More evidence of the power of the 50-state strategy:

quote:

•In the U.S. Senate race in Kansas, two-term incumbent Republican Pat Roberts said he raised $522,024 in the year’s first quarter and had about $3 million on hand. Democrat Jim Slattery raised $288,000 in the 12 days he had to raise money in the quarter after he filed paperwork on March 19. .....Fellow Republican Jim Ryun, the former congressman from the district who lost the seat in 2006, said he raised $247,000, giving him $461,000 on hand. Democratic incumbent Nancy Boyda said she raised $220,000 during the quarter with $812,000 cash on hand. http://www.kansascity.com/news/poli...ory/577922.html

You see, THIS is why this is so significant. I remember full well how my Rep. Boyda was trailing the huge Republican incumbent, Jim Ryun, by all marks, but continued to collect $ and became more and more competitive with him in a clearly red state where Ryun had the luxury of winning fairly easily over the years. Had the grassrooters not paid attention to her, she would have lost pretty handily.

And yet with enough $, enough attention by the DNC to my district, and enough drive and determination by Boyda and us supporters, she pulled off what many consider one of the most suprising upsets in the 2006 campaign.

And now we've got yet another major contender with Jim Slattery in play going against the powerful incumbent for the U.S. Senate seat, Pat Roberts.

That's why I support the strategy. That's why I devote my volunteer time and money to Slattery, Boyda, and Obama, even while I'm on a clinical rotation and studying for my Board exam.

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

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 You still seem to be dodging the one big question: if she has mathematically little chance of catching Obama in the delegate count, shy of the supers turning en masse against the electorate, why is she still here?

Okay, well read this:

quote:

One thing many people haven't noticed about Hillary Clinton's 55 percent to 45 percent victory over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary is that it put her ahead of Obama in the popular vote. Her 214,000-vote margin in the Keystone State means that she has won the votes, in primaries and caucuses, of 15,112,000 Americans, compared to 14,993,000 for Obama. If you add in the votes, as estimated by the folks at realclearpolitics.com, in the Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine caucuses, where state Democratic parties did not count the number of caucus-attenders, Clinton still has a lead of 12,000 votes. Moreover, she may be able to maintain that lead, despite an expected Obama victory in North Carolina on May 6, by rolling up big popular vote margins in West Virginia on May 13, Kentucky on May 20 and Puerto Rico on June 1. So it's likely that Clinton will be able to argue that undecided super-delegates should heed the will of the people. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...clinton_an.html

Okay, now, I'll be the first person to agree to the reality that popular vote does not really matter in an election. It simply doesn't, there's no other way for me to say it does. Let's make the obvious assumption that Obama still remains ahead in the delegate count further down the road. Many of you (in this thread even) are saying that she can't win unless she gets bigger numbers from the superdelegates, thus (according to some of the commenters in this thread, I don't remember who), undermining the delegate count and "going against the will of the people." Well, the popular vote, I think, more clearly shows the will of the people. The delegate and electoral college system itself is something our country put in place to slightly undercut the importance of the popular vote. No disagreement here, just yet. However, the SUPERDELEGATE system is just another extra piece of the puzzle put by our country to slight undercut the importance of the delegate system. So, assuming Clinton comes up slightly on top with popular vote at the end, but short on delegates, who's to say that it's impossible that some (or many, who knows) superdelegates WILL go by the will of the people and narrowly make Clinton the candidate? I sure as hell can't say this will happen for sure, nobody knows. But that's the point; being that this is all a possibility, put yourself in Clinton's shoes, would you step down? I repeat (for those in the back), this is not me saying THIS IS ALL GOING TO HAPPEN. This is me saying, this is a possibility. It's not our democratic duty to drop everything we're doing and support Obama. It's our democratic duty to let the systems (which we may hate) of how people are elected, go to work.

___________________
http://thesoundofeco.com

BTW, a bit off topic, but wanted to give you a big congrats:

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...d=&pagenumber=1

I've fallen off the trance tract a bit myself over the past couple of years, but every now and then I come around and listen to a notable trance set. Still contemplating on seeing Tiesto in a month here in KC.......

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

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 To me Hillary represents the same ol’ triangulation/strangulation strategy and the horrible DLC-beltway consultant bullshit that’s gotten us into so much of a losing battle for both the Congress and the Presidency.

