Kentucky is tobaccy - chewing country. Hayseed Hill in a walk, even with Big John in Obama's corner.

It's funny -- when Obama  was winning primary after  primary in February and March, and Hillary remained ahead because  of superdelegates,  the Democratic pundits said the supers should honor the will of the people  (ie sign on with Obama). In April and May, as Hillary wins primary after primary and approaches parity with Obama in the popular vote, the pundits say the superdelegates  should close ranks behind Obama. But by doing so, the superdelegates seem to be in direct conflict with the will of the people.

dkrieger,

It seems to me that you are choosing to ignore the fact that Clinton's recent electoral successes are irrelevant if they don't allow her to overtake Barack Obama's lead in the pledged delegate count.  Each primary is a separate contest with a distinct result; Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia could have taken place two months ago and the end result would have been the same.  Actually I think it is worth noting that Obama won nearly a dozen contests by the same margins that the Clinton campaign is crowing about regarding West Virginia, including states like Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Maryland.  There isn't any evidence that the results would be significantly different if the contests were held today. The will of the people hasn't changed in this ongoing competition that is being played out over many innings. Barack Obama will, at the end of the day, be the winner in the pledged delegate contest and as such the supers are therefore falling in line behind him.  By the way, the POPULAR VOTE IS IRRELEVANT!!  If it were, vote totals in the caucus states would have been tallied and Obama would still be the clear winner. Including Florida!

It's  impossible  to say how the  numbers would look if this or that primary had been in this or that month (witness  the Florida and Michigan impasse), so let's not even go there. Looking only at  the here and now, if 200 superdelegates quit Obama for Hillary tomorrow, that would be checkmate. It's perfectly within their right and power to do so, indeed even pledged  delegates  (we learn  from Mr. Jack Johnson's splendid example) can bolt. Yet no one breathes a word about such a thing occurring in Hillary's favor.

Yet the argument can be reasonably made – at  the  present moment, post-Rev. Wright and post-bittergate - that Hillary is the more electable Democratci nominee. November? Who knows. I'm talking about now, three weeks before the primary season ends.

And right now, Obama's piddly 150-or-so delegate lead is interpreted by the powers  that be as an insurmountable advantage. It is NO SUCH THING!  Everyone pretends it is and rushes to make it seem more so by crowning the winner before the race is won.

What was it Twain said about rumors of his demise being premature?

This election year, I've really lost  my taste for  Democratic Party politics. I'm seriously thinking about re-registering as an independent.  

dkrieger,

Hillary has not won "primary after primary" in April and May.  Aside from Guam, there have been four. Hillary has won three of the four for a total gain of 12 delegates.  Of the remaining 5, she is expected to win two.  Thus, of the nine contests in the latter part of the campaign, Hillary will win 5, Obama 4.  Hillary's net gain in delegates will be less than 20.  Obama will still be ahead by about 145.

Nor will Hillary "approach parity" in the popular vote.  The is 700,000 down now, she will be at least 500,000 down when the voting is over.

Basicaly, since prior to TX-OH, Hillary will have gained nothing despite having contests in TX-OH-IN-PA-KY.  Given that Obama will have fought her to a draw when the line-up of races was about as favorable to her as it could ever be, it is clear that Obama is far and away the stronger candidate.  Indeed, he has never been behind since the beginning of the primaries in January.

Krieger,

Anyone can make whatever dumbass argument they want.  Hillary certainly does.  There is no argument grounded in reality that Hillary is the more electable candidate.  She has lost the popular vote, the delegate race, has a weaker hand in Electoral College votes, is the loser in public opinion polls about who should be the Democratic nominee, cannot raise a fraction of the money that Obama can, and has only since Wright II been on a par with him in head to head races against McCain, and will shortly be behind him again.  Add to that the fact that she is regarded unfavorably by 54% of the electorate and as untrustworthy by 58% of the electorate.  By every any and every measure, she is the weaker candidate.

Your fantasy that 2-200 super delegates are going to abandon Obama when, for months now, he has gained almost every single super who has declared a commitment (something like 120 to 10) is ridiculous. No, it is not against the laws of physics, but, as Eve Fairbanks pointed out very eloquently, there is no reason at all to think that the supers WANT to vote for Hillary.  Just the opposite.

If my grandma had wheels, she'd be a bus.  Go register as an independent  What you have lost your taste for is democracy.  

No, dkrieger, considering that Obama's support hasn't really changed post-Wright, and he's ahead, it points to him as the more electable Democrat.  Considering that Clinton completely imploded during a primary that was supposed to be hers makes her completely unelectable.  

