Obama wins big in Nebraska, Washington, and Louisiana

February 9, 2008

Expectations were fairly high going into today that Barack Obama would do well in the first round of post-Super Tuesday contests, so there was certainly the possibility of a letdown. Would Obama be able to follow through?

It appears so.

* Nebraska caucuses — 24 pledged delegates available

With about 82% of the precincts reporting, most news outlets have already called the state for Obama, who is well ahead with 67.6% of the vote, as compared to Hillary Clinton’s 34.4%.

* Washington state caucuses — 78 pledged delegates available

What appeared going into the day as a competitive contest looks to be a blowout. With 57% of the precincts reporting, Obama leads Clinton, 67% to 32.1%. The networks called the state for Obama about a half-hour ago.

Results are just starting to come in from Louisiana; I’ll update the post in about an hour.

Update:

* Louisiana primary — 56 pledged delegates available

With about a third of the precincts reporting, Obama leads Clinton, 53.6% to 38%, and several networks have called the race for Obama, giving him a three-for-three day.

As far as I can tell, results from the Virgin Islands are not yet available.

If Obama keeps piling up 2-1 majorities in the rest of the states, might he be able to secure the nomination without super-delegates in a smoke-filled room?

Odds are good that Louisiana will also be one-sided for Obama.

  • If Obama goes 9-0 or 8-1 in Feb and then takes one of Ohio/Texas, it’s pretty much over, Okie. I’ve said it multiple times, but Hillary’s campaign is totally, unabashedly banking on winning both Ohio and Texas. If they don’t, they’re done, ala Rudy in Florida. They’re busy working behind the scenes to take Hawaii, going after Virginia, Wisconsin and Maine as well. Those are the 3 battle grounds and states to watch…if Obama wins all 3, all he has to do is win one of the big ones on March 4th

  • With these margins, it looks like tonight alone Obama will finally overcome the lead Hillary had with superdelegates, and he’ll do it with pledged delegates.

    Also, the exit polls from LA indicate an Obama win – a narrower win than in WA and NB, but a win nonetheless. No exact figures yet. The news reports indicate African Americans were about half the voters and he won 9/10 blacks, but 3/10 whites. No exact numbers yet.

  • Odds are good that Louisiana will also be one-sided for Obama.

    That was my original thought, but watching the early returns, I wonder if the Clinton ‘experience’ meme is in play. I’m thinking FEMA under Bush vs FEMA under Bill. I don’t know what Hillary has been campaigning on in LA, but it should have been a heavy dose of experience, competence and FEMA. Still, I’d be surprised if she won.

  • When does Pennsylvania hold its primary? And isn’t that one just as important as Texas or Ohio? Pennsylvania is part northeast, part southern, part midwest, rural, urban, industrial, agricultural, white collar, blue collar.. Wouldn’t that state tell us a lot of the candidates’ appeal?

  • Pennsylvania is April 22nd.. quite a distance from now.

    If it’s not settled by then, I’m taking my Delawarian butt up to Pennsylvania for a week to canvas for Obama.

  • Ha! Suck it. Suck it hard. Suck it long. But of course, I mean that in the nicest possible way.

    And yes, this was my mature response. You don’t want to see the other one.

  • A little perspective…

    Washington state holds both a caucus and a primary – I know, it’s weird. Typical participation in the Washington caucus is very low as a percentage of its approximatley 3.2 million registered voters – who do not register by party, so there’s no way to know how many identify as Democrats and how many as Republicans. With 71% of caucus votes in, there are a total of just over 24,000 votes cast. Some of the delegates will be awarded as a result of the caucus and some as a result of the primary on Feb. 19 – but the majority go with the caucus winner. This system in Washington is the subject of a lot of contention, as you might imagine.

    In Nebraska, with 85% of the caucus votes in, there are a total of just under 27,500 votes. I haven’t been able to find the statistics on its registered voters.

    I know that a win is a win is a win, and of this small vote total, Obama did get a 2-1 win over Clinton, but let’s not call what’s happening a landslide.

    Obama was always expected to win these caucuses – that seems to be the venue where he shines – so let’s not get carried away. If that’s possible.

  • Obama was always expected to win these caucuses – that seems to be the venue where he shines – so let’s not get carried away. If that’s possible.

    I keep hearing this line, that Obama was expected to win these states, so it’s really no big deal.

    What exactly does that mean? Do the delegates not count if it’s not a total surprise? Do the candidates get double delegates if it’s an upset?

    And for the record, he wasn’t always expected to win these. Clinton was predicted to win Washington as late as a couple weeks ago, and I remember people talking about how Louisiana was in her column at the end of last year.

