As we wait to hear from Indiana, it's always worth recalling that there's no real substantial difference between a narrow win in Indiana and a narrow loss in Indiana. A lot of our primary punditry has proceeded as if this is the electoral college and there's a huge difference, but the Democrats' rules for delegate allocation assures at this point that Indiana's going to be a push while Obama picks up a nice parcel of delegates out of North Carolina.
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Narrow Wins
06 May 2008 10:07 pm
Comments (53)
Who 'won' Texas?
Obama's plays chess and the media reports on checkers. Idiots.
According to the most recent count, 0% of Lake County votes have been counted. Lake includes Gary and East Chicago with a large Black voting block, so while perhaps not enough to catch HRC, it could put it at 51-49 or even closer.
At least on MSNBC, the pundits seem on top of this fact.
Yay, Obama! What a speech!
BUT, if Clinton loses Indiana (which it doesn't look like she will), can she justify continuing her campaign? Not should she, since she has the right to, but can she give a cogent, reasoned justification for it? I guess the argument is that this point could have been made post Wisconsin, only now it's clear that Jeremiah Wright isn't going to cut the mustard, hence Begala downplaying it and Ickes warning of unspecified October Surprises. Maybe if she loses Indiana, even Clinton herself might realize this.
It's also worth recalling that the good people of Indiana burned Reggie Miller's house to the ground. It is the most racist state in America. Add in Operation Chaos and a narrow lose is a huge victory for Obama.
There's a huge difference between a win and loss in Indiana. An Obama win in Indiana puts Hillary out of the race in 72 hours. She wins, she probably hangs around.
When did lefty bloggers get so stupid?
err...loss
Not should she, since she has the right to, but can she give a cogent, reasoned justification for it?
I don't think it's the quality of her self-justification that will decide Hillary's fate, but simply money. This is a very expensive fight and things are going to dry up for her this week.
I think we should all pitch in and get Hillary a Go-Phone.
Something tells me 'Undecided' might be a bit, ahem, bitter tonight?
Yay, Obama! What a speech!
Disappointing that he wouldn't allow one AA in the picture frame with him when they were half his NC voters.
Bold Prediction:
Obama wins Indiana.
The only precinct not reporting is Lake County. Population 400,000. 26% African American. Home of Gary, Indiana, a shining pro-Obama metropolis.
It ain't over yet.
Hey, Undecided -
Suck my balls. Seriously, just stick them in my mouth and tongue them a little.
At least on MSNBC, the pundits seem on top of this fact
I agree. MSNBC is what I'm watching on the intertubes and they pretty much are playing a 4% margin in Indiana coupled with a 15-14 point margin in NC as a Clinton disaster. They seem to be operating pretty competently by my eyes, though I am a hardcore Obama partisan, so that may be my bias.
It's going to be within 10,000 votes one way or the other. There will be no sure winner tonight given the provisional votes. A big win for Obama.
Given the Clinton's hardball tactics, I understand why Obama wouldn't be willing to concede anything to the Clintons on delegate counts. But I don't know why more talking heads/Obama defenders don't make the point that even if the Florida and Michigan delegates were seated, Obama would still have the majority of delegates. Isn't that a full answer to that Clinton talking point? Sure, *actually* amking the concession would give Clinton false momentum for her superdelegate argument. But the point should be made nonetheless. No?
Its very hard for Hillary to drop out if she keeps winning, despite the delegate math.
If she loses NC and wins IN and then says, "I give up" all of her supporters will assume she was bullied out of the race. The Dems will be split in November and it will be career suicide.
If she loses both, she could begin to wind down her campaign. She would have much less money coming in, would not be able to contest the remaining elections effectively and could set the stage for an honourable concession to Obama which would unite the party by November.
That's the difference.
Since the result looks split, the race goes on until the honourable concession can be delivered. Looks like it will have to wait till after the last primary.
Something tells me 'Undecided' might be a bit, ahem, bitter tonight?
You got your opinion, I got mine.
But if Hillary can't win Indiana by say 4 percent, I'm ready for her to get out. I don't like the set-up for November but Democrats will have spoken. Especially black Democrats. Time to move on. McCain is very beatable.
Dude, more people watched the John McEnroe CNBC talk show than African-Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton today. C'mon.
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!!! FOR HILLARY!!
I predict the way the guy in Asia Times predicted:
Clinton will stay in the race until the convention - and then BEYOND by LAWSUIT just to insure that Obama loses so she gets a second shot in 2012.
Except that by 2012 she'll be treated like Ralph Nader, i.e., a leper (not to insult lepers).
You want to talk "Manchurian candidate"? Clinton is it. She's in this race to make sure the Republicans and the neocons win - along with the oil companies and the military-industrial complex and the Zionists.
Conspiracy theory? Well, if she doesn't drop out the race by the convention, why do YOU think she's staying in? Just stupidity? She's not stupid (well, not the way one usually thinks of stupid. *I* think she's stupid, but I have a wider definition.) Egoboo? Maybe - but I think there's a reason beyond that.
I think she's doing this because somebody in the right wing convinced her to do it. And that somebody is the guy running "The Family". I think they want McCain to win - and they've told Hillary they will back her in 2012. Or some other reason she finds persuasive. Maybe just money, who knows?
Disclaimer: I could be entirely wrong. We'll see if she drops out before or during the convention.
But if the guy in Asia Times is right - and she goes to lawsuits against the DNC - well, there you go.
Time for the spin cycle ...
"Full speed ahead to the White House!" Damn is this woman delusional.
Good lord, she's trying to raise money.
Mortimer Duke: "turn the machines back on!"
Hillary wins in her home county of Transylvania, North Carolina!
