Still Hill
If I were a Democratic-Party superdelegate, man, that would funny. But I’d want Hillary Clinton to stay in the race through the Pennsylvania primary, and I’d put the onus on Barack Obama to win it. If he didn’t win Pennsylvania outright, I’d expect to throw my weight behind Clinton.
You could say this is because I’m accepting Clintonesque spin. Fair enough! But I would indeed look at the big states, and say, "Toss out New York, Illinois and even New Jersey for home-field advantage reasons. Toss out Florida and Michigan because of the rules mess. That leaves California, Texas and Ohio as the major big-state contests and Hillary won all of them. Two of those are states Democrats will have to carry in the fall and so is Pennsylvania."
Add to that the following worry, about campaign time scales. We may have seen:
* In a very short campaign window, Hillary’s name recognition and establishment support trump. (NH and some Super Tuesday states.)
* In a "honeymoon-length" campaign window, the Obama campaign has time to work its magic – the rousing speeches; the grass-roots mojo – and generate a peak of enthusiasm that pays off at the polls. (South Carolina; the Potomac Primary et al).
* In a "marriage-length" campaign window, the Obama campaign has time to work its magic, then the magic has time to work off. That may be what we saw in the interminable two weeks between Wisconsin/Hawaii and Texas/Ohio. In particular, Obama’s failure to win Texas after at least a brief time even or leading in the polls, and his lopsided loss in Ohio, would scare me.
The general-election campaign will be marriage-length. By November, America will have a chance to be heartily sick of both major-party contestants. So I want to know Obama has staying power. Pennsylvania should provide a great test of this. Let the yinzers and Iggles fans and hicks endure both candidates for six weeks. See if Obama’s appeal endures. If it does, he’s your guy. If not, and you’re an organization Dem, you really have to be leery of giving him the nod. If he can’t overcome Sekrit Muslim Communist Agent smears and pseudocontrarian jibes about cultism in the primary of the somewhat liberal party, how is he going to beat the same tactics in the general election?
In real life, I spend all my spare time worrying how I’m going to explain my genuine preference for Obama over Hill or McCain to IOZ. But in the dreary fantasy life where I’m a Dem superdelegate (as opposed to, oh, Daredevil), the above is what I’m thinking.
Comment by Monte Davis —
March 5, 2008 @ 8:30 am
Let the yinzers and Iggles fans and hicks endure…
I’m in PA, and this morning the Clinton campaign brought two Sausage McMuffins to my door. Then the Obama shuttle bus (reclining seats, big plasma screen) pulled up to take me to work.
“Endure”..? I’m loving it.
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
March 5, 2008 @ 8:35 am
What does one’s ability to carry a state in a Democratic primary say about one’s ability to carry a state in a general election? Nothing at all. Clinton got a narrow win in Texas last night; does anyone think she can win in Texas in November? For that matter, do you honestly believe that the fact that Democratic primary voters in California preferred Clinton to Obama on February 5th means that Obama wouldn’t be able to win California while running against John McCain in November? Please. This is apples to oranges stuff.
If I were a Dem superdelegate, I’d be falling behind Obama and trying to get as many other supers to come along with me, because the math simply isn’t with Clinton on this one – not on her ability to win the nomination (she still has to win, what, 65% of the remaining pledged delegates?), and not on the general-election matchup polling against McCain, in which Obama consistently does better than Clinton. At some point you have to go with the guy who’s won more rounds, won more votes, won more delegates, raised more money, and has been a better overall campaigner.
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
March 5, 2008 @ 9:15 am
So, so wrong. Democrats that voted for HRC yesterday will vote for Obama come November (or Obama voters for HRC). That there is a split among Redskin fans about the greatest Redskin doesn’t actually mean any of them are potential Cowboy fans. (And the idea of leaving it all up to “Alabama in-between”? Ha! Not in this life or the next.)
