Is Obama Winning?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Timothy Noah, Slate

Who's the front-runner in the Democratic primaries? Obviously it's too early to say, but if forced to designate one candidate in the lead, most people would name Hillary Clinton on the strength of her victories in New Hampshire and Nevada. Obama won the Iowa caucus, but he hasn't won anything since then. According to the Associated Press, Clinton has 236 delegates to Obama's 136. That means Hillary's winning, right?

That's one way to look at it. In a properly ordered universe, there would be only one way to look at something as seemingly straightforward as a delegate count. But that's not the universe we live in. As I explained in an earlier column, presidential nominations are won through the acquisition not of delegates but of momentum, as interpreted by the momentucracy, a loosely defined group of political reporters and TV talking heads who step in at some point to render a collective and somewhat unscientific opinion about who will acquire the necessary number of delegates some time in the near future. Simple delegate-counting is for pathetic nerds.

But if I may be permitted a moment to hitch up my trousers and insert a plastic pocket protector into my shirt front, in counting up delegates awarded thus far in primaries and caucuses my inescapable conclusion is that as of Jan. 21, Obama is ever so slightly in the lead!

That's counterintuitive, I know. Clinton has won two states to Obama's one. Moreover, the combined population of the two states Clinton has won is 3.8 million, while the population of the one state Obama has won is 2.9 million. If you want to get technical, Clinton has actually won three states, because she won in Michigan, too. But that was only because she was the only major candidate whose name appeared on the ballot. Obama and Edwards kept their names off the Michigan ballot because, in choosing an early date for its primary, Michigan defied the wishes of the Democratic National Committee, which then punished Michigan by refusing to seat its delegates at the national convention, and got all the major candidates to pledge not to campaign there.

And yet, strictly by the book, Obama is ahead on all convention-bound delegates awarded thus far in primaries and caucuses. That's because each state has its own, often eccentric, method of converting votes cast into the awarding of pledged delegates. In Iowa, Obama got 38 percent of the vote to Clinton's 30 percent, but that translated into only 16 delegates to Clinton's 15. In New Hampshire, Clinton got 39 percent to Obama's 37 percent. That translated into a delegate tie, with each candidate awarded nine delegates. In Nevada, Clinton got 51 percent to Obama's 45 percent. That translated, bizarrely, into 13 delegates for Obama and only 12 for Clinton, according to the Associated Press, a finding backed up by the chairman of the Nevada Democratic Party.

Add these delegates up, and you get 38 pledged delegates for Obama and 36 pledged delegates for Clinton. Ergo, Obama is winning.

A few caveats are in order. To arrive at these numbers, I had to ignore Michigan, where Clinton won by 55 percent (shockingly low, given that none of the other major candidates was even on the ballot; "uncommitted" got 37 percent). That means Clinton picked up something like 73 delegates. But they're make-believe delegates, because the Democratic National Committee refuses to seat them. It's widely assumed that these delegates will eventually be granted permission to attend the convention, but only after one of the candidates has captured the necessary 2,025 delegates necessary to secure the nomination.

Another caveat is that, technically, Iowa and Nevada haven't chosen their delegates to the Democratic National Convention. They've chosen their delegates to state-level nominating conventions, which won't make binding decisions until the spring. Because of this uncertainty, the New York Times isn't including Iowa and Nevada in its running count of delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

A final caveat is that this count doesn't include superdelegates. Superdelegates are party leaders and elected officials who may participate in choosing the nominee at the convention. The Democrats will have about 800. Some superdelegates have endorsed a presidential candidate, and others haven't. All are free to change their minds, which means that the number of superdelegates assigned to any given candidate is in constant flux. According to this Web site, for instance, the number of superdelegates pledged to Clinton has been reported as 200 by the AP, 195 by CBS, and 174 by CNN. That doesn't include the superdelegates from Michigan, who have been disenfranchised along with the state's pledged delegates; and it doesn't include the superdelegates from Florida, which is being similarly punished by the DNC for disobedience in scheduling its primary.

