Dear Voters of Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont,
On March 4th you can go to the polls in your states and help determine who will be the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States. Assuming you are not an ardent Republican, you will want to vote in the Democratic contest, and you have two realistic choices in Illinois Senator Barack Obama and New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Let me offer you some advice in making your decision.
If you prefer Barack Obama, vote for him. But if you prefer Hillary Clinton, there are some things for you to think about. To make this clear, let’s look at what will happen if Sen. Obama wins the March 4th contests. It will culminate a winning streak of fifteen primaries and caucuses that began on February 9th, when Obama swept the contests in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state, and the Virgin Islands. The story will be clear…David beat Goliath with a strategy of competing in all 50 states, an optimistic message of hope and national unity, and an efficient and disciplined campaign staff. In doing so, he helped boost youth turnout to unprecedented levels, dominated in states and districts where Republicans have historically done well, attracted both independents and Republicans that we will need in the general election, and even brought higher income white voters into the tent. Our nominee will be a clear victor with tons of momentum…a media sensation.
But, if Obama does not win the March 4th contests things will not be so rosy. Here is how New York Times columnist Bob Herbert puts it:
The Clintons would declare themselves (yet again) the Comeback Kids, although they would still be behind in delegates. They would continue their push to have the Michigan and Florida delegations seated. They would step up their attacks on the Obama forces with understandable glee. And they would use whatever persuasive powers they could muster to push the idea with party regulars that Senator Obama is unelectable.
That is a scenario guaranteed to infuriate the Obama true-believers. If Senator Clinton managed to secure the nomination under those circumstances, it would open deep wounds in the party that would be very difficult to heal.
If you want Clinton to be the nominee, you might be willing to infuriate ‘Obama true believers’. After all, Obama is not entitled to anything. The key problem is the ‘manag[ing] to secure the nomination’ part of this scenario. If you support Clinton you should still consider just how furious her nomination will make his supporters.
Simply put, Clinton cannot finish the nominating process with more pledged (elected) delegates. She cannot lay claim to winning more states, as Obama has already won half of them. Under realistic projections, she cannot win the popular vote. All she can do is narrow the lead that Obama has already built and then hope that the superdelegates (former and currently elected officials, and unelected officials at the Democratic National Committee) overturn the verdict of the voters. Unfortunately for Clinton, current trends in superdelegate endorsements do not augur well for her strategy. This is from two days ago:
With the pick up of Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) today, Obama has now reached 200 superdelegates. He has cut what was once a 90-delegate advantage for Clinton to what is now 56 since Super Tuesday, Feb. 5th. Since Feb. 5, Obama has gained 30 publicly declared superdelegates, and Clinton has lost a net of four.
Since that time, more superdelegates have moved into Obama’s camp, including West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller. Obama now has a delegate lead (including superdelegates): Obama 1,402, Clinton 1,291. I point this out because it provides evidence that Clinton cannot prevail no matter what happens on March 4th. Unless there is some kind of unforeseen scandal or illness, Barack Obama has already won enough delegates and enough party establishment support to assure himself of the nomination.
Given that reality, a vote for Hillary Clinton is not just a vote of personal preference. You may feel strongly that Clinton would be a better president, and I can respect that opinion. But she most assuredly cannot be a more electable nominee. Not now. Not with what she would have to pull off to win the nomination. To win, she would have to somehow convince the party establishment that Barack Obama is unelectable. To do that, she would have to be unrelentingly negative, and for a long time.
Consider this: after you vote on March 4th, there will be a caucus in Wyoming on March 8th. Obama won neighboring Idaho 79%-17%, winning 15 of its 18 delegates. Obama won neighboring Nebraska 68%-32%, winning 16 of its 24 delegates. Obama won neighboring Colorado 67%-33% winning 33 of its 46 delegates. I think it is a fair bet that Obama will win the Wyoming caucus. And then there is a primary in Mississippi on March 10th. Obama won the contests in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. I think it is a fair bet that he will win the primary in Mississippi. So, even if Hillary pulls off an upset on March 4th, she is very unlikely to get any momentum out of it. Instead, she will lose the next two contests. And do you know what happens then? The whole nominating process comes to a screeching halt. There are no contents between Mississippi on March 10th and Pennsylvania on April 22nd.
