Lolz Josh--you beat me to it! A nice piece by Peggy Noonan. Hillary's self-destruction is starting to look like a slow-motion train wreck. I can't wait for the coming climax.

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Originally posted by josh4 Why is she still here?

b/c Obama hasn't won all of the delegates.

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Why won't she leave?

b/c she has won all of the large battleground states.

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Can't she see its inevitable?

don't confuse what you see with what she sees.

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WTF does she think will happen?

Obama's negatives will continue to drop

republicans dont waste any time to support her. they come in under a guise of level-headedness, pretending to be merely weighing in on the situation as they see it. its completely apparent that protracting this battle will be bad for both Democrats and good for Republicans. IMO thats the real reason they take the "let it play out" stance, and not what they may say about voters having their say or whatever they would have us believe their intentions are. As Leahy has said Clinton "has every right, but not a very good reason"

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Originally posted by josh4 republicans dont waste any time to support her. they come in under a guise of level-headedness, pretending to be merely weighing in on the situation as they see it. its completely apparent that protracting this battle will be bad for both Democrats and good for Republicans. IMO thats the real reason they take the "let it play out" stance, and not what they may say about voters having their say or whatever they would have us believe their intentions are. As Leahy has said Clinton "has every right, but not a very good reason"

who cares what "Republicans would have you believe" wtf does that mean anyways?

leave the Republicans out of this. you're just in love.

She's still running for the same reason Bush is still able to be in office:

United States of Amnesia

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Originally posted by Q5echo who cares what "Republicans would have you believe" wtf does that mean anyways? leave the Republicans out of this. you're just in love.

it means you only need to watch fox news to find out what they would have you believe. they might mean what they say but certainly don't always say what they mean

what kind of answer is that anyways? i'm not going to leave out consideration of the intentions of a major influence in the overall competition

After the incident with Obama's preacher I'm glad Hillary is still in the race. She's my first choice, and thanks to Barack's preacher if he's the Demoractic nominee I may end up voting for MCcain.

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Originally posted by josh4 it means you only need to watch fox news to find out what they would have you believe.

uhhh, no you don't.

i realize that "FOXNEWS!!!" your standard defence mechanism failing substantive discussion, but you really should get out more often and stop revolving your life around what Foxnews says.

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what kind of answer is that anyways?

the kind of answer you give to people who really, reeeeeeeelly want Obama annointed already, regardless of the process.

here, you want to hear what "they would have you believe"? take it from the consumate "Republican" strategist writing for the consumate Bush hating news magazine, Newsweek...not Foxnews