Just to address your disagreement with the effectiveness of the "triangulation strategy", here's some things to keep in mind with Obama's strength in the other states, his "50-state trategy". It's from the same article as my earlier reply.

quote:

There are states where Obama runs stronger than Clinton. They include most of the West -- notably Colorado, a state Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004 but which has trended their way since. They include states in the Upper Midwest, like Minnesota, and New England states like Connecticut and New Hampshire, which Democrats won in 2004 but where Clinton seems weak. But Clinton seems to run stronger than Obama in the industrial (or formerly industrial) belt, running west from New Jersey through Pennsylvania and Ohio to Michigan and Missouri. Obama's weakness among white working-class voters in the primaries here suggests he is poorly positioned to win votes he will need to carry these states in November. This is not a minor problem -- we're talking about 84 electoral votes. Obama has also fared poorly among Latino and Jewish voters in every primary held so far. This is of consequence most notably in Florida, which has 27 electoral votes. In 2000, Al Gore won 67 percent of the vote in Broward County and 62 percent in Palm Beach County -- both have large Jewish populations. In this year's Florida primary, Obama lost those counties to Clinton by 57 percent to 33 percent and 61 percent to 27 percent. No Democrat can carry Florida without big margins in Broward and Palm Beach. Obama's weakness among Latinos and Jews could conceivably put California's 55 electoral votes in play. Los Angeles County delivered an 831,000 vote plurality for John Kerry in 2004. Most of that plurality came from areas with large numbers of Latinos and Jews. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...clinton_an.html

With all this being said, I respect you for the other reasons you support the 50-state strategy. However, I simply don't agree and believe in it. I will admit that maybe, it's because where I live that I don't really benefit from the 50-state strategy within the states that you have mentioned, I'll admit that. That maybe why I'm not so supportive of it. A bit selfish, yes, I know. However, I never really looked at the implications of the 50-state strategy, and am glad you've brought them up, as I haven't really heard about any of that.

___________________
http://thesoundofeco.com

Last edited by DJ Eco on Apr-26-2008 at 20:00

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 BTW, a bit off topic, but wanted to give you a big congrats: http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...d=&pagenumber=1 I've fallen off the trance tract a bit myself over the past couple of years, but every now and then I come around and listen to a notable trance set. Still contemplating on seeing Tiesto in a month here in KC.......

Thank you man! And to stay off topic a slight little bit more (hehe back to something you said earlier), I too was a Dodd supporter. When he dropped out my whole family scrambled for who to support. My brother and I went for Obama while my parents went for Clinton. However, as Super Tuesday got closer, I did more research and decided I would go for Clinton here on Super Tuesday. From the get-go, I've said that we are lucky to have two great candidates (relatively speaking) to choose from. They're not my favorites, but it could be worse. None of my replies are trying to change anyone's mind about their favorite candidate. I simply feel like there is no reason she should drop out. That's mine and many people's opinions, as is the opposite argument as well. Now, continuing on with the discussion... haha....

___________________
http://thesoundofeco.com

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Eco Okay, well read this: Okay, now, I'll be the first person to agree to the reality that popular vote does not really matter in an election. It simply doesn't, there's no other way for me to say it does. Let's make the obvious assumption that Obama still remains ahead in the delegate count further down the road. Many of you (in this thread even) are saying that she can't win unless she gets bigger numbers from the superdelegates, thus (according to some of the commenters in this thread, I don't remember who), undermining the delegate count and "going against the will of the people." Well, the popular vote, I think, more clearly shows the will of the people. The delegate and electoral college system itself is something our country put in place to slightly undercut the importance of the popular vote. No disagreement here, just yet. However, the SUPERDELEGATE system is just another extra piece of the puzzle put by our country to slight undercut the importance of the delegate system. So, assuming Clinton comes up slightly on top with popular vote at the end, but short on delegates, who's to say that it's impossible that some (or many, who knows) superdelegates WILL go by the will of the people and narrowly make Clinton the candidate? I sure as hell can't say this will happen for sure, nobody knows. But that's the point; being that this is all a possibility, put yourself in Clinton's shoes, would you step down? I repeat (for those in the back), this is not me saying THIS IS ALL GOING TO HAPPEN. This is me saying, this is a possibility. It's not our democratic duty to drop everything we're doing and support Obama. It's our democratic duty to let the systems (which we may hate) of how people are elected, go to work.

