Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Hillary Wins In PA, What Changes?

Hillary has won Pennsylvania, ugly, but won with 10% roughly and that will certainly keep her in the Primary. She'll gain 15 delegates or so and gain around 200,000 in the general vote cutting Obama's lead to 150 delegates and 500,000 vote. North Carolina will probably pull Obama back nearly where he was, unless something collapses. Indiana looks real close at this time, perhaps essentially another push. Obama currently looks stronger in Montana and Oregon. My current guess is that by the time the Primary voting is done, we'll be about where we were yesterday, Obama ahead by about 165 delegates and 3/4 million votes, somewhere around 1% ahead.

There hasn't been any doubt for some time that this goes to the super delegates to decide. So what do they think now? I'd say they think, "let's wait and see." I'd be willing to bet that some of them are not too happy with the negative campaigning and all of them are tired of being pestered. Oregon's vote isn't for a month yet and I'm tired of it all. Being a political junkie I've paid too much attention to this for the past year and.

What this promises is to be ugly. To get a popular vote in the end of all this requires Hillary to count Florida, questionable to many and problematic with DNC people. Ugly is how Hillary has done it for the last few big states and since it seems to have worked, increasing both their negatives, she'll do it some more. This is problematic with some who don't like to see Democrats beating on each other over just stuff. Obama had two things blow up on him in the run up to Pennsylvania, Rev Wright and the San Francisco bitter statement, the question is whether they will resonate with voters. If no more "bitter" type statements are laying around to bite him, it probably has a shelf-life expiration. Rev Wright probably won't go away, he's too convenient a scarecrow, though the Clinton campaign has to be careful to "frame" it so it doesn't look racist. Hillary is a gold mine of harsh foreign policy statements, contradictions, and outright lies, Obama's problem remains that to mine that mess puts Barak into the same category with the things he's made a mantra of not being.

I guess in July we'll see what super delegates think of all this and let Democrats know what they're going to do with us.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

One thing that has not changed is the media trying whip up the faux drama of "should Clinton give up? Stay tuned!"

Anonymous said...

How strange that Rush Limbaugh's cry for repugs to re-register as dimmos for Hillary and so little attention on how many did that. I heard that the numbers were in the hundred of thousands. Will this happen in Oregon?

John Brown of Kansas said...

Chuck,

I was thinking +15 for HRC, too, but someone told me the number is more like 9 or 10.

Either way, I agree with you. For all purposes, the die is cast.

I understand why the supers are stalling, but only to an extent. At some point, they're going to have to make a call. I don't see what potential net benefit they gain from a long stall.

Yours,
John Brown
Gorer of Oxen

Zakariah Johnson said...

If Republican party-switching to promote Clinton ends up having the result they want, they may live to regret it. It isn't clear to me which of the two Democratic candidates would prove stronger against John "Keating who?" McCain. It may yet prove that Clinton is the more formidable opponent, despite her admittedly significant flaws.

But one thing I haven't really seen discussed anywhere is what the long-term impact of "the black vote" would be if the super-delegates gave Clinton the nomination without her having captured the popular vote. My guess is that as a trend black voters would, with arguable justification, feel screwed and grass roots activism for the Democratic party in that community would diminish significantly for years to come.

Chuck Butcher said...

Republican voting to mess with the election has been analyzed by some to be pretty immaterial.

I wouldn't expect many of the "supers" to announce before the vote is done.

I don't think you'll hear a lot about the black vote in case of a Hillary. I think there's some 'sensitivity' about talking about it. I see three groups with bad reactions to a Hillary nomination:
New voters - young & enthused for different.
Independents - PO'd at Repubs/again something new
Blacks - obvious

I cannot explain the PO'd Hillary supporters who'd go McCain or stay home. There is inside the D's an element that won't do a black, ever, but the others I don't get at all.

Anonymous said...

Why is it so difficult to say Racism is alive and well in the North as well as in the West?"
Being Black in this enlighten world is still a No-No. Sad a man's color dictates his place in our society.
I was hoping he would bring out it is an Economic Problem, not a race problem. The Tail that wags the dog..FDR look it up it is history.

Anonymous said...

She won by 9.2%. So not double digits at least. Ah, well

Chuck Butcher said...

In several articles I've made the point that racism in the north seems to have had an economic basis, true also in the west. Obama seemed to make a pass at it in those ill thought out thoughts in SF. People get tired and their mind out runs their mouth. I expect he'll be smarter about it next time.