She Just Keeps Winning!

Huzzah, she did it again!

Win, that is, by an incredible margin. A 36 point margin and more than 2-1 votes. All that despite being written off by the media, outspent by the other campaign, and continually told that she's losing, no one wants to see her go on, and all that malarkey.

I look at these numbers and I begin to understand why the RBC was willing to embarass themselves to reduce her delegate count through 50% reductions and to sell their very honor down the river to scrounge up more delegates for The Precious - they knew Hurricane Hillary was winding up out in the Carribean.

The exit polls have her winning almost everything. People who supported a particular local candidate who had endorsed Obama were more likely to vote for Obama, but that's about it.

Doing my usual tables on candidate appeal, we see a continuation of the trends that have appeared in the last few primaries. I have normalized the percentages on a base of 100,000 votes to get a sense of how votes would go per 100,000 Democratic voters:

	All	HRC	BHO
Hillary	78,000	63,960	14,040
McCain	7,000	n/a	n/a
Abstain	11,000	550	10,450

Hillary commands 78% of the vote, even higher than her victory margin, and retains a huge chunk of Obama voters. Face it folks - she's popular. She is the most popular candidate with the voters. Though Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the general election, they provide a glimpse into the probable voting patterns of stateside Puerto Rican voters and into Hispanic/Latino voters. In all areas of the country, Hillary has shown herself to be extremely popular with Hispanic/Latino voters regardless of their particular origins. She won over this constituency in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Ohio, Florida and now Puerto Rico. Jeralyn has an interesting post up about voting patterns of Hispanic/Latino voters over the last presidential elections that points out they are not monolithic in their support for Democrats and have been trending away from the Democratic Party. Here we have a candidate who can bring them back.

As for Obama's successes in PR, despite all the money he poured into the place, he has problems even with his own supporters:

	All	HRC	BHO
Obama	53,000	23,850	29,150
McCain	16,000	15,200	800
Abstain	22,000	21,120	880

Immediately, he loses 25,000 voters compared to Hillary's results. He would not inherit the general good will felt towards her. Even so, her supporters would provide him with almost as many votes as his own supporters could muster. He is highly dependent upon the good will of Hillary supporters in this demographic, as was also the case in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. More than twice as many Democrats would defect to McCain if Obama was the candidate as with Hillary, indicating he is not as appealing to moderate Democrats. In fact, almost as many of his supporters per 100,000 would vote McCain against him (his own supporters!) as would sit out, not willing to cast a vote for him. Tens of thousands of Hillary supporters would abstain rather than give hima vote, and 3/4 of that amount would simply go McCain.

If you had asked me two months ago on whether the defection (vote for McCain) or abstention (Do not cast vote) numbers would be as high as are reported in the exit polls, I would have said not even close. Now, however, I'm not so sure. While I do think they will drop and you would see more numbers for each candidate, I think the Hilalry supporters really are furious enough that stattistically significant numbers of them will defect or abstain in November. The crude favoritism of the DNC for Obama, the ham-fisted attempts to rearrange the votes to bring about the desired outcome, the aggression and contempt shown towards Hillary as a person and candidate and towards her supports are all hardening attitudes towards Obama in a way I would not have predicted back in December, or even as late as mid-February.

Hillary, of course, is being a class act towards Obama himself and even more so towards his constituents. She stopped some people who tried to boo Obama during her victory speech today. The first words she spoke, after thanking the voters, were about party solidarity and winning in November. She has always placed the burden of earning Obama supporters' votes squarely on her own shoulders, and has pledged that she will personally go to these groups throughout the nation, listen to their concerns and do her best to earn their support. She'll let the party operatives and campaign opponents have it if they do her wrong, but she never, ever criticizes the voters.

It also tickles me pink to see pictures of Hillary having a blast down in Puerto Rico:

After all she has had to put up with, the smears, the heckling, the hate and death threats from bloviating TV hacks, the unrelenting drumbeat of negativity and fear from detractors who don't have a concrete constructive thing to say about their own candidate, she deserved to have some party time.

I remember the chart Kevin Drum once had the honesty to post showing how she had more negtive press than the rest of the candidates put together. I wonder if there is an updated version of that chart? It would probably be even more exaggerated now. I don't think Obama could stand up to that kind of unrelenting assault, but it seems it just makes her more bouyant.

I don't know about you, but I think having a candidate who is popular with the majority of voters, who attracts more of her opponents voters than they do of hers, who never runs out of energy, who cannot be backed down or turned aside no matter how hostile and unfair the attacks, and who dedicates every day to doing right by the people who have put their trust in her is a pretty good person to have as your nominee.

She's got my vote. Permanently.

Anglachel

The Anti-Democratic Caucuses

Run, do not walk, to Jeralyn's incredible post about the anti-democratic effects that caucuses have had on the delegate selection process.

Caucuses vs. Primaries : A Report

Whatever the outcome of the nomination process, what is shockingly clear is that Hillary Clinton is the preference of the majority of voters in the states that will win the Democrats the White House in the fall. Further, it is clear that Obama is not nearly as popular as his sycophants would have you believe. He simply does not have the votes. Further, if exit polls and polls by major polling agencies are to be believed, far more of his supporters will vote for her than the other way around. In short, the top draw for the average voter is Hillary, not Obama.

This report demonstrates the basic proposition I have been saying for the last two months:

Nominee = Hillary = White House
Nominee = Obama = Loss

Anglachel

Statement from Robert Kennedy, Jr.

"It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June. I have heard her make this reference before, also citing her husband's 1992 race, both of which were hard fought through June. I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense."

Anglachel

Equivocal Oregon Win

I am watching Obama's margin steadily erode. I grew up in Washington and have family and many friends in Oregon. The voting patterns do not surprise me.

Portland is in Multnomah county and is a solid urban area. It is going for Obama, as expected by more than 60%. Hood River county which is a beautiful county right on the Columbia Gorge and rather ritzy has margins at or above 60%. Eugene and Benton counties, home to UO and OSU respectively, are over 60. Washington county which really part of Portland is hovering at 59%.

Th rest of the state is much closer, with Obama in low 50s and Hillary in high 40s in most counties, and many rural counties still to report in. Somewhat surprising to me are Yamhill, Marion (home to state capital Salem), and Clackamas counties, all with much lower margins for Obama than Iwould have expected given that they are part of the larger Portland metropolitan area. They all have significant argricultural portions. The eastern Oregon counties that have not yet reported in should go to Hillary, but their populations are very small. The suburban counties are giving Obama a bare 6% lead.