How 'bout "neither is electable." Can we get off electable and talk about what we want for the Party and the Country and how we aim to make our nominee, whether Clinton or Obama, victorious in November, and leave electable for the talking heads.?

I am really starting to admire MSNBC...

www.youtube.com/watch

I didn't like his NFL stuff, but he has just earned my respect forever more.

This "expectations" game is a media invention, created so that they'll have a story to write when there basically is no story.  Without the expectations angle, the Kentucky primary is basically garbage time, NFL week 17.  With the expectations angle, there is INTRIGUE, and they have something to fill the 24-hour news space.  Don't buy it, people.  This thing is over, expectations s or no.  Time to rest up knees and hamstrings for November.  

I'm not suggesting that 200 superdelegates will quit Obama. It was a hypothetical. I'm simply pointing out that they COULD. Per my earlier post on this thread, I'm trying to underscore how inconsistent the logic around superdelegates has  been over  the course of this nomination process. Before Super Tuesday, when Hillary was  the  frontrunner by virtue of superdelegates, party conventional wisdom  held that supers were somehow obliged to follow the voters' lead  -  not their own hearts. To do otherwise  would be somehow "undemocractic." Now that  Obama is in the lead, we are told that  supers ought  to swim with the tide, regardless  of what the voters indicate with their ballots --  which, West Virginia and Pennsylvania show  – is at best an ambivalence toward Obama, at worst, a case of buyer's remorse.

But Obama loyalists can't fathom the concept that their hero might be losing his luster. I think Hillary will be arm-twisted into bowing out after June 3 whatever happens in the remaining primaries.  But I would not be surprised if she reenters – at  the party's  request  – right before the convention (assuming Obama's polling numbers against  McCain really tank by then).  

dkrieger,

I agree with your hypothetical; nothing is a lock until someone has a majority of delegates and the nomination is formalized at the convention.

The problem I have is with the situation you describe:

"Now that  Obama is in the lead, we are told that  supers ought  to swim with the tide, regardless  of what the voters indicate with their ballots"

Who is saying this? Where was it said? I'm thinking some hyperlinks are in order. I have not noticed any such activity myself, but I have not been paying too much attention in recent days.

"can't fathom the concept that their hero might be losing his luster"

In the face of a lack of demonstrable proof, it is more like "we don't agree with your assessment" rather than "we can't fathom". A convincing argument would be a margin of victory that exceeds nominal expectations, her WV clobbering of 40% was below many analysts expectations, which were based on the voting patterns of previous primaries. However, I do not think anyone realized that Edwards was on the ballot, and pulled away a bunch of votes. Adding Edward's votes in with Hillary's bring the margin of victory to around 50%, which is in line with the trend of pulling about 75% of white voters who are elderly, or make below 50k, which pretty much describes WV to a tee.

"will be arm-twisted into bowing out after June 3"

First, not winning a majority of the pledged delegates is not considered "arm twisting". Second, from an interview I saw earlier it looks like the only person that will decide when Hillary stops campaigning is Hillary. Finally, I got the distinct impression she was amenable to ceding the race on 2 conditions: 1) the last of the votes are counted, including MI and FL, and 2) she does not have a majority of delegates.

"But I would not be surprised if she reenters – at  the party's  request  – right before the convention (assuming Obama's polling numbers against  McCain really tank by then)"

Nor would any of us; we're just a lot more confident than some people, like yourself, that those numbers won't tank.

dkrieger says:

"Now that  Obama is in the lead, we are told that  supers ought  to swim with the tide, regardless  of what the voters indicate with their ballots --  which, West Virginia and Pennsylvania show  – is at best an ambivalence toward Obama, at worst, a case of buyer's remorse."

This is a classic Hillaryism.  Only the voters who vote for Hillary count.  The voters who don't, don't. Thus, even though HIllary is losing, even though Obama racked up a couple hundred thousand votes in NC, even though he will win OR, SD, and MT, "the voters," which means those that vote for Hillary, will have indicated their ambivalence.  The rest of the voters are to be ignored.

What a load of hogwash.  If only Hillary's supporters said this sort of thing, it would be mere hogwash.  But because Hillary says it, she begs to be ridiculed.  I'm game.  She is narcissist of the first order, "in it" so that she can continue for a little while longer to have people pay attention to her.  I can only hope that her $11 million goes up in smoke.

And the argument that what if we voted again or now at this point in time or whatever doesn't matter either. However, I would point out the pollster and gallup polls have for quite some time shown Obama in the national lead too.

There is always the faint possibility that the remaining contests will go 70/30 for HRC though so by all means we should keep the party split and argue this out until the convention while McCain gets to take free potshots at us.

dkrieger:

FAIL!