All calculations give Hillary Clinton about twice as many superdelegates as Barack Obama. Hence the statement in the first paragraph of this column that, by the AP's reckoning, Hillary has 236 delegates to Obama's 136. CNN has it at 210 to 123. ABC has 203 to 149. Obviously, then, the superdelegates think Clinton is winning. But that will change rapidly if Obama gains the upper hand.

A plurality of two delegates is a start. Or rather, it might be if anybody chose to notice that front-runner Hillary Clinton, the comeback queen, isn't actually, you know, winning.

http://www.slate.com/id/2182565

[no name 1]

Winning what? Primaries? Gimme a break - we are in the process of choosing a nominee now. Nothing to 'win' per se.

[garya505 2]

Winning what? Primaries? Gimme a break - we are in the process of choosing a nominee now. Nothing to 'win' per se.

Well, if you don't "win" a nomination you're kind of out of the race.

[no name 1]

Cheap Shots, But Valuable?

The Clinton approach to Obama could pay dividends this fall.

This week's Democratic debate was hard to take: Hillary Clinton leaning on the podium, looking smug, hurling insults and lecturing Barack Obama. "You never take responsibility for any votes," she said, accusing him among other things of betraying victims of sexual abuse by voting "present" in the Illinois legislature. When the jabbing back and forth lingered on Obama's reference to Ronald Reagan as a transformative president while sliding over Bill Clinton's contribution, Hillary couldn't get enough of the phony argument. "We're just getting warmed up here," she declared with relish.

What happened to the softer Hillary we saw in New Hampshire? I thought maybe if I closed my eyes and imagined Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney standing at the podium in Obama's place, I'd feel better about the "Rollerball" politics the Clintons play. "Let me finish," Obama interjected, vainly trying to quiet Hillary, whom he said had gone on for two minutes. That's my signature line when I struggle to get a word in edgewise on "The McLaughlin Group," which is perhaps why I found the combat so unsettling.

To find the deck so suddenly stacked against Obama seems unfair, yet it is a tribute of sorts to Hillary Clinton and the way she picked herself up off the mat after losing Iowa. If goody-two-shoe Democrats are squeamish, they had better get used to it. The Clinton game plan is to demolish Obama, and they may well succeed only to pay the price in November. "It's what we do," a Democratic pollster, who is not aligned with any of the major contenders, told me, laughing at the notion that it's somehow unseemly to unleash Bill Clinton. As long as the nomination is in doubt, the general election takes a back seat. Whatever damage is inflicted now, they'll worry about later--once she's the nominee. "Losers don't legislate," President Clinton said after he reached the White House. He'll happily take a hit to his status as a global world leader if it means getting his wife elected.

And maybe that's as it should be, whenever a front runner confronts an insurgent. "I don't see how you can get around doing this sort of thing," said Sam Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego. "He says, 'I'm inspiring,' and he wants to leave the details up to advisers. Her strength is in the steps--who to push, who to shove and how you get things done. He's great at giving the big sermon on what we ought to do and not so good on the steps to get there. It's hard for the warhorse to fight the show horse. You have to tell him, 'You can't pull the plow; you can't do the heavy lifting'."

Calling Obama a kid, as Bill Clinton did, or using the term "fairy tale" to dismiss his antiwar stance, got people's attention, as any blunt instrument would. The goal is to get people to realize Obama is more of a risk because they know less about him. It's the same strategy that Walter Mondale used to dispatch Gary Hart in 1984 (remember "Where's the beef?"). "It's what Lyndon Johnson wanted to do to Bobby Kennedy--and fell flat on his face trying," says Popkin.

