What Does All This Mean?
Today was supposed to be the day Hillary Clinton stood before a group of microphones in either New York or Washington and threw in the proverbial towel. With Bill and Chelsea beside her, Hillary was supposed to congratulate Obama and urge her faithful onto working toward a Democratic victory in November. Obama was also supposed to make a conciliatory speech thanking Senator Clinton for all she has done and assuming the mantle of the nominee-apparent. Somebody forgot to tell the voters in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island that all of this was supposed to happen.
I thought Hillary would take Ohio. I did not think she would take Ohio by 10 percentage points. She also had a decisive win in Rhode Island. In Cleveland, we have seen a lot of ObamaMania the past couple of weeks. My neighbors across the week both support Obama and have to be disappointed this morning. We received a steady stream of robocalls on his behalf. We also received a lot of calls from the Obama campaign offering help in locating our polling place. Say what you want about the guy, he has an impressive ground campaign. Should Obama become the nominee, I expect to be similarly bombarded come the fall. Not that Hillary conceded anything in that regard. She won Ohio largely because she worked the state. In the debate last week, both candidates could name a number of Ohio communities. I think that by and large that is a tired tactic to convince voters how well they want to appear to know the state. It appeared to work for her. Ohio is an important state for both parties. Two million people in Ohio voted in the Democratic primary while just over a million voted in the GOP primary. While you can't say just from that that Ohio will be "blue" come November, it shows that there were a lot of people motivated to vote for Obama or Hillary. Heck, John Edwards got 37,000 voted yesterday and his campaign has been suspended for over a month. I am sure a lot of people crossed over from the GOP to vote for one candidate or the other, but I would be surprised if Hillary won because of that. The Republicans would LOVE to face off against Hillary in the general election. My wife's "Survivor" theory does not necessarily guarantee a McCain administration.
What most concerns me as a Democrat this morning is what the effects of a protracted primary fight will be. It is now a certainty that neither Hillary or Obama will have enough delegates to win the nomination outright. Barring a major collapse on the part of either candidate, it appears that we won't see a clear cut nominee until the convention in August. Everybody keeps talking about the Super Delegates. Many are already pledged one way or the other. It would be truly unfortunate if these Super Delegates are forced to select the nominee. There would be the appearance of back room deals and politics as usual. All of this would be the best possible gift for John McCain. Although his candidacy was beset with other issues, one of the reasons John Kerry was able to make the run he did at Bush was because his nomination was set fairly early in the process.
A longer nomination process doesn't necessarily spell doom for the Democrats. This contest definitely drives interest and keeps the contest in the front of voter's minds. We already know Hillary is an excellent campaigner (although you can make the argument that her recent success is in spite of her campaign, not because of it). If Obama emerges as the nominee, then he will have emerged from this bare-knuckle brawl primed for the GOP punches awaiting him. On the morning talk show I watched this morning, Bill Maher made the argument that Obama will be tested and could emerge a better candidate for it. We'll see. He still leads the overall delegate count. He knew going in that the Clintons were not going to go down without a fight.
The other thing that really concerns me in the unity of my party. Can one of these candidates end up graciously supporting the other? Will the winner campaign for the loser? I believe that Hillary's supporters can get behind Obama a lot easier than the other way around. This is especially important when you consider the GOP opponent is not as starkly partisan as Bush. There are a lot of Democrats who will vote for McCain. Obama draws a lot of support from young voters who respond to him because he promises to be different from "politics as usual." Will those voters vote for a Washington insider such as Hillary Clinton? That's a real issue for Democrats as we wait 7 weeks for the Pennsylvania primary.
I thought Hillary would take Ohio. I did not think she would take Ohio by 10 percentage points. She also had a decisive win in Rhode Island. In Cleveland, we have seen a lot of ObamaMania the past couple of weeks. My neighbors across the week both support Obama and have to be disappointed this morning. We received a steady stream of robocalls on his behalf. We also received a lot of calls from the Obama campaign offering help in locating our polling place. Say what you want about the guy, he has an impressive ground campaign. Should Obama become the nominee, I expect to be similarly bombarded come the fall. Not that Hillary conceded anything in that regard. She won Ohio largely because she worked the state. In the debate last week, both candidates could name a number of Ohio communities. I think that by and large that is a tired tactic to convince voters how well they want to appear to know the state. It appeared to work for her. Ohio is an important state for both parties. Two million people in Ohio voted in the Democratic primary while just over a million voted in the GOP primary. While you can't say just from that that Ohio will be "blue" come November, it shows that there were a lot of people motivated to vote for Obama or Hillary. Heck, John Edwards got 37,000 voted yesterday and his campaign has been suspended for over a month. I am sure a lot of people crossed over from the GOP to vote for one candidate or the other, but I would be surprised if Hillary won because of that. The Republicans would LOVE to face off against Hillary in the general election. My wife's "Survivor" theory does not necessarily guarantee a McCain administration.
What most concerns me as a Democrat this morning is what the effects of a protracted primary fight will be. It is now a certainty that neither Hillary or Obama will have enough delegates to win the nomination outright. Barring a major collapse on the part of either candidate, it appears that we won't see a clear cut nominee until the convention in August. Everybody keeps talking about the Super Delegates. Many are already pledged one way or the other. It would be truly unfortunate if these Super Delegates are forced to select the nominee. There would be the appearance of back room deals and politics as usual. All of this would be the best possible gift for John McCain. Although his candidacy was beset with other issues, one of the reasons John Kerry was able to make the run he did at Bush was because his nomination was set fairly early in the process.
A longer nomination process doesn't necessarily spell doom for the Democrats. This contest definitely drives interest and keeps the contest in the front of voter's minds. We already know Hillary is an excellent campaigner (although you can make the argument that her recent success is in spite of her campaign, not because of it). If Obama emerges as the nominee, then he will have emerged from this bare-knuckle brawl primed for the GOP punches awaiting him. On the morning talk show I watched this morning, Bill Maher made the argument that Obama will be tested and could emerge a better candidate for it. We'll see. He still leads the overall delegate count. He knew going in that the Clintons were not going to go down without a fight.
The other thing that really concerns me in the unity of my party. Can one of these candidates end up graciously supporting the other? Will the winner campaign for the loser? I believe that Hillary's supporters can get behind Obama a lot easier than the other way around. This is especially important when you consider the GOP opponent is not as starkly partisan as Bush. There are a lot of Democrats who will vote for McCain. Obama draws a lot of support from young voters who respond to him because he promises to be different from "politics as usual." Will those voters vote for a Washington insider such as Hillary Clinton? That's a real issue for Democrats as we wait 7 weeks for the Pennsylvania primary.
posted by Mark at
10:11 AM
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