  • Following up on #13

    The Washington polling history shows that the polls at the end of last year had Clinton leading Obama 48-22 and 44-29. The state was supposed to be hers for the taking, especially with Cantwell and Murray both backing her.

    Can’t find Louisiana polling history for some reason.

  • As I said late in the comments in the previous thread… my primary isn’t until May. I certainly hope that by the time I get to vote, it will count towards the nomination of one of the candidates. Howard Dean – no backroom deals, please. The primary “season” needs to be compacted.

  • Anne – Not to start a flame war (too late), but a win really is a win; and these were big wins, even if they were expected. Statistics show us that a sample size over 20,000 is plenty large enough to be representative of the population as a whole. And sure, maybe it was only the motivated people who went, showing that this isn’t representative of everyone; but is that meaningless? How? These people were representative of the people motivated enough to vote, and these people will surely be out on election night too.

    In my view, the “perspective” you give is just spin, in order to lessen Obama’s victories in these states. I could understand what you’re saying if this was a narrow win, but I’m sorry, this was a complete trouncing. People came out in big numbers for Obama. I understand why you don’t want to admit it, but give us our victory. There’s always ways to discount a victory, but I don’t see how that makes it true. Again, this sample size was plenty large enough to tell us how these people felt. If this many people felt motivated enough to vote, that’s significant.

    Thus said, I promise not to continue this issue. I just felt like something needed to be said.

  • Anne–

    Thanks for the post. I did not know that there were also delegates attached to the Washington state primary on 2/19. Do you expect that Senator Clinton will win the primary? I wonder if the Clinton campaign will pay for TV advertising, etc., over the next week in Washington, or put their money into other venues? At some point you reach diminishing returns re X money it takes to get Y # of delegates.

    I really don’t understand why Senator Clinton is not doing better in the caucuses?! She has had so long to get organized and so many allies in the Democratic party organizations across the country, people she presumably met when her husband was on the ballot, are they all gone from 1996? I’m shocked, really, that she is losing so frequently and consistently, to only have one win for her out of nine or ten, I would not have predicted. Even though the delegate splits don’t reflect the large vote margins in some of the caucus states, if she loses a dozen or more states and the average delegate loss in each state is in the 2-10 range, that still adds up to a significant deficit in a close race. I’m an Obama supporter, so it’s fine with me to see the positive results, but I’m still kinda stunned that so many recent caucases have been so strongly against her.

    Here in Ohio I haven’t seen any TV advertising or yard signs up yet, but maybe I just need to get out more. Clinton has been leading in the Ohio polls for months, and she has more of the local political endorsements at this point.

  • Um, I’m pretty sure the 27,000 is state delegates, not total votes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s usually what they report. In general, turn-out is much larger than that, probably in the 100-125K range.

  • BTW, I believe Obama has won as many, if not more, primaries than Clinton, as well as dominating the caucuses. Which would suggest he’s as popular as she is, only his supporters are more enthusiastic and he’s far better organized.

    How, again, are we to take those as negatives?

  • Tamalak, @8,

    You better *had* (take your Delaware butt over there); Hillary is supposed to sweep PA, so Obama can use every little bit of help people are willing to give him 🙂

    According to NYT (posted at 22:31):
    Nebraska, 98% reporting: Obama 60%; Clinton 32%
    Washington, 96% reporting: Obama 68%, Clinton 31%
    Louisiana, 56% reporting: Obama 59%, Clinton 39% — much more competitive-looking, though nearly half of the precincts have yet to report.

    And, just for the heck of it… Huckabee is edging over McCain in both Washington (38/23) and Louisiana (48/38)

  • The totals being reported from WA are delegates, not votes. An early guess at the turnout was 200,000 for the Dems, a huge turnout for a caucus and more than twice the turnout from 4 years ago. I know the turnout was large at my precinct, a lot more than expected (and they expected a lot more than 4 years ago.)

    WA Republicans are splitting the delegates half from the caucus and half from the primary, but the Dems are doing it all by caucus, so the Feb. 19 primary is meaningless for the Democrats.

  • At the very least, I think we can finally put to rest the old saw that “people just don’t know Obama very well.” A lot of people in a lot of places seem to know him just fine, thank you very much. 🙂

  • On another note:

    Why did the Virginia Democratic Party hire a cameraman with tremors? I’m getting motion sickness here.

  • Three wickets in a row—that’s a hat trick!

    I’m thinking that the Fortress Hillary folks are beside themselves right now; trying to work damage control and adjust position of the field to counter the Obama juggernaut. I’ll be first and foremost an Obama supporter, but the irony in all of this is almost unbelievable—the Clinton machine worked both up front and in the background for years to bring about the day when an African American could run for President of the United States, and be able to score the successes that Obama has recorded. Now, at the moment when a woman can legitimately run for the same office, Hillary becomes the creator Frankenstein, and Barack becomes the creation.