Gawd, do I not want eight more years of Clintonites, with that sweet stink of corruption, in charge of Democratic party. After twenty four years at the lead, the Clintons’ legacy will extend long past the end of HRC’s second term. And that legacy, while it will have good points, will be one of complicity, willing or unwilling, with Southern Conservatives.
Gawddamit. Just once in my life, I’d like to see the North win one.
Comment by larrym —
March 5, 2008 @ 9:22 am
Eh, it’s easy to justify a reluctant vote for Obama over Clinto. Dude, IOZ is a smart guy, but he is a bully, and his notion that it is morally unacceptable to choose the lesser of two evils doesn’t stand up to logical analysis. (Note that I think that abstention under such circumstance is an equally valid response. IOZ’s problem isn’t that there is anything wrong with arguing for abstention, the problem is in arguing that it is the only morally valid option).
But on the substance of your post. While there is a certain logic to it, given the fact that Clinton can’t catch up in the pledged delegate count, and thus a Clinton victory would tear apart the Democratic party, your position is ultimately mistaken.
Comment by IOZ —
March 5, 2008 @ 9:23 am
All is lost!
This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me;
My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder
They cast their caps up and carouse together
Like friends long lost. Triple-turn’d whore! ’tis thou
Hast sold me to this novice, and my heart
Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
For when I am reveng’d upon my charm,
I have done all. Bid them all fly; be gone!
Comment by Barry —
March 5, 2008 @ 10:35 am
I second larrym. I’ve seen a tendency for some libertarians to retreat into an FTW attitude; they’d probably get along well with the remaining Greens in chorus whine of “life’s sooooo unFAIR!”.
In a certain sense that’s logical – you or I are not going to alter the political arrangements of the USA. But there’s a point where somebody like that becomes (to be crude) a whiny b*tch, and I for one don’t need any more of those in my life.
Comment by IOZ —
March 5, 2008 @ 10:38 am
On a less lyric note, do you really believe, Barry, that American electoral politics constitutes “the world”?
Comment by Leonard —
March 5, 2008 @ 10:39 am
Actually that’s my notion. I don’t see IOZ over here arguing it ad naseum, only me. (I’m sure IOZ has better things to do, namely, write his excellent libertarian snark blog.) As for it being non logical, well, says you. Look where your strategy has got us — President G. W. Bush.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 5, 2008 @ 11:14 am
This is complicated. Hillary Clinton doesn’t have to win 65% of the remaining delegates to win. She has to win enough to stop Obama’s momentum (including fundraising momentum) so that he drops out, and then the delegates will come in subsequent primaries. Look at the way that McCain effectively won as soon as his strongest opponents dropped out, even though he didn’t formally secure enough delegates until last night.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that the strength differential between Obama and Clinton is enough that he can be slowed.
And, like others said, winning primaries in big states doesn’t say much about the fall. Although I will grant that winning a primary in PA or OH means more for the fall than winning a primary in TX or CA. We already know what will happen in TX and CA this fall. Nothing plausible can change that. We don’t know what will happen in OH or PA, and so I guess that the ability to organize there and resonate matters.
Comment by larrym —
March 5, 2008 @ 11:23 am
Leonard,
He does make that argument on his blog on a pretty regular basis, as you well know (his blog does contain some great stuff; the fact that he is a bully and wrong on one point doesn’t negate the fact that he is a good writer, great at snark and right on a hell of a lot).
On the larger point, I have no particular desire to re-fight that issue again. My point is a minimal one – I respect people who abstain or vote for third parties; you and IOZ should respect people who, say, vote for Obama out of a genuine belief that, as much as he supports the hegemonic project, he would be a bit less likely to start more wars. I mean, I don’t expect you or IOZ to AGREE with that point of view, just to respect it.