We'll know soon if the Clintons overplayed their hand. Hillary is holding her lead in the national polls, which become more meaningful heading into Feb. 5, when 22 states vote in what is essentially a national primary. There could be blowback. The Washington Post, among others, chided the Clintons for deliberately distorting Obama's views. On Thursday, under heavy pressure from assorted Democrats, the Clinton campaign withdrew a radio spot playing in South Carolina that had Obama calling the Republicans "the party of ideas" and then linking his quote out of context to "special tax breaks for Wall Street. Running up a $9 trillion debt. Refusing to raise the minimum wage or deal with the housing crisis. Are those the ideas Barack Obama's talking about?"

Campaigning in South Carolina, Bill Clinton accused the media of adopting the Obama campaign's spin by injecting race into the campaign. "Shame on you," he scolded a reporter. The take in Washington is that if anyone was using race for political advantage, it was the Clintons. "It's like Obi-Wan Kenobi yelling at Luke Skywalker because he's using the Force," exclaimed a Democratic senator, astounded by Clinton's audacity. The cynical view is that the Clintons have deliberately tapped into deep-seated racial feelings. When Obama slammed Hillary for being on the board of Wal-Mart while he was laboring in the inner city, she whacked him for working for a "slum lord," a reference to Tony Rezko, an indicted Chicago developer and a longtime Obama backer (Rezko's attorney has said he is innocent of all charges). Obama replied almost off-handedly that he did five hours' work as a junior lawyer on the Rezko account, an explanation that only fueled the Hillary fires. What did squeamish Democrats learn from the exchange? Hillary sure knows how to land a cheap shot, and that could come in handy in the fall when the real fight begins.

© 2008 Newsweek, Inc.

source

[dalegg 143]

Winning what? Primaries? Gimme a break - we are in the process of choosing a nominee now. Nothing to 'win' per se.

Well, if you don't "win" a nomination you're kind of out of the race.

ohhh.

[Otto 83]

"Obama...Never gonna happen..."

(Art imitating life.)

[SnowyTater 0]

I hope he's not (I'm gonna be obnoxious and flaunt my relatively uninformed political positions). I like Hillary now...I did like Obama, still alright with him, but just seems like he's blowing hot air these days and doesn't really have a plan, and I don't trust that he has enough experience at all.

I thought the last debate was HILARIOUS. There may have been cheap shots on both sides, but to me it seemed like Barack just kind of...fell apart. He seemed like an angsty frustrated teenager, mad that no one was 'getting him' or something, I don't know :\ That kind of spoke a lot more to me than the actual cheap shots or anything. I think the gloves came off, whether unfair or no, and he didn't really handle it well. Whereas Hillary and Bill seem to be giggling in the background...

But I really like McCain too! I think I must be confused, I'm equally happy with either candidate from the complete opposite parties at the moment xD Just not Romney, please no Surely, having indecision because you like several candidates is a lot better than trying to pick between the lesser evils, as they say.

But I'm a South Carolinian, and I most say, the vibe here is towards Sen. Obama. I think he's gonna win it tomorrow.

BTW, Edwards was just on my campus a couple hours ago and caught his speech - he's a much better speaker than I thought he'd be. Was a short speech and not a huge crowd though, and every time he said something like 'when I win' or "when I'm president" people chuckled...

[GaryC 7]

Some fear the other Clinton's behavior may hurt Democrats

Critics say the former president's forceful campaign approach -- including face-offs with reporters and criticisms of Obama -- may be just a preview.

By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

January 25, 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- He's scrapping with reporters. Pushing his wife's candidacy. Lashing out at her top rival in the Democratic presidential race.

Former President Clinton's recent aggressive tactics in the 2008 campaign have propelled him squarely to center stage -- to the dismay of some prominent Democrats who fear he may be damaging the party's prospects for November.

The vocal role he is carving out also may be a preview, should Hillary Rodham Clinton win in the fall, of how the White House would operate under the unprecedented scenario of a president being married to an ex-president.