The superdelegates are coalescing around Obama because he's about to hit the pledged delegate majority and the race is over. There's nothing else you can read into it.

If you really want to look at the "will of the people", look at national polls of Democrats that unianimously show that they favor Obama over Hillary by 4-8 points. You'd have a point if they heavily favored Hillary or something....

"Edwards's endorsement ... probably raises expectations for Obama in Kentucky next week."

See, this is where one has to wonder whether America's political journalists, as a class, wouldn't have been better served by attending college instead of whatever the hell they did between the ages of 18 an 22. (Present company excepted.) Because even to contemplate the above statement being a meaningful use of the English language, one has to assume that the journalists whose expectations we are talking about are unable to grasp even the most rudimentary concepts of causation and effect. Even four years of C-for-attendance schooling at a third-rate state college ought to leave a person with some ability to make reasoned statements about causality.

As a mental exercise, let's assume that the Edwards endorsement raises political journalists' "expectations" for Obama in Kentucky. Then let's say Obama fails to meet those expectations. Will Hillary Clinton be any closer to winning the Democratic presidential nomination? No. Will Obama be any further from winning the nomination? No. Ergo, such "expectations" are meaningless and have no relationship with, nor effect on, material reality.

If a person writes a book whose words do not describe actual reality, nor are likely to influence any aspect of actual reality, we call his book "fiction" and describe that person as a "novelist." If a person goes on TV and speaks words that do not describe, and cannot affect, actual reality, we call the activity "punditry" and the person a "journalist."

Yes, I don't get how some people can be so dense as to not understand that Obama approached the campaign to win by the rules as they are, not some fantasy rules.  Hillary and company complain about his only winning caucus states, or whatever other metric she thinks is over-rated, but Obama precisely alotted his resources to win delegates and would have apportioned them differently if the rules were different.  Hillary is trying to make her strategic ignorance look like a problem with the system rather than a problem with her tactics.

And how stupid is McAuliffe to suggest that the pundits are calling the race over before the voters decide (as if WV is the first instance anyone has voted).  The voters HAVE decided, Terry, and they have voted for Obama more than Hillary And how one earth can he think Michigan can be seated as is, as if absolutely nobody in Michigan supported Obama - what the hell does he think the 45% who turned out to vote "uncommited" were doing? Seating the MI delegation as is would be a violation of the voting rights act - a  huge disenfrahcisement of Obama voters which of course will include a significant proportion of black voters.

And furthermore, Terry, Obama doesn't have a problem with white working class voters, he has a problem with folks for whom their culture won't allow anyone who isn't white and presumably an evangelical Christian.  He has a problem with people who think he is a Muslim and lay awake at night worried that someone somewhere out there might be smarter than them and know it.  The problem, obviously, is race and folks where I am from make no secret of it.    

Rhubarbs.

See you are making that elitist mistake of thinking and maybe knowing more than somebody else, which is apparently anathema in the Democratic Party these days.   See, we all have to assume a hayseed preacher in WV knows more about the world than a biologist with a PhD, that Grandma Johnson who has gut feelings kows more than someone who has applied their life to study witha  methodology that arms against self-delusion.  See, the democrats, I guess, are no longer in favor of rying to give folks a fair shake economically so they can enjoy their lives as they see fit, we now have to extoll the virtues of the cultural things they choose to do and be extra careful to make it clear that we don't look down on their cultural activities and apologize for doing things like reading books, seeking out ideas, and trying to come to grips with how the world is.  I am unclear why resentment is perfectly ok as a political tool, but any imagined sign of contempt and you are out of the game.  Anyone who thinks Hillary could actually live in WV for several years with her working class fans more comfortably than Obama could is really a fool.

What tomeg said, but amended to read "either is electable".

And dkreiger, looking at how much money Obama got from how many people - how very many people really really really want that guy to be president - it's mind boggling that you - or she - should try to present HER as the candidate of the people's will. Pfft. The racist people in a few states with an ever-dwindling relative population and therefore delegate count. Yeah, those people, I'll give you, and it's not because they love HER, they just noticed who she's running against. In the primary. They'll stampede to the white guy in the general.

well roid, you have about covered it. dkrieger  has succumbed to the "what have you done lately" line of thinking, it will be interesting to see what he says after the last primaries where Obama is favored. Maybe "they don't count since he was always favored to win them anyway." Which is the line they used after North Carolina. Hillaryistas just refuse to grasp that the winner of the primary season should get the nomination, they think the Dem. party is just Avis.

Perhaps it has been obvious all along, but this morning I only just understood that Hillary actually is trying to win.  Her strategy has several parts, but they all come down to race-baiting in the end.