    If I’m not mistaken, the creation outlives the creator in that story.

    There’s just got to be a good political cartoon in all of this….

    It is becoming obvious that the Clinton campaign has been pushed back into a totally-defensive position by this. They’re losing the momentum—and with that loss will inevitably come the loss of donations (I don’t think the “funding crisis” was a ruse to get their donations jacked up; they’ve spent like a sailor on shore-leave since the initial embarrassment of Iowa, and now “the rooster has come home to roost”).

    This race is not over. We’re not seeing the end of it—and I don’t even think we’re really seeing the beginning of the end—but we’re definitely seeing “the beginning” of the beginning of the end. Some of the Ohio numbers took a serious downturn after SC, and they fell several more notches after Clinton’s 2/5 performance failed to deliver any serious damage to the Obama effort. I’ll not be surprised when those numbers drop even further after today’s outcome, should the outcome remain the same at it appears now.

    If this thing goes through February and into March without some serious bounce-back in Clinton’s favor, then Ohio will go into the Obama column. That changes the game from “cricket” to “chess”—and the key phrase from “hat-trick” to “checkmate.”

    And Ohio is at T-minus 24 days—and counting….

  • Uh, Michael, no. Currently, CNN is showing 21,629 “votes” for Obama, which translates to 27 delegates. Clinton has 9,992, and 11 delegates.

    If you didn’t read what I posted, I’ll repeat it: the numbers of people who caucus in Washington is an extremely low percentage of registered voters. I used the figure 3.2 million above, but I have since learned that it is 3.7 million. Caucus goers thus represent about 1% of the total of registered voters.

    The numbers in Nebraska are not a lot different. And the chances of Nebraska going blue in November are exceedingly slim.

    I would venture to guess that not a lot of people are aware that in Alaska, for example, which caucused on Tuesday, less than 500 people determined the awarding of delegates. Less than 500 people.

    I’m not sure why caucuses are considered representative of the will of the people, since, unlike primaries, where voting in person spans an entire day (in MD polls are open from 7 am to 8 pm), or where people can vote by mail, caucuses take place within a very limited time period, which means many people cannot make their voices heard.

    As I said – a win is a win is a win, but I would not call it “winning big” by any means.

  • I’m sorry – Sherri must actually be from Washington – unlike me – so I stand corrected on the number of “votes.” Mea culpa!

    Even with turnout at 200,000, it is still a very small percentage of total registered voters – I have a friend in Seattle who says it’s a terrible system and many people she knows would really like to see the end of the caucus there.

  • I’m kind of sorry for Hillary, because it has to hurt a bit to be “the presumptive nominee”, to actually say confidently in a public venue that the nomination battle will be all over on Super Tuesday…and then to have this happen. Obviously, this isn’t the way it was supposed to shake out. Obama was never supposed to be this big. And I don’t doubt Hillary has some good plans that she’s itching to set in motion as president, which is why it has to hurt to see it slipping away. Politics is a wretched business, to be sure.

    It really matters little if these were “expected” Obama wins or not; a win of any kind gives the winner momentum, and helps decide the fence-sitters. If I remember correctly, Hillary was on the ropes and staggering before New Hampshire – some columnists were asking how she could bow out gracefully. After her surprise win (another word for “unexpected”, which I guess makes it a real win), she started talking smack again and seemed to have regained her spirits. And let nobody forget, Hillary Clinton is a formidable rival, or she never would have made it this far. She’s also a viable choice, which puts the Democrats in an enviable position compared with the Republicans, who must hold their noses and choose from a frighteningly cheesy field indeed.

    I’ve wanted Obama to take it from the beginning, so I can’t pretend to be disappointed, but I also have to say that these victories seem so sweet mostly because they’re wrested from such a tough opponent. If Obama is victorious, I hope he can be gracious.

    And I hope he picks John Edwards for running mate. That’d be a dynamite team.

  • Part of the confusion is that these delegates aren’t delegates to the national convention; these are delegates to the legislative district caucus (which will select delegates to the state caucus, which will select DNC delegates.) So the numbers seem too high for delegates and very low for votes. My precinct, which probably had around 75 people caucusing, selected 8 delegates.

    I’m certainly not trying to defend the caucus system; no question, more people can participate in a primary than a caucus. But as caucuses go, this was incredible turnout, and the people who showed up were not just political junkies.

  • Steve–
    Please post a link if you have updated Ohio polls, I’d like to follow as we close in on March 4. Thanks.

    Sherri–
    Thanks for correcting some misinformation.