Comment by Mike Kozlowski —
March 5, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Thoreau, the other guys dropped out of the Republican race because they would have had to win a ridiculous super-majority level of delegates going forward, and hadn’t demonstrated any past ability to get close to that level. Obama has to win a minority of delegates going forward, and has won a majority so far. For Clinton to put Obama in a same “drop out now” position, she’d have to win some big primaries with 90%.
Comment by IOZ —
March 5, 2008 @ 11:34 am
[Y]ou and IOZ should respect people who, say, vote for Obama out of a genuine belief that, as much as he supports the hegemonic project, he would be a bit less likely to start more wars. I mean, I don’t expect you or IOZ to AGREE with that point of view, just to respect it.
The genuineness of a belief has no bearing on its rightness, you know. My complaint about the dudes and dudettes who vote in such a way isn’t that they’re bad, but that they’re wrong.
Comment by Derek Copold —
March 5, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
What Thoreau said in his last paragraph. Obama looks weak in the general because of his losing states like OH, not TX or CA, where the Nov results are pretty much foreordained. He did win MI, but just barely. If he can’t win PA, it will look grim, and number notwithstanding, you can see how a superdelegate might be tempted to throw in with Clinton.
Comment by Fledermaus —
March 5, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
If he can’t overcome Sekrit Muslim Communist Agent smears and pseudocontrarian jibes about cultism in the primary of the somewhat liberal party, how is he going to beat the same tactics in the general election?
I agree to a certain extent. But the right’s been keeping their powder dry on HRC for the most part. FOX et al know that McCain v. HRC is the best of both worlds as HRC will give them at least 4 years of ratings gold and keep that wingnut welfare flowin’
But I stongly believe HRC loses to McCain. Part because of the experience thing and part because of the coming ‘you’re voting for a woman, and HRC at that? What kinda a man are you?’ whispering campaign.
Comment by H-Bob —
March 5, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
If I were a superdelegate, I would treat the six months until the convention as each candidate’s audition as the nominee !
—Potshots against each other don’t count !
—They need to demonstrate their effectiveness at running against McCain!
—They need to set up the GOTV plans, the ad campaigns, etc., since the two months after the conventions will be insufficient.
Comment by moocat —
March 5, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
Two points:
1) Re: the original post:
Hold on a sec there, pardner, that’s only part of the story. Like many thousands of my fellow Texans, I voted in TWO contests down here — a primary & a caucus. With 99% of the primary vote in, HRC appears to have won, by 3 points, 51% – 48%. We are still counting the caucus vote, and with 36% of that vote in so far, O leads HRC by 4 points, 52% – 48%.
It remains possible, if not likely, that Obama will get more delegates out of Texas than Clinton does.
But then again, I suppose that depends on what your definition of “win” is…
2) Re: comment by SomeCallMeTim (emphasis, mine):
Uh, I wouldnt’t count on that parenthetical part. I for one am one O supporter who would most decidedly NOT support the Democratic candidate for the presidency if it is not Barack Obama. The scars in my back from the first Billary administration are still fresh. There’s no way in hell I’m going to make that same “lesser of two evils” mistake again.
I’d probably vote Nader if at all.
Comment by Nell —
March 5, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
Derek C.: [Obama] did win MI, but just barely.
Did you mean Missouri (MO)? Because HRC ‘won’ Michigan by being the only one on the ballot.
Comment by Nell —
March 5, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
Delegate math or no delegate math, Jim has a point about the need to see a candidate survive and thrive after a setback. Obama has a sizable Appalachian-American problem.
Some of that is immovable, and will mean a little loss of votes to the white guy in November. Some of the problem was self-created. If I were David Axelrod I’d have fired Austan Goolsbee last week, and not quietly, either. Nobody is allowed to be a loose cannon on even a Congressional campaign, much less when the stakes are this high and the actions so public to the nation and world.
Comment by Jim Henley —
March 5, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
Right, Nell. Goolsbee could always be REhired later. Happens all the time.
Comment by Derek Copold —
March 5, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
Did you mean Missouri (MO)? Because HRC ‘won’ Michigan by being the only one on the ballot.
