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William Lukash
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Posted: 05 March 2008 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | 1  

And you can be an American and not vote!  Er, wait, thats a bad thing, too.
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Knut Robert Knutsen
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Posted: 05 March 2008 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | 2  

"Ari, I agree she should be judged by her run as Senator. Compare it to Obama's run and she still has more experience. Compare it to McCain and she doesn't."

It was my understanding that Obama was in the Illinois senate from 1996 until he became a US Senator in 2004. If that counts, then that's 4 more years as an elected offial and legislator than Hillary. If it doesn't count, why doesn't it count? (I'm not an american so I haven't given much thought to the relative importance of state legislatures)

 

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Bob Neill
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 1:23am | IP Logged | 3  

Knut, compare it to serving in Norway's  national parliament/ 'Staten' or regional/'Fykleskommuner'...it's the difference between the legislative body for the whole country, versus the middle level between city and national government.

In the discussion at hand, Hilary has more experience in the (national) Senate than Obama does.

In comic book terms, 'With greater power comes greater responsibility'...in that more people are affected on a national level.

 

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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 4:40am | IP Logged | 4  

I'd like to see either Obama or Clinton get in as I think they will be better for America and the world than what you guys have at the minute.

We never even got a choice whether we wanted Gordon Brown as our new PM.



Edited by Greg McPhee on 06 March 2008 at 4:41am
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Brad Teschner
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 10:16am | IP Logged | 5  

Was for Edwards...now I'm for Obama.  Didn't have a problem with Hilary until she started with the negative campaigning.  Pretty hypocritical...especially when Bill was speaking against negative ads and in favor of speeches about hope back during Kerry's campaign.

Latest delegate math suggest that for Hillary to win the nom she has to win like 60% of the remaining primaries with 70% of the vote.  I guess it could happen.

I would have no problem with McCain if he hadn't gone nuts since the 2000 campaign.
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Stephen Robinson
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 10:35am | IP Logged | 6  

Latest delegate math suggest that for Hillary to win the nom she has to win like 60% of the remaining primaries with 70% of the vote.  I guess it could happen.

**********

SER: Clinton realizes that won't happen, I think, which is why her tactic has been to tear down Obama and make it so that she is the only one standing. Forcing him out now or making him so unappealing that the superdelegates would choose her is one of her options.

Granted, such a scorched-earth tactic would backfire.

I do think that there's a very good chance of a joint-ticket -- the DNC might insist upon it in order to ensure there is no rift in the party and to keep the supporters of both happy. Then it will be a matter of who gets the top slot.

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Michael Penn
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 10:42am | IP Logged | 7  

Hillary has won pretty much all the key states for Democrat related to a national election -- NY, CA, NJ, MA, OH, TX. If they re-do MI and FL, she'll probably win those too. Whatever the pledged delegates, she has a strong case that she's more competitive where it counts.
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Kevin Brown
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 10:52am | IP Logged | 8  

I'm definitely voting for Obama, no matter what.  Even if I have to write in his name in the general election.  (Though I doubt I'll need to.)

Clinton remaining in the race is no surprise.  If she had lost either TX or OH, or even just barely won OH, she may have considered dropping out.  Doubtful, but one never knows. 

The thing is, she went into both of those states with 20 point leads and she eked out a win in TX (and the caucus is going to negate whatever win she go, because 60+% is going for Obama) and OH was about half of what was expected.  And even with those win, Obama still hold not only the delegate lead, but the popular vote lead as well.  (Popular vote by about 450,000.)  So she wins a big state in TX, but barely cut into Obama's lead on 2 fronts.

Pennsylvania is going to be the last big test for them both.  Clinton needs to win that state by at least 15%  (say 58-42) to make any headway.  Anything less than a double digit win does her no good.  She'll then need to win every single contest the rest of the way and then hope to get at least 60% of the super delegates to prevent Obama from heading into the DNC with 2,025.  I just do not see that happening.

Yes, she's making it a race, but she's not as close as many people think.  All she's doing right now is wasting money on attacks.