    Anne–
    Re the caucuses being undemocratic, have you seen evidence that the delegate distribution after the caucus is significantly different from what the various opinion polls show? I mean, it’s hard to know for sure unless you can compare a caucus and a primary from the same state at the same time, and that’s probably not going to happen.

    Re primaries vs. the caucus–
    Certainly easier to vote in a primary, but as an experience I liked the caucus more. I switched out my call so I could be there that night in Iowa four years ago, it wasn’t an hassle to attend, and I didn’t feel pressured. You can make a case that the caucus is better if you want to narrow the primary field and cut out the trailing candidates, and it COULD work better if you are trying to build something for the general election.

  • Good for Obama. He also plans to do well in the Chesapeake primary (Virginia and Maryland). The kicker will be Ohio and Texas where he still polls considerably behind HRC and the demographics don’t fare well either for him. He’s GOT to take those two states or else, it’s going to be a lot tougher for him to be nominated.

  • Swanning it… 🙂

    An interesting article in NYT on superdelegates, how many of them there are, how they impact thenomination and what they are thinking at this stage of the game:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/us/politics/10superdelegates.html?hp

    One tid-bit which tickled my warped sense of humour… Obama feels that superdelegates ought to vote “the will of the people”; ie whoever “took” a particular state ought to get the support of its superdelegates. Clinton doesn’t agree with that view but, if that’s going to be the prevailing trend, she’ll be looking forward to receiving the support of all the bigwigs of Mass (the trifecta of the 2 Senators and the Governor having declared for Obama, she proceeded to take the state anyway)

    PS, OT.
    Our film club showed “Talk to Me” tonight. The story of a black ex-con-turned-DJ in DC. I went to see it because the blurb mentioned something about “60ties music” and that’s the music I came of age with and ever get enough of. It was really strange to discover just *how much* I didn’t know about US, growing up in Poland.

    One of the things I didn’t know, for example, is what was “black” pop music and what wasn’t. During ’66 (when the film starts) and ’67, *all* music coming from US was considered “decadent, capitalist excess” and you never heard it on the state radio. I listened to it, late at night, trying to catch a signal from the pirate stations — whenever I could win the fight with my Mother over who was going to chase which weak signal (she wanted to listen to BBC, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America). By ’68-’69, the commie stranglehold relaxed somewhat and even the state radio played some of that music. The quality now was good enough for me to identify a “sound” but I could never find “Motown” on any map and I never saw any of the album covers (which might have given me a clue)… And, of course, to me, *all* American English sounded “peculiar” (we were taught the Brit version)… So, I never knew that James Brown or Wilson Pickett or The Supremes were black; they were American and their tunes made me want to dance — that’s all I knew. Tonight’s film played only one song that wasn’t familiar…

  • Anne at 11: As Sherri says above, the WA Democratic Party is ignoring the primary. Only the GOP is awarding delegates based on the primary. Democratic delegates all will be awarded based on the caucuses today.

    That said, today we elected precinct delegates, who then go to a legislative district caucus, where delegates are elected to go to the congressional district caucus/state party convention, where the actual delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be elected. So numbers of delegates will be completely confusing unless you are clear about what level delegate you are talking about, and understand that any national ones are only presumptive, based on the precinct results today. The legislative district level doesn’t even happen until April.

    Yes it is an odd system, which is why someone passed an initiative requiring the state to hold primary elections. However, they couldn’t legally make the parties use them.

    As the old joke goes, I’m not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat. Today, with a huge turnout in my neighborhood, that felt more true than ever. But it was real participatory democracy, gathering with the people in your neighborhood to take responsibility to make it all go.

  • BTW, I did some quick math, and Obama and Hillary are at 9 wins apiece in primaries (NM still out to lunch…), and their head-to-head margins (not including Louisiana) are less than a % point apart (.70 %, to be exact: 50.35-49.65), Clinton with the razor thin lead

    Once we add in Louisiana’s numbers (when I get them) and a slight adjustment for the provisionals in California and New Mexico, and in primaries alone, we’ll probably be talking about the candidates being separated by about one-tenth of 1 percentage point…

    meanwhile, in caucuses, Obama cleans up big time. If the two perform generally similar in primaries, but one candidate out-performs the other handily in caucuses, I fail to see how one can construe that as a bad thing.

    However, that being said, I sincerely doubt the ties will continue that way…Obama is gonna start pulling away with it soon.

    Also, Anne, no worries about the misunderstanding in Washington, that stuff is pretty confusing, I made the same mistake myself after Iowa.

  • Sherri,
    Thanks for providing the correct information regarding the delegate selection process for Washington-state Democrats. Good job!