What will it mean if Clinton does not drop out and continues to run against Obama for six whole weeks…with no realistic hope of winning the nomination unless she can destroy Obama’s electability?
I guess, for the March 4th voter that is thinking of voting for Hillary Clinton, the question to ask is: “what do you hope to accomplish?”
I understand that many people are huge fans of Hillary Clinton, or are eager to cast their first ballot for a viable woman candidate for the presidency. But she isn’t really viable anymore. And we really need to avoid a situation where our party is divided and our nominee is run-down as somehow inadequate for a six-week period before Pennsylvania.
Keep in mind that even if Clinton were to win Pennsylvania, nothing would change. A few delegates from there would change none of the fundamentals. So, if you are a March 4th voter that is thinking of voting for Hillary Clinton, please reconsider. The worst thing that could happen on March 4th is that Clinton does well enough to prevent her from dropping out.
Just something to consider.
Best regards,
BooMan
And I approve this message.
LOL!
I second that. Right on, BooMan! Now I hope you can encourage the rest of us to help get that message out BY PHONE by calling supporters. See Why you must pick up the phone this weekend for all you need to know about calling – so easy to do, and so important.
hostage; we will trash the November election unless everyone gives in to our candidate. Our candidate matters more than our party’s principles.
Substitute “pro-life agenda” for “candidate” and you get the stance of the theocratic nutjobs in the GOP.
What the heck is this, Russia? Who put the third-graders in charge of the Democratic Party?
This is not progressivism or even a rip-off of the same.
I came back over for a visit to this site after a few weeks to see how much lower it could sink – unbelievable. Yes – let’s try to bully people into not voting for their choice for president. How progressive!
Maybe after this election, some introspection will finally be in order.
Bye y’all.
We really need a few more months of Hillary campaigning for John McCain.
How’s that for progressive?
Bullying?? What the hell are you talking about? Where in this post is there bullying? An argument being made for a particular point of view, while not disparaging or trashing anyone is now bullying?
Introspection indeed.
I think that this “bullying” is a good measure for why there is such fury coming out of the Clinton camp. The expectation of Clinton winning has been imagined for months, maybe years, by the followers. Now it’s the end game and they have to be upset.
There will be charges of “media unfairness” but the media is always unfair to every Democratic candidate. That’s because the rich oligarchs own most of the media and the Republicans are their best servants (although an argument can be made for the way that B. Clinton delivered all those trade agreements). Plus, it’s hard to sift through all the reportage and separate unfairness from cultural sexism from pure politics from the well of disfavor that H. Clinton has carried for years to determine how each event and the press coverage of each event has helped or hurt H. Clinton. And anyway, H. Clinton has had two weeks of support from SNL, for what it’s worth.
On the other hand, we have the native garb photo which either was provided by the Clinton campaign, along with suspicions that the apparently phony Canadian memo story may have come from the Clinton camp. We have H. Clinton’s bizarre demands over the unwanted unaccepted Farrakhan endorsement. Every day we have Clinton plants calling talk shows. I guess that Obama plants call shows too, but they seem to do it better and change their pitches slightly from show to show. Clinton callers are reading from bad scripts. The amount of smearing that Obama has gotten over the past two weeks has been depressingly familiar (recalling past smears from past campaigns). Whether from H. Clinton or the Republicans, he’s been hammered with negatives.
In short, Obama has plenty of reasons to claim that he’s been bullied. He hasn’t. When something emerges he answers it. I don’t know if that will be effectively if the shit keeps flying this fast, but it’s worked better than the pity party over the “pimp” word, or ignoring the “windsurfing traitor meme” from the last cycle.
