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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Erasing March 4

For all the hoop-de-hoo over Clinton's "huge" wins last Tuesday, her delegate gain coming out of March 4 was about +6 pledged delegates.

Today, Obama wins Wyoming handily and likely picks up +2 pledged delegates, and I think it would be a stretch to think he'll not pick up at least 5 more out of Mississippi's 40 on Tuesday. (Plus you've got Obama +3 in superdelegates since Mar. 4)

Maybe I'm watching the scoreboard too much and not appreciating the style of play, but there it is.

In this week of Clinton's "huge" wins, she looks likely to come out minus on both pledged and super delegates.

I'm just sayin'......

10 Comments:

  • "I'm just sayin'"

    at least someone is...kudos.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:03 PM  

  • I think this line will reemerge in contest with the "big states" argument as they try to fill airtime around Mississippi.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 6:25 PM  

  • I read on DKos that the final TX tally (primary and caucus) has Obama coming away with more delegates than Clinton. If true, with the corporate media cover it? Will it, along with Obama wind in WY and presumably MS change the echo chamber of Clinton having somehow achieving something remarkable on 4 Mar?

    However, Clinton has managed to throw Obama off his mojo. Temporarily? We'll have to see in the coming weeks. It also remains to be seen whether the media will begin to quantify Clinton's "lifetime of experience" and her remarkably Lieberman-esque rhetoric.

    By Blogger -epm, at 7:56 PM  

  • Yeah. That's true, and no, probably not individually, but as part of the broader delegate discussion.

    (It's funny how Obama is off because he lost TX, but Clinton's not off as she loses Wy. and Miss.

    I don't really disagree with the analysis that Obama has wobbled, I'm just curious about the expectations game.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:28 PM  

  • Well, sheesh, Hillary's margin of victory in Texas was ten times the
    TOTAL vote in Wyoming. I think that explains the different weighting.

    And I suppose they still need to fight for every delegate, but surely at this point it's clear to everyone that Obama is going to win the pledged delegates. If Hillary has a chance, it would have to be by winning the popular vote--no easy task, of course, but if she pulled it off, it would really put the superdelegates between a rock and a hard place.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:59 AM  

  • Oh yeah. And this is definitely partly caused by the Texas caucus.

    I was trying to make the point that Clinton's "earthquake" win was just a win.

    (PS. I'm starting to see that pledged delegate/superdelegate move off 0. Starting to hear more and more supers say "if it's close on pledged delegates...."

    Of course, you know that's not going to be enough for the roughly 50% who supported Obama.

    This is going to be a disaster. Even if your candidate wins, she's going to be shredded from all sides.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:00 AM  

  • Isn't the convention just a variation on a caucus. And if caucuses favor Obama, then won't the convention be friendly turf for Obama?

    Hillary ran a devastating campaign in OH and won convincingly. (I'll hold my tongue for now on what I see as some racism problems for Obama in Appalachia). I think the NFTA bullshit "story" cost Obama some votes, but probably not the race.

    Texas, however, is nothing more than a mirage of positive news for Clinton. Again, her "win" in TX was that she changed the media echo chamber from "Hillary has commanding lead in TX" to "Hillary, as underdog, pulls out convincing victory" despite a 3% victory in primary and 15% loss in caucuses. To change the headlines in the face of reality borders on magic, as far as I'm concerned.

    As Mike said, to paraphrase, political fortunes are based on perception, not reason. To that end, Obama better get on his game or Hillary will perception him onto the wayside. Even if he does win the delegates fair and square, we've seen that far and square has nothing to do with win-at-all-costs politics.

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:52 AM  

  • EPM, not really because (I contend) the reason Obama does better in caucus is because the passion his supporters feel draws more of them to be willing to sit through the annoying caucus process. There will be no turnout issues among the delegates.

    I'm going to pimp a little bit for Clinton in Texas (Am I suspended like Schuster?) She was down a couple in most of the polls by Thursday and then came back to win by a couple on Tuesday. That is something. However I don't think it's a "huge" win.

    AND, as to perception, there is going to be holy hell if it goes to the convention and the superdelegates try and overturn the delegate lead.

    That's a perception, too, and I doubt Obama supporters will be quiet about that one.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 11:04 AM  

  • This is what happens when you force a universe of ideas to separate themselves into one or the other of two parties.

    Does our form of non-parliamentary government, by it's nature, predispose this distillation of politics into two parties? Is it the natural evolution of political efficaciousness in our system that forces us to two, and only two, parties?

    By Blogger -epm, at 1:32 PM  

  • Actually that makes alot of sense.

    (Probably should add the collusion of the two existing parties to erect barriers against entry.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 3:13 PM  

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