Yes, I meant Missouri and let my synapses misfire. Thx, Nell.
Comment by Nell —
March 5, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
Jim: Goolsbee could always be REhired later.
Man, you are one cynical superdelegate! ;>
Comment by bdr —
March 5, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
Who sent Goolsbee to Canada?
There were at least two goofs re: NAFTA screw-up – the leak and the visit in the first place.
Maybe it happens all the time with serious nomination campaigns, but fairly or unfairly, Obama needed to avoid looking like he’d assumed he’d won for appearances sake alone, and getting caught presuming to talk to a foreign gov’t doubly compounded what he allegedly was talking about.
Beyond that whole “uppity” thing, he lost his veneer of difference. Now he’s just another politician.
He never was different, and he’d have caught out eventually, but it was in his interest not to get there until after Texas and Ohio.
Which on a cynical level calls into question his ability and skills as just another shitty politician.
Comment by Barry —
March 5, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
Comment by IOZ —
March 5, 2008 @ 10:38 am
“On a less lyric note, do you really believe, Barry, that American electoral politics constitutes “the worldâ€? ”
Whatever.
Comment by mds —
March 5, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
That’s Mr. Henley’s superdelegate power.
No one. I believe the meeting was in Chicago. And though it was a tone-deaf move,
isn’t really all that devastating. Yet this was apparently a fatal blow to someone whose opponent is running on the political legacy of the President who gave us NAFTA to begin with. Life is strange, sometimes. Life is also unfair, and Goolsbee still needs to fall on his sword for this, since he should have suspected that George W. Bush’s boytoy Harper would run with it.
Comment by William Burns —
March 5, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
I want to hear more about the adventures of Jim Henley, Man without Fear.
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator —
March 5, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
NASA’s popularity rises as vote nears…
In the countdown to Tuesday’s Texas primary, the candidates still in the race are positioning themse…
Comment by KCinDC —
March 5, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
You think her hope is that Obama will drop out while he’s ahead in delegates? Surely that’s even more delusional than hoping that she’ll catch up.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 5, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
To be entirely trivial, why Daredevil? He’s one of my favorite characters, but I’m not at all sure I’d ever want to be him… leaving aside the fact that he’s blind (and perhaps the argument about whether his other super senses make up for his lack of vision, or even surpass a normal visual experience), he’s got spectacularly crappy taste/luck in women, plus, apparently, he looks a lot like Ben Affleck. No. Do not want.
I guess if I had to pick a hero to be from the Marvel Universe (which would mean I couldn’t be Hal Jordan or Barry Allen, both of whom rock a bit harder than anyone at the MU in terms of personal wish fulfillment) I guess I’d be… hrm… Hank Pym. Or Reed Richards. Or maybe Stephen Strange. Somebody smart, whose powers derive primarily out of their intellectual capacities. (Not Tony Stark, though; that bad heart gives me the willies.)
So, was DD just a random toss off, or is he really The Superhero You’d Like To Be, Assuming You Can’t Be One You Make Up Yourself?
Comment by Jim Henley —
March 5, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
Oh I’ve wanted to be most of them from time to time, though not recently. But I did used to want to be Daredevil, if not Matt Murdock. Of course, when I was a preteen, one of my big fantasies was that I might go blind. I thought that would be awesome. I’d be like Longstreet, or Jimmy in Follow My Leader. I’d have a cool dog.
Eventually I realized it made sense to just get the dog.
Comment by Leonard —
March 5, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
have dog and eyes to see… perhaps the new site motto.
Comment by Gary Farber —
March 5, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
“That leaves California, Texas and Ohio as the major big-state contests and Hillary won all of them. Two of those are states Democrats will have to carry in the fall and so is Pennsylvania.”
I don’t follow why you think that who wins or loses in a primary or caucus is relevant to whether they can win in a general election.