I expect that the hostility from the Clinton camp will boil over. If Clinton wins the popular vote in either Ohio or Texas (or both) there will be some self-generating justification in continuing the campaign. There’s always 2012, for ex (although if there is a perception that Clinton sabotaged the Dems in 2008 by keeping her people away from the polls expect the hostility towards Clinton to make a run in 2012 impossible).
I think that for all the talk about Obama’s followers being cultish, it has been the Hillary supporters who have the disconnect with reality, and who have to reinforce themselves by retreating into their compatriots. I haven’t visited TalkLeft today, but I bet there’s already a piece trying to connect Obama to Rezko (so much for Jeralyn’s pro-defense positions) and Big Tent is either explaining how things are swinging towards Hillary or how she’ll survive another sweep by Obama.
At some point the Clinton backers will have to face reality, will have to come out of the bag (as glue-sniffers used to say), will have to do the math, will have to smell the coffee. At that point reality and rationality will have to return. The Clintonites will either have to get in line with the rest of the party or try to ruin it. We shall see.
This whole process has been a textbook example of the Washington bubble coming unwittingly and unexpectedly into loggerheads with the real world which we all have to inhabit out here. The Clinton camp’s total obliviousness to what has happened on the ground forces them to grab reflexively at all those rationales you cite; media unfairness, bullying and charges of sexism.
The big question in my mind, and in many others, is that if things deteriorate more, even just marginally, for the Clinton camp, are they willing risk a catastrophically ruinous battle which will tear the party apart. That has not yet been answered. And I can’t honestly say that I have seen an indication which way she is more likely to go.
The prospects scare me. With so much going for the Democratic Party right now, it could all come crashing down so easily if selfishness and pride tip the scales in the wrong direction.
I only wish that we’d seen Edwards out there yesterday offering his endorsement of Obama.
Well put. I was thinking along the same lines when I read Bob Herbert’s column this morning. She needs to lose Texas and Ohio, preferably all four states coming up on Tuesday. But I have a suspicion that even if she just squeeks out a win in any one of them, even tiny Rhode Island, she’ll argue that she can justify moving forward.
She must be stopped for the sake of the party.
.
Is exactly their war plan …
WACO, Texas – Recasting what would keep her campaign alive, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s advisers said that if rival Barack Obama loses any of Tuesday’s four presidential primaries, it would show Democrats are having second thoughts about him.
In an e-mail and conference call to reporters, Clinton’s campaign sought to raise the stakes for the Illinois senator in next week’s primaries and also laid the groundwork to keep her campaign alive if the results are disappointing.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
In the wake of eleven straight losses it suggests the image of the Monty Python knight.
I assume that, since you are so worried about this, you are spending your weekend in Rhode Island going door to door working to get out the vote for Obama? Or flying to Texas or Ohio and doing it?
send me a western union check for expenses, and I’ll head to Rhode Island right now.
Obama has a commanding lead in Vermont. Put that securely in his column.
Clever way to try to shift the blame for your own inactivity. Oh, no one will pay for you to do what you are supposed to believe in. Sorry, doesn’t work with me.
I’ve personally seen many people head to other states to help their candidates when they have no money. They carpool, they sleep on floors. They think about it in advance and figure out a way to do it.
I have no patience with bloggers who pontificate to “to voters in other states” so they can feel like they actually are doing something when in fact they aren’t doing a thing.
You have a cell phone I assume, with free weekends? The Obama camp has a way for you to help. k/o wrote about it. You can GOTV from the comfort of your own living room.
yeah. I’m doing nothing. Good point.
Glad you got it.
Yeah.
Sheesh, Booman’s well researched and argued posts helped me sway my entire family towards Obama. I got 8 new people to caucus for him in Colorado based on those nothings.
that’s great to know.
Wow, Mary– a little testy today? The point of the post, as I got it, was to suggest an angle for primary voters to consider. Personally I think it’s an important argument whether one would ideally prefer Hillary or Obama. I sometimes lose patience with those who distract from strategic discussion by worrying about whether the participants have distributed enough flyers. One activity is not superior to another — nothing will good will happen in the absence of any of them.
nah.