The other interesting thing is the voter breakdown on my 100,00 base scale. If Hillary were the nominee, she would get 84% of the Democratic vote, which is actually higher than her percentage in Kentucky. So, it appears she is not that weak in the Northwest. When factored out, the numbers look like this:

	Total	Clinton	Obama
Clinton	84,000	38,640	45,360
McCain	11,000	2,640	6,600
Abstain	3,000	N/A	N/A

Out of 100,000 Democratic voters, Clinton would enjoy strong support from most voters regardless of initial affiliation. When the nominee is changed, the results are slightly, but significantly, different:

	Total	Clinton	Obama
Obama	82,000	28,700	53,300
McCain	12,000	9,600	1,080
Abstain	3,000	N/A	N/A

Yes, that's right, Obama would get fewer number of voters per 100,000 based on the exit poll data than Hillary. There is an attrition of 2,000 votes, 1,000 of which would go to McCain. The numbers can't quite account fo the extra 1,000, but that would probably go to abstain. What I get from this is that fewer Obama supporters would sit out or vote McCain if Hillary was the nominee than would Hillary supporters should Obama be the nominee.

What this says to me is that Hillary's supporters are less likely to transfer their affiliations than are Obama supporters. This is a relative amount, of course, but a double digit defection in a majority Democratic state (which is what affects both candidates according to the exit poll) is not a good sign.

I suspect the margin between them will decrease a bit more over the evening. This is a blow to Obama as he is the presumptive nominee with massive support form the media, the party leadership and the donors, yet he cannot replicate his early caucus margins in a western state with a primary. In the west, Hillary has won:

California
Nevada - caucus
Arizona
New Mexico - modified caucus

One of these is a blue state, two are swing states and the fourth might be a swing state were it not for McCain being from there. Obama has won:

Alaska - caucus
Hawaii - caucus, native son
Washington - caucus
Idaho - caucus
Wyoming - caucus
Colorado - caucus
Utah
Oregon (I don't see the results changing)

Colorado is the only possible swing state in this group - unless Washington goes red, which it has been known to do. Montana is the only western state left outstanding, and it votes June 3rd in a primary. BTD keeps insisting that Obama has some secret strength in the West, yet he owes his wins to low turn outs in undemocratic caucuses. Washington state's follow up primary was much closer to Oregon's primary than to its own caucus. I suspect Colorado would have shown much the same pattern. Should the ratios hold true, Obama may have difficulties in Oregon due to internal defections. Washington state would be similar.

The longer the campaign goes on, the weaker Obama looks for the General Election.

Anglachel

Crushing Victory for Clinton

Clinton scores another crushing victory over Obama tonight, giving her four of the last five contests. Her popular vote margin in Kentucky is 249, 374, which is 39,603 votes more than Obama's total vote count. Think about that - the margin between them was bigger than his vote total. Her win over him was larger than the difference between them in North Carolina.

I'm returning to my extrapolation of the percentages of who woul/wouldn't vote for which nominee in November by comparing them to a 100,000 baseline.

	Total	Clinton	Obama	Undecided
Clinton	77,000	54,670	21,560	0
McCain	16,000	8,800	4,480	1,760
Abstain	5,000	N/A	N/A	N/A

Out of 100,000 Democratic voters, 77,000 would vote for Hillary were she the nominee. 21,560 of those voters are currently supporting Obama. 16,000 would vote McCain, a smaller number than all the Obama voters who would support her, and numerically sshe would lose more votes from her own supporter's defections than from Obama's supporters, oddly enough. This means just l;ess than 9% of Clinton voters would go McCain, not quite 4.5% of Obama supporters and just shy of 2% of undecideds.

	Total	Clinton	Obama	Undecided
Obama	50,000	21,500	27,500	500
McCain	32,000	27,200	2,240	1,600
Abstain	15,000	14,550	1,050	300

If Obama were the nominee, he would get approximately half of the Democratic votes, and would get almost as many votes from Clinton supporters as she would get from his supporters. His own supporters would not give him that much more in terms of raw vote. Almost as many Clinton supporters would vote against him and for McCain as his own supporters would vote for him. The big number is the high level of abstentions, which could go either way for returning to Obama or defecting to McCain.

The other interstiong question of the evening was should the nominee pick the other person as their VP? When asked if Obama should pick Clinton, there was a definite majority who said Yes:

	Total	Clinton	Obama
Yes	56,000	43,120	12,880
No	42,000	21,420	20,580

Many more Clinton supporters liked the idea than Obama supporters. However, more Clinton voters than Obama supporters as a proportion of Democrats said he should not pick her. When the tables were turned, the pattern intensified:

	Total	Clinton	Obama
Yes	45,000	24,300	20,700
No	52,000	40,040	11,960

Most people did not want Obama on the ticket with Hillary, with Obama supporters more eager for him to be picked by Hilalry than for Hillary to be picked by him. Hillary supporters really don't want anything to do with Obama. I look at these numbers and see a much stronger resistence to Obama from Hilalry supporters than to Hilalry from Obama supporters, which also indicates that there is a greater chance for Hillary to win back disaffected Obama supporters than for him to get her supporters. Not that this is any great surprise to anyone following the polls.

I also think this indicates that Clinton would make McCain have to contest Kentucky, wasting resources and time there, while Obama would be an instant loss.

I'm off to have dinner while the Oregon results come in. So far, Obama's big counties are the ones reporting in and he's not as far ahead as he should be, given the hype and the money.

Anglachel

Unifying the Party

I've tried to come up with some sophisticated, nuanced, theoretically meaningful way to say this but nothing is working, so I'll just say it plainly.

I don't see the Hillary campaign saying a bad word about the voters, even those who vote for her opponents. I don't see the campaign explaining away their losses because of some flaw or failing in the voters. Even the group of Obama voters most vociferous and adamant in their objections to her do not get criticized or condemned. To the contrary, she defended MoveOn from politically motivated attacks. She went to Yearly Kos and spoke without rancor or defensiveness to a deeply hostile group.

When she says she is impervious to attacks from the right-wing noise machine, the MSM and political opponents, it shows up in the way she will not be badgered and baited. She can look Richard Scaife in the eye and tell him exactly what she intends to do as President without belligerance and without apology. Their cruelty and crudeness cannot disrupt her calm civility, though she may poke some sly fun at them.

This is not someone who has burned bridges on the Democratic side. In a hard-fought campaign, she has been firm that there will be nothing from her side to prevent resolution and reconciliation within the party. She pulls no punches on issues, but has not stooped to personal attacks of the kind leveled at her by her opponents and even by some party leaders. When somone on her campaign has behaved dishonorably, they are told to leave at once.

Unity is not obedience or falling into line. It is being able to strongly and persuasively present yourself and your objectives and be victorious, but do so in a way that does not demand the humiliation, denegration or destruction of your opponents. It is to treat others as valued colleagues to be won over, not as enemies to be obliterated.

In short, when people speak about the need for party unity, the person who most perfectly embodies this stance is Hillary. These qualities as much as her specific policies, are what make Hillary a compelling candidate for me. No one person, no matter how talented, can achieve the goals of the party. All must be done in concert. All must be done under conditions of cooperation, not coersion.

I do not find any qualities in Obama that indicate he is capable of bringing about this cooperation. I see arrogance, imperiousness, inflexibility, and contempt for those who do not hand him what he wants. He does not appear to want unity, only capitulation.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the person who is best suited to unify the Democratic Party.

