John Zogby, on Hannity Radio Show, talked of rumors that Al Gore will take Obama's delegates
By sickofobama Posted in Archived — Comments (53) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from blogs, with a notation: this must be the single silliest suggestion that we have seen so far from the Democratic Party on how to solve their primary problem. I mean. Really. They want to take the nomination away from the first female / African-American mainstream candidate for President, and give it to an old white guy?
(pause)
Um, thanks? - Moe Lane
John Zogby, the pollster who runs Zogby International, said today on the Hannity Radio Program that there are rumors that top ranking Democrats are talking about having Obama give his delegates to Al Gore. He said Obama would have to offer these delegates since he's in the lead and the thinking seems to be that Gore will have more appeal to white male voters and that Gore will likely be able to hold on to the support of Clinton supporters since these are core Democratic voters. He said that Hillary and Obama would be given either the VP position, high-level Cabinet positions, or the Senate Majority position or something along those lines in order to make their voters happy.
Zogby's polling is very good but his verbal predictions have been way off sometimes (like with the 2004 election). Scott Rasmussen, also on the show, seemed a bit skeptical that it would work given the historic nature of this race of having the first black or first female President. This may be true because Zogby, as far as I know, has a lot of connections to the Democratic Party and either way, it seems like the Democratic Party is not that concerned with disenfranchising some Democratic voters anyway. He said that if this battle b/n Obama and Hillary goes on, which it probably will, that this is the one thing that can save the party. It sounds crazy but the GOP needs to keep their eyes open for this one.
I hope nobody reminds them that the Alabama Dems did something similar in 1986 when they set aside the results of the runoff and nominated Bill Baxley, giving us our first Republican governor since Reconstruction.
....because then he would be forced to debate global warming. He won't put himself in a position to be discredited.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Unfortunately, he wouldn't. McCain sure isn't going to debate him :(
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"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" ~Ronald Reagan
...but if Algore were to run, the issue would be front and center, and Al Gore would be forced to address the issue, which he doesn't want to do.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Laugh all you want, but that particular ticket would have Republicans waking up on the Wednesday after the Tuesday before wondering if Perot ran again.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Except that Clinton I was known as the "first black president" and Clinton II would be geniunely reviled by the black community.
There's no way, after the millions that have been raised for each candidate, that either one of them is going to step aside in favor of a guy who has done nothing in this campaign.
It's going to a twelve-round decision. Gotta love it.
Joel Pollak
Guide to the Perplexed
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com
for the price of one. Imagine this question- "Mr. Gore, how can you maintain your stance on global warming when there is no statistical proof of its existence?" Ok, that won't happen because Senator McCain would be in the same boat. If the Gore scenario happened, he (Gore) would lose because he'd lose the black vote.
Tim Schieferecke
So they would be backing a winner.
I have to say this has me very very worried.
I just can't imagine how the McCain campaign would be able to deal with this. Absolutely incomprehensible the stature of Gore running. How would we win ?
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I don't think it would happen, but if somehow it goes beyond the first ballot, I could see Gore jumping in somehow.
But there is no way Obama "gives" Gore anything. Same for Hillary. But I wouldn't count it out if the convention goes into chaos.
"I ain't never votin' fo another Democrat so long as I can draw breath! I'll vote for a dog first!" - Leola Thomas
This plan would work, assuming the big O went along, only if the delegates were compelled to support Gore. Otherwises, some might choose Clinton, injecting even more chaos into the food fight. I love it.
Where's Jeremiah Wright when you need him. I can just imagine the vitriol that will be spewed in black churches if the white powers that be usurp the nomination from Obama if he is leading in delegates.
When will the Dems figure it out; when you try to make everyone happy, no one ends up happy. It hasn't worked with Hillary and the feminist vote, Obama and the black vote and it won't work with Gore and the environmentalist vote.
...and throwing his support to Hillary in favor of party unity and the Dem agenda is far more likely - and the worst case scenario for the Republicans. We're not there yet.
New Hillary campaign slogan suggestion: "Mene tekel ufarshin."
If you don't know what that means, ask your pastor.
Big Al isn't running - he'd have to lose too much weight!
disenfranchising some Democratic voters
Considering Gore isn't on any ballot, wouldn't this disenfranchise every single Democratic voter?
Anyhow, amusing as this scenario is, I don't see how this could possibly happen. Hillary is unlikely to accept it, and she'd be quite right not to.
The night of Al Gore's concession speech when the SCOTUS ended the Florida recount, known Democrats were calling Gore "lame" even as he was still speaking. They tend to be unforgiving of their losers, even if it's a close finish. They didn't really want John Kerry to run again this year, and I certainly don't remember anyone talking about running Dukakis again.
What are Edward's Delegates going to do.
If they all break towards one candidate it could make the difference.
Because Gore can only serve four years, as he's already won the presidency once before.
I don't see it happening the way Zogby suggests, but I have considered that if neither Hillary or Obama get to the convention with the nomination sewn up, a white knight on a dark horse could emerge from somewhere and take it away from both of them. I hadn't thought of Gore, though.
The reasoning would be that a Hillary win via the Anti-Democratic Delegates (which now seems possible) would lose the Black vote and disrupt the party for years, and Obama now seems unelectable in the general election (his previous strong suit), even if the Rubber-Stamp Delegates put him over the top at the Convention. The fact that the Poobahs of the Dem Party are suspected of trying an end-around to avoid that possibility makes sense. A switch to Mario Cuomo, John Edwards, one of the earlier seven dwarfs, or even Gore eliminates the problems that hang around Hillary's and Obama's necks.