  • BTW, by my count, Obama won 66 of 67 jurisdictions in Washington. That’s flat-out domination, and surely a sign that his support in the state is much broader and deeper than his traditional base. There’s no way he could pull that off w/o ample support from hispanics, asians, women, older voters, working class voters, etc

  • I can tell you I’m psyched when I was at my caucus in North Seattle the auditorium we were in looked as if it filled to 85% of capacity, My precinct alone had 61 people attending (it was only 15 people the last time I participated) My precinct was 3-2 in Obama’s favor another one was 4-1.

  • I plugged in LA’s #s with 97% reporting to my spreadsheet, and get (for primaries only) Obama at 50.19%, Clinton at 49.81%. With Edwards, Richardson, et al included, I imagine that margin will be even smaller.

    With over 15 million votes in, that’s a difference of 60K

    Of course, then if you consider the caucuses, and clearly Obama enjoys a clear, if modest, lead in total votes cast for him, which is accurately represented in his lead in pledged delegates.

  • If the momentum from the next few primaries carries over and closes the gap in Texas, it might not even go to the convention. Hillary has to stop the wave in Texas, or it’s Obama, I think. The problem is, as Iowa showed, having a streak of wins as Obama will have, could very well make it appear as though Obama’s leaving her in the dust. And when he appears to be leaving her in the dust in the minds of the public and media, unless there’s a huge pile-on Hillary that makes everyone rally around Hillary, he’ll leave her in the dust.

  • However, that being said, I sincerely doubt the ties will continue that way…Obama is gonna start pulling away with it soon.

    That’s a bold statement Michael. You seem a rational fellow. So I know you aren’t just inhaling your own wishful expectations. So are you visualizing a scenario like meme’s at 38? Or something different?

  • ROTFLMLiberal:

    I’ve been saying it so much I feel like I’m getting blue in the face. Basically, the way I see the race is as follows:

    Clinton started out with the classic establishment base: African-Americans, unions, lower-educated & lower-income voters, women, senior citizens. She added Hispanics.

    Obama started out with the classic insurgent (“wine track”) base: younger voters, higher-educated white collar voters

    Clinton’s goal has always been to leverage her 100% name recognition and high favorables into a win; all she’d have to do is make the case that Obama is an unacceptable alternative, and she’s the choice by default (inexperiences/naive/irresponsible/unelectable/not-vetted/talker-not-doer/not ready for the GOP attack machine).

    Obama, conversely, has a much more difficult goal: to make himself well-known to voters, drive up his favorables, become a known and trusted quantity, and then make the case to Clinton’s base that there are compelling reasons to choose him over her.

    He’s largely succeeded in his task; she’s largely failed. To wit: he wouldn’t still be in this race if she’s successfully painted him as either unfit for the office or ill-prepared for the campaign ahead.

    So now he’s peeled off her A-A support, he’s starting to get as strong a strangle-hold on 35-50 voters as he has on under-35 voters, he’s making big gains with women, big gains with working class white voters, big gains with non-college-educated whites, big gains with hispanics and asians (44% AZ, early polls in WA suggested he lead among Hispanics and Asians in the state)…he’s poaching away Hillary’s base. Which is what, in theory, a successful “insurgent” candidacy would do, what it would look like. We’ve never really seen it before, which is why people are having trouble making sense of it.

    But now Hillary has a problem…she’s not successfully defending her flanks, and her campaign apparently never thought through this possibility and what strategy they should pursue. The obvious thing would be to try to neutralize his advantage with his base; hence, the Bill “mea culpas” in black churches in Cali, or the lame-o video obviously targeted at the under-35 crowd. The fact that after a full year of campaigning and pretty much ignoring his base of young support, all of a sudden she’s going after them (ineffectively, I might add), that she and her husband are trying to rebuild bridges in the black community…it should tell you something. Which is: they’re losing. A winning campaign doesn’t just cede 6 of 9 contests for an entire month. That’s the calling card of a campaign that’s losing badly: “we expect to lose a lot coming up, but then after that, we’re gonna win some big ones, and those are really the only wins that count!”

    We’ve already seen that strategy play itself out for Rudy in Florida, and the results weren’t pretty. If there were some signs that Obama had hit a ceiling and couldn’t eat into her base anymore, I’d have more pause…but all signs point to his efforts getting more successful as the campaign unfolds. The results in Washington seem to make that point for me, no? And we’re past the “tipping point”, so to speak…I think Obama has actually taken a slight lead, in that his coalition is now, IMO, bigger than Clinton’s. However, his is still additive, whereas she is slowly draining support. If something happens to suggest these trends will reverse, then, well, I’ll revise my statements. But our available evidence suggests that Obama has broad appeal when voters get to know him: he crushes his opponents across all demographics in Illinois, and was strong in all incomes, both genders, all ages, etc in Iowa after campaigning there for months and months.