Anglachel

The Electoral Map Trumps the Party Math

I have been talking about the Electoral College and the way in which the primary wins for Obama simply do not add up to victory for a few months:

• There is No National Election
• Life of the Party
• Fun With the Electoral College
• Legitimacy = 2214
• Cause for General Concern

Hillary's campaign and most of the major blogs are reinforcing the argument that she is a stronger candidate in the general because she has stronger support than Obama in states that A) the Democrats have a real chance of winning in November and B) have a high enough Electoral College vote count that it will add up to 270.

I have already made the formal arguments for this position in the above articles. Below, I simply list the reasons why the general election and its electoral map trump the party delegate math:

• The general election (Electoral College) is winner take all based on a simple majority of votes in that elector’s state. They are all secret ballot elections. All voters are eligible.
• No candidate can win in November by gaming caucuses or manipulating delegate counts. The majority vote that day is all that counts. If you don’t win the state outright, McCain gets it.
• All 50 states are counted, including the places that didn’t vote for a candidate in the primaries and including the states the Democratic Party is currently refusing to allow to vote on the eventual nominee.
• A candidate can manipulate their way into a high delegate count, but if they have failed to be the winner of primaries in the must-win states, they are at an electoral disadvantage in November.
• Obama has his pledged delegate majority by leveraging unrepresentative caucus votes in Republican dominated states and by blocking attempts to revote Florida and Michigan. He does not have the support of the majority of Democrats who voted. He is at a disadvantage in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan, and the party needs three of those four in our column to win November.

Long story short: The ability to manipulate the primary race to eke out a whisker thin majority of pledged delegates is irrelevant in the general election because it does not reflect the way in which the Electoral College votes are awarded. Our current contenders are both able to get the necessary 2209 party convention delegates, but only one of them is also able to win the necessary number of Electors – 270.

Hillary can deliver the White House. Obama can’t.

Impervious

Yes, I was on the conference call with Hillary yesterday, just like every other pro-Hillary blogger. If you weren't on the call, Taylor Marsh recorded it for everyone. Take a few minutes to listen to it, and give Taylor a donation while you're there for having the foresight to record it and the generosity to provide the bandwidth so it's generally available.

My impressions: Hillary herself was great, but the combination of her hoarseness, which made it difficult for her to speak, and the short duration of the call, which limited the amount of questions that could be asked, left me wanting something a little more substantial. I was impressed that the entire conversation was on the record and that no one was pre-screened for questions. She was ready to handle anything we could (quickly) throw at her.

The opening remarks started a little slow because of her voice, which made her sound flat and slightly disengaged. I winced a few times in sympathy. Things picked up when she talked about the Oregon Townhall she was doing that night. Humor and energy showed through - she obviously loves that kind of event. We moved to some talking points where she said they were ahead in the popular vote and that she is devoted to making MI and FL count because enfranchisement cannot be subordinate to punative rules. She wrapped up by talking about viability in the general election and that she is a stronger candidate than Obama. I had to chuckle a bit at the "the map not the math" meme, as I've been talking about the importance of the general election and how it is a simultaneous 50 state vote, not a national election per se, since last February.

Then she spoke about her treatment by the media, Obama, the Blogger Boyz, and the rest of her detractors, and I cheered on my end of the line. Hillary stated something that is just as important as the Electoral College calculation: I am impervious to the attacks.

Why does this matter? First, she's not running around making excuses for why she didn't do so well here or there and blaming others for being mean to her. Compare this to Scan's post on Taylor Marsh of Obama making excuses for why why he won't do well in Kentucky, and on how mean (!!!) the press is being to him. What. A. Whiner.

It also means that she is not going to be distracted from her goals because of the hubbub around her. This should be reassuring to voters who want someone who can concentrate in the middle of crisis. No "My Pet Goat" moment or watching a major US city drown for days before taking action.

Finally, and this is crucial for the general election, she is not going to let the screamers on the TV or in the blogosphere make her quit. She flatly said she was not leaving the contest, no matter how much bloviators like Timmeh, Tweety, the New York Times and WKJM rant and rave. She will not be swiftboated, intimidated, or backed down. She is not ready to make nice so that an unvetted opponent can waltz off with the nomination, and she would never allow herself to be bullied into conceding an election before every last vote had been counted. Considering that Gore and Kerry both conceded rather than be termed sore losers, I'm behind the candidate who will take it to the mat.

Hillary also wryly noted that the vitriol spewed at her was a perverse form of flattery. This is also true. You don't attack people who are not a threat. They must pay attention to who she is and what she does, even if it is only to try to tear her down. Well, it's been years now and they haven't succeeded.

Listen to the audio for the five questioners. I have lost a good deal of respect for Armando/BTD due to his cluelessly insulting opening statement. Everyone else was cool and I got a giggle over the backstory on Lambert's rather strange call noise.

While the campaign may want to get out the message about the general election map, the impression that came through to me is that Hillary is in this to ensure the Democrats win in November. This is someone who wants a win for herself, but understands the larger political picture. She is in this for the party and the country.

Anglachel

1968 or 1976?

There's a lot of memage zipping around the InterTubz on how Obama's run for the White House is or is not going to be "another 1968." I've done some analysis on that point myself, and as far as Democratic Party history goes, the parallels are not good. There is even a group (no I won't link to them or give them more publicity) that intends to protest at the Democratic convention in mimicry of the protests of 1968.

There is another election parallel going on here that the spousal unit and me have been discussing since the Drexel debate, which is 1976. And I don't mean the Democrats. As we've been watching the ebb and flow of the campaign, who is aligning with whom, where support is coming from, how the rhetoric is deployed, we're seeing a tectonic shift in the organization of the party that resembles nothing so much as Reagan and the Movement Conservatives' capture of the Republican Party.

This post is going to be willfully misunderstood by a lot of people because they will think I am comparing policy when I am comparing structure. I'm also going to say things neither Obama nor Clinton supporters will want to hear, but which need attention and thought. What I am seeing over the course of the campaign is that a disdained and mocked politician backed by a somewhat patchwork coalition has consolidated message and support to become the insurgent opponent to the establishment, business-as-usual candidate.

Yes, you heard me right. Hillary is to the current Democratic Party as Reagan was to the Republicans in 1976. Which puts Obama in the position of Gerry Ford, the person who was supposed to present a change for the Republicans, but who ended up being the muddled choice of unsatisfied party regulars who had nothing new to offer and who could see the danger presented by the Movement Conservatives. OK, I can hear Paul Krugman passing out in the back row, but stay with me on this. Remember, I'm talking about the structure of party power relationships, not the content of policy. While there are key points on which this breaks down (mostly with the money machine backing the conservatives), I want to draw attention to the party electoral dynamics.

People talk about Reagan in the 80s, but they tend to forget his much longer build up to that point. This is someone who was the butt of jokes (Tom Lehrer "Hollywood's often to tried to mix/Show business with politics/From Helen Gahagan/to...Ronald Reagan?") part of general amusement in pop culture (I remember a Monster Squad episode where someone used a "Ronald Ray Gun"), but who was also an unrelenting party stalwart and workhorse (never speak ill of another Republican). His governorship of California tended to get dismissed by his critics as somehow not quite a real position though it was a major coup for the Republicans after Pat Brown's tenure.

