New Math

According to the most recent AP article I read coming out of the big Rules and Bylaws meeting, Obama now needs 65 delegates (any combination of pledged and super) to hit the magic number.

There are 111 delegates up for grabs between now and Tuesday, assuming the supers from PR, Montana, and North Dakota haven’t already come out in favor of either candidate, and that they do so in the next three days.

Should be interesting.  Obama is supposed to lose PR, which as the most delegates of the lot (which makes NO sense, but what about these primaries does?), so he’ll need to keep it close in an effort to get those 65 delegates.

Veep!

Instead of venting my spleen about the Clinton campaign (I think it’s safe to say, however, that I’ll come back to that at some point), I’m going to take the high road and do as my candidate of choice has been doing: look forward to the general election.

Way back when, my initial thoughts on the VP candidate best suited to run with Obama sat squarely with Jim Webb, senator from Virginia.  Webb’s background is perfect, in that he’s a military man from a working class background.  He’s also the only member of Congress with a child serving in Iraq.  He’d bring credibility on the military side and would help reach the “white working class” we’ve head so much about.

Webb, however, does have some downside.  He’s a first term senator, just like Obama.  And he’s admitted to using a certain racial slur that begins with N in his youth.  Oddly enough, the latter issue might be a plus, because he’ll be running as a man who’s changed trying to appeal to a whole segment of people who probably used that same word when they were younger (if not just last week).

Catherine Sebelius has been getting a lot of lip service lately.  She’s the current governor of Kansas and wouldn’t just help Obama win that state, but would also help him win back Hillary supporters who want to vote for a woman.  The problem there, however, is that Hillary supporters could view her appointment as being Obama’s desire to have a woman on the ticket, and he picks any woman other than Hillary, they’ll be angry.

Wesley Clark is a dark horse candidate.  He would clearly help Obama’s case with the military and foreign affairs crowd.  He was also a Clinton supporter, so it might help on that side as well.  He was also Madonna’s choice in the 2004 primaries, so Obama could then count on the People With Horrible Taste In Music vote.

So I ask you, dear blog readers (aka Meghan and Nicole), who do you think will get the nod?

Portland…sweet fancy moses…

Warning: Prepare to want to punch something (or someone)

http://therealnews.com/web/videoframeworksjsauto.php?currentid=1507&thisautoplay=true

 

All the women I know will be shocked to learn that they hate women.

 More geniuses from Ohio, courtesy of Ben Smith at politico.com:

Clinton backer backlash

 

My colleague Beth Frerking reports on something we’re likely to hear a lot more about in coming days: Grumblings from the almost-half of the party, disproportionately women, whose candidate is losing.

An Ohio-based group of Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters say they’ll work actively against Sen. Barack Obama if he becomes the nominee, arguing that Clinton has been the subject of “intense sexism” by party leaders and the media.

Led by Boomer-aged women, the group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, is holding a press conference in Columbus at noon to release this statement.

Organizers Cynthia Ruccia, 55, and Jamie Dixey, 57, both from the Columbus area, say they’re coordinating women, men, minorities, union members and others in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan – all important swing states next November – to impress upon Democratic party leaders what they think has been outright discrimination – and not of the racial kind.

“We have been vigilant against expressions of racism, and we are thrilled that the society has advanced that way” in accepting Obama as a serious candidate,” Ruccia said. “But it’s been open season on women, and we feel we need to stand up and make a statement about that, because it’s wrong.”

With growing calls for Clinton to leave the race, she said, women feel like “we’re being told to sit down, shut up, and get with the program.”

Hard to know what to make of any given group, but the sentiment is clealry out there, and putting the party back together will be Obama’s, and Clinton’s, challenge.

Oh, and they’re doing O’Reilly tonight, of course.

Kyle says: Here’s an idea, ladies.  If you want a woman to be president then should probably find a female candidate WITH PRINCIPLES.  Don’t just take whatever is handed to you and then get angry when she loses because of her faults.  GO FIND SOMEONE BETTER.

The fact that the women in this country aren’t up in arms that the first viable female candidate they get is such a two-faced hack blows my mind.

Honestly, it’s like the Democrats complaining that the ‘04 results in Ohio were rigged.  You know what a great way to avoid that issue is?  WIN BY MORE THAN 100,000 VOTES.

Quit whining and DO BETTER.

And the fact that they’re going on O’Reilly tonight makes their views all the more laughable.

Yes, it’s true: West Virginia doesn’t matter.

I’m not saying that because of any ill feelings I harbor towards West Virginia.  It’s a beautiful state — frighteningly so, in fact, because while driving through there are various points that you realize “I could get lost in this beautiful wilderness and no one would ever find me.”

But West Virginia is not indicative of anywhere else in America OTHER than West Virginia.  WV has no real urban center, unlike every other state in the union.  It’s also a demographic flat line, with few variations.  It would be like letting South East Ohio have its own primary.

But, of course, it has allowed Hillary Clinton to keep making ridiculous statements.  You know, like that she wins swing states, which is what the Democrats need to win in the fall.  The only problem, of course, is that winning a swing state in a primary is has absolutely nothing to do with winning it in the general election.  It’s apples and oranges.  The fact that she even makes such a statement is yet another example that she’s speak down to people in order to convince them of something.

Then there’s the “white vote,” if you will.  This morning on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell made a fantastic comment which gave me a new perspective on the whole thing.  She pointed out that the percentage of the white vote that Hillary Clinton gets actually goes down when she’s placed in a general election against McCain (according to polls).  Why?  Because white people will vote for McCain.  So Hillary’s percentages don’t hold when expanded to the general.  Obama’s, however, do — in fact, they actually increase, which would suggest that there’s room for growth.

In other words, the two arguments that Clinton made last night are, well, out and out lies.

But why should anyone be surprised by that?

Thank god that’s over.

FINALLY.

While people are spinning left and right this morning, the cold, hard facts are this: Hillary Clinton, even if Florida and Michigan were inlcuded as is (and that’s not particularly fair by any stretch of the imagination), cannot catch Obama in any way, shape, or form, not popular vote, not pledged delegates, not number of states, not anything.

Obama wiped away all of Hillary’s gains in Pennsylvania last night by destroying her in North Carolina, a swing state that will play a big part in the general election.  The close finish in Indiana will only garner Obama more superdelegates.

What does this mean, while Hillary is saying she’ll stay in the race until there’s a nominee?  Two things:

1) Hillary Clinton is now Mike Huckabee

2) Obama will no longer engage Hillary Clinton in any kind of debate, either formally or informally.  In the coming days he will spend all of his time talking about HIS plans and creating distinctions between himself and John McCain.

It should be really entertaining, as Hillary will clearly keep trying to make it seem like a race, while Obama will not all but ignore her completely.

The real issue is how long Hillary will wait to start repairing the party she has single handedly divided.