This is a long standing disagreement that BooMan and I have about the value of blogging.
Since he falls into the category of those who suspect that the world as we know it will somehow end if Hillary Clinton gets back into the white house and he will NEVER vote for Hillary and, damn it, she needs to concede on March 5 — I’m hard on him. After all, he’s the one who made March 5 the deadline for when the world might end. π
If he were like other bloggers (and me) who say “hey we’re voting for Obama but if Hillary gets the nod we’ll vote for her and if this goes on through Pennsylvania we’ll deal with it” then I’d let him sit on his ass like the rest of us and I wouldn’t say a word.
Their voting records are close enough to be identical. I’d like to hope that he’d do things differently, which would be more effective, but that’s not why I now support Obama.
I think the real difference is that half of the United States doesn’t like H. Clinton, whatever the reason (I don’t discount the right-wing crap, but I don’t conflate it with legitimate complaints about her). Clinton, right now, is unlikely to win the nomination without an ugly battle that will involve seating the unprimary delegates from Michigan and Florida and wriggling a bunch of delegates from other sources. So that means that even fewer people will come out of the convention liking her. Nothing like having a candidate with negatives approaching 70% who can’t come close to a majority in anything but a pure blue state.
So why should H. Clinton not be the nominee? Because she will pull down the rest of the ticket across the country and probably won’t win herself. Other than that…
Or: You have a long-standing disagreement on the value of blogging, that you think underwrites being nasty to him.
He thinks blogging is good for something. You don’t. Okay. Not much point, then, in telling him to go do something other than blog.
Having called a lot of Texans, I feel certain none of the people I reached were reading blogs.
Good point π
Well, thanks for setting me straight! lol!
You know, your comment is the equivalent of a person who walks past two people in conversation and assumes that he knows better than they do what their conversation is about. So he intervenes and speaks his mind! Then he leaves, the two people look at each other, shake their heads and carry on.
But just to set your mind at ease LC, I too think blogging is good for something. Especially Boo’s blogging. Or I wouldn’t be here. I just don’t think it’s good for everything.
No, because if this were a private conversation you’d be doing it via email.
I would never presume to make assumptions about what other people can and cannot do, should or should not do. What I would ask is that everyone do everything they can do, given their own constraints, which only they can know. And let their conscience be a guide as to its sufficiency.
You can make calls from home for free right now! π
I was mulling a diary on the Clintons’ hardball antics in Texas but a comment will do.
Clintons want to delay reporting the Texas caucus results for two days
This reminds me of the recent election vote count in Kenya where the count was delayed, the lights went out and violence followed.
The Wall Street Journal: Clinton Irks Texas Democrats
(note: this article may be placed under required registration)
Pathetic. Just three days ago, it was reported Hillary admitted Texas has been on her mind for a year. This is their third national campaign. What will it take to send the Clintons home?
Remember a couple of weeks ago when someone in the Clinton campaign was surprised that Texas has both a primary and a caucus. Not very smart way to build a firewall.
If Obama wins the Texas primary part big enough, any kind of attempt by the Clinton campaign to squish quash the caucus results will just prolong the agony.
Texas is no longer part of the firewall. It’s part of the fire.
yea, but in the article linked to above, the Clintons helped write the rules.
Today March 4th, new polls show a dead heat. She’ll claim victory even when defeated.
TNR notes: It’ll be a very “messy night”
Texas Dispatch: Anticipating Caucus Troubles
and overall
The Number To Watch On Tuesday Night
It doesn’t help to be pessimistic, so I won’t be. The next president will be either Obama or McCain. Mr. and Mrs. Clinton have served notice: they will call it quits only if Obama takes the majority of the votes in all states on March 4, and if they see no possibility of expropriating the Florida and Michigan delegates. Reading around the blogs, I have become aware how the Clinton campaign is increasingly frightening Obama’s supporters, including myself, because it is slowly beginning to dawn that the Clinton campaign might be willing to play spoil sport, going down in spite and revenge. Everyday more and more people are obviously losing trust in the Clintons. Obama gains respect and support because he doesn’t let himself be thrown off course by their arrogant, patronizing, duplicitous attitude towards him. Read Colbert King today on the front page of the WaPo on line.
