hillary -- is telling the truth about how fvucked america is in the middle east

McCain isn't telling the whole truth, either, but I think he's trying to tell as much as he can without completely politically hamstringing himself. Trouble is, MAN can he ever be bad at this. He is bad at covering his ass and not so careful about talking off the top of his head, and neither does him any service. He also changes his mind sometimes. Oh noes can't do that, it crushes my mind grapes.

This "hundred million years" quote of his (or whatever the number is up to) is the kind of not-awfully-calculated thing to say that opponents on both sides can sink teeth into, both anti-war liberals and -- shit -- anti-war ANYBODY, and also isolationist conservatives. But wait a second ffs, he never said he wants bloody casualties forever and ever. He said specifically that he did not, in fact. He said, "We've been in Japan for 60 years, we've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That'd be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That's fine with me. I hope it will be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping, and motivating people every single day." And then he explained it again on a morning talk show. Maybe I need a new barometer or something, but that does not sound like a red-faced teeth-gnashing warmonger to me. It does sound like an inconvenient sound bite.

He's kinda good at those: then there's the thing he said about "more wars," which was (looked it up) "There's going to be other wars. ... I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars." I just don't know how hawkish that sounds, especially not from a dude who was a POW for five years. When he says he's sorry to tell you, I kinda get the impression he's actually sorry to tell you. Throwing in the phrase "we will never surrender" was a little half-hearted attempt to maybe let some of his more bloodthisrty base know that he's not going to be a pussy, either, but the tone of the statement was not aggro warcore. And then you read any coverage that cites that comment, and the blogs and the god-help-us pundits, and suddenly the exact quote reads "I am going to kill people. Oh yes. Mark my words. Mwahahahaha."

I hate to defend a guy who has voted against every reproductive right that has been challenged in his presence, I honestly do. I have problems with the man! BUT HE IS NOT INSANE.

"We've been in Japan for 60 years, we've been in South Korea for 50 years or so."

What's kinda off-kilter to me about the reaction to this is that the hardcore isolationists, generally a bit insane in their own right, are the only ones who are reading the comment about "10,000 years" the way he meant it. They don't want us there not even to keep peace, not even a military base, nothing.