The core of the strategy is to convince the public and the super-delegates that Obama cannot win in the fall.  Of course, the fact that he is better positioned in the Electoral College and generally out-polls her is inconvenient, but in some sense irrelevant.  The basic meme is that a black man cannot be elected president, not matter what the polls say.  To this end, Hillary is perfectly willing to engage in race-baiting behavior with two objects -- the first is to legitimize and encourage racial voting, to tell all the possibly inhibited racists out there that it is OK to vote accordingly.  At the same time, she want to create the frame that Obama is unelectable because "hard-working white people" won't vote for him.  Then she points to results such as those in WV to "prove" that it is true.  In proper Hillarista fashion, she of course ignores all evidence to the contrary.

For this to lead to the nomination, other things have to happen too.  She needs to seat as many MI and FL delegates as possible to bring the delegate margin down toward 100 so that she can claim the difference is trivial.  She needs to get the popular vote margin down for the same reason.  To that end, she is perfectly willing to "include" all of the MI votes although only she was on the ballot.  We are not talking reality here.  We are talking the creation of a frame in which she claims to have won more votes or that the difference is trivial.  She claims that the difference in delegates is trivial.  She claims, subtly and not so subtly, that nominating a black man will result in a loss to the party in November.  

Basically, her strategy is what someone here recently quoted from Gore Vidal, referring to Nixon:  Hillary's strategy is to wave her arms in the air and yell "nigger, nigger, nigger."  There are plenty of Hillarista posters here who are willing to aid and abet her.  All the more reason for good Democrats to keep trashing her disgusting behavior.  Helps make sure that the party professionals know exactly what is going to happen to them if they start sipping her racist Kool-aid.

Somewhat like Gore/Bush, where the Bushies knew that if Gore were ever ahead in the counting the whole thing would blow up in their faces as the public would demand to count all votess, she also has to forestall the supers committing for as long as she can so that the matter remains "open" for her arguments.  She has certainly been trying to do that, both behind the scenes and by verbal retaliation against prominent Obama endorsers, Richardson, NARAl.

Given Hillary's strategy, I agree with whomever it was who said that MI and FL should not be settled by Obama prior to the convention.  That is exactly right.  He needs to have the nomination in his pocket, a majority of the pledged delegates and a majority of super-delegates, with MI and FL the cards he saves until Hillary's nigger strategy has fully failed.

I cannot wait for the Democratic party to be rid of Hillary Clinton.  The Hillaristas can call me whatever names they want.  I detest her.

@ liberal reformer....You miss the key point of Kentucky being tobaccy country. Obama does smoke so all those tobacco folks, family and friends will pull the lever for their smoking candidate. Plus Obama is very much a Jim Beam kind of guy whereas Hillary is one of those elite New Yahrk upper-East side politicos that are extremely pleased she can go into her local union pub for a smoke-free shot of Johnny Walker blue and schooner of Amstel light.

Roid,

Your long rant against Hillary amounts to this: "She's  trying to win the nomination against a black man. The bitch, has  she no shame?"  

Please understand that to those of us  who prefer Hillary to Obama (unthinkable to you, but  nevertheless  about half  the  Democratic electorate) this isn't a sign  of narcissism. This is the presidential election process in action. People who bow out  gallantly when victory is still  --  however  dimmly  -- in sight are called quitters. We Americans don't like quitters. Gore got thumped by Dem loyalists for playing the "good scout" (ceding victory to Bush in 2000 before his last  appeal  was exhausted). Now Dem loyalists want Hillary to do just  that, and call it narcissism that she refuses to play dead.

As for Jerbs, talk about "bitter!" You write:

"We now have to extoll the virtues of the cultural things they [hicks] choose to do and be extra careful to make it clear that we don't look down on their cultural activities and apologize for doing things like reading books, seeking out ideas, and trying to come to grips with how the world is.  I am unclear why resentment is perfectly ok as a political tool, but any imagined sign of contempt and you are out of the game."

Listen to yourself?  And remember all the times Hillary got smacked down for what the thought police call "race-baiting" and many rational  people understood  as statements of fact -- eg  Geraldine Ferraro on blackness  being a political advantage, Clinton on Jesse Jackson's S.C. wins, Hillary on  60 Minutes   (he's not a Muslim  -- as  far  as  I  know.) See Wieseltier's articles on this in TNR archives)  Don't you see that it's the same thing? Like it  or not,  we live in a  self-censoring, victim-championing society. Sometimes that cuts  for you, sometimes it cuts against you.  Most of the  time, it's a tool your opponents can turn against you with the help of our scandal-mongering, 24/7 media.  