I’ve noticed that The Left Coaster, which was strongly Clinton at one point, seems to be coming back to earth. TalkLeft still is mostly all Hillary all the time. Big Tent Democrat’s posts, considering he claims to be an Obama supporter, are becoming more and more detached from the world as we know it. The posters are promising each other they’ll never vote for Obama.
Maybe if Clinton loses Texas her money will dry up, although ConsortiumNews had an article about how the folks at “StatusQuoCorp” may now be propping her up because Obama’s fund-raising style is making the usual money suppliers irrelevant.
The only difference between Hillary and Obama is the number of chips each has been bought with.
No candidate could get this far without being the wholly owned subsidiary of Somebody Bigger.
However, I do agree that there is a marked difference between the Dems and McCain. The Dems still may end up dragging us to war with Iran or Pakistan. But with McCain, that would be a virtual certainty.
In the end, the economy will fall apart anyhow. There’s going to be quite a few unemployed folks out there. In an Obama administration, they may get help, they may get not.
In a McCain administration, they’ll get drafted.
Hillary could at least be gracious about it. She’s not done yet. But by Wednesday, she will be.
Dear Obama Supporter,
Thanks for your last letter. I hear ya. And if I were 20 years younger and a little less cynical I might come along on for the ride. Alas, I’ve been around the block a few times. I understand what yer sayin. Believe me. But I don’t think you are hearin what I’m sayin.
So you want me to vote for Obama. Because my candidate “can’t win.” And yeah, I see the way you are figurin the figures it doesn’t look good. But you are asking me to go along with all those fickle independents who are wild about your guy today. You want me to go along with the rich white folks. With all those excited new voters who, like me once, are looking for transcendence, unity, a new paradigm, a tectonic shift.
Excuse me while I don’t get too excited about all that. You see, I want to retire but I can’t because I can’t get health care. I’ve traveled the world, and some places are pretty darn nice…but some places are scary as shit and I just think (and it’s mho, of course) that my candidate can deal with that stuff better. And you guys think that there’s gonna be lots of reaching across the aisle to get things done and stuff…well, that cynical part of me says it aint gonna happen.
So I appreciate your concern, and thanks again for taking the time to write. But me, I think I will vote for my candidate and let the rest of it play itself out.
We may meet again in the fall. If your guy wins, I congratulate you! And rest assured I will crawl across broken glass to vote for him. As I am certain you would do the same if our fortunes were reversed.
Regards.
to win the nomination of course.
This was pretty low quality and excuse me for not chiming in with ‘megadittos’
the fact is that Obama hasn’t won the nomination yet and until he does, she has to fight on.
That you would want it any other way speaks to the issue that you fear the weakness of your candidate.
well he can’t officially win it until the convention unless she concedes. So, it is really a matter of when she wants to do that.
strap yourself in then because she is not going to give in and it’s highly likely that this is going to the convention.
I suppose you are going to trot out some common pundit speak like it hurts to the democratic party to have this undecided until Denver but it is possible that it won’t hurt the party at all…sorry, I’m not buying recycled meme’s today.
to win the nomination, of course, but I hope this protracted process doesn’t poison the general election well. There are ways to win, and then there are other ways to win.
And then there are the victories that cause you to exclaim, “One more such victory and we shall be undone!”
I was wondering how in 10 minutes 28 messages were posted. Mary and Booman got in an argument and I missed it all. Even though I was commenting on the blog at the time the diary was posted. Its reposted from this morning! Ha!Ha! See, I knew I wasn’t crazy! What a relief.
My feeling exactly. I even scrolled through 2 days’ worth of diaries because I knew I had read it before. Well, I was pretty certain I had!
Hi Booman. It’s Tuesday! We’re here.
Now, I wish it were Wednesday. :<(
I think I’m going for a long hike in the hills and then coming home to work on my taxes. By then the results should be coming in.
