I agree generally with your assessment. This is not at all a surprise or resounding. But I didn't realize that Obama gets more delegates. Is that definite? Because right now, MSNBC says 13 for Clinton, 12 for Obama, and CNN has it 12-12, presumably not committing to where the other delegate ends up.

I agree generally with your assessment. This is not at all a surprise or resounding. But I didn't realize that Obama gets more delegates. Is that definite? Because right now, MSNBC says 13 for Clinton, 12 for Obama, and CNN has it 12-12, presumably not committing to where the other delegate ends up.

OBAMA WINS MOST NEVADA DELEGATES...

www.thenation.com/.../campaignmatters

Obama will trounce Hillary in South Carolina, and throw a bucket of water on that cackling old hag melting the populist façade of the wicked witch of the right-leaning moderate pseudo-iberal West, reducing her to a watery puddle that will ooze down the drain of history.

OBAMA WINS MOST NEVADA DELEGATES...

www.thenation.com/.../campaignmatters

Obama will trounce Hillary in South Carolina, and throw a bucket of water on that cackling old hag melting the populist façade of the wicked witch of the right-leaning moderate pseudo-iberal West, reducing her to a watery puddle that will ooze down the drain of history.

Just curious.  Do you consider yourself to be a journalist? I ask because the spin in your writing is clear. You are a member of the Obama cult.

You, of course, have a right to your opinions, but I think TNR should make all of its journalists declare their candidate preferences so its readers know just how much salt to use.

Isn't it also worth mentioning that almost four times as many people caucused for Mitt Romney in Nevada as caucused for Hillary?  Or that Hillary had fewer caucus goers than Ron Paul did?  

I mean, it certainly doesn't seem like Nevada is going to go blue in the next election, anyway.  What was this exactly a test of?  

Tale,

You've already stated your preference for Dennis Kucinich, so we all take you with a giant grain of salt.

You can damn Sen. Clinton with faint praise and diminish her victory however you like, but don't deny:

1. Sen. Clinton's effective campaign was able to overcome the Culinary Workers' endorsement and mobilize strong support among Casino workers at the very caucus sites that were thought to be most important for Obama--she carried most of them.

2. She mobilized impressive numbers from hispanics and women. It appears blue collar workers, hispanics and women are her strong base of support.

3. Her campaign has now turned in two successive excellent "ground games" in two separate and vastly different states: New Hampshire and Nevada. Ground games are going to make a big difference on Super Tuesday, February 5--and Clinton's is a well-tuned, highly professional operation and very effective.

4. Her message is starting to catch on even more strongly. The condition of the economy in the past two weeks is playing to her depth of knowledge on issues that matter to working families. She turned in a solid performance in the Nevada debate and was seen by all to have bested her opponents.

And so while large sections of the media and elites do not like her, it is clear that she is mobilizing voters to her cause.

The next two weeks are going to be very telling.

Hey Tullius, you seem pretty well informed. What is Hillary's plan for Social Security? Any idea? I know Obama's (tax earning after 200k but leave a hole from 100 to 200) Hillary called this a middle class tax hike, but I have no idea of her own plan. But hey, why should she actually address the issues, she is married to Bill and he will fix it all for her.

I don't doubt that Hillary can win the base of the Dem party, my problem is in the fact that we have nominated a string of Dem losers from the base. The last Dem to win (not counting Gore who kind of won) won because they ran to the right. Her base loses us in November, especially if McCain is the candidate.

Oh well, another brilliant Dem strategy, nominate someone who has a 48% disapproval rating before the general race even begins, because we all know how much tougher Dems are at counteracting Republican talking points.

It is becoming more clear that older voters will not support Obama much. And that’s going to hurt him on super duper Tuesday. According to what I have read, Hillary is winning with voters over 55 and they are big voters. It makes common sense: older voters  will generally privilege experience. She is also tight with women, Hispanics and blue collar Americans. And though I don’t like saying it, I have read that more Americans favour voting for a woman president than a black president.

Add to this that losing the popular votes, and not the delegate count, will be the story as to who won Nevada. That cuts against Obama’s central campaign argument that he will be the vote inspirer. In the same way, Hillary’s far superior debate performances—her coolness, her mastery of her brief, her crisp quickness, her strong presence--all seem to underscore her campaign argument for her presidential readiness and her sub textual argument that Obama, beneath it all, is a gas bag. The real problems thrown up by the now conventional wisdom that the economy is in the shitter help her argument for herself and against Obama’s wispiness. Add to that that, from what I have read, Hillary did well among those earning over $100,000.00, which shows that these days that $100,000.00 in annual income is not the buffer against economic insecurity it used to be not so very long ago.