    So everything points to Obama consolidating, IMO, strong majorities in the following coalitions: African-Americans, white men, all voters under-50, higher-educated voters. And I think he can split or even take modest leads among white women, union voters, hispanics, and asians, and we’re already seeing signs of all of that. That leaves Hillary with one strong-hold: voters over 65. I see plenty of reasons to think that’s how the coalitions will break down eventually, and have yet to see any reason to believe that Hillary will stem the bleeding and re-consolidate her base. And that means Obama runs away with it.

  • This is one of the things I most look forward to bringing out into the open with Obama running:

    BATON ROUGE, LA— The Obama campaign submitted an urgent request for assistance to the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections today, after receiving widespread reports from Democrats across Louisiana who reported that they were not allowed to vote because their party affiliation had been switched. Hundreds of Louisiana democrats went to the polls to vote in today’s presidential primary and found that they were now on registration lists as Independent or Unaffiliated voters.
    What Louisiana voters to need to know:

    Democrats who are told at their polling places that they are now registered Independent or Unaffiliated voters and aren’t eligible to vote – but never switched their party affiliation – can still vote in today’s primary by requesting a provisional ballot. The Secretary of State has confirmed that all voters have the right to vote a provisional ballot if there is a problem with the registration lists.

    The Obama campaign encourages votes to report all voter registration issues to the Secretary of State Elections division at 800-883-2805.

    The media is terrified of “race baiting” by exposing Republican voter suppression tactics, in the South especially. I don’t see how that can continue with Obama running, especially when he makes an issue of it. Plus, I salivate at the chance to have all the racists the GOP dog whistles getting lured out into the open.

  • memekiller:

    that’s especially true b/c election law is basically Obama’s specialty. That’s what taught at the U of Chicago, it got a lot of his focus as a con lawyer, and election law stuff has been a particularly strong suit for him in Congress (his hold on Van Sparsky, e.g.)

    Not only will the dog whistles get out in the open, but they’ll be running against a guy who knows his stuff when it comes to fighting this bullshit

  • Slightly off topic….

    I’m starting to like the idea of caucuses for the nomination process over primaries. It seems that the participatory aspect is perfectly suited to the task at hand, particularly that they allow supporters of both sides (or many sides) to state their candidate’s case to the uncommitted.

    Maybe i’m just saying this because i’d be that guy who kept you all at the caucus site, refusing to commit until there was a good long discussion…even if i knew who i was voting for before i walked in.

    I’m not sure how it could be worked to allow for campaigning and have a national caucus day, but that would be out of hand. A national holiday to all get together and talk politics…followed be a national holiday to vote. (And i’ll refrain from reforming that system here and now.)

    P.S. I have to think that if Sen Obama does well tomorrow – at least keep it very close – and can parlay that into two out of three on Tuesday, the super delegates will shift heavily. They’re afraid of ripping the party apart and wasting time that could be spent working on the general…or at least they should be. If one or the other candidate can display a serious momentum gain (and that ball is in Obama’s court currently), they’ll run with it.

  • Obama, conversely, has a much more difficult goal: to make himself well-known to voters, drive up his favorables, become a known and trusted quantity, and then make the case to Clinton’s base that there are compelling reasons to choose him over her.

    He’s largely succeeded in his task; she’s largely failed.

    I think he’s done everything you said, except what I put in bold. He’s shown me he’s tough enough, he’s shown me he’s teflon, winning the caucuses shows me he’s organized. To seal the deal, he can’t Hillary bash in the Republican sense, or demean the Clinton Presidency to woo her base. He’s got to convince them that, yes, you have many reasons for supporting her, but it’s time to turn the page, and you can turn the page without giving in to the establishment’s Clinton-hating. They were right for that time, I’m right for this time. Turn the page.

    Believe me, Hillary’s base is used to people going for her jugular, and if all of DC hasn’t driven them away, you won’t. There’s nothing bad you could say about her they haven’t heard all ready, with much more venom and vitriol. But you can lure them away.

  • Excellent post, Michael, thanks. Maybe somewhere there’s a spreadsheet to consolidate your thoughts into numbers and show the trends over time. If it’s Obama 6/9 for February or better, and if Texas is close to a delegate draw, then Ohio and Pennsylvania are where the Clintons will have to make their last stand. Eight weeks of mostly losing, I don’t know if ANY campaign could withstand that, no matter how close the delegate count is in April.

  • Just thought I should mention that the Biobrain comment @ 9 really was me, and not an imposter, as some have suggested. I really did say that Hillary supporters should “Suck it. Suck it hard. Suck it long.” Trust me, if you heard me say it in real life, it would have sounded a lot funnier. But I guess that’s how most things are.