Seeing there are thirty comments already, I’m betting at least four have already made this point, before I read them.
Thoreau: “She has to win enough to stop Obama’s momentum (including fundraising momentum) so that he drops out, and then the delegates will come in subsequent primaries.”
Um, that bears no relationship to reality. Why on earth would he “drop out” when it isn’t possible for Clinton to get enough delegates “in subsequent primaries.” Do the delegate count: what combination of states can you get her to the nomination with?
“Look at the way that McCain effectively won as soon as his strongest opponents dropped out, even though he didn’t formally secure enough delegates until last night.”
Except that Clinton is in Huckabee’s position, mathematically, not McCain’s. Other than that, you’re right.
Comment by Gary Farber —
March 5, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
“I guess if I had to pick a hero to be from the Marvel Universe (which would mean I couldn’t be Hal Jordan or Barry Allen,”
Major dating that you’ve not been reading comics for a couple of decades. But weren’t reading them in the Forties, either.
“(Not Tony Stark, though; that bad heart gives me the willies.)”
Ditto that that got cured decades ago.
Of course, then he got new problems. (Failing nervous system, alcoholism, turning into a fascist….)
“Eventually I realized it made sense to just get the dog.”
It’s insights like these that have made Jim essential reading for so many years.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 6, 2008 @ 6:27 am
Major dating that you’ve not been reading comics for a couple of decades. But weren’t reading them in the Forties, either.
I gave up for good and all a little over a year ago, after 52 wrapped up so badly. Gave up on the MU a bit before that, when CIVIL WAR hit the stands. So I know Barry is ‘dead’ and Hal, while alive again, is despised by the Corps and (much worse, to me) back on active duty in the Air Force (and dating someone named Cowgirl, jesus!).
And, yeah, I’m vaguely aware of the various crap Tony Stark has been put through over the past several decades. I just think ‘weak heart’ sums it all up pretty well. The guy who can’t take his armor off without dying… that was a pretty cool idea. Didn’t make me want to be him, though.
Both Hal and Barry seem to me to be some zenith of coolness, although, in point of fact, I’m more a Marvel than a DC fan. And I like the idea of being smart enough to build my own superpowers.
And… fantasizing about going blind strikes me as pretty deeply weird stuff.
Comment by soullite —
March 6, 2008 @ 1:49 pm
You think Hillary can win this election without the votes of black Americans?
That’s essentially what you’re saying is going to happen here. You weigh all of the positives of Hillary, without adding the obvious downside if she does get the nomination the only way she can now.
This is what would happen: Hillary wins with super delegates while still being behind in pledged delegates. Blacks see this as a white conspiracy to prevent the first black nominee. 20-50% of them stay home rather than voting for Hillary. Without an overwhelming majority of those votes, Democrats will no longer be able to win Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, or Maryland. Without those states, the Democratic party has absolutely no path to the White House.
Comment by Gary Farber —
March 6, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
“I’m more a Marvel than a DC fan.”
I’d have to write a small essay to reply in kind. Come to think of it, I never have, probably, I guess, because it’s so perfectly clear to me, and, hey, nobody ever actually asked me.
But my short version would be that my answer varies by which few years we’d talk about. (And limited by my rather erratic ability to read various periods, as well.) And that I’m fond of lots of stuff from both companies, over various eras. And that although DC’s early Sixties stuff might be arguably “worse” by many standards than any other era, I’m fond enough of its Mort Weisinger weirdness to think that almost certainly the depth of comics mediocrity was hit by Marvel somewhere between 1980 and 1995, or so, despite a moderate amount of fun stuff as well.
But I’m really pretty damn pathetically sporadic and limited in what I know.
But, still, inclined to think of all the variant super-speedsters, members of the GL Corps, etc.
Bottom line is that both companies were essential parts of my single-digit childhood.
Comment by Kip W —
March 18, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
…fantasizing about going blind strikes me as pretty deeply weird stuff.