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How to Win in a Knife Fight The Democratic race could well come down to the first contested convention in years. Lessons on how to prevail. After the last Democratic primary is held in early June, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will have enough votes from delegates elected in caucuses or primaries to be declared the nominee. Obama would have to win 76 percent and Clinton 98 percent of the 535 delegates that are at stake in the final eight contests. Neither will happen. Both sides are frantically wooing the 330 uncommitted superdelegates, who will decide the race. Obama supporters emphasize that he's ahead in the popular vote and argue that superdelegates should respect the wishes of the primary voters (except in the states he lost, of course). They suggest Obama would do better with independents and Republicans in the fall; they argue Hillary Clinton is a flawed, secretive candidate who was wrong on Iraq and dissembles about her experience. Clinton partisans point to her victories in big battleground states and say superdelegates should act in the best interests of the party. They paint Barack Obama as an inexperienced, untested, overly ambitious candidate with a thin résumé who will fall to the Republican attack machine. It's highly unlikely that these undecided superdelegates will tilt one way or the other before June, unless one candidate reels off a string of strong, unexpected victories. There has been talk of a "superdelegate primary" that month, whereby they'd be forced to make a decision and bring the increasingly vitriolic race to a close. But the Clinton camp in particular is talking about the "months" to come until a decision is reached, and it's even possible the Democratic nominee won't be decided until the Denver convention in late August. It's been a while since the last contested convention. So, drawing on the 180-year history of presidential nominating conventions, let me suggest a few rules for winning in Denver. Rule #1: Control the Convention Mechanism. If you set the rules, decide who votes, organize the event and control what is said, it's almost impossible to lose. So while Democratic National Committee chief Howard Dean is ostensibly in charge, both candidates would be well advised to gain control of the levers of the convention. Three committees are key. The Rules Committee is where trouble can begin. Someone will come up with a smooth-sounding rules change that will give one candidate the advantage or the appearance of having a majority of the delegates. There will be an early test vote: the key is to pick what it is and win it. It's likely to be obscure—the election of a temporary chairman, say—or contrived. But it will establish who's in charge. The Credentials Committee inevitably becomes the arena where the nominee is settled. This time, the issue will be Michigan and Florida. Democratic Party rules say they can't be seated at the convention because their primaries were held too early. If Democrats don't find a way to seat Michigan and Florida that's acceptable to both Clinton and Obama, the Credentials Committee will become a war zone and the states' 44 electoral votes put at risk. And don't forget the Arrangements Committee. Being able to decide what delegation sits where, who stays in which hotel, and who's able to get a pass to the gallery can help set the mood and tone of the delegates. Put your best delegations where they can hoot and holler for the cameras. Friends? Nice hotel near the convention center. Unfriendly delegation? How about that comfy Motel 6 near the airport? Be wary of overkill, though. Remember, the losers and their supporters are looking to play the victim. In 1912 the heavy-handed rule of the Taft forces gave the loser the excuse he needed to walk out with his delegates to lead a third-party bid. And while Theodore Roosevelt didn't win, he doomed Taft's re-election. Rule #2: Watch the Platform. Party platforms were once the most important statement of the presidential campaign. No more. But they can still get you in trouble with your own party, or with the public. Put your best policy nerds on this—but make certain they have some charming pols and crafty negotiators along as well. You'll need to make compromises—sometimes to smooth hurt feelings, as Carter did in the negotiations with the Kennedy forces in 1980, feeling certain changes wouldn't make a real difference but would help heal deep wounds. Other times, nominees agree to make platform changes because they've sewn up the nomination but can't prevail in this particular fight. This was the case for President Ford in the 1976 GOP battles over the foreign-policy plank. And sometimes a platform battle is useful for a candidate and his party. At the 1948 Democratic convention, for example, Southern Dixiecrats were already angry with Harry Truman, who was on his way to winning the nomination. Then the young mayor of Minneapolis, Hubert Humphrey, staged a floor fight to pass a plank on civil rights rejected by the Platform Committee. By winning this battle, Humphrey gave the Dixiecrats