How about the guy with the kid in the front row - wearing a Cavaliers hat?! In Indiana Pacer country? I call BS - he's not from Indiana at all!
Plus, her narrow win only came from Limbaugh voters:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/6/22211/59755/99/510429
Why is Bubba SO SO RED??
It doesn't matter very deeply what HRC does at this point. The race is effectively over, and whatever damage *could* be done by her staying in has already *been* done. So whether she drops out next week, or May 21, or waits to let the party turn off the lights and lock the doors in June . . . I really couldn't give a sh*t.
It's even worsse than you say, Matthew. Indiana awards 47 of its 72 delegates by Congressional District. 5 of the 9 districts have 6 delegates, which means that unless one candidate gets 58% of the vote in that district, they will be split 3-3. Likewise, 3 of the 9 districts have 4 delegates; a candidate would need 62.5% of the vote to split the district 3-1. The remaining district -- the 6th -- has 5 delegates, and Senator Clinton will almost certainly win that 3-2.
The remaining 25 delegates are statewide.
In short, at looks like the best Senator Clinton can hope to do is take the district-level delegates 24-23 and the statewide delegates 13-12. In other words, a 2-delegate gain on Senator Obama in Indiana. Add that to her 12-delegate pick-up in Pennsylvania, and she's gained 14 delegates on Senator Obama in the last two weeks. If Senator Obama doesn't offset that in North Carolina, he'll come damned close.
Meanwhile, Senator Clinton and her surrogates have spent the last two weeks saying that more people have voted for her than for Senator Obama, which was true after Pennsylvania, assuming you count Michigana and Florida. That's no longer true, though, and it's unlikely to ever be true again given the demographics of the remaining contests. So now Senator Obama's supporters can say that she's losing even by the lopsided metric she spent the last two weeks championing.
it is now OVER, rather than just over
Hearing the rest of the speech, sarcasm unwarranted.
Good show, Hillary! Now, walk the walk.
Pumkinhead just said Camp Clinton wants Obama to pay off her dept! And she's given herself another loan, - so much for that 10 million they supposedly raised.
Yep, even if the pledged delegate contest was somehow in doubt, who "won" Indiana would not be particularly important.
But of course the pledged delegate contest isn't in doubt. So to be fair, the media has one of two choices: admit this thing is over, or come up with some framing that implies it isn't, even if that framing is based on a bunch of invalid assumptions.
Interestingly, I think the media is finally getting to the point where they just might call it. Even they probably don't think they can sell Kentucky, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico as crucial contests, and that is all that Clinton has left. So the media may well calculate they have squeezed all the available dollars out of this thing, and finally move on.
Lake county will be the key. It's the second most populous (484k ppl) county in the state (Marion has 860k), closest to Chicago, and with a large black population in Gary. If it turns out similarly to Marion (200k voters, 67% Obama), Obama will gain 35-40k votes.
Hillary's lead is 39k.
This is going to be a nail-biter.
All told it looks like Obama will gain another 200-250,000 votes over Clinton. There goes the popular vote rationale for her campaign.
Strangely, Zogby scored pretty well on this pair of races.
Seriously, just stick them in my mouth
Dude, that's going to hurt.
Yet more amazing: even Undecided may move on.
"Full speed ahead to the White House". And it's Senator Clinton on Eight Belles, gathering herself for the final ...race.. to the line...
Big phew. The race is over. I can get back to my life now. (Until the fall).
With 28% of the vote counted in Lake County, Obama has 75% of the total. If his performance holds up across the entire county, Obama will get 60,000 more votes than Clinton in that county, and he will win the state.
If his performance holds up across the entire county,
Is this likely?
28% of Lake County reporting:
O: 28,000
H: 9,500
If the other 72% follows that trend Lake will end up around:
O: 100,000
H: 34,000
I think Hillary leads by around 40,000 in the rest of the state.
This is going to be very close.
I think it's likely that Obama's performance will continue to be around 70+% in Lake County. Lake County is predominantly African American, even moreso than Indianapolis's Marion County, where Obama got 67%.
He's 21,000 votes behind. He should be able to make that up. Our long national nightmare is over.
Of course we'll have to endure the voter fraud allegations first. That will probabaly take a couple weeks. Then our long national nightmare will be over.
"...Obama picks up a nice parcel of delegates out of North Carolina." I'm no writer, but shouldn't that be 'passel'?
I sure do hope she wakes up in the morning having lost IN. She tried to slay Obama but instead killed herself on phony campaign promises. Well, that and the belief that 2/5 would be her coronation day, caucuses don't count (only big states).
Adieu, Madame et votre mari - c'est fini: http://youtube.com/watch?v=HJ-IG8qKaJI
Clinton wins Indiana by a tiny margin - 20,000 votes. Will she stay or will she go?
She will stay. She will go to the convention - and beyond with lawsuits.
She wants Obama to lose the Presidency to McCain so she can run again in 2012.
Somebody photograph Bill with another intern so we can get rid of this scum.
So her margin in Indiana is right around the size of what I could expect Limbaugh's hijinx to be equal to? What a surprise.
Hey, Undecided -
Suck my balls. Seriously, just stick them in my mouth and tongue them a little.
Posted by Andy | May 6, 2008 10:22 PM
So Sullivan claims he wants you to suck his balls but in reality he wants to suck your balls. It is all very confusing.
Comments closed May 20, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Psychology and spin are basically all that COULD come out of this election night -- Obama having already secured an insurmountable lead in elected delegates. For that reason, the difference between winning and losing in IN are more significant than they ought to be on paper.
Posted by Anthony Damiani | May 6, 2008 10:11 PM