Been a bit busy lately, so it’s past time for a new US elections thread. Since Super Tuesday we’ve had an anticipated string of Barack Obama victories from caucuses in Nebraska, Washington and Maine and a primary in Louisiana, along with a narrow win for John McCain in Washington and probably meaningless victories for Mike Huckabee in Kansas and Louisiana. Tomorrow US time we have both parties holding primaries in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
US primaries open thread
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1,263 Comments
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gusface,
I’ve just been critcal of Che and you call me comrade.
Why don’t you focus a KR bomb on my house.
Leaders are expenable when you are ambitious, eh?
HHAHAHAHAH It’s so funny!
Half hour ago Joe Hockey just opposed parliament sitting on Fridays. HHHAHAHAAH this is the guy who ran an I.R. system that would cut wages and force people to work on public holidays and weekends, but he can’t even get himself out of bed to go to the House of Reps on Fridays!
The opposition, who held parliament in contempt when in government, are now opposing parliament sitting on Fridays because last year there were 4 question times a week and this year there will be 4 question times a week. Last year there were 3 M.P.I. debates a week, this year there will be 3 M.P.I. debates a week.
Yes, apparently the number 4 is bigger than the number 4 when the Liberals are in government.
Apparently the number 3 is bigger than the number 3 when the Liberals are in government.
The Liberals didn’t mind losing the election, but DON’T ask them to work on Fridays!
Thankfully they will lose this debate, the natural party of government has the numbers!
Showson,
There is apparently a rule that says that Libs don’t work on days that finish with “Y”.
Showson, that is gold. Laziness in opposition is trait of conservatives and it looks like they are preparing for a decade or two in their usual fine style.
comrade mate
ze state ov thumb cwuise’s date iss your pwoblem
comrade GG
und u kan haff ALL ze eiderdown tonite
methinks the rudd spider walked along leaving a thin, almost undetectable trail behind him… seems the fatest fly was the first caught before the web is even finished
MayoFeral-
watch your phone.
Bill, with all of the talk of Australian politics here I think you need to start a new domestic thread so that we can start talking about the US primaries in it.
Well, that makes sense considering it was the first day of the 42nd Australian Parliament!
305, 306, 307
Once upon a time,
There was a person with a false german accent, who was bitten by an undetectable spider with a comunications link to MayoFeral. Darth KR loomed menancingly……………..
In the Republican primary in Virginia tomorrow McCain is $1.10 and Huckster $4.00.
jen @ 307 – No, it’s okay. I fooled ‘em by getting an unlisted number. By the time they figure it out Haneef’s great, great grandson willl be graduating from med school.
“The opposition, who held parliament in contempt when in government, are now opposing parliament sitting on Fridays ”
I seem to remember a senator that would get tanked on his flight home on the Thursday night, meant he could spend Friday recovering and still have the weekend to enjoy. Poor boy will now have to choose between his usual tank session or only having one day of the weekend to enjoy
“#286 KR – good post!
The Leader of the House, Athony Albanese, speculated that Wilson Tuckey didn’t want to stay in Canberra on Fridays because he couldn’t “last that long”.
Hhahahahh Paul Neville just accused Albansese of making “Smart arse remarks”.
Here it is! Hallejujah.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23202612-5013172,00.html
Showson, I thought that the landed gentry were against Friday sittings because it interfered with the cattle mustering on the weekends.
there was movement at the pollbludger, for the word had passed around
that the colt from Che Guevara had got away
And had joined the pub brawl with jen, mayoferal and greeeensborough bound
so all the pollbludgers had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted bludgers from terminals near and far
Had mustered at the homebludge overnight,
For the bludgers love hard bludging where the wild pollsters are,
And the regular pollsters always do battle with delight.
There was gusface, who made his pile when Rudd won the cup,
The old man with his heart as pure as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up—
He would go wherever Che Guevara could go.
And Kirribilli of the Overkill came down to lend a hand,
No better bludger ever held such pain;
For never one could throw him while his teeth were gritted in the sand,
He learnt to bludge while driving in the rain.
And Jen was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,
She was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony— ummm..forgot how the rest goes …
something about “three parts thoroughbred at least—” or would that be glen?
umm.. clip-clop and blah.. such as are by pollbludgers prized.
Apologies to banjo, and che..
.
The last polls all show Obama to win convincing in Virginia , DC & Maryland
the end is near
ShowsOn : saw wilson on the late news…he seemed overjoyed by proceedings
Intrade projections for the Democratic nominee ..
Obama: 70
Clinton: 30
Phew, bit of a rumble in the jungle here tonight!
New nomination for next Governor General: Fred Cheney, what a thoroughly decent man, have always respected him and even more so after tonight with Red Kez on 7:30, at least there are some Libs with soul.
#322
Yep – someone let the cat in (again).
Davidoff: the markets know that Obama is the winner for the Democrats.
The odds for Democrats to be the winning party has dropped since Obama took the lead as most likely democratic candidate.
#324 asanque – how much of a change?
The democrats had been steady on 1.55 for the last 3 months. They’ve now dropped to 1.49.
Its a small but significant change
Obama is also into 1.44 and Clinton over $3.10 now for Democratic candidate.
Showson @ 315 “The Leader of the House, Athony Albanese, speculated that Wilson Tuckey didn’t want to stay in Canberra on Fridays because he couldn’t “last that long”.
.