When you look closely at them, the Democrats are as thin at the top as we are right now. Both parties are probably considering a comb-over to spruce up their image.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
I can't think of who else they could ably rally around and who could legitimately step in and draw the support of a divided convention. Mario Cuomo's last chance was in 1992, and John Edwards has already lost a national election in 2004 and didn't pull any traction in 2008. John Kerry is a proven loser (not to say that Gore isn't, but he did win the popular vote in 2000.) Nancy Pelosi is probably happy as Speaker of the House. Howard Dean would be too far to the left and Mark Warner too far to the right. Al Gore would appear to be the only option.
The one problem I see with this is that even if Hillary wins Pennsylvania, which I think would just about ensure that this goes past the final primaries in June because there are some states left that Obama likely can't win (Indiana, West Virginia), and vice versa some that Hillary can't win (Oregon), compromises would have to be made with both camps, and you can't have two running mates. Hillary's ego is also likely too big to accept a third candidate taking the nomination. Harry Reid probably wouldn't step down for either of them to be Senate Majority Leader, unless he gets a big Cabinet post. It would take some deft maneuvering to pull this off, and I'm not sure you can do it.
If Hillary can't overtake Barack Obama in at least the popular vote of the caucuses and primaries (including Florida), she doesn't have a case for the nomination. If Obama is leading in both delegates and votes, the super-delegates I think will be duty-bound to support Obama. Hillary in my mind has to at least pass Obama in popular votes, and she'll likely need to have Florida included to do it, which means some sort of delegate representation at the Convention.
So your interpretation of the uncommitted delegates is that they're just Rubber-Stamp Delegates. Fair enough, but they are not really "duty-bound" to support the candidate with the majority of the popular vote, nor with the majority of the delegate vote. If that were the case, there'd be no need for them in the first place. A computer could do their job.
However, if they're free agents, duty-bound to vote for the candidate they deem "best," they can exercise independent judgement and vote for either candidate or somebody else.
It's a philosophical point, of course, becasue they might decide that "best" means "the candidate that will cause the smallest rift in the party, whether he/she has a chance to win in the General or not." Which might mean they had decided to become Rubber Stamps.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
Hillary can ask:
1. How many primaries would Obama have won had Wright been prominently in the news earlier?
2. Would Obama have really received more popular votes in the early primaries if Wright's sermons had been common knowledge earlier?
Hillary will have an even stronger case if Obama wins few primaries from now on.
There are not many left, and they're almost all primary states.
PA: Hillary's running away with this one.
Guam: God only knows. Incidentally, Guam has a population of 173K; which means, assuming half of 'em are Democrats, they get one delegate for every 13.3K voters. Best. Primary. EVAR.
IN: See the other Rust Belt States. Some polls would be nice.
NC: Obama's polling numbers took a big hit this week. He needs this state with double digits.
WV: Hillary's running away with this one, too.
KY: More polls here, but the last HtHs suggest that Obama's sinking like a stone.
OR: Still Obama country, as far as I know.
PR: Wouldn't we like to know.
Of that list, the only Obama blowout State I can see is Oregon, and that's only because I'm grossly stereotyping the State as being full of rather earnest and soggy eco-liberals - instead of using, say, actual polls.
All of which is a leadup to my comment that I don't know if we can count on anything going even remotely as predicted from here on in. It's a mess that the Democrats have themselves in, is it not?
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Of that list, the only Obama blowout State I can see is Oregon, and that's only because I'm grossly stereotyping the State as being full of rather earnest and soggy eco-liberals - instead of using, say, actual polls.
D*mn hippies.
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Two thirds of the world is covered by water,
the other third is covered by Champ Bailey.
Huh!?!??! Zogby is as unreliable as they come. Didn't he call for an investigation into the 2004 results in a bunch of states because he was so ridiculously wrong?
No reason at all. R2D2 or C3PO could handle it with no help at all.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
That's a little-known facet of a 'droid's behavior. They're programmed by humans, you know.
But I was only referring to their ability to compare two numbers and determine which one is greater.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Looks like a scene from "Droids Gone Wild."
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
when they went to deliver a message to Jabba's palace. They had their roles but it takes a Jedi to really manage the negotiation :)
I think it lost something during the translation to the small screen.
But something was uncannily familiar there. Was that a pantsuit that Jabba was wearing?
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
It no longer matters...
It no longer matters if it's Obama
It no longer matters if it's Hillary
It no longer matters if it's AlGore
Every morning we wake up and the hole that the Democrats are digging for themselves is just a little deeper. Only inches a day, everyday and by Sept 1st they will be so far down in the dark it will simply not matter.
Someone will 'win' and someone else will be mad.
It no longer matters who.
Let's say I agree with you on those three names. Now let's make it interesting--
Can anybody come up with a name for which the statement is not true? At least not in the sense that the waters can't be calmed?
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
has been received (below).
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
it's always interesting to see read the outlandish things the media will say to get ratings. quit getting your news from tabloid journalism like Hannity and try watching cspan for a change. get an education and see some real news.
You must just be passing by.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
except I find it depressing that there are so many stupid, clueless people calling in on the Democrat and Independent line.
M Penny
PS to Moe--You are probably right about the choice of Al Gore being "the single silliest suggestion that we have seen so far from the Democratic Party on how to solve their primary problem."
But it's not such a silly idea (although perhaps premature) if they could dig JFK up out of his grave at Arlington and get him back on the ticket. Or somebody else--do they have anybody to fill the bill?
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
Oh man, I hope this is true. Liberals really do know how to screw things up!