Hillary is going to make a concerted pitch in South Carolina and Bill Clinton will be putting his considerable shoulder to the South Carolinian wheel. But she has the luxury of losing there and still look good for winning Florida and super duper Tuesday. Winning the popular vote in Nevada gives her that. For Obama it is more tense. He must win South Carolina and he may well—though it is not beyond reckoning that he could lose there too. Which if he does—lose there, that is—he is, I think, done, and for some of the above reasons.

It is becoming more clear that older voters will not support Obama much. And that’s going to hurt him on super duper Tuesday. According to what I have read, Hillary is winning with voters over 55 and they are big voters. It makes common sense: older voters  will generally privilege experience. She is also tight with women, Hispanics and blue collar Americans. And though I don’t like saying it, I have read that more Americans favour voting for a woman president than a black president.

Add to this that losing the popular votes, and not the delegate count, will be the story as to who won Nevada. That cuts against Obama’s central campaign argument that he will be the vote inspirer. In the same way, Hillary’s far superior debate performances—her coolness, her mastery of her brief, her crisp quickness, her strong presence--all seem to underscore her campaign argument for her presidential readiness and her sub textual argument that Obama, beneath it all, is a gas bag. The real problems thrown up by the now conventional wisdom that the economy is in the shitter help her argument for herself and against Obama’s wispiness. Add to that that, from what I have read, Hillary did well among those earning over $100,000.00, which shows that these days that $100,000.00 in annual income is not the buffer against economic insecurity it used to be not so very long ago.

Hillary is going to make a concerted pitch in South Carolina and Bill Clinton will be putting his considerable shoulder to the South Carolinian wheel. But she has the luxury of losing there and still look good for winning Florida and super duper Tuesday. Winning the popular vote in Nevada gives her that. For Obama it is more tense. He must win South Carolina and he may well—though it is not beyond reckoning that he could lose there too. Which if he does—lose there, that is—he is, I think, done, and for some of the above reasons.

AaronBBrown- Relax, man. Give Hillary her due, she won. I doubt very much that Obama, whom I support, would approve of such put-down language you directed at Hillary. Besides his unifying vision and policy positions, which in my humble opinion beat Hillary's, I love his class act. Those of us pulling for him should avoid the derogatory language of, say, Bill and Hillary.  All it does is inflame passions just like their scorched-earth campaign. That'll  come back to scorch them, too. I'm appalled at the cagey attack style of both she and Bill along with their surrogates...but all is fair in campaign politics,  I guess.

blackton-  Don't hold your breath waiting for your question on Hillary's social security to be answered. It ain't coming. Tullius is a reasonable guy, but he can't answer what he doesn't know. Nobody knows. Heck, I doubt that even Hillary herself knows.

basman- "..all seem to underscore her campaign argument for her presidential readiness and her sub textual argument that Obama, beneath it all, is a gas bag." ...A gas bag just like MLK. She never used the words "gas bag", but you understood that's what she meant as far as Obama was concerned. She, also, went along in the same sentence to compare him to MLK. Maybe not intentional, however, she did insult MLK. I remember your commentary defending her and castigating those that took offense even though you understood  a "gas bag" is what she called Obama while simultaneously comparing him to MLK.

The Obama delegate spin was pretty shrewd, and deflates the victory for HRC a little bit. He'll have no such luxury with SC, however. I agree with basman, it's a must-win for Obama.

I think Obama needs to recalibrate his strategy now. It's understandable that he didn't after the victory in Iowa and the muddle in NH, but today it's clear that there are segments of the Democratic base he's consistently losing, and, whether true or not, the racial categorization of the primary results make it seem like he's polarizing (though I'm not convinced this is the right explanation yet). That interpretation won't be helped should African-Americans put him over the top in SC.

Scheiber sez:

"Not so for Hillary, who, with a defeat today and another (probable)  one next Saturday, would have faced another round of talk that her campaign was in crisis."

[...]

"Fundamentally, then, I see a disaster averted for Hillary--but with Obama alive and well."