Methinx it has to do with the awful Friday Canberra airport commuter shuffle/shuttle/schmozzle, (especially for west aussies who wanna commute home on weekends), but they can stop complaining, Canberra finally got its extra cheap no-frills airline back as of this week…
.
.. but it only goes to Sydney..MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hi davidoff,
Nice to see you out to play.
Kevin Rudd has released the words of the apology. I’ve posted it at 317.
Do you reckon there are enough facts in it!
USA is Godzone. In most of central and south America Che Guevara has been a pinup for national pride and anti-yankee feelings for decades but in the USA he sends the right wing mad and frothing at the mouth. An outburst of democracy (mostly under GWB who secretly diverted troops to Iraq to give the rest of the Americas a break) results in a majority of these countries with leftist governments. Thank God for GWB! And now Che is rumored to be alive, or at least reborn, somewhere in Texas. Bring on the heart attacks.
#326 thanks
Just did some digging around. The following graphs (and in particular the long term trends) should have Republicans worried.
Democrats win (66):
http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=173055&z=1202818288066#
Republican win (34):
http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=173054&z=1202818419136#
Asanque @ 324
And that drop in odds is in line with the current head-to-head polls – which have been similar for weeks now – showing Obama with a much better chance of beating McCain than Clinton.
#391 Rain
very clever
re my good friend Jen , the additional words may be:
‘with beauty beyond compare’
and KR will enjoy your ‘poem’ next time he logs in
but I have to say some other comments against KR here tonight are completely
unjustified. He’s passionate & there ain’t enough of that these days
and The Finnegans gee I hope your sense that a black man is not yet electable in the US is misplaced but as for ‘dirt’ to come , yep it’ll come in Repug buckets
as for me, I’m sitting on the champers awaiting ‘opening’ instructions
Wakefield @ 330,
It is worse than that, he is alive on this blog. KR has withdrawn but by golly there are some sympathisers here.
We salute your flagons, sir.
I don’t think the Dem race is over yet. Hillary is marginally ahead now and will – I guess – be behind (say by 100 delegates or so) after March 4.
She then has seven weeks of “clear air” to attack Obama, without those nasty press reports about primary results (Penn is not till April 22 or thereabouts, and the rest are after that).
The money gap is good for Obama but it is not the whole story.
I think Hillary will fight to the bitter end, and I don’t think she is going to see a delegate deficit of 100 when she wakes up on March 5, with over 1,000 (including super-dels) still to be allocated, plus an argument to be made over Florida and Michigan, as the bitter end.
rain@319
pure gold
clarifications
1.notrils@270 refers to the poster known as nostradamus (not snot) btw should read nostrils in orig. post
2.che is actually quite a complex guy and his anti-hero status doesnt resound with (recently) history-no big deal if obama has his poster or not
3.re obama v clinton-in a FAIR race obama would be a shoe -in,but unfortunately the usa (read dem machine) is not ready for a minority president-be they native,latino,black etc (though according to stats minority make up over 60% of usa pop)
4.kr-i honestly dont know who the f gg is (or anyone else on this site for that matter)
335 – Correct Dyno, the race is far from over.
However, discount Florida and Michigan, at best there will be a revote, which will only benefit Obama. Even the worse case scenario only has Hillary gaining about 20 delegates based on proportionality in those 2 states.
It all hinges on Ohio and Texas.
My view is Hillary is doomed.
However for the astute punter, the question is when to hedge your bets.
I jumped on Obama again after Super Tuesday knowing 9 favourable primaries were to come.
I’ve already partially hedged on Hillary and the question is how far will she drift.
In my opinion she will lose the next 5 primaries and drift to about $4.00.
That is when the value will come back into play as Texas and Ohio could do anything.
#335 Dyno
I agree that the scenario you paint is plausible, even probable – but I’m guessing that by March 4th – everyone will know which way the tide is going and your going to see a lot of senior Democrats pushing for a clean solution. It will be case of being between a rock and a hard-place – if she goes forward against the interests of the party she will loose a lot of political capital on the Hill (and I figure this would probably be permanently lost capital). If she folds with grace she can maintain her integrity as New York’s Senator and Bill keeps his reputation and international standing.
331
davidoff Says:
February 12th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Just did some digging around. The following graphs (and in particular the long term trends) should have Republicans worried.
Democrats win (66):
Republican win (34):
look at that davidoff , the interesting point was the sharp Democrat rise right on the new year which has contiued ?
GG
Tony Jones interviewed Abbott about the apology on lateline and compensation.
Jones brought up Abbott and Costello’s libel suit and especially Abbotts words in that case that sorry doesn’t mean anything unless you pay. Jones asked Abbott if that meant he was in favour of compensation as well as the apology.
Abbott dogged it and said compensation was Rudd’s problem.
Saw Bronny in parliament, I’m not a polly tragic just thought I’d watch a bit of the new first one, and she said that making parliament sit on Fridays would lead to the government being voted out at the next election!
330 Wakefield
Just to correct the record, to actually show what I said about the “Che” poster:
Anyone who put up that poster probably knows nothing about the historical figure nor the historical facts, so going on a diatribe about Che is hardly the point. Suggesting that Obama has revolutionary forces, ready to execute the opposition on the strength of one poster is laughable nonsense.
…in other words, those kids probably have no idea who or what Che was, it’s just a poster to them.
I clearly did NOT say I’m a ’sympathiser’ and once again GG, must resort to lying to cover the fact that he completely got it wrong about whose office they were in.
Ho hum!
When the poor boy cannot even comprehend a staightfoward couple of sentences without getting it COMPLