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My 100th post of the year - and of course, it's political ;)
Well, if the pic above doesn't clue you in, this one's political; proceed at your own discrection.
I wasn't going to post about last week's primaries until someone was foolish enough to ask my opinion.
Short version: good job HR Clinton. I was happy.
Long version: I don't think it changes the final outcome. Consider it akin to our experience on Iwo Jima; the Japanese fought like hell and bloodied us left and right, but in the end it was still only a short time before the war was over and they surrendered.
Last Tuesday might have been her final hurrah. Or not. Like her husband she has a knack for surviving longer then you'd expect. But this isn't a marathon, where everyone who lasts till the end has bragging rights; here you win or you lose.
Survival isn't enough.
Then again given the free pass he has in the media, the monetary advantage and the over the top adulation of 'the masses', I think Obama should have closed the deal. That he couldn't should lead to some changes in the thinking of his braintrust.
- purple is Obama wins, pink Clinton. Iimage blatantly borrowed from Electoral-Vote.com; I'll remove it if it becomes an issue.
On that score I think it a shame that the Dems have allocated delegates (in many states) on a proportionate basis, meaning she took Ohio by an 11% margin - a legitimate landslide politically - and still had to share the delegates with Obama.
Why??? In the general election it doesn't work that way, it's winner take all. If a candidate can take a state primary I think it only makes sense to act, correctly or not, as if that decides which of the two is capable of notching up the state in the fall. Anything else is fairy-tale 'fairness' that generates nothing but division and drama. It's certainly done so this year.
As it stands I think the odds still favor Obama. But HRC is now in it through Pennsylvania and *possibly* through June. I don't worship that fact as the death knell of the Dems. That idea is obscenely overrated. Folks can go to blows at the convention and I think they'll still have time to pull it together and giveit a go.
A popular view, and one I share to an extent, is that slim delegate lead be damned, Obama can't pull in the big prizes that matter in November. Ohio, Texas, California, New York, and the disputed Michigan and Florida all lined up for Clinton.
Hey, I love living in Wisconsin, but if you have a canddate who takes Wisconsin, Wyoming and Maine and forfeits the one's listed above, then I think you have the makings for a loser in the general election.
It's not that simple, naturally. New York and (probably) California would go blue if you put Jesus himself on the ticket for the GOP. Therefore the win - or rather the loss - of those states in the primary is largely irrelevant. Likewise TX is pretty assured to go Red (or course, ditto that for some of Obama's wins).
Should Clinton hold her own in the rinky-dink contests, then take Pennsylvania and somehow have Michigan and Florida thrown back into the mix (by seating their banned delegates or doing it all over again), and should John Edwards throw his 26-32 delegates to her, THEN I think she goes into the convention having muted Obama's momentum and with a legit arguement that she deserves the nomination.
[on that score, nice year to play hardball and ban two state's field of delegates for infractions. Thanks Howard Dean, you're a peach. Best of all Howard, with all the recent calls for changing the rules midstream and allowing the delegates/revoting/blah blah you've reinforced the notion that the DNC has little respect for rules and law. Good job buddy!]
What about a shared ticket? I can't see Obama playing second fiddle; more likely he'd hold off and try again in 4 or 8 years. And I can't picture him being tied down with her as an intrusive, media hog VP, especially given his mantra of 'change'.
So for HRC it's really her last hurrah. She doesn't have the option of waiting 4/8 more years. Therefore anyone who says she should step aside or concede gracefully needs to get a grip on reality and understand that, like it or not, she's a brawler. She's not going out until the bell rings, and maybe not even then.
I still think Obama will take it, but his free pass in the media is running out and HRC is going tobloddy him up a bit; he'll have a tougher time in the fall because of what happened this past Tuesday.
* * *
In other political news, Wyoming is now sending a Democrat to the House in place of retired former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. Sure the Dems put a great candidate out there and the GOP . . not so much, but anyway you spin it it's a PR blow to the GOP. That district hasn't sent a Dem to Congress for 11 terms. Not good, not good.
Tags: Clinton, Obama, Howard Dean, Dennis Hastert, GOP, DNC
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3/9/08 3:13 PM
Julie