No, it’s not. That’s the whole point of having superdelegates - to allow the party to make the call early, heal the wounds, and be united in the convention.
For this to make it to the convention, the Democrats would have to be a bunch of incompetent…um…well. Ahem. Maybe it will make it to the convention.
If that’s the case, then they would make the call right now, because almost no one thinks Hillary can win in the end based on the elected delegates. As I said above, Hillary is playing to win with the superdelegates on her side.
If Hillary can’t win I think she should drop out, I’m just starting to wonder about the “decide it early” principle. So far the contested primary has got the Democrats piles and piles of free media coverage and intense voter engagement that they wouldn’t have if one of them had locked it up in NH.
This is unlike Kerry, who got pretty good turnout, but nowhere near the incredible levels we’re seeing now. I never dreamed I’d see a hot Democratic presidential primary in Texas.
I don’t know if you can point to “turn out” as proof of anything. I understand the logic behind your thinking, but we’ve had this debate before. The national polls say the race is close so that means the turnout isn’t making this an automatic Dem win.
Plus, you can’t discount how late the convention is. Even if both sides make-up no matter the result, the reality is that won’t happen until very close to the general election.
Finally, if Hillary ends up with the nomination I don’t know if you can count on the overwhelming youth support for Obama switching to support Hillary. That group is very unpredictable.
Also, remember that Texas has open primaries. A lot of Republicans showed up today.
Also… Texas caucus results keep coming in, and right now Obama has the lead, 55/45.
Even the stickiest mud won’t help her now, but Obama or one of his associates can still make a big mistake. That’s what she’s waiting for. And she also has MI and FL in her ammo box. And hell, as long as the money keeps coming in, why not spend it?
Based on Exit Polls, they went for Obama 52-47.
Unless Obama gets enough delegates to get a first round win at the convention, why shouldn’t Clinton stay in even if the math doesn’t favor her? And about those 50 supers about to switch to Obama, my guess is now they will wait.
I think the most recent poll I’ve seen for Pennsylvania has Clinton ahead there too. She’s going to be able to make a good argument at the convention.
My prediction from a few days ago:
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a split: Hillary wins Ohio, and Obama wins Texas. At the very least, he is highly likely to walk away from Texas with more delegates, but I think he may win the popular vote there, too.
Hillary did win Ohio, as I suspected. Obama did not win the primary in Texas, but it was a close race, and the caucus results are still coming in and look to be similarly close–but favoring Obama instead of Hillary. So it looks like Texas will essentially be a tie. Obama will likely come away with more delegates (but only barely).
The real question is: what does this mean? Certainly it allows Hillary the option of staying in the race (which she will), but realistically, she’s still in pretty much the same position that she was on Monday. Behind, with little hope of catching up before the convention. Texas and Ohio are big states, but even though Hillary won both primaries, they really weren’t big wins. Texas was basically a tie, and her 10 point lead in Ohio isn’t exactly a blowout, especially for a state that was supposed to be Hillary’s Ace in the hole.
As was discussed after the last round of primaries, she needed a blowout tonight, in both big states, to have a shot at catching up to Obama in terms of pledged delegates. She did not get a blowout, in either state. So when it comes down to brass tacks, her nomination still depends on convincing superdelegates to break from the popular vote, and at this point, that is unlikely to change before the convention. Can she do that? Who knows. I have my doubts, though. I don’t think the supers are going to be particularly inclined to break from the popular vote, but there are a lot of complex factors at work here, so it’s hard to say how it will play out at this point.
And the band played on. :/
The big news last night was McCain, and that’s all the meat heads had to talk about for hours, it seemed. With McCain being the nominee, he could concentrate on taking the fight tot he democrats, and wouldn’t have to worry any more about competition among his own party.
I guess I see it a lot more complicated than John’s acceptance speech would make it seem:
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Last night, 30% of the voting republicans still voted for Huckabee. From all the polls, the general consensus is that they were voting for him because he “thinks like I do”. If we examine the distinguishing characteristics between Huckabee’s spin and McCain’s spin, I think the difference falls out in religion. If that’s the case, and they can’t see themselves voting for McCain in the end, we may have a lot of folks breaking for Obama, who’s definitely got more of a religious background than Clinton.