That hike sounds like a plan. I was just sitting here deciding what to do after I finish my must-do deadline work for today, and a walk is definitely on the list if I can beat the rain.
Yeah – I think I’ll go hike the wild streets of Oakland to the Y, where I’ll spot exciting creatures (big scary muscle guy! naked old tai chi lady! ponytailed sports bra girl!) in their natural habitats.
And I will absolutely not bike while watching heads nod on CNN.
Whew!
I’m afraid Ohioans will let their emotions dictate when they could actually do something that will be remembered. Too bad. I left a long time ago when steel was king and only one of nine days were sunny. Hillary will forget as quick as she is stumping in PA. But I had a feeling that if Ohio put Obama over the hump that he would remember them, he being from Illinois.
I heard that clip from an Ohioan who’d been screwed over by the economy, really, the oligarchs, and he was still considering voting for Obama even though he’s a Muslim and uses a different Bible (sic).
I don’t think that there’s a particularly clear separation between which Dem candidate will better help the Rust Belt folks, but it is instructive how out of touch with reality these folks are and by what yardstick they calculate their votes. This is the major reason why Republicans do so well in the general election. If a Democrat wins the first thing they ought to be is increase the education budget. And maybe reprint and distribute Seldes’ FACTS AND FASCISM.
I’m hoping to find out more on the following topic, and I’d appreciate any information that people here can give me.
Looking through the list of committed delegates I noticed that elected officials tilt towards Obama by a narrow margin. Where Clinton does well is with the DNC members, many of which presumably appointed by Bill Clinton. What I’d like to know is whether the attempted coup against John Dean was an attempt to wrest control of the DNC in order to appoint even more loyalists, although there are also plenty of other advantages to controlling the chairmanship.
There is a book about the attempted coup, although I haven’t read it and don’t recall the author’s name. Has anyone here read it? Is there any other information on this topic that would help me understand this situation?
Here’s a list of committed superdelegates: http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html
.
I’m not sure if this is the coup you referred to.
It’s abundantly clear that the grassroots efforts of Howard Dean, Inc. were being taken on by insider money. Recognizing the challenge, Al Gore boarded the ship he hoped would not succumb to the rocky waters of Washington politics.
DNC fundraising guru Terry McAuliffe was also ostensibly involved-perhaps directly-in Jones’ anti-Dean propaganda. McAuliffe’s tie to the anti-Deaniacs didn’t end there. Along with McAuliffe, Bernard Schwartz, who donated $15,000 to Jones’ group, was a plaintiff in a 1998 lawsuit …
Schwartz, the chairman and CEO of Loral Space & Communications, has a long history of complicity in Democratic scandals. In 1994, he gave the DNC $100,000 and visited China with President Clinton’s Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
That is how big money works for “Washington Democrats,” so it’s little wonder that Schwartz wanted to punish Dean for challenging the D.C. norm, even if Dean only accidentally stumbled into the role of ‘maverick progressive.’ The truth is, Schwartz didn’t want this new base of Democratic activists to take over the party he did business with.
How liberals did Bush's work for him
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
That’s a different coup.
I was referring to the blame placed on Dean immediately after the 2006 election, by Carville, Greenberg (he’s a partner in Carville’s political consulting business), Emmanual and, I believe, McAuliffe.
The planned attack was written about in the The New Republic before it happened, which made the motives even more questionable once it occurred.
Carville, et al, were closely tied to the Clintons, and having a Clinton loyalist as chairman would allow them to exercise considerable latitude (as I recall) as far as DNC appointments as well as other decisions.
Blaming Dean for the Dems not taking even more seats was repugnant, especially considering it was a landslide, but an even bigger problem was the fact that it wasn’t true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/us/politics/16dems.html?_r=3&hp&ex=1163653200&en=cf1bf
5557313f0a8&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/berman
Harvard’s Elaine Kamarck did a study on this ugly episode, and there is little doubt that it was a power play intended to replace Dean with a Clinton loyalist in order pave the way for Hillary’s coming Presidential run.