Kreiger,

I don't care whether Hillary plays dead so long as she drops dead, and I get to dance on her grave.  Whenever Hillary engages in her detestable race-baiting -- and no, it is not just "making statements of fact," it is the deliberate appeal to racist sentiment for political gain -- the Hillaristas try and change the subject and pretend that it is a demand for Hillary to be a quitter.  I don't give a rat's ass whether she quits or spends her whole fortune running for president to the end of time.  What I care about is that she sullies the Democratic party -- my party -- with her racist appeals.  It is narcissism not because she runs, but because she is willing to pursue her miniscule chances at the expense of the Democratic party and what it is supposed to stand for.  That's not tenacity, that's not admirable, that's disgusting, no less so because it is Hillary Clinton in 2008 than it was when it was George Wallace.  I'm not demanding that she quit, I'm demanding that she stop her racist campaigning, and doing my share to call her out on it when she does.  Every decent Democrat should do so.  You too.  

If Hillary wants to run her "nigger, nigger, nigger" campaign, she should get out of the Democratic party and go be a Republican.  That's their thing.  The rest of us have every right and duty to excoriate her for her behavior.  It is loathsome, as is she for engaging in it.  It is absolutely no excuse that she is running a political campaign.  Just the reverse.  That is the very last place we need appeals to racism

dkrieger ,

See Chait's two excellent article from several weeks ago -  my views are completely in accord with his on the matter:

www.tnr.com/.../story.html

www.tnr.com/.../story.html

Also Thomas Frank's excellent article:

online.wsj.com/.../SB120873309012529689.html

I don't consider calling someone "bitter" an insult - bitterness can be well-founded and a proper reaction to the facts.  I am bitter that we live in a world where a charge of elitism, divorced from any effort to keep people in their place, hinder there life chances, etc, but rather simply as a denial that some people do indeed know better than you or fear that they might, is such an accepted political tact.  I am from the south, born in Georgia,, and have lived/worked (blue and white collar, I might add) in extreme SW Virginia, upstate SC, and western NC and I have heard the word "elitism" employed to teach creationism, push prayer in school and religious displays, ask for special rights for backword religious views, insist on empirical claims that are definitively not true, but when you emply class vocabularly to talk about government ploicies set up to keep certain people poor and uneducated, you are engaged in "class warfare".  There is no elitism in an open elite that anyone can join.   An elitist, I would think, is someone who wants to keep certain individuals on the bottom - I am hoping for an economic and educational system that encourages and enables everyone to see out and be able to achieve, the top.  that is why I am a Democrat.  Encouraging people to take pride in the worst aspects that their economic status often engenders just seems to me a sort of identity politics.  I want more people in Appalachia to understand what biologists and asrophysicists are up to and to understand more about the world we live in.  If I am an elitist, I am an inclusive one.  

Up above in this thread, on the subject of electability, I said, "only since Wright II [has she] been on a par with him in head to head races against McCain, and will shortly be behind him again."

As of 12:30 EDT, my prediction has been fulfilled. Hillary is sinking in the polls v McCain will Obama continues to rise.  Now he as at 4.5% over McCain while she has fallen to 3.2%.  I predict that that spread will widen.  I hope dcshungu is reading this.

So much for Hillary's pretension to be the "more electable" candidate.

dkrieger, it is funny how I never heard anyone call Romney a quitter when he dropped out well before McCain technically wrapped up the nomination, actually most people praised him. And given McCain's age and his being prone to gaffes Romney certainly could have stayed in as long as he could, fighting McCain up to the bitter end. Huckabee stayed in, but only as a stalking horse so that McCain could give victory speeches, and maybe because he enjoyed it, nevertheless it was a positive event. Hillary has behaved like neither Romney or Huckabee even with her chances of winning the nomination are extremely small, far smaller than it was for Romney after Super Tuesday.

Now why is it when Hillary is involved all the other normal rules that apply to every other candidate no longer apply? Was Romney called a quitter by anyone? NO.

On Kentucky and the timing of the Edwards endorsement

It may well be that Obama will still lose badly in Kentucky.  But Kentucky, unlike West Virginia, is being held on the same day as another primary - Oregon.  Obama's expected to win big in Oregon which will offset a poor showing in Kentucky.

Oh what's the point. We won't ever agree on this, and we can't influence any of it one iota so why do we persist in trying to persuade each other?  All will be made manifest in August and November.

Edwards was strictly a wet blanket to throw on Hillary's WVa party.  He's too much a citified pretty boy who got above his raisin' to make any dent in Kentucky.