By the way, if anyone is really curious about following things, here are some websites:

http://www.politico.com/  (Great political site.  Fairly unbiased.  And some freakin' hilarious, off-the-wall forums where it's almost a free for all!)

http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/27/obama-clinton-election-oped -cx_jb_0227delegates.html  (Great delegate calculator, but it leaves out that 1% that votes for "none of the above".  So it's not 100% accurate, but close enough.)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democ ratic_vote_count.html  (This shows the current popular vote for the Democratic primaries.)

edited for spelling



Edited by Kevin Brown on 06 March 2008 at 10:54am
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Thom Price
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 11:29am | IP Logged | 9  

I think Hillary is remaining in the race for two reasons.  First, I think he's holding out hope that Florida and Michigan will either be allowed to seat their delegates at the convention or re-vote.  Either scenario puts her back into a very competitive position.  Secondly, I think she's demonstrating that she remains an extremely strong force, especially in the key Democrat states.  As Michael points out, Hillary has won most, if not all, of the big Democrat states; on the flip side of that, most of the states that Obama has won are those that are overwhelming Republican and which are very, very unlikely to favor any Democrat in the General Election.

(All the talk about "Obama-mania" is ridiculously overwrought.  The man is doing very well, no doubt -- and Clinton is right behind him, every step of the way.  Of course in politics, like horseshoes, close doesn't cut it.  But this notion that Obama is running away with the election, or has some kind of overwhelming support from the people, is total nonsense.)

Contrary to some of the opinions in this thread, I think Hillary would accept the VP spot on the ticket.  Her goal is to be President; what gets her closer to that goal -- returning to be a Senator who lost a White House bid, or being the nation's first woman VP?  
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | 10  

I'm skeptical Hillary would accept a Vice Presidential spot.  And I'm not sure how much Obama would really gain by selecting her.  Her primary constituencies are the hardcore Democratic groups who (for the most part) are going to vote Democratic regardless of who gets the nomination.  And she brings with her a lot of baggage and unpopularity.  I think there are other potential VP selections that work better for Obama.

On the flip side, I can't imagine Obama accepting the VP slot either.  Barring a major gaffe by him that dramatically (60% or more) shifts the remaining primaries in her favor, he is going to be ahead on pledged delegates at convention time.  Meaning the only way she will get the nomination is via superdelegates or getting the Florida and Michigan delegates seated.  If either of these things happen Obama (and his supporters) are going to feel they were robbed, and I doubt he would cheerfully accept a VP slot under those circumstances.
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Stephen Robinson
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | 11  

As Michael points out, Hillary has won most, if not all, of the big Democrat states; on the flip side of that, most of the states that Obama has won are those that are overwhelming Republican and which are very, very unlikely to favor any Democrat in the General Election.
***************

SER: I don't see how you can dismiss victories in 27 states. Also, this viewpoint ignores the fact that Democrats have prior to 2000 won some of these overwhelming Republican states (Bill Clinton won Georgia in 1992, I believe).

Further, if the Democratic nominee focuses solely on the game-plan for electoral victory (the guaranteed Democratic states and then Ohio or Florida), that has an effect on Democrats chances in the pretty-much ignored states. This makes things difficult for Democratic governors and senators/representatives in those states. You'll notice that many of the red-state Democrats have endorsed Obama.

As for the states she's won, per another poster: NY, CA, NJ, MA, OH, TX

Obama did well in all those states relatively. He lost Texas by 3 points. There's no question that he would carry NY and CA. Ohio is a question mark because of McCain but I don't think that Obama, given his stances, would necessarily do signficantly worse than Clinton would.

******************
(All the talk about "Obama-mania" is ridiculously overwrought.  The man is doing very well, no doubt -- and Clinton is right behind him, every step of the way.  Of course in politics, like horseshoes, close doesn't cut it.  But this notion that Obama is running away with the election, or has some kind of overwhelming support from the people, is total nonsense.)
************

SER: I would strongly disagree. This race was expected to be over and done with by Super Tuesday at best. Obama has remained competetive and is still technically beating the Clinton brand and decisively beat John Edwards, the vice presidential nominee from 2004. That speaks to both an impressive degree of support but also a very well-run campaign. Clinton has done this twice before if you grant her the exposure to Bill Clinton's 2 presidential runs.

In some ways, it's like ROCKY. Rocky going the distance with Apollo Creed but yet still losing is still far more a victory for him than for Creed.

And Obama is doing more than going the distance. We can't dispute a 27 state victory and a popular vote lead.

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Keith Elder
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Posted: 06 March 2008 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | 12  

The only hope Hillary has, I think, are the uncounted FL and MI delegates.  I think the single worst thing that could happen for the Democrats is if there were legal challenges about those delegates, and having this end up in the courts.  Oy!  I've always opposed the Democrats, but even I would hate to see that happen to their party.  Hopefully the Clintons wouldn't take that step, if it came to that.

Obama really is a phenomenon.  I haven't seen a campaign that's so about personal appeal since maybe Reagan.

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