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If Clinton and Obama can play this right, they could have at least another month of double-teaming McCain. If, instead, they spend all of their time sniping at each other, they’re going to wander blithely into the obvious trap that an early nomination decision by the Republicans sets up. Someone needs to convince both candidates that they can sell themselves as the “better opponent” of McCain, rather than “better than the other Democrat”.
I’m not so sure in this case.
I think in an odd way, this is all just continuing “buzz” for the Democrats. The campaign has not been particularly mean and nasty, so neither candidate will (at this point) emerge having been totally blasted and slimed by his or her Democratic opponent. I think the Democrats are doing a huge favor to their party (even if Obama and Hilary feel a bit restrained) by not having this campaign go negative. They really seem to be presenting a united “we disagree on the details, but agree on the general” front.
McCain having locked things up means that in part, his name will not be nearly as big of news as Obama and Hilary for the next few months. Out of sight, out of mind.
Voting here in Ohio was a total mess yesterday. Districts all over the state, but especially up north around Cleveland and in the southwest around Cincinnati, were running out of Democratic ballots. Polls were held open later and a mad scramble to get more copies of the ballots out ensued.
Now here’s the interesting part. Many of the places where ballots ran low or ran out were in historically “red” districts, such as southwest Ohio (Cincinnati and surrounding counties) where I live. Why the sudden surge in Democratic turn out at the polls? The Hillary-Obama fight is that energizing? Nope. Turns out, state Republicans who have known for weeks that McCain was the inevitable lock have been urging party members to enter a Form 10X, switching party affiliations for the primary so they can vote in the Democratic primary race. Local and national conservative talk radio has been pushing this idea heavily, and thousands of Republican voters did just that. Guess who they voted for? Hillary Clinton.
It’s really a mad sort of genius. Ensuring a win by Clinton in Ohio keeps her in the race, and keeps the Democrats fighting among themselves through the DNC, leaving McCain fairly untouched. Also, should momentum somehow shift Hillary’s way thanks to victories in Ohio and Texas, and should she somehow get enough support to actually win the nomination, moderates and independants who would have supported Obama suddenly jump to McCain’s camp. It’s win-win for Republicans.
This kind of pisses me off. Some may say it’s politics as usual, but local media is saying there are an unprecedented number of these “crossover voters” and the blatent conservative media push to do this prior to the primary borders on election tampering. It looks like Clinton would have won Ohio regardless, but how much momentum and hope does she gain from winning convincingly as opposed to winning by a narrow margin? I’m not sure how you could stop this kind of tampering short of forcing everyone who switches parties during the primaries to vote the same party come general election, which in itself would be a breech of rights.
Yes, the U.S. primaries/caucus system blows generally speaking. It is way too shady and non-transparent, as evidenced by this, the freaking voodoo of moving dates, states jockeying for position, etc.
The large majority of the people still voting for Huckabee at this point are never going to consider voting for someone so strongly pro-abortion rights that their positions could justifiably be called extremist (Obama wouldn’t even vote in the Illinois legislature for a bill that outlawed the killing of viable babies that survived late-term abortions for chrissakes, a version of which passed the U.S. Senate before Obama arrived 98-0) no matter what his general religious demeanor might be.
What’s the point of stretching the primaries for months and months, anyway? Why can’t they just do the whole thing in one shot like is done for the general election? Is it just for the media circus? I’ve known pretty much everything I need to know about all the viable candidates for a long time now and it shocks me when I hear about momentum as if people are still switching their votes back and forth because Hillary won a few states or shed a tear on camera.
Interestingly enough, the Constitution originally held that the runner-up for President became Vice President. The 12th Amendment changed it so that President and Vice President are now voted on in the Electoral College on separate ballots. It’s actually just due to mutual agreement by all parties involved that any elector picking a President will also cast the Vice Presidential ballot for that candidate’s chosen VP.