the excuse they were looking for to bolt the party and nominate Strom Thurmond. But it also gave Truman an issue that allowed him to win Northern blacks and moderates who might otherwise have voted for Dewey. The platform fight changed and modernized the Democratic Party while retaining the loyalty of the Solid South for another 16 years. Rule #3: It's All About Delegates. Delegates are political junkies. This is their moment in the spotlight. Don't take them for granted. Make every effort to attend to their every legitimate (and legal) need. By now your campaign should have a massive set of binders with information on every delegate—their birthday, pet peeves, hobbies and interests. If not, get them started. Have whips for state delegations and deputy whips for groups within each delegation. Have them live, eat, drink and socialize with their charges. And have a fast, nimble system in place to report any concerns, because in a close contest, small groups of delegates matter. In the 1952 GOP contest, Eisenhower received critical support from the 19 delegates pledged to Minnesota's Harold Stassen, then in his second of ultimately nine presidential bids. The 26 delegates committed to John Edwards may be critical to this year's outcome. Also, make certain your convention team can communicate instantly and make rapid decisions. At the 1976 GOP convention, the Ford teams covering the floor felt tremors from the Mississippi delegates, who were dissatisfied over Reagan's VP choice. Ford's people persuaded Mississippi to drop its winner-takes-all rule, giving Ford a healthy minority of the state's votes and a big dollop of momentum. Rule #4: Have a Strategy to Win. Whatever combination of endorsements, announcements, policy statements and stagecraft you can engineer to create a sense of momentum going into the convention, do it. Nelson Polsby, one of the great scholars of conventions, wrote that delegates "behave in a way that will maximize their political power … Delegates will trade their votes for access to the candidate they think most likely to win nomination." So create the appearance of a bandwagon for your candidate and invite uncommitted superdelegates to climb aboard. But don't do things that make it more difficult for your candidate. Behind and looking for a way to shake things up in 1976, Ronald Reagan took a gamble and named his running mate a few weeks before the convention. Sen. Richard Schweicker, a Pennsylvania moderate, did give Reagan a few more votes in the Keystone State delegation. But his selection unsettled conservative delegates (hence his Mississippi setback). In addition, save some surprises—and hold back some votes. You want to have positive news each day of the convention, especially the day of the vote. In 1940, Sam Pryor, a master operator and supporter of Wendell Willkie, carefully salted away supporters in the camps of other candidates, including his principal opponents. Then he carefully moved just enough of them into the Willkie column so he rose on each ballot while his competitors fell. It helped that the delegates were hidden in states well down the roll call like Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York. And it especially helped Willkie that he appeared to pull votes from his principal competitors. Since this year's convention is likely to take only one ballot, keep some superdelegates ready to pop out just before and during the convention. Rule #5: Focus on Staging. Conventions are elaborate made-for-TV productions. We live in a culture of the visual. Every moment and every event should be scripted. The media will complain about it, but think through what messages you want and when you want them. This script must be visually powerful and interesting enough to keep the cameras on your candidate and not somewhere else. Make the spectacle personal. The Al and Tipper Gore kiss, for instance, did him a lot of good. And be sure to provide fresh content all the time. In the era of cable TV, talk radio, the blogosphere and YouTube, someone is watching and talking all the time. If you're not pressing content into all available channels, someone else will. National political conventions are equal parts carnival, prime-time soap opera, policy lecture and weeklong party. They are easy to caricature and increasingly anachronistic. But they have been an important element of the liturgy of democracy. And while in recent decades conventions have become antiseptic, predictable and largely ignored by the national press, this year, for the Democrats, could be different. Of course, after June, one candidate could blink and step aside. But if only a few delegates separate the two candidates and there are enough uncommitted superdelegates and Michigan and Florida are not resolved, well, to the dismay of Democrats, Denver could be the scene of real drama, horse trading and arm-twisting. For political junkies, conventions are always worth watching. It could be doubly so this year. Rove, former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for President Bush, is a NEWSWEEK contributor. He has attended nine GOP conventions. >LINK<