How quickly Scheiber forgets that it is the voters, and not the pundits, who get to decide whose campaign is "in crisis"!  Remember New Hampshire, Noam? You too had to eat crow, didn't ya? So, why are you doing so soon exactly what had embarrassed you and your ilk? The collective insanity (defined as to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome) of the MSM regarding mindless predictions about election outcomes is now way beyond help. For what it is worth, I believe that you got things exactly backwards. Hillary has already shown that she can be in a deep hole and pull herself out of it. On the other hand, Obama has shown, after winning Iowa, that he can enjoy around the clock positive coverage for several days, a strong "bounce", favorable poll numbers, etc, and fail to capitalize on it!! He got cocky and smug, with folks like Scheiber egging him on, and never knew what hit him in NH.  Clinton could have lost both Nevada and South Carolina, and remain viable, "another round of [mindless] talk that her campaign was in crisis" notwithstanding. On the other hand, Obama MUST now win South Carolina or the round of talk that his campaign is in crisis that would ensue would not be just "talk". It would become self-fulfilling  prophecy.  The reason for this can be gleaned by examining exit polls from the two states that Hillary has won and one that she lost: The demographics in the remaining states are overwhelmingly in her favor. Obama will win SC (in fact, he must win there or he'll be finished), and the postmortem would be primarily about how the large proportion of blacks (whopping ~45% of all voters) in the state put him over the top. The question then becomes, what kind of coalition will he need to put together to overcome Hillary's advantage among whites, rank and file Dems, women, Hispanics (important in CA, NY) beyond SC? In fact, I am afraid that the nomination contest might become outright racially polarized after SC if Obama wins and much is made by the MSM about the fact that his overwhelming support among blacks in the state had helped him to prevail. I believe that such a "narrative" around the clock might have a blowback effect by causing white voters to support Hillary to "balance" what they might perceive as racially-motivated support by SC blacks for a black candidate. But I, too, am now making predictions, though I might be forgiven for not being as "smart" as you "experts" in the media...    

blackton  said:

"Hey Tullius, you seem pretty well informed. What is Hillary's plan for Social Security? Any idea? I know Obama's (tax earning after 200k but leave a hole from 100 to 200) Hillary called this a middle class tax hike, but I have no idea of her own plan. But hey, why should she actually address the issues, she is married to Bill and he will fix it all for her."

and scrubbyoak echoed:

"blackton-  Don't hold your breath waiting for your question on Hillary's social security to be answered. It ain't coming. Tullius is a reasonable guy, but he can't answer what he doesn't know. Nobody knows. Heck, I doubt that even Hillary herself knows."

Here you go again showing your ignorance in an age when information on any subject can be easily obtained! Hillary and Social Security, my comments followed by her key quotes:

(1) There is no urgency to "fix" SS because it is perhaps the only government program that is doing well (which is why Bush and the GOP, and now Obama, want to "fix" it):

Hillary: "Don't you believe all these people running around crying wolf about Social Security. That is exactly what they're doing. They're trying to get people confused and upset and agree to a bad deal."'

(2) Because there is no urgency to "fix" SS, Hillary's CONSISTENT position has been that as president, she would appoint a bipartisan commission, a la 1983 Reagan/Tip O'Neill, to study ways to short up  the program to ensure that it will continue to be solvent:

Hillary: "But I am strongly advocating a bipartisan process, similar to what we had in '83, and when that gets set up, as I hope it will be when I'm president, then I'm going to see what the bipartisan members are going to come up with."

Paul Krugman agreed with Hillary:

"Yeah, Social Security, if you go through the federal government, piece-by-piece, and ask which programs are seriously under-funded and which are close to being completely funded, Social Security is one of the best. It's not even for certain that Social Security has a problem. Why on earth - and, of course, it's something that the right has always wanted to kill, not because it doesn't work, but because it does. And for Obama to go after this program, at this time, you just have to wonder. All of my progressive friends are saying what on Earth is going through his mind to raise this issue."

As for Obama's so-called position on the SS "crisis", he was for the bipartisan approach advocated by Hillary before he was against it and deciding that SS needs to be "fix":

Not so long ago, Barack Obama agreed too. Here's Obama on May 14:

  " Everything should be on the table. I think we should approach it the same way Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan did back in 1983. They came together. I don't want to lay out my preferences beforehand, but what I know is that Social Security is solvable. It is not as difficult a problem as we're going to have with Medicaid and Medicare."

As The Washington Post's Dan Balz reported:

"Barack Obama has spent the past few days calling out Hillary Clinton on Social Security. What has gotten much less attention is that Obama has changed his position on what to do about the government retirement system's financial problems."

----------------

If you still have questions about Hillary's position on SS, you can find it, just as I did by Googling, at

facts.hillaryhub.com/archive

Governance and the electorate.

First, thanks to dschungu for the information on Social Security, saving me the trouble of a reply. I can assure you that nobody in the electorate cares more strongly about Social Security than the ancient one, i.e. Tullius himself.

The period of time between Sen. Clinton's Nevada victory and Super Tuesday is a good time to reflect on the purpose of politics itself, the nature of events we are witnessing and the direction in which things ought to trend.