    But just as a clarifier, the “it” I was referring to was, of course, Obama’s victory, and not any kind of crude suggestion otherwise, as that wouldn’t have been very funny; so you should just get that thought out of your dirty little minds. And remember, I love you all. Even the idiots. And yes, I really should think about including emoticons when I write stuff like this. But after all, what do you expect from a dude named Doctor Biobrain? I’m just lucky anyone takes me seriously at all.

  • Anne @ 25: I would venture to guess that not a lot of people are aware that in Alaska, for example, which caucused on Tuesday, less than 500 people determined the awarding of delegates. Less than 500 people.

    Anne, you’re spinning like a Republican now. 8,500 people caucused in Alaska, and many more were turned away because the caucus venues couldn’t handle them. My brother was one who got turned away, and he said many many more were in the same boat. Other locations moved to larger venues when it became obvious that they wouldn’t have room. Why would you so blatantly lie to try to downplay the huge support for Obama in Alaska? Oh, yeah…

    You’re credibility is taking some serious hits here, lady.

  • But after all, what do you expect from a dude named Doctor Biobrain? I’m just lucky anyone takes me seriously at all.

    Does anyone? 😉

  • P.S. I have to think that if Sen Obama does well tomorrow – at least keep it very close – and can parlay that into two out of three on Tuesday, the super delegates will shift heavily. They’re afraid of ripping the party apart and wasting time that could be spent working on the general…or at least they should be.

    It’s not just that. Remember, a lot of these superdelegates are politicians themselves and if they see a groundswell behind Obama, they’re going to want to ride those coattails for their own self-interest.

  • Michael @40

    Good summary. I’m glad someone else picked up on that. Firewalls don’t work because it is a defensive rather than offensive plan and it is very very rare that you win playing 100% defense. I think she’s been forced into the 9udi plan because of the internet. As I said before we’re seeing Obama playing a variation of the 50 state strategy while Hils’ team of DLC types opted for the never worked before play for the Blue (as in pro Hils) states plan.

    This really is the first true Dem internet campaign. In the past, Hils would have knocked Obama out by playing the innuendo/label game because the MSM would have just nodded and sent out her press releases/comments with some of their contrary commentary which would be ignored by the majority of primary voters as Clinton hatred. Even if she played offense nicely she would have won if Obama were another policy bright charisma challenged senator like the late Paul Simon. Problem for her is that Obama’s an awe inspiring speaker and has charisma which is hard to beat by playing offensive on the “nice” which is why she and Bill went “mean.”

    In the past the offense would have worked too, not because Hils is a bad person, but because this was the way it worked since Washington’s time up to 2004. Thanks to the swiftboat attacks, Howard Dean 04 and the increasing readership/importance of blogs, we have fact checking and discussion of all primaries/caucuses that negates what traditional campaigns throw out, especially the bad.

    Hils might be a top notch candidate but the DLC consultant tools she’s surrounded herself with are 3rd team at best. They weren’t all that good in traditional campaigns and they’re downright inept in the internet era. If I were them, I’d start thinking about starting another career that suits them, like being a “disaster” consultant a la Brownie.

  • I know the Clinton camp has a reputation for spinning the results, but Anne may have just set a new record.

  • “They’re busy working behind the scenes to take Hawaii, going after Virginia, Wisconsin and Maine as well.”

    What do you mean that that the Clintons are working “behind the scenes” to win those states? You aren’t implying anything illegal, I hope.

  • I like how you all keep counting Hillary out for the count. Obama has won a total of 4 and possibly 5 if you count Iowa states that he will win in November the rest of the states that he has won by caucas he doesn’t have a snowball chance in hell of winning in November. From the vote totals from last night I am sure that in Washington 21,629 for Obama and 9992 for Hillary is not representive of the whole state. Consider that supposedly Obama had a rally in Seattle on Friday and there were 20,000 in attendance so to me that is not representive of a states voters. In Alaska a total of 402 votes were cast in the caucases on Tuesday so I’m guessing to Obama supporters that is representive of the whole state. Take Iowa as another example anyone can show up and caucas whether you are a resident or not if you attend college there. So to me I don’t beleive caucases are representive the peoples vote. I can’t even imagine 30,000 to democratic voters in the state of Washington in November. Caucases are not democratic because 99% of the electorate in a state is not represented. If you are working you can’t just take 2 hours of to caucas where as in a primary you can vote on your way to/from work. Obama has won primaries in 5 states Ill, Del, Conn, Ala (solid red state) and LA (most likely a red state). Oops I forgot SC a solid red state. So I really don’t beleive that is representive of the majority of democrats. He may well win in Virginia, MD and DC but I don’t see him winning TX, OH, PA , KY or WV. I know this may be a blow to the conventional wisdom but come November when 10% of the youth actually have to show up to vote you won’t see them. All you have to do is look at the past election results. So in my estimation if Obama wins the nomination John McCain is the next president. Bottom line is in actual voting in primaries Clinton leads all candidates across the nation.