Last edited by Q5echo on Mar-30-2008 at 21:07

Pelosi has come out and said this thing will be over in June, period.

The uncommitted superdelegates remaining are chickenshits, granted, but the pressure from Reid, Pelosi, Dean, the DNC, and the rest of the Democratic party will be felt long before the convention.

It's a terrific story trumped up by Newsmax, Faux News, Limbaugh, and all the GOP's men wanting to see nothing but the Dems bloody themselves. If I were in their positions I'd want to see the same thing as well - it gives their boy McCain a much greater chance of winning as a consequence. So it's not that I don't blame them for pushing this line of bullshit, but rest assured it's only that - bullshit. This won't go past mid-June, despite the ignorance and unwillingness of the Clinton regime.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

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Top 10 Myths Keeping Hillary in the Race I have noted a number of myths amongst the comments here as to why Hillary should stay in the race. Here are ten enduring, kudzu-like myths, with the debunking they sorely need. Myth: This race is tied. No, actually, it's not. Obama has the lead in number of states won, in pledged delegates and in overall delegates. Nothing will happen in the remaining primaries to substantially change that. As to the one thing Hillary does lead in, superdelegates, her quickly shrinking margin is among DNC personnel only. When you look at the elected superdelegates, Congressman, Senators and Governors (i.e. people who actually work with both Obama and Clinton) Obama leads there, too. Myth: Okay, the popular vote is tied. There are people who claim that because of the 3% separation, that Obama's lead in the popular vote is a "statistical tie." This is a myth because, when you can actually count things, there's no need of statistics and no such thing as a margin of error. The popular vote is not an estimate based on a sampling, like a poll. Like the general election, there are winners and losers and, so far, Obama is the winner. Myth: Fine, but what if we count electoral votes? NOW Hillary is ahead! Not so much. The proportions of electoral votes to population versus delegates to population are pretty comparable. So if you allocated electors proportionally in the same manner that you allocate delegates, Obama is still ahead. If you allocate them on a winner-take-all basis, then that would be the same as allocating the delegates on a winner-take-all basis, so why bring electors into it? Myth: But if we did do it like the Electoral College, that proves Hillary is more electable than Obama, because of states like California. This is perhaps the saddest little myth of all. It's ridiculous to suggest that Obama will lose New York and California to McCain because Clinton won them in the primaries. No, come November, those states will join with Obama's Illinois to provide 40% of the electors necessary for him to win. Myth: Very well, then, Mr. Smarty-Math. But if we counted Michigan and Florida, THEN Hillary would be winning! Nooo, she wouldn't. The margin would depend on how you allocate the delegates, but Obama would still be ahead. And he'd still be about 100,000 ahead in the popular vote, too, despite not even being on the ballot in Michigan. However, it would enhance Hillary's chances of catching up in the remaining races. Myth: Ah HA! So Dean is keeping them out just to help Obama! And Obama is keeping them out. That's two myths, but I'll treat it like one. The only people who can come up with a solution to this problem are the states themselves, to be presented to the Rules and Regulations Committee of the DNC for ratification. It was Rules and Regs, not Howard Dean, who ruled that Florida and Michigan were breaking the rules when they presented their original primary plans. If the two states cannot come up with a plan to reselect delegates, they can try to seat whatever delegates were chosen in the discounted primaries by appealing to the Democratic Convention's Credentialing Committee, which includes many members from Rules and Bylaws. Myth: If they don't get seated until the convention but a nominee is selected before these poor people get counted then these states are disenfranchised. There are two ways to debunk this myth: semantically and practically. The first is based on the word "disenfranchised:" these people have not been deprived of their right to vote. Through the actions of their states, their votes don't impact the outcome. Now, you may say that that is specious semantics (Myth: I do say that!) but practically speaking, this is the usual effect of the nominating process, anyway. All of the Republican primaries since McCain clinched the nomination have been meaningless, but those voters are not disenfranchised. Florida and Michigan tried to become more relevant in the process by breaking the rules. They risked becoming irrelevant instead. Myth: Well, I say they are disenfranchised, and Hillary Clinton is their champion. Only when it suits her. Last fall, when the decision was first made to flush 100% of Michigan and Florida delegates, Clinton firmly ratified it. That was because the typical punishment of only 50% representation also kept the candidates from raising money in those states. Figuring that she would wrap up the nomination handily anyway, the clear front-runner agreed with all the other candidates - including Obama - to completely "disenfranchise" those two states. Myth: Well, never mind 2007. She's doing more now to bring them in. Not really. Recent stories in the St. Petersburg Times political blog said that 1) the Obama camp has reached out to the Florida Democratic party about a compromise and that 2) the Clinton camp will discuss nothing else but re-votes, which are legally, practically and politically dead. Myth: Whatever! Hillary can still win! I know she can! She and her 37% positive rating will sweep through the remaining primaries and Michigan and Florida, winning 70% of everything and superdelegates will flock to her banner and Barack Obama will personally nominate her at the Convention and John McCain will give up and George Bush will even quit early so she can take over and... and... and... can I have a glass of water? Yes, and you should lie down, too. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chip-...ll_b_94207.html