The purpose of politics is not blood sport or a game. Tim Russert notwithstanding, it is not to fan the flames of racial antiagonism for the sake of entertainment. Nor is it the triumph of one's own special group, narrow interest, creed or sectional interest. The aim and goal of politics in a republic is good governance--that voices will be included, an orderly process for the addressing of the nation's problems can go forward and that government of the people. With numerous problems facing the nation abroad (two wars, global climate change, instability in the middle east and Pakistan, Islamic extremism, nuclear proliferation) and at home (mounting deficits, economic instability, disaster preparedness, healthcare quality and affordability) the overarching concern is whether or not the nation can, during the comping period, overcome gridlock and achieve good governance solutions. If we do not do this, things are going to continue to spin badly out of control, both at home and abroad.  

The nature of events that we are now witnessing is simply this: can any person assemble a broad enough political governing coalition that will unite a large enough cross-section of Americans to break the present gridlock and move forward? Astute observers (are there any of these among our current punditocracy?) will be looking to see which groups of voters, elements among the electorate are rallying to which candidate's cause. Which candidate is providing the broadest most sensible, most experienced and longest term vision that will create the governing coalition to move the country forward. Which candidate is providing the most credible, acnievable vision of a way forward. That we are entering an economic crisis of unknown proportion focuses voter attention even more forcibly on these questions.

What ought to be happening is that those analyzing the situation of the nation right now will start pulling off the narrowed focus on race, gender, section, interest group, etc. towards the broader questions: What should our foreign and military policy be post Iraq and Afghanistan? How do we promote democratic governance and human rights internationally without (or with minimal) recourse to armed conflict? How do we contain the spread of destructive weapons? How do we assure economic growth and opportunity at home for all Americans?  How do we take the next big step to limit climate change? What's realistic to achieve in the next two years on health care reform? Voters in the big states (New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Florida) are now going to weigh in. It's vital that a majoritarian governing coalition emerge--this is how things should function in a democracy.

The next few weeks will be telling?

Scrubby Oak: A few brief points: I would not characterize Obama as a gas bag as such; nor would Hillary Clinton; I was just using some literary licence to say metonymically what what a big part of the campaign argument--I stress campaign argument --against him comes down to. More importatntly to me, I would not, even metonymically, nor would Hillary ever so characterize MLK who backed up the most visionary and inspiring oratory I have ever heard with day to day action--poetry and prose. Not so sublty, and particularly in his major speeches, Obama is trying to wrap himself in King both to fortify himself for black voters and to present himslef as a King like figure to the general electorate. Ultimately, in my view he'll lose to that: it will raise to no good effect, it is a sorry thing to say, racial issues that will do him no good; he is no Martin Luther King, for as gifted, smart and powerfully spoken Obama is; the comparison to King raises what to mind is a powerful argument against Obama, as noted by dcshungu at the bottom of his last post, Obama in the end is just anothermug in the mug's came of politics, calaculating callibrating, triangulating like the rest of most of them. But he suffers more from the realization of that because he is presenting himself as something more than he is.

Tullius your heart felt and eloquent plea brings out the relative cynic in me, which probbaly reflects poorly on me.

You ask:

"...can any person assemble a broad enough political governing coalition that will unite a large enough cross-section of Americans to break the present gridlock and move forward?"

My relatively cynical answer is no,  my reading in political philospohy notwithstanding. Gridlock is another word for partisanship. Partisanship is another word for opposed sets of ideas and values--ideologies--that will continue to engage each other, with ascendancies and descendancies and modifications to meet changing circumstances over time. Obama's promise is to be that uniter--as was 43's. Hillary's promise is to be able to negotiate the partisan divides by dint of her experience among other things. That's why I prefer her. I like her policies; I lik her heart felt committment to what she espouses; I like her clear toughness and competence; and I like the fact that she does not posit herself as the anti-mug. That's why I say I am a relative cynic. I try to leave myself some space for thinking effective things can be done, change can wrought--I just don't want to lose my sense of irony about it all and start believing in magic.

From Obam this morning preaching:

"The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter.  The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force.  And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.    

But God had a plan for his people.  He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram’s horn, they should speak with one voice.  And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day…"

Is he saying that he is like Joshua and those support him are like the Israelites and that on the "seventh day", according to God's plan, mighty walls will come tumbling down and a new day will dawn?

How can people discuss Hillary without remembering her votes on IRAQ AND IRAN??? She is a hawk, and could get us into serious trouble. She may know a lot of facts, but her world view is seriously skewed. This is the main problem I see with Hillary. She simply frightens me. It's as if she has to prove how tough she is in foreign affairs, and that is not the way to get problems solved. And if anyone out there thinks that a candidates position on foreign affaris doesn't have domestic repercussions, just look at the coffins and the federal budget.