Bill Clinton is using both the megaphone he commands and his popularity among Democrats to try to help wrest a victory for his wife in Saturday's primary in South Carolina, a state where polls show she lags behind Barack Obama.

While touting his wife's credentials, the former president has tried to redefine Obama as a more calculating politician than voters might suspect. And he makes plain he is nursing grievances about how the campaign has unfolded.

Talking to a TV reporter in Charleston, S.C., the other day, Clinton accused the Obama campaign of orchestrating a "hit job" on him. He did not spell out what that meant. But the comment was the latest in a series of criticisms he has lobbed at the Illinois senator.

He clearly was peeved by Obama's comments about President Reagan. In a newspaper interview last week in Nevada, Obama opined that Reagan had changed the nation's "trajectory" more than Clinton or President Nixon had.

Taking exception

Clinton took that as an affront. "I thought we challenged the conventional wisdom in the '90s," Clinton told reporters at a restaurant here.

It's not clear that his approach is working. Increasingly, Democratic civic leaders and political figures are saying the sight of the former two-term president immersed in a partisan scrum leaves them unnerved.

House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), an influential African American, said he talked by telephone with Clinton on Wednesday night and warned that his behavior could scare off young, independent-minded voters that the party needed in the general election.

Clyburn said that in their 10-minute conversation, he heard no guarantees Clinton would stop.

"I told him I was concerned whether this nomination would be worth having if we don't put this behind us," said Clyburn, who has remained neutral in the primary race.

Younger voters, he added, might "walk away from our nominee -- whoever that might be -- because they may get disenchanted with the whole process."

Others once closely associated with Clinton have taken exception to some of his assertions about Obama. Consider the dust-up over Reagan.

Robert B. Reich, a longtime friend who served as Labor secretary in Clinton's administration, wrote in a blog posting Thursday: "For years, Bill Clinton and many other leading Democrats have made precisely the same point -- that starting in the Reagan administration, Republicans put forth a range of new ideas while the Democrats sat on their hands."

In the short run, the Obama campaign is hoping for a backlash. Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife, sent out a fundraising solicitation Thursday that cited Clinton's criticisms as a reason to contribute to her husband.

'What we didn't expect'

Asking for donations of $50, she wrote: "In the past week or two, another candidate's spouse has been getting an awful lot of attention. . . . What we didn't expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we've seen recently. We didn't expect misleading accusations that willfully distort Barack's record."

During most of the year that his wife has been campaigning for the presidency, Clinton was more subdued. Typically, he would vouch for her credentials and praise all the candidates in the field.

That changed when Obama started gaining traction -- and especially after he won the Iowa caucuses this month.

The former president began arguing that the news media had not properly vetted Obama. And he seemed resentful of how Obama was portrayed, as compared with his wife.

He told the audience in Charleston before the Iowa vote: "I watched her being called dishonest, phony and plastic."

In a reference to Obama, he added: "One candidate with four pollsters said she is poll-driven; she only had one."

Internally, the Clinton campaign has debated the best way to deploy the former president.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who has traveled with Sen. Clinton's campaign, said at one point he believed the former president should be "on the bench" to ensure he did not overshadow his wife.

But Weiner said he had since changed his mind.

"If you buy the premise that there hasn't really been a vetting of Barack Obama, and that what we thought would be bigger issues have not really been, who is a better messenger to bring that kind of attention to issues than Bill Clinton?" Weiner asked.

A low-key role?

Some Clinton supporters also seem pleased with the former president's methods.

After Sen. Clinton made a recent campaign stop in New Jersey, Nelson Rodriguez said he believed the ex-president was perfectly within bounds in advocating for his wife and, at times, against Obama.

"There is a little bickering, but they are rivals," said Rodriguez, 25, who runs a nonprofit teen center. The campaign, he added, "is a little like a sport, so you expect them to go at it."