  • Please refrain from your cheap shots against Anne. She’s one of the best and intelligent commenters here.

  • She’s one of the best and intelligent commenters here.

    I agree.

    Except that she clearly is analyzing things through the prism of a Clinton supporter, and therefore her objectivity seems to have gone out the window. Even very intelligent people sometimes make the mistake of letting their pre-conceived notions get out in front while using their logic and reason to fit them.

    That is an objective critique – not a cheap shot.

  • Actually, Anne supported John Edwards.

    Caucuses do have lower voter turnout. For example, Alaska has 68,170 registered Democrats. In the recent caucus, 8,621 voted. That’s 12.6 percent of the registered Democrats.

  • Actually, Anne supported John Edwards.

    Yeah, and I was a committed Dodd supporter, right up until the time he dropped out. And now I’m a firm Obama man; just as Anne is fully committed to Hillary.

    I generally like what Anne has to say, as it helps me understand the Hillary perspective better. But she’s really got a bad case of the spin whenever things don’t look good for Hillary and she wants to put things in “perspective” (for example, her attempt after Super Tuesday to insist that calling it a “stalemate” was anti-Hillary spin and that it was really a definite win for Hillary). I don’t necessarily even mind spin, but it slightly troubles me when we’re supposed to believe that it’s firm reality. And in this case, Barack trounced Hillary, but we’re told that it wasn’t that important. This isn’t the end of the game, but it was a trouncing all the same.

  • Thanks for making the obvious point, Doc. You can’t place bets on a horse that isn’t in the race.

    Incidentally, I was a Dodd supporter at first, too. Now I also support Obama.

  • I like how you all keep counting Hillary out for the count. Obama has won a total of 4 and possibly 5 if you count Iowa states that he will win in November the rest of the states that he has won by caucas he doesn’t have a snowball chance in hell of winning in November.

    I like how you seem to imply that Hillary’s states are ones that Obama wouldn’t carry in the general election. A Democrat is taking NY and CA no matter who it is. I’m more swayed by the one who runs stronger in the purple states, because it implies the swing states are very much in play and the independent voters in all states can be wooed.

  • Please refrain from your cheap shots against Anne. She’s one of the best and intelligent commenters here.

    I don’t know if you were referring to Henry’s little aside or my catching Anne in a lie and calling it a lie. I know it’s politically incorrect to call a lie a lie, and I just happen to think that’s something very wrong in our country. I wish more people would quit pussyfooting around when somebody lies. Anne could have taken one minute to google and find the facts about the number of voters in Alaska who caucused, but she chose to spin it with a lie. Then even after I’d reported on the actual numbers Jim came back with an even bigger lie, saying that just 402 Alaskans voted in their caucus, which you yourself refuted just a couple posts later. So Jim lied too. Why sugar coat it when people lie? Call it what it is. I’m so tired of people getting away with rank mendacity I could just scream.

    And for what it’s worth, I appreciate getting Anne’s perspective too, at least when she calms down and just talks about why she support Hillary. The spin thing when Hillary loses, though, sometimes gets kind of pathetic.

  • President Lindsay @ 60 – I think calling it a lie is a bit harsh. If anything, we can just be friendly and call it a mistake. “Pussyfooting” is just a decent thing to do among friends and is more likely to keep communication open; always a good thing. And this is in contrast to the media, who shouldn’t be friends with the politicians they cover. Just as it is with auditors who become too close to the clients they audit, the media are watchdogs and shouldn’t allow friendship to get in the way of doing their job. But we don’t serve any such function with each other, and so it’s always nice to give people an easy out to let them take back something incorrect they may have said. And again, it was probably just a mistake.

  • And where, pray tell, Doctor, would such a mistake have originated? Did Jim also just make a mistake, irrespective of the facts that I’d laid out before he even posted? People often lie with impunity, and though it may sound harsh I suspect there’d be a lot less of it if people would call it what it is. So often what passes for “spin” is just outright lying. We don’t call Bush or other politicians liars, we don’t call their lies lies, because that would be too disrespectful. Nor should we do it in polite conversation (like here) because someone might be offended. So why do we even have the word in our lexicon? The hell with that. I’M offended when somebody lies to me and expects me to just roll with it. If I offend them back by calling them on their lie, then that’s tough. Politesse has its limits, or at least I think it should have. I have nothing against Anne, and have in the past applauded her commentary. I’m only against lying.

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