In 1976, Reagan ran against Ford and it was a highly competitive contest. It went all the way to the convention and Reagan very nearly pulled off the nomination. His campaign was condemned by the party leaders as divisive, though Ford was little more than an accidental incumbent. Ford had the backing of the east coast party power brokers, had the money people behind him, and was seen as a moderate and centrist who would not polarize the electorate. Except, he had pardoned Nixon and this pissed off so many people that he simply could not summon an electoral majority. The party split and the Republicans lost. Four years later, the insurgent of 1976 swept the field, buoyed by a voter coalition based in the South and West, but which tapped into deep pools of political dissatisfaction and economic anxiety in the opposing party. Whether or not you like the cultural mix represented by that coalition, it was a winning one and completely reorganized the traditional sources of power in the Republican Party.

Reagan was not an outsider to the party, though he was not taken seriously by the party leaders or by the press. He knew how to campaign and he built his support the hard way. You can detest what he appealed to in voters and loathe what he did when he gained power, but people need to recognize that he built a very effective coalition that is only now losing steam nearly thirty years later.

On the Left, people want to identify what Obama is doing with the 1980s Reagan (not the least Obama himself), both to praise Obama's strategy and to condemn it, but the comparison doesn't hold water, because Reagan's realignment work was done in the 70s, laying the foundation for the success of 1980. Obama may have the rhetoric down pat, but he is not restructuring the electoral map. His backers are part of the usual coalition the northeast liberal elite has relied on since, well, Hubert Humphrey to try to gain power - AAs, Stevensonians, and a contracting pool of New Deal style working class party loyalists. There is no new message or new promise being delivered, just the same abstract, reform the system, clean up bad government, the know-it-alls will manage the machine, yadda-yadda, that's been around since Adlai bombed in 1952. It appeals to the intellectual part of progressivism, but arguments about process just don't move people. He is running a priestly campaign complete with exhortations to have a politico-religious conversion. Under the hood, we can see it’s mostly about the Benjamins, and I will have a post on that topic soon enough.

Wherever these two candidates began their campaigns, they have ended up in very different places. The Conventional Wisdom was that HRC was the Establishment candidate, the ultimate insider, but those who have been watching the cracks in the party since Big Dog battled the Village in the 90s knew this wasn't so. Obama is completely the choice of the party power elite.

Over the course of the campaign, as much from the defeats as from the victories, Hillary has taken on the mantle of the progressive warrior in a way that Edwards never managed to secure. Hers is not progressivism in the mode of the saints; it is of the Jacksonian persuasion. Regardless of her starting point, which I think exists more in the minds of her detractors than anywhere else, Hillary has become the candidate of concrete progressivism, just as Obama has become the ultimate establishment insider. She is building on the base that is under-represented in practical policy terms though necessary for electoral success, working class voters (And, yes, she would have the Black working class in there, too, save for Obama.), and then she has both realigned and expanded that base - women voters are more radicalized, Hispanic voters are looking to her and not to the right, Asian voters are entering the electorate for her, pocketbook voters are lining up behind her. Geographically, she is bringing out a new set of voters in the Southern tier, replacements for the well-off white voters who used to vote Democratic and who used to be the electoral majorities in those areas. Latin@s gave her Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California, and contributed to the Florida win, for example. Best of all, she is reclaiming the "Reagan Democrats" as specifically Clinton Democrats. They are not transferrable to the old Democratic school of Kennedy, Kerry and Daschle.

Of course, the comparison to Reagan in 1976 holds a bitter pill - he lost the nomination. My point here is that even with that loss, Reagan ended the electoral cycle with a stronger base than the old guard Republicans which set him up for the final transformation of the party in 1980. Key to the transformation was the conversion of voters into partisans. The blogosphere amplifies and distorts things, but it is not my imagination that more people are explaining that they have been won over by her in a way that other candidates have not done. (I also remind readers of a poll - can't find link - done by Gallup late last year that shows her supporters were already more likely to be strongly partisan in her favor than those of other candidates.) They want the kind of champion who will not surrender, who will defend the party and the voters from all assaults, who is dedicated to ensuring that the needs of individuals are placed above the abstract theories of procedural reform. Why reform procedure if you can deliver the goods directly? Of course, since Hillary, like Bill, is equal parts Stevenson and Truman, she will do both. Her partisans see a savvy political actor who is squarely on their side, speaks their language, and will never stop fighting because she is in it precisely to fight. She does not have the technocratic aversion to political battle.

Thus, the fear of the old guard Democrats, just like their Republican counterparts of 1976, is that she can complete consolidation of her new coalition in time to take the nomination. The juxtaposition of the low-turnout red state caucuses versus the over whelming turnouts of the blue state primaries shows how weak the establishment candidate is this round, the delegate margins due to depressing Democratic votes rather than bringing in new people.

The key to creating Democratic dominance is breaking the hold Republicans have on the Southern tier, which you will get through direct appeals to concrete issues by a candidate who is dedicated to the interests of those voters.

Her name is Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Anglachel

Fear and Loathing

What is up with the Obama campaign?

Given the ostensible "insurmountable" lead that he has, given all the advantages of money, delegates, money, party leadership backing, money, fawning press coverage, money and legions of adoring fans, why are they staying so relentlessly nagative not just on Hillary, but on her entire base of support? Why the obsession with forcing her out and declaring the contest over, done, finis, kaput, no more?

Because they know it isn't.

At this point in the campaign, if his win was truly in the bag, Obama should be making a wholehearted effort to try to win over his opponent's supporters, yet the exact opposite is happening. The win in West Virginia is dismissed as simply racists voting against Obama. Bloggers loudlly trumpet how they don't need no stinkin' working class. Nothing is being offered to answer the substantive complaints about his policies or campaign style. Instead, we get Edwards whoring himself for a donations list, flatly lying that Obama's policies have anything to do with even the shadow of what he himself campaigned on. Or we get Obama mouthing off to a female reporter who tried to ask about a bread and butter issue, uncaring of how he appeared to millions of people in his arrogance.

Fear is in the air.

They know Hillary's growing support makes them look bad. They know they are hemorrhaging voters with each primary. The very astute ones know that even if they can wrest the nomination win, they are sinking for the general because money does not equal votes. If it did, Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee. So why the unrelenting hostility? Mostly because they know that they haven't won and they have boxed themselves in. Just as Obama did by race-baiting, their sneer at the hicks and the chicks mode of politics has put them between a rock and a hard place. To keep up the barrage will probably cost them votes (and the longer it goes on, the more votes will be lost), but, given her strength, if they try to be conciliatory, then she may push past them with his own wavering supporters who want to see everyone make nice.

Hillary herself is simply having fun and it does her no harm to be gracious. Even in her sharp and powerful victory speech, clearly laying out for the party and the super delegates why she is the more viable candidate in the general, Hillary repeated the message of party cohesion and identity, making clear her loyalties. Then, today, she went after Bush for his smear against Obama, demonstrating how a Democrat should speak and act when confronted by Republican mendacity. There is no conflict in her between being competitive and being a party loyalist.

When I look at Hillary and hear her talk, I am struck over and over by the incredible calm that surrounds her. She said in Texas "I'll be fine," no matter the outcome and it is unassailably true. This is someone content with who and what she is and thus can dedicate herself with joy to presenting her plan for the country.

What has vanished from her campaign, as far as I can tell, is the weight of doubt. I don't mean that they know they are going to win, but that the campaign is no longer burdened by the fear of loss or the savaging of the critics. You could see it getting chipped away after New Hampshire, more chunks dropping after Florida and Super Tuesday, a stasis in mid-February and then nothing but energy since Ohio. Whatever the outcome, Hillary is fine with it. She promotes herself, the party and, yes, even Obama, with a zest that is delightful.

The more generous and exuberant she is, the more selfish and resentful Obama's campaign becomes. It is going so far as to try to cut off funds to voices other than his own. Looked at with a cold eye, this is self-defeating behavior. So why is this happening?

To some degree, and this is more the behavior of the surrogates and hangers on than the campaign proper, they have drunk their own kool-aide and really, truly think they can create an electoral majority from Whole Foods shoppers. Within the campaign, a lot of it is political style. This is just how they operate, their mode of politics, and they will not relinquish their hatred. Mostly, though, it is recognition of the danger of the trade-offs they made in their campaign and that there is nothing they can do to prevent the contest from playing out. All they can do is try to distract.

By allowing the campaign to be personal, legitimizing the demand that "we" had to drive out a loathed "monster" opponent and her miserable supporters, the Obama camp has dug itself into a very deep hole. They appear determined to bury themselves in it.

Anglachel

Presence and Absence

A few things strike me about the West Virginia results that are not getting much attention, even on the blogs.

First, it is not just that Hillary won the WV primary. Hillary won it with an incredible turn out. I'm looking at the NYT page with 93% reporting and her vote tally is 223,509. CNN is a little ahead of the Times on its count, its numbers being 97% and 232,773. To put this into perspective, Bill got 331,001 in 1992 and 327,812 in 1996, Al Gore got 295,497 in 2000 and Kerry got 326,541 in 2004. Thoise aren't primary numbers - those are general election totals. Her current (not final) numbers show her getting between 71% and 79% of what the last three Democratic presidential candidates got, and it's only the primary.

The fantasy that she's somehow not attractive to swing state voters needs to be laid to rest. Had Gore or Kerry won West Virginia - just that one state - they he would have won it all. (Caveat that Gore really did win Florida, of course...). Just as Obama appeals to AA voters, Hillary appeals to Scots-Irish whites. This is a benefit to the party because it means more votes in border states that have been red recently but can be moved back to the blue column.

Hillary is a presence in this election. People in primary states are turning out in the millions for her and are growing increasingly loyal as the political powers that be refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of her run and the reality of her support.

Second, there was the complete absence of the much lauded Obama machine bringing in new voters and transcending politics as usual. Again, here's some perspective. He currently has 86,861 WV votes (NYT) in a hotly contested campaign for the nomination. John McCain, in a "Hi, nice meeting you, give me money," victory lap in WV is currently at 83,791 votes, barely 3,000 behind the odds-on-favorite for Dem nomination. OK, I can see a loss in a state where demographics favor your opponent, but 41%? Of the front-running presumptive nominee? Who outspent Hillary 2-to-1 and has the entire MSM lined up singing his praises?

Where's the beef, Barry?

In contest after contest, we see him failing to turn out the massive numbers that his allegedly unstoppable movement says they command. We see dominance in highly restrictive caucuses. We see him turning out super-majorities of AA voters. We see him dominating urban areas where you have upper income liberals. We see the college aged children of those liberal families voting in university areas.

What we aren't seeing is any new coalitions for the Democratic Party coming out of his organizing. We aren't seeing his share of the electorate increase. If anything, it is declining, given his defeats in OH, TX, PA, IN and WV, and what looks like a royal shellacking in the works in KY. His Oregon numbers are equivocal, as it turns out, as people who claim to have voted already report voting for Hillary at the same rate as Obama. In a Nebraska primary held today, which was like Washington State's with no delegates awarded, he's barely 2 points ahead. This was a caucus state that went for him 60/40. Hmm, maybe he didn't have all that much support there? Maybe he won big there because the voters didn't turn out?

It is beginning to look like the main reason for Obama's red state caucus successes is the absence of voters, not the presence of new ones. I'm reminded of a tornado that tears through a landscape and can exert tremendous force, but when the motion slows, it vanishes, leaving nothing but destruction behind it.

Anglachel

Stalemate

I'm watching the Indiana results carefully, though I'm pretty confident Hillary will win. I also think the margin in North Carolina will narrow, given the counties that have not yet reported in.

The exit polls in each state reflect the condition of the Democratic primary electorate - Obama gets a super-majority of AA votes which makes up for his weakness with other voters. The "youth" turnout was not that big. The trend that spells out the party's fate in November continues to hold, which is that Hillary is consistently winning white males votes. These are the people who are most likely to defect to McCain in November, and they are already indicating that they don't much care for Obama.

It has come down to race, though not in the way the Blogger Boyz want to admit. It is about the wine track candidate getting a boost from AA voters, not any surge of anti-black racism on the part of working class voters. There may be some white backlash against Obama now, but that is a direct result of the way his campaign hs dissed working class voters by painting them as racists, as well as his own dirty laundry beginning to be aired.

The wine track candidate has been a consistently losing bet for the party since Stevenson. Kennedy barely eked out a victory (and there are reasons to believe he didn't win the vote), and Jimmy Carter was simply an anomaly, though it is telling that he was center-left southern technocrat. Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry were more centrist than the competition, but they hewed to the Yankee technocratic line rather than try to connect to the increasingly disaffected working class. Gore won the popular vote but lost the election because he tried to be more Bill Bradly than Bill Clinton. The "hardcore" wine track competitors - Dean, Bradley, Hart, Tsongas, Brown, Teddy Kennedy - were never seriously competitive even in the primaries because they simply did not appeal to people for whom politics was more than an intellectual enterprise. Candidates who make voters feel both vulnerable and stupid just aren't going to go very far.

There are two reasons why the hardcore winetrack candidate is winning this year. What Obama did to the situation was unify the AA vote behind a single candidate by virtue of his race. Obama is winning because he is black. Aside from that one quality, he would have been polling down with Dennis Kucinich in the primaries. The other reason is because Hillary Clinton is running. If Hillary had not been in the lineup, all the party power brokers would have been behind Edwards and Obama would have been offered a VP slot. He offers nothing of substance on pocketbook issues, doesn't appeal to working class voters in the slightest, and is carrying more incendiary political baggage than you can shake a stick at. Were it not for his AA support, he would not be competitive.

Before anyone spouts off in the comments, let me make it clear that I don't consider AA support of Obama to be pernicious. Electorally frustrating, yes, but, unlike the Hillary Haters who want to attribute the worst possible motives to her supporters, I don't think that is so of the majority Obama's black supporters. They see an opportunity to vote for a candidate who reflects them, and they will do so, no matter the odds. Given my unwavering support of Hillary despite the long nomination odds, I can't really cry foul on someone else's supporters who feel just as strongly as I do. Obama's campaign is certainly doing pernicious race-baiting, but mostly to initimidate critics and shame wavering white voters. I don't think it's earning him more than a few slivers of votes from the AA community, and is probably costing him more votes on the whole when white attrition is counted against black gains.

The problem, of course, is that Obama is having less and less appeal beyond his unique coalition as time goes on. His political baggage is pure gold for Republican ratfucking operations as we already see in their attacks on politicians who endorsed him. He has insulted the working class voters (who are not just white) the party must hold to defeat the Republicans over and over again, his class snobbery on display with some new gaffe almost every week.

So, what now? Local variations will give supporters on either side arguments about relative strength, but the larger picture is that Obama is losing 60% of white voters within his own party, let alone across parties. His scorched earth campaign to claim white racism as the sole and overwhelming cause of his losses puts the party between the Devil and the deep blue sea. He has alienated voters of all ethnicities by forcing the campaign into a black/white racial divide, angering Democrats who are voting against his lack of substantive policies, not his skin color (in truth, at this point, the only things about him that appeal to me are his skin color and his proposed Cuba policy), and antagonizing AAs with his claim that white politicians are conspiring to deny him the nomination, which will make a significant number stay home if he is not the nominee. The political question for me is whether, should he lose the nomination, will he support Hillary? If he does, Democrats win. If he doesn't, Democrats lose.

The party is at a stalemate now. Neither candidate will win with just pledged delegates. Super delegates will break it in favor of one candidate or the other.

Do we want to win in November or not?

Anglachel

New Math

The chants of “The delegate count! She can’t beat the delegate count!” get more frantic by the minute, mostly because they become less relevant to the General Election outcome with every new revelation about The Precious. Obamacans think they can win with simple math, 1 + 1 + a whole bunch of people we don’t count and – Yay! --- we have our candidate. They refuse to acknowledge that a presidential election is more akin to an algebraic equation, with variables and unknowns getting factored in when you least expect it.

One of the questions Hillary answered in the Indianapolis Star interview was a math question, and she gave it a proper algebraic answer. (Our girl’s good with numbers, after all.) When asked about Obama’s allegedly insurmountable pledged delegate count lead, Hillary responded in two ways: first that she is ahead in popular vote count because she won Florida and Michigan and, second, that voters regarded vote counts as the basis of legitimacy, and the remaining primary states darn well wanted to have their votes counted. She emphasized the legitimacy of the Florida vote in particular and then threw down the political math challenge to the Obamacans. Are you really going to try to pick the nominee without counting Florida and Michigan? How do you think you can get the necessary Electoral College votes from them in November if you don’t allow them their primary votes now?

With every poll, every interview, every primary, it becomes clear that Hillary is the strongest Democratic candidate, the person who actually is going to attract a significant number of the moderate, old-line “Rockefeller” Republicans’ vote. So, what is up with this game of political chicken? Can’t Dr. Dean count? What is the gamesmanship going on here?

1. Florida and Michigan must be seated with full voting privileges. It is GE suicide if they aren’t. This does not automatically give Hillary the nomination, but she takes back the position of front runner if they are counted before the other primaries are done. It changes the calculations of the voters, and the Obamacans are desperate to prevent that from happening.
2. To have them seated and be allowed to vote and have Obama be the nominee, The Precious must win 2214 delegates (BTD says 2209) before the convention to prevent Florida and Michigan from affecting the outcome. This might also include counting his delegates from Florida on the presumption they will be seated.
3. This is not going to happen, especially after this week’s news.
4. As long as Obama cannot win 2214 without Florida and Michigan, the pressure continues to mount to include them precisely because they will and should affect the outcome. It’s called voting for those of you unsure on the concept of democracy.
5. Deans dilemma is he has three outcomes, none of which are acceptable:
• Refuse to seat Florida and Michigan, pray Obama can edge up to 2025, and declare him the winner because FL & MI broke the rules. As I said back in March, this truncated nomination will not be seen as legitimate by the voters. Those two states will go red in the GE.
• Seat those states and take the risk that the super delegates will bolt en masse to Hillary, eviscerating claims of Obama’s support and inevitability. It will also send the party to victory in November.
• Force Hillary out of the race so that Obama is the only one left standing and the remaining voting can be called off. This will also result in a GE loss, but it would avoid a convention fight, or so Dr. Dean hopes. This is the only strategy left with a prayer for The Precious, and is why we see such bellowing and threats aimed at Hillary.

So, why? At this point, I’m not sure there is any way for Dean to get himself out of this mess, and he’s probably decided he might as well be shot for a sheep as a lamb. But what was the original calculation that has ended up with deficits in the balance sheet and red ink everywhere? There is no way to know for certain, but I think the idea was that any Democrat was going to win the general, so it was the best time to run a relatively weak candidate. I also think the original plan was that Edwards would be the front runner, handily neutralizing Clinton and then we would have an Edwards/Obama ticket. When you look at the early polling, however, a funny thing happened on the way to the elite coronation – Hillary was (and remains) the most popular among Democrats. Edwards was not different enough for him to get any traction. The leadership threw its weight behind Obama in order to take down Clinton and preserve their power. With the full force of the Stevensonian wing and the MSM, it was almost enough.

Hillary fought back as only a Clinton can, refusing to succumb to the pressure. Now Obama, an insubstantial candidate at the best of times, is demonstrating the fallacy of Dean’s original calculation. The Precious can’t get the numbers to win the election, and looks likely to fall short with the nomination as well.

So, why does Dean persist in this course, to the detriment of the party? We may never know, but he should have known better when it came to Michigan and Florida. He knows how to do the math. He should have made his candidate stand up and take the risk to demonstrate before it was too late whether he could win in a direct election. The fully legitimate primary votes of those states are necessary to finishing the equation of a Democratic win in November.

If a candidate will not stand up for those states in the primary, how can the party expect those states to stand up for the candidate in November?

It just doesn’t add up.
Anglachel

This is What a Democrat Sounds Like

Jeralyn at TalkLeft has linked to a long and fantastic interview Hillary did with the Indianapolis Star.

I'm not embedding it here, but I encourage everyone to go over and watch it and post some comments at TalkLeft. (watch out for funny play controls on the player. You have to click the "On Demand" button.) I rarely watch online videos, but I sat enraptured for the hour or so that it ran. I lost track of time. Good grief but this woman is impressive! Some take aways:

• China. Holy shit. The US is in for some serious trouble if we don't get on the ball with regard to this country. Hillary's run down on the nature of our relations with China (political, economic, military) left me with my jaw on the floor. She really does know this stuff inside and out and knows exactly how to relate it to the specific audience she is addressing. When I read sneers about how she is just pandering to the audience, I have to reply, No, doofus, she is educating them. She is making them aware of things in the nation and the world that they may have wondered about but did not understand in context. She pointed out how our economic and national security are threatened by talking about a plant in Indiana that produced industrial magnets for the military - until it was purchased and moved to China. Hello? Why is anyone surprised that working class voters listen intently at her speeches and like what they hear?
• The "young vote". She was challenged about how she's not attracting young voters. She pointed out that she has won the youth vote in California and Texas (thank you Latinas!) and has been on parity in other states. She also turned the question back on the reporter by identifying the class divisions within this group, talking about young working families, people who are not in college, and people who have joined the military often to save money for college. Not every youth" is a white male philosophy student from Notre Dame, y'know.
• Bill's role in her administration. In this one, she did a subtle push back against the "serving tea" nonsense Obama tried throwing at her. She spoke about the ways in which presidential spouses have always been confidants and advisors to the office holder, a person whose opinion is valued and trusted above all others. She also said she would send him around the world to be an ambassador to repair the damage done by W and restore the nation's standing in the world. Yup, Big Dog's a rock star.
• Party unity. Hillary gave an impassioned defense of unity, refusing to accept a reporter's challenge about the divisions in the party. She noted that she was a personal friend of John McCain's and respected the man greatly. Then she said, "His ideas are simply wrong." She honored the person while contesting the policies, which is the only way you can fight this guy - on substance. Then Hillary said what a true Democrat does:

  “Anyone, anyone, who voted for either of us should be absolutely committed to voting for the other” in the general election, Clinton said during an hour long meeting with The Indianapolis Star Editorial Board. “I’m going to shout that from the mountaintops and the valleys and everywhere I can, no matter what the outcome of the nominating process is.”
  
  ...“no matter what the differences are between Senator Obama and myself, they pale in comparison to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.”

  Damn it, Hillary, you better win this thing because you are an incredibly persuasive speaker.
• Policy differences. She reels off three broad areas of policy in which she differs from Obama (who she kept calling Barack throughout the interview. It was very sweet and big sisterish.) and why her positions were better for the country. What are they? You'll have to listen to the interview. ;-)
• Iraq timeline. She was asked if she would change her timeline for withdrawal if the situation on the ground changed. She said "NO." and then explained why the the time for US involvement was through. This is a stance she got directly from Wes Clark, who was my choice in the last presidential round and whose name has been bandied about as a possible VP choice. I personally think he is aiming for head of the NSC.

So if you haven't seen the interview, head on over and settle in with some popcorn and scotch for a really impressive hour with one of the smartest, most on the ball, most qualified presidential candidates you will ever see.

Anglachel

Just Because

I got this from Shakespeare's Sister:

Anglachel

Frugality

Taking the commonly bandied about number of $11 million spent in Pennsylvania, with a vote haul (from the NYT) of 1,035,230, Obama spent an average of $10.63 for each vote received.

Taking Hillary's expenditure amount of $3 million, with a vote count of 1,249,936, Hillary spent an average of $2.40 for each vote received.

And, if it's true she only spent $3 million, it looks like she will have recovered most of that cost by tomorrow morning. I wonder how long it is going to take Obama to recoup the $11 million he spent?

We need a president who knows how to make that dollar stretch and uses every penny effectively, not someone who is a wastrel with other people's money.

I approve of frugality.

Anglachel

Deal

Once again, Obama has failed to close the deal in a state that will actually matter in the general election.

He trailed Hillary among long-time Democrats, not the "Democrat for a Day" crowd he panders to, and did not make a single advance among any of the major constituencies he needs to hold against McCain. This bothers me a great deal.

In Hillary's victory speech, she made reference to FDR and Truman, reminding us of the New Deal and how it transformed America. We are facing what many economists and analysts predict will be the greatest economic crisis our nation has faced since the Great Depression. Hillary invoked the ability of our country to rise to the challenges that history and crappy Republican administrations continually hand us, and to transform hope into substance and defend the interests of ordinary people. I have no doubt but that she can deal with the challenges ahead.

The party is in a great deal of trouble at the moment as its front runner for the nomination is watching his legitimacy and support erode by the minute. With Hillary's double digit win and 200,000 vote margin, she can honestly claim that she is the choice of the party in the must-win big electoral vote states. She doesn't need to deal with stupid gaffes that insult voters, nor with having cut deals with elitist insiders to prevent revotes in Florida and Michigan.

I've talked extensively about the stupidity, the sheer political suicide of refusing to seat Florida and Michigan. I've also talked about what the refusal to revote actually says about Obama's own calculation - he knows he's a loser and he's afraid to face the voters. The Blogger Boyz want to yammer on about rulz and delegates and margins and popular votes and how Obama is such a precious beacon of hope and change.

Tell you what. Let's make a deal. The Precious agrees to seat Florida and Michigan as-is and accept the popular will of all the voters and, well, um, that's it. You see, the deal is that in a democracy, the votes are supposed to get counted, even the ones not in your favor. From a strategic point of view, you don't want a candidate who gets a nomination by disenfranchising his opponent's voters because they can take their revenge in the general by voting for the other guy, or just not voting at all. It's in Obama's hands to restore legitimacy to this nomination by taking his chances with all the voters.

Don't like those odds? They'll be worse in November.

Deal.

Anglachel

Exit Poll Data

Update - the exit data has changed since I originally reported it, though not by a lot. What I say below may not be identical to what is finally reported.

I'm using the exit poll data on CNN.

Sex
More women than men voted and more women chose Hillary. She won a higher percentage of male vote than she usually does, @ 47%.

Age Info
The youth vote was only 10%. This should worry party leaders as Obama is strongest in this age bracket, which is also the least likely to turn out for a vote. What is very surprising is that the next age bracket, 30-44 was lower than usual as well, only 17%. Though the majority of both groups voted for Obama, they simply did not turn out to support him in the same numbers they have in earlier contests. Voters over 44 turned out en masse and strongly supported Hillary.

The youth vote Hillary did win was the whites under 29. I am still looking for sex breakdowns on this, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of young woemn voted for Hillary.

God Squad
Strange breakdown where people who attend church more than one per week and those who never attend both broke for Obama, but together made up only 27% of voters. Regular weekly church goers went with Hilalry by a big margin. She overpowered him 3-1 in the Catholic vote.

Money Matters
More voters, regardless of candidate, said Hillary would imrpove the economy than said Obama would do so.

Geography
Obama won Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, but lost all the rest of the state. This is not good as it is the rest of the state that is most likely to defect to McCain in November, and where Kerry was also soundly trounced.

Education & Class
Hillary wins overwhelmingly with non-college educated voters, 2-1, while Obama enjoys a small five point advantage among college educated and higher. Voters making less than $100,000/year favored Clinton. The rich favored Obama, but in an interesting pattern. Hilalry won vters belwo $75K in income,, and then the voting slice from $100-$150k and she won that group decisively.

Issues
People who think the economy & health care are msot important went with Hillary. People who think Iraq is most important went with Obama.