The first thought I had was I was wondering if Barone might be seemingly making a false comparison between counted vote tallies and estimated caucus goers, and then lumping them altogether. I recalled reading his blog back in early April where he initially made this projection:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/...gate-count.html

He took some rightful heat from it, and had to reply to the criticism:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/...pular-vote.html

I found this criticism in line with my thought on lumping in these caucuses you stated above:

quote:

The final four states--Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington--all held caucuses. But unlike Florida and Michigan, none of them even kept track of how many people voted for each candidate. (This is standard operating procedure in some caucuses, where delegates are awarded proportionally in thousands of precincts.) Wonks can devise equations to estimate the popular vote all they want, but mixing precise vote totals from other states with caucus approximations--which are, by definition, inaccurate--is mixing apples and oranges. Besides, thousands of voters in Iowa entered the caucuses intending to support Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich, but were forced to jump to Obama, Edwards or Clinton once their preferred candidate didn't reach the 15-percent viability threshold; in Nevada, the same thing happened to Edwards supporters. How can you possibly pretend to count people required to resort to their second choices? http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/...te-fallacy.aspx

And his update is also a bit revealing:

quote:

UPDATE: There's an even deeper inconsistency here: combining vote totals from primary states and caucus states (at least the ones that keep track) effectively underrepresents those caucus states simply because they chose to hold caucuses. I'll let reader "obholmen" make the point for me: Allow me to use my own state of MN as an example. Minnesota is a caucus state with results of 66-32% in favor of Obama which yielded an excess of caucus voters of 73,115 for Obama. This figure is included in the media created margin of approximately 700,000 for Obama. But, because turnout in Caucus states is considerably lower than in primary states (Clinton is right about that), the margin of victory is also held down. Neighboring Wisconsin has a similar sized electorate. If the same number of voters turned out for a Mn primary as in Wisconsin and if Obama had the same 66-32% majority, his voter margin would have been over 340,00 rather than merely 73,115. Or, if Obama carried a hypothetical Mn primary by the same pct as neighboring Wisconsin (58-41%), then Obama's popular vote margin would have been 190,000 instead of merely 73,115. Even if Obama's margin of victory would only have been 10%, his popular vote margin would have been 110,000 --- still considerably more than he is credited with when only including caucus margin of victory. Treating the vote totals in caucus states in the same category as primary vote totals significantly disadvantages the caucus states. Even though Mn's electorate size is comparable to Wisconsin, there were 5 times as many voters in the Wis primary as in the Mn caucus. This makes the Wisconsin primary 5 times more important than Mn even though the electorates are essentially equal. Another reason why it is a myth to suggest there is such a thing as a popular vote total. If the rules are unfair, change them but do so before the primary season not after. For this season, stick with the rules.

And BTW, Barone once again added Florida and Michigan in his vote tally:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...vote_count.html

which last I recall, Obama's name WASN'T EVEN ON THE MICHIGAN TICKET.

The tallies are what we have now for all the states that counted and played by the rules. Obama has a clear lead, and I cannot see a scenario with the remaining states (plus that ones that actually counted in the past) to which she would catch him in even this measure of popular votes.

Can you conceive one outside of trying to count approximated tallies on caucuses and two states, one in which Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot?

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

Speaking of associations with known terrorists:



Of course we should all take Hillary at her word that she had nothing to do with this.

Of course.

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

quote:

Originally posted by Groundhog Boy I seem to recall most of the assassinations in the last 50 years happening to members of the left.

right, by "members of the left"...with the exception of maybe James Earl Ray.

by and large though, it just takes a crazy person really.

one word, creepy

Just imagine the democratic machine when it gets behind Obama fully.

They will make him out to be a black JFK, mark my words, and McCain will eventually have another temper tantrum and call Obama a foul name "off camera" and then political correctness will win the election.

Aherm, well, at least that's what I HOPE will happen.

Also, can someone explain to me why McCain has such stiff arms? It's something I always notice when I see him on the news. Does he have a medical condition? 'Nam injuries? Fake robot arms?

___________________

Yes he was almost tortured to death after being shot down. He probably would have died if the Vietnamese hadn't found out his father was an Admiral.

___________________
I've never been able to eat a whole baby.
Kill the women. Eat the children.
It's just one of those days where you want to bend over everyone you know and kiss their ass goodbye with a big sideways boot.

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