Yeah, basman, Obama is an empty suit of a dreamer. He's, also a "calculating, callibrating and triangulating" snake oil salesman of a politician. Otherwise, he's fine.

You see the speck in Obama's eyes very clearly, not the log in Hillary's. Or maybe you do see her's, but since she's not a pretender, unlike Obama, she doesn't deserve the nice little digs you heap unto Obama. I hope that I missed nothing, or did I?

shalom,

Oakely Scrubbs.

Scrubbyoakes/ Oakely Scrubbs:

Let me step back some. I harbour Obama no ill will. He is not  an empty suit, not simply a dreamer. He is extra ordinarily gifted and attractive in many ways. And he is not a snake oil salesman. On the other hand he is, from what I understand and have read, no less calculating or callibrating than your average political mug, Hillary Clinton included in that category, to be sure. But his campaign rhetoric proclaims otherwise. That is part of my (no doubt small) point. I welcome on these cyber pages, or anywhere,  have pleaded for it in fact, a  serious, disinterested, hard headed, accessible to a general reader such as myself, comparison and contrast between the two of them of their legislative and other relevant accomplishments,  devoid of the extraneouses that Tullius has pleaded against. If I could be pointed to that, I would be obliged.

And why does there seem to be such a paucity of such analyses and so much delving into perpetual sidebars?

Shalom indeed,

Itzik Basman

We know from Nevada that Obama received 80 percent of the African-American vote and Hillary around 65 percent of the Hispanic vote.  Isn't there a psephologist at TNR who can extrapolate those numbers across Super Tuesday states and come up with a theoretical scenario to help us political junkies survive another day?

To Basman on governing coalition:

A governing coalition will not be a permanent or long lasting thing, and there will be contention of interest groups within them. But there will have to be a strong core and basis among solid groups of voters in the electorate that can hold for a while.

But it is obviously necessary to make a new beginning on this. Something to ponder is whether women might be the "glue" of this coalition. Given that the comprise 57% (I think that is correct) of the electorate, and that working class and middle class women, who have never coalesced around a single candidate or set of political ideas might not, at least potentially, form such a group. Clearly something like this might come about and could be led by Senator Clinton. We tend to think of classical feminist women of the NARAL and Equal Rights Amendment sort when we imagine women as a political force. But (at least potentially) isn't a coalition that includes Black women and Hispanic women and all blue collar women and service workers (such as those who turned out for Senator Clinton in Nevada a potentially powerful political force. The "feminist" phase of women in politics was, perhaps, a stage leading to a broader mobilization of women as voters and political leaders--just as the Suffrage movement before it was an earlier phase.

I say this because new accounts have been noting the role of women voters in New Hampshire and Nevada--but might there not be a longer term significance of this for Senator Clinton's chance of being elected President and for governing as President?

phillyq: you are kidding, right?

TULLIUS:

Ground games are almost meaningless in the feb 5th states...it's all about advertising, free media, and strategic use of candidates and their surrogates to get as much local media as possible....

Tullius we ma be saying some of the same things. I'm not sure. But are you saying anything more in your last post than: if Hillary gets elected certain constituencies will be implicated in her victory and that if a lot of working class women vote for her she will understand that they are a part of a political base whose interests she must heed, for reasons practical and principled? If that is what you are saying, then I am not sure that Obama, were he to be elected, stands any less likely chance of heading the same (what you are calling)  “governing coalition”, because should he get the nomination, he will, presumably, get the votes of whomever would have voted for Hillary. If that is so, then what new coalition does Hillary inspire that is unique to her? And if there is none—as compared to Obama—then whither your argument? In fact insofar as he may be more appealing to independents and to cross over Republicans,  I can see an argument for the proposition that if anyone stands to spearhead a new “governing coalition”, it is him not her. I myself happen to have more confidence in both her electability and in her superior ability to govern, governing coalitions aside.  Should she get the nomination, therefore, I see more prospect for change that will improve the lives of working class Americans, because that is where I think her heart and her policies are in combination with her resolute toughness and her clear headed intelligence.

Tullius. btw, are you the same Marcus Tullius Cicero  born  January 3, 106 BC and whose  life--spanning the ages--also coincided with the decline and fall of the Roman Republic?

If you are, then no wonder you have such an interest in a viably kept system of social security.

When will Democrats see that Independents and Republicans (and many Democrats too) will vote for almost any candidate who is not Hillary? She may be the candidate of the Democrats, but that is about all she can be!