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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Now That I've Calmed Down a Bit...

let's do West Virginia by the numbers. Here we go!

67% to 26%.

41 points was the final margin of Hillary Clinton's blowout victory in West Virginia. John Edwards got 7% despite no longer being in the race...so if we split those voters equally between Obama and Clinton (for lack of a more informed way of doing it), Clinton gets 70.5% to Obama's 29.5%.

At this point in the campaign, for the "underdog" to beat the "presumptive nominee" by 41 points is absolutely unheard of. I hope this puts an end to Obama's insulting and outrageous plan to proclaim himself the nominee on May 20th. (I doubt it will, though; Obama will proceed, in his usual tone-deaf manner, to ignore and dismiss that portion of the electorate which did not vote for him.) No one is the nominee until August. Even John McCain hasn't declared HIMSELF the nominee, and he's more than 1100 delegates ahead of Mike Huckabee!

2,209.

That's the real "magic number" of delegates each candidate must win to be declared the nominee. This number includes the delegates of Michigan and Florida, which should be seated at the convention as is, at this point.

Let's be very clear on this issue. The DNC changed the rules to strip all of Florida and Michigan's delegates AND ignore the popular vote. (The original rule was simply to strip 50% of the delegates.) This was purely on the insistence of Donna Brazile, an Obama superdelegate who holds a prominent position on the DNC Rules Committee. There was absolutely no reason to do this except to game the system to promote Senator Obama. There was also no reason for anyone to remove his or her name from the MI ballot except to make the inevitable winner, Senator Clinton, appear illegitimate. Edwards and Obama removed their names for exactly that reason.

After months of Obama blocking every effort to count the delegates or allocate them in any sort of fair way, it's time to just give up and seat them as they are. As Howard Wolfson stated last night, it's the right thing to do to count the votes of 2.5 million Democrats. And, it's the smart thing to do. You don't tell two key swing states that you don't need their votes. They might just take you at their word in November.

75% of HRC supporters won't vote for Obama, 62% of Obama supporters won't vote for Clinton in West Virginia.

The response from the Obama campaign? An attempt to steal her spotlight with an Obama stump speech from Missouri. (Translation: I AM teh Nominee! Pay no attention to those low-information, bitter, clinging folks in West Virginia! I am campaigning for teh General Election! Bow before teh great Obama!) A claim from Bob Casey, Obama superdelegate, last night on CNN: "They'll get over it." A congratulatory message from Obama on Hillary's cell phone.

La la la la la, I can't HEAR YOU!

The response from the Clinton campaign? A great victory speech that complimented Obama, credited him with values he has not demonstrated, and focused on their united goals for the Democratic Party.

Need we really say who is focusing on dividing the Party and winning at any cost? Who is determined to ignore the voters and cheat his way to the nomination? Who is truly unable to reach out to people he does not agree with and find common cause with them?

Zero.

That's the amount of influence the corporate media has on the American voters at this point. I keep saying this, but people don't believe me. No one watches cable news. No one trusts the TeeVee to tell them what's going on any more. People look at the candidates and read the papers and make their own decisions.

It's a good thing in my opinion. Maybe, seeing the results from West Virginia, we can somehow get the new President and Congress to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and revive the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up media ownership into smaller pieces again. (Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler must be typing his brains out today trying to document the media atrocities from last night.)

75%.

That's the amount of West Virginians who believe that Obama shares the views
of Reverend Wright to some degree. I told you that Wright makes Obama unelectable..and I believe the Wright factor accounts for the most frightening number of all:

100%.

That's the number of West Virginia counties Obama lost last night.

One.

Hundred.

Percent.

May I remind you that it's been 92 years since a Democrat won the White House without winning West Virginia in the General Election? What would you say the odds are of Obama winning West Virginia in November are at this point?

I may like to play the slots, but even I know that's a sucker bet.

The Democratic Party ignores these numbers at their peril. Do we really love the beautiful loser so much that we will select him as the nominee? Or do we love our country enough to choose the one person who can lift us out of the Bush Reign of Error, despite the fact that she has a scary, scary vagina, and is named Clinton?

Tune in again soon for...As the Democrats Turn!

4 comments:

Snort said...

Something in the wind? Thought that might interest you.


How about voting for Bob Barr?

madamab said...

Very interesting - at least he is trying...but why in Michigan? Why doesn't he try to pick up some votes in KY? See, his disdain for voters he feels he doesn't "need" is one reason why Clinton Dems don't like him. :-(

He is totally blowing off the rest of the primaries as if he has already won. He hasn't, and the Clinton campaign won't let him pretend that he has. No one wins until August.

Bob Barr is a very interesting guy. He's changed a lot since he advocated for Clinton's impeachment. He's very good on the Constitution, and I definitely have some (social) Libertarian views.

I am open to anything at this point...but I'm not giving up on HRC. :-)

Flying Junior said...

There's something to the theory that rightwingers/repubs want Obama to win. What was all the crap about Limbaugh supporting HRC over McCain? Could you even imagine being stupid enough to fall for that, absent dementia or memory loss? I just heard that sellout, Dennis Miller, on his radio show, telling Hillary to drop out with at least some dignity, (to whit, a win in WV,) calling her honey... Today, the NY times announced Hillary's victory with this headline: Race Seen As Factor In Clinton West Virginia Win.

The right is promoting Obama for some reason. The truth is we need to have a convention to decide who our nominee will be.

madamab said...

Flying Junior - After you've read "Blinded By the Right," you know that you can't trust the media when it comes to Democrats...especially successful ones.

KKKarl Rove has already admitted he'd rather run against Obama than Clinton. They're setting the newbie up for a big, big fall.

I'm sure Obama is a fine person, but he is nowhere near ready for the rigors of being a Democratic Presidential nominee in America. The superdelegates will have to decide whether they want to win or not at the convention - after the American people have had their say.

All else is noise at this point.