When they are asked what Bill Clinton would do in a Hillary Clinton White House, the couple describe a low-key role. He would travel the world to shore up U.S. alliances. He would offer private counsel. He would take no formal staff nor -- in keeping with anti-nepotism laws -- a Cabinet post.

Many wonder whether this role would require more self-restraint than Bill Clinton can muster.

####### Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman, campaigned for Clinton in 1992 and again in '96. He says his office is jammed with pictures of the former president.

But Harpootlian, who backs Obama, voiced disappointment over Clinton's actions of late.

"This raises a huge question," he said. "Are we going to have a co-presidency?"

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na...2&cset=true

Edited January 26, 2008 by GaryC

[Sheriff Uling 3]

"Obama...Never gonna happen..."

(Art imitating life.)

It appears that most republicans canidates and most pundents also feel the same way. I'm wondering is it because Sen. Clinton has a stronger political background or is it a smoke screen overshadowing the racial divides that still linger heavily in the core of our society. This is NOT a question directed at you "Karin und Otto." I'm just not sure which is which... What I am happy about is the re-invigoration of citizen involvement in a process. - Cheers!!!

[SnowyTater 0]

To Sheriff:

As far as SC goes, and so probably a lot of the (deep) south too, I think normally it would definately make a difference that Obama is black. That sucks but it's the truth. There were some votes up a couple years ago just on some state issues, which I thought were really obvious old laws that need to be changed to meet everyone's rights, etc. I had complete confidence that the revisions would pass. Then found out that it was overwhelmingly defeated, something like 85% against or something. When it's mostly really really old people that show up to vote (sorry grandma :\) I guess you can't really expect that much difference...

But I kind of think this is balancing out because I think jerks in the south not ready to see a black president are mostly also jerks in the south not ready to see a woman president, and this includes not just crazy radicals but pretty normal, straight-laced people too, including housewives. But I don't know, maybe most of these people are going Republican anyway? We're all a republican block down here, almost every time.

Since the whole race started I've actually heard surprisingly little talk about Obama's being black, either in private or on broadcasts. I think maybe early on, a lot of the people that would have been scared of the 'big scary black man' weren't because basically Obama looks like a kid, seems really unimposing and slim, and is actually pretty light-skinned. I mean they've done studies on this stuff, you know? The lighter a black person is, the less 'black' we perceive him to be. So at least people aren't all like 'oh no's a thug!'

[Sheriff Uling 3]

To Sheriff:

As far as SC goes, and so probably a lot of the (deep) south too, I think normally it would definately make a difference that Obama is black. That sucks but it's the truth. There were some votes up a couple years ago just on some state issues, which I thought were really obvious old laws that need to be changed to meet everyone's rights, etc. I had complete confidence that the revisions would pass. Then found out that it was overwhelmingly defeated, something like 85% against or something. When it's mostly really really old people that show up to vote (sorry grandma :\) I guess you can't really expect that much difference...

But I kind of think this is balancing out because I think jerks in the south not ready to see a black president are mostly also jerks in the south not ready to see a woman president, and this includes not just crazy radicals but pretty normal, straight-laced people too, including housewives. But I don't know, maybe most of these people are going Republican anyway? We're all a republican block down here, almost every time.

Since the whole race started I've actually heard surprisingly little talk about Obama's being black, either in private or on broadcasts. I think maybe early on, a lot of the people that would have been scared of the 'big scary black man' weren't because basically Obama looks like a kid, seems really unimposing and slim, and is actually pretty light-skinned. I mean they've done studies on this stuff, you know? The lighter a black person is, the less 'black' we perceive him to be. So at least people aren't all like 'oh no's a thug!'

Very good points... Thanks a bunch for sharing... - Cheers!!!

[kaydee457 13]

Yes, he is.....GO OBAMA!!!!!

[SaadBell 0]

[kaydee457 13]

Wow, he's HOT! I hope he's our next president.....

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I don't care who wins so long as it isn't an "all hat / no cattle" religious fundamentalist nutbag.