Best Democratic Primary EVER!
Posted at 1:34pm on May 31, 2008 "How about a three-fifths compromise?"
Hey, it worked for the Democrats before
By Jeff Emanuel
Michigan and Florida, two states who violated Democrat Party rules and moved their primaries up to the beginning of this year in order to gain nominating relevance, did become extremely relevant; however, in a supreme case of electoral irony, the nomination battle between Sens. Clinton and Obama has gone on for so long this year that both Michigan and Florida, along with Pennsylvania, Oregon, West Virginia, Kentucky, and so many more, are -- and would have been -- relevant to the nominating process anyway.
We are being reminded of that relevance yet again today, as the Democratic Party is making its latest attempt to solve its Michigan and Florida problem without (a) giving the nomination to the "wrong person," thereby sparking an irreconcilable intraparty war in the run-up to November's general election; (b) rewarding state parties who willfully flaunted their breaking of DNC figurehead Howard Dean's primary-date rules; and (c) alienating two of the most important states to Democrats in this entire election.
The compromises being put forward included a proposal (by the Clinton camp, of course) to seat all 211 of Florida's human and super delegates. Obama superdelegate Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) responded to this with what he called "an extraordinary concession, in order to promote reconciliation with Florida's voters" -- the seating of half of his own state's delegates. Sounds like a recipe for half-reconciliation to me, but then again, I'm neither a Floridian nor a Democrat; for all I know, they may appreciate things being done half way down there (at least in Wexler's district).
Read on . . .
Posted in 2008 | Best Democratic Primary EVER! | How about a little PERSPECTIVE?! | Internecine Warfare — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:08pm on May 31, 2008 DNC Rules Committee Open Thread
Or "Why You Should Buy Orville Redenbacher Stock"
By absentee
The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting today to determine what to do with Florida and Michigan and, by extension, Hillary Clinton. If you have CSPAN, turn it on. There's some classic infighting.
Michigan presented their bid first. They have a proposal to use the votes cast, the exit polls and their survey of the uncounted write-in votes in order to come up with their proposed delegate allocation.
Don Fowler, Committee Member from SC and Hillary Clinton Supporter, had this to say:
"I feel a little bit like Alice in Wonderland because on the one hand we have hard votes and then the other hand we want to discount the hard votes with exit polls. And ... if we could do that John Kerry would be President of the United States now."
Delightful. "You are stealing the vote just like BUSH!!!!! did" is how I'd summarize that tidbit.
Then there's this gem:
"It is my understanding that the four candidates in question voluntarily withdrew their names from the Michigan ballot. No party rule required them to do that. The DNC did not exhort them to do that; And the pledge that was entered into among the four early states and eight presidential candidates made no mention, much less any requirement that they withdraw their names, and that was a completely voluntary effort. Some have said that some candidates withdrew their name from that Michigan ballot to curry favor with the likes of Iowa and I just want to understand ... in terms of the decision they made, that was a voluntary decision."
Harold Ickes, Committee Member from DC and Hillary Clinton Campaign adviser.
Ahhh, superb. This is going to be a good day. RedState's Moe Lane will be covering the protests when he returns to safety later today. In the meantime, here's a little taste:
OPEN THREAD
Posted in 2008 | Best Democratic Primary EVER! — Comments (34)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:46pm on May 21, 2008 Obamomentum, Kentucky and Oregon Edition
How Do Democrats Say "Stop Embarrassing Our Nominee By Beating Him?"
By Dan McLaughlin
Well, it's time once again (see here and here) to update the chart with what should now be the complete Democratic presidential primary popular vote totals for the months of March, April and May - I delayed in getting this posted because it took until very late today to get all the votes tallied from Oregon, and in fact I'm running this with 99% of precincts there reporting because who knows how long that last 1% will take. Of course, a handful of late votes are still trickling in from IN & NC, too.
| State | Date | Obama | Clinton | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kentucky | 5/20 | 209,869 | 459,093 | -249,224 |
| Oregon | 5/20 | 360,728 | 252,270 | +108,458 |
| West Virginia | 5/13 | 91,652 | 239,062 | -147,410 |
| Indiana | 5/6 | 630,946 | 645,365 | -14,419 |
| North Carolina | 5/6 | 887,412 | 657,676 | +229,736 |
| Guam | 5/3 | 2,264 | 2,257 | +7 |
| Pennsylvania | 4/22 | 1,046,822 | 1,260,937 | -214,115 |
| Mississippi | 3/11 | 265,502 | 159,221 | +106,281 |
| Wyoming | 3/8 | 5,378 | 3,311 | +2,067 |
| Texas | 3/4 | 1,362,476 | 1,462,734 | -100,258 |
| Ohio | 3/4 | 1,055,769 | 1,259,620 | -203,851 |
| Rhode Island | 3/4 | 75,316 | 108,949 | -33,633 |
| Vermont | 3/4 | 91,901 | 59,806 | +32,095 |
| Total | 6,086,035 | 6,570,301 | -484,266 | |
| Overall% | 48.09% | 51.91% |
(Source). In other words, even before we get to Puerto Rico, Obama is nearly half a million votes in the hole since the events of late February and early March (i.e., the 3am ad, the Goolsbee/NAFTA flap, and of course the Rev. Wright story). Now, let's look at turnout, using the same baseline as before (the number of votes in 2006 for House Democrats in the state) - this time, I'll just run the chart just for the same time period (the full chart and explanation of sources is here):
Read On....
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Best Democratic Primary EVER! | Hillary Clinton — Comments (29)/ Email this page » / Read More »