Unity
This statistic is a little tricky. 97% of voters polled gave an opinion on how they would vote in November. The number split indicates of thepercentage providing that answer, how many are HRC supporters and how many are BHO supporters.
If Obama is the nominee:

72% will vote for him (37/63)
15% will vote McCain (90/10)
10% will stay home (99/1)

If Hillary is the nominee:
80% will vote for her (60/40)
11% will vote McCain (26/73)
6% will stay home (7/93)

These numbers should give Dean the heebie jeebies. HRC voters, the majority of Pennsylvania voters, are far less likely to support Obama than the other way around. Further more, they are more likely to defect to McCain than BHO voters. That's not just costing a vote, that's adding one to McCain's side.

Later on in the survey, more people say they will be satisified if Hillary wins the presidency than if Obama wins it.

Party Affiliation
Once again, Barack Obama has failed to win the Democratic Party vote. 82 of the vters were self-idetified Democrats and they went 53/47 for HRC. Further, Obama only squeaked out a 1% margin among Independents.

Another statistic is interesting. Obama's "Democrat for a Day" campaign paid dividends as 61% of people changing their party affiliation voted for him. Most of these appear to be Independents (remember, closed primary).

Race
Clinton won 60% of the white vote, Obama won 90% of the Black vote and breakdowsn on other ethnicities was not counted. This next statistic is the one that will be making the headlines tomorrow, however. 20% of people stated that the race of the candidate was important to them, and 59% of those voters voted for Hilalry. This will be taken as prima facie evidence that "racists" gave her the win. Count on it. That is the only meme that will matter tomorrow as Obam tries to shame college educated whites into voting for him.

Decision Time & Momentum
Ocne again, the exitpoll shows that Obama has exhausted his popularity. People who made up their minds since Ohio and Texas voted for Hillary, and the late deciding voters picked Hillary 2-1. This is important as this is a pattern with her in the polls. People who decide late pick her. Voters who favored Obama made up their minds in February, when he was riding the big media wave. Voters who decied on or before Super Tuesday slightly favor Clinton. The momentum is with her.

Take Away
Obama's momentum is over. He has once again failed to make significant inroads into core Democratic voters, and will probably suffer severe defections to McCain in those demographics. Hillary once again shows that she can appeal to people across the spectrum of the party as well as to Independents despite a filthy and high-powered campaign to defeat her, despite being outsepnt 4 or 5 to 1, despite having the MSM and Left Blogistan repeating crap about her 24/7.

Obama cannot deliver the goods. He is damaged goods. He will do the party no good come November.

Anglachel

That Giant Sucking Sound

Was made by Howard Dean's testicles retracting up into his body when he read what Elizabeth Edwards had to say:

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, remains unwilling to endorse either of the two remaining Democratic contenders, but the health care advocate told ABC News she preferred Sen. Clinton's health plan to Sen. Obama's.

In an interview with "Good Morning America's" Robin Roberts, airing Wednesday, Edwards - who recently began work as a senior fellow at the liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress - said she believed Clinton's health care plan was more inclusive than that of the Illinois senator.

"You need that universality in order to get the cost savings ... I just have more confidence in Sen. Clinton's policy than Sen. Obama's on this particular issue," she said.

As to how the contentious Democratic nomination will end, Edwards said she thought letting the race end at the convention was a good idea.

"I don't actually think it's a bad idea to have an open convention, where we actually got to hash out what the differences [between the candidates] were and how important they are," she said. Edwards said she liked the idea of Clinton and Obama running together on a so-called dream ticket, and discounted the idea of her husband, John, accepting a place as either candidate's running mate.

"[Clinton and Obama] are the two strongest Democrats running. It's hard not to believe that together they are stronger than they would be apart."

Elizabeth Edwards Backs Clinton Health Care Plan

OK, I think Elizabeth hit the trifecta here:

• Hillary's health care plan is better than Obama's, just like Paul Krugman has been telling us
• Not only is a long campaign not a problem, but it should be settled at the convention, not before it
• A unity ticket is a great bet, and I don't think she's looking at The Precious for the #1 slot

Now, are the Blogger Boyz going to attack Elizabeth Edwards for taking the stance that Hillary supporters have been saying all along? Are Dean and the rest of the bozo parade from the DNC going to take swipes at this women?

Who will show himself to be a fauxgressive?

Anglachel

Myth of the Media Darling

Big Tent Democrat of TalkLeft is one of the few (and quite possibly the only) sane Obama supporter left in Left Blogistan. He has an unfortunate belief that somehow Obama is a better candidate for the Democrats in the general because he is a "media darling", by which BTD means that the MSM will go easy on Obama in a way they would not on other Democratic candidates especially Hillary. It's not that they will be nice to Obama, but that they won't be quite a brutal.

This is a variation on the specious argument that Obama is more electable than Hillary because his negatives are lower, but has the advantge of being argued soberly by someone who admits he could very well be wrong. Unlike the usual popularity-based argument, BTD does not confuse expressions of CDS with Hillary actually being anything like the moronic portrayals of her. He's looking at relative levels of slime.

But he is wrong, and the reason he is wrong is due to the way CDS works in the media. They don't love Obama or consider him any kind of darling. They want him to beat Hillary. Period. End of affection. There really isn't a postitive take on Obama as such. He is more of a foil for the attacks on Clinton than gaining any great well of affection among the Russerts and Matthews of the press. Maureen Dowd may be psychotic, but she is channeling the actual attitude of the press corps(e) towards Obama - weak, effeminate, a pretty little toy they will soon grow tired of.
Obama's role in the campaign meta story is to rescue the Democratic Party from the clutches of the evil Clintons. The best and brightest on the left have totally bought into this fantasy to the point where they can't help acting out their deepest oedipal fantasies of what Hillary wants to do to their manhood, and the Dean faction of the DNC is more than happy to use it in a triumphal way, declaring the Obama has already won so go home already!

The trouble is, he can fulfill his role and still be a lovely punching bag for the media the second he secures the nomination. When the wimp is put next to the war hero, the MSM's leg thrills will be reserved for Big John.

Touting the Media Darling meme also overlooks the most concrete phenomenon of the campaign - Hillary wins despite the shit. Her allegedly overwhelming negatives don't hurt her much in large Democratic primaries, and those pesky voters (you know, the ones who actually make the decisions? Yeah, them!) far outnumber the Kewl Kidz partying on the bus and infesting the blogz. Even with every PR advantage he could possibly wish for - money up the kazoo, anti-democratic caucus system, fawning press, even the guy who kidnapped Josh Marshall singing his praises - Obama cannot win over enough voters to close the deal, and the upcoming primaries are his weakest spots in the entire campaign. And we're not even getting into the FL/MI backlash.

The media will, of course, bash Hillary. They've done it for decades now and the public has tuned it out. Ho-hum, yeah, yeah, she killed Vince Foster out of jealousy over his involvement with a lesbian drug dealer out in Whitewater, whatever. She's evil incarnate and is a corporatist communist who will turn us all into imperialst socialists, yawn, yeah, I heard that somewhere. What the current campaign has also shown is that the nastier the media gets to her, the more strongly people rally to her side.

Hillary is the opposite of a media darling. She's the voters' darling, and that is how you win elections.

Anglachel