The media will have to acknowledge the writing on the wall: Game over for Hillary

[ProSense]

Clinton's "Nuclear Option?"

05 May 2008 06:46 am

HuffPost political editor Tom Edsall writes that the Clinton campaign is preparing to "ram through" the party's rules and bylaws committee a proposal to seat the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations and thus close the delegate gap by about 55. Edsall writes that the decision to deploy this tactical "nuke" has not yet been made.

Not to the belabor the metaphor, but it's not clear to me that Clinton really has this weapon in her arsenal. The rules and bylaws committee may or may not be comprised of a majority of Clinton supporters (many of its members remain uncommitted), but they're not going to be asked to vote on any challenge that would award Clinton her entire delegate haul from Michigan and Florida. The two challenges they've been asked to consider would, at most, award Clinton an extra 30 delegates -- half of her margin from Florida and half from Michigan. One of the challenges, if successful, would allow 23 superdelegates from Florida to make known their preferences, and Clinton would net a few.

In any event, whatever the RBC decides, the party's credentials committee, which won't spring into existence until late June, has final say. And Obama will probably have a majority of members on that committee, enough to send a majority report to the convention with whatever recommendation arises from that deliberation. (Clinton's backers would send a minority report.)

*** The Math Game: Both candidates seemed very exhausted during their morning show appearances on TODAY and Morning Joe. And that probably isn’t surprising -- tomorrow is the last BIG primary day. Despite the fact that another month of contests is still on the docket, nearly half of all remaining delegates will get handed out tomorrow. And the math will be a lot more crystal clear after tomorrow, both in delegates and the popular vote. Following Guam, there are now 404 pledged delegates up grabs, and 187 of them will be decided on Tuesday. Plus, per our count, there are 268 undeclared superdelegates. Here are the basics of what each candidate needs: Assuming he wins half of the delegates tomorrow (93), Obama needs just 38% of ALL remaining delegates to get to the magic number of 2,025. If Clinton wins 94 delegates on Tuesday, she will need 66% of all remaining delegates. In addition, assuming that delegate split tomorrow, then Clinton will need 85% of all remaining PLEDGED delegates to catch Obama for the lead in that category. Moreover, if Clinton simply wanted to cut Obama's pledged delegate lead to 100, she'd need to win 62% of all remaining delegates after tomorrow. As we've noted before, the math is certainly difficult for Clinton.

link

California superdelegates' wavering bodes ill for Hillary Clinton

Some who have supported her say they'll switch to Barack Obama if she doesn't make big gains in the remaining Democratic primaries.

By Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 5, 2008

FRESNO -- Hillary Rodham Clinton, stung last week by the defection of a prominent superdelegate, could lose the backing of more of these Democratic Party leaders and elected officials if she fails to make significant gains in the remaining month of presidential nominating contests, several California superdelegates said this weekend.

Two of the five superdelegates aligned with Clinton who spoke at the annual California Democratic Convention here said they would reconsider their support if rival Barack Obama maintained his lead in elected delegates and the popular vote after the last contests on June 3.

While hardly reflecting a groundswell, the superdelegates' comments underscored the concerns among some of these officials about the drawn-out Democratic race. It follows the embarrassing defection Clinton's campaign suffered Thursday when former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew switched his support from her to Obama, and warned that the negative tone of the campaign was becoming a "catastrophe" that would help Republicans.

Christopher Stampolis of Santa Clara, a superdelegate who endorsed Clinton after the Iowa caucuses, said that he remained in the New York senator's camp but that his commitment expired with the end of the primaries.

more

Good news for the GE:

May 05, 2008

Gaining with Hispanics in Florida

Amie Parnes and I note a coming milestone: The number of registered Hispanic Democrats in Florida is expected this week to surpass the number of Hispanic Republicans in the state.

It's a key data point in the argument over how hard the Democrat should play there in the fall.

[blm]

1. For two months now the corpmedia has been LYING to American people about this race

It has been over since shortly after Super Tuesday. Media and Clinton camp both have known it, and are pushing the perception of a close race so all the smears and attacks Republicans can use later in the general will have BEGUN with Clintons and validated by her supporters in the Dem party.

Hillary2012 has been operational since shortly after Super Tuesday.

[ProSense]

2. The Democrats who claim this has been good for the Party are

full of it. A campaign without Hillary and the media smearing Obama would still have allowed the Dems to attract new voters.

The past several weeks have been nothing but attempts by both Hillary's campaign and the media to damage Obama for the GE.

[blm]

5. Like Bill's book tour in 2004 - it keeps the attention ON Clintons and away from Dem nominee

who the Dem voters really need to spend time knowing better so that they may more easily promote and defend the nominee during the general.

Clinton's book tour in 2004 had Democrats back in their familiar roles of defending everything Clinton instead of getting to know their nominee and his actual record so that they could better defend him from the lies and smears of BushInc.

Clinton did NOT schedule his book tour naively - he also used that book tour to prop up Bush's decisions on Iraq, defending Bush in every interview at the very time Kerry was attacking Bush on his Iraq strategy.

[Boz]

3. They needed SOMETHING to talk about in that long spell, but now its shifting even CNN has stated

That CNN is now a Wright Free Zone ( well see if they hold up to it ) The "contreversy" now becomes how badly the incumbent lost to the upstart and political retrospective Clinton obituary pieces and montages.

[Yurovsky]

4. Follow the money ...

electronic & print media make a shitload of $$$ during the campaign season. The longer the Democratic race gets dragged out, the more $$$ that the corporate media types get haul in. Sure, they'll be lots of $$$ tossed around this fall, but why should these corporate fucks turn off the $$$ spigot while the gettin' is good???

Bastards.

[blm]

6. Corpmedia can't possibly like Obama and Kerry's FCC legislation, either.

.

[ProSense]

7. Two more superdelegates for Obama

Cryor, Dugas Glover to endorse Obama

[ProSense]

8. PPP Democratic Tracking Poll: President

Monday, May 5, 2008

Democratic Tracking Poll: President

Barack Obama 53
Hillary Clinton 43

At the end of the day North Carolina's demographics make it nearly impossible for Hillary Clinton to do much better than a ten point loss here. We estimate that 35% of the primary electorate will be black, and with Obama winning those voters at a rate of 84-11, Clinton's 60-34 advantage with white voters is only enough to pull his lead down to ten.

The projected percentage of the black electorate is an important factor in explaining different results from different polls. I explain how we arrived at our projection here.

Obama did extremely well during early voting in the state, where black turnout pushed up on 40%. His lead in the polls is 63-34 among those who say they have already voted. The race is a virtual tie among those who plan to vote on election day- Obama leads just 47-45 with those folks.

Obama leads with every age demographic except senior citizens and has the advantage in every region of the state except the Mountains.

Full results here.

[Scurrilous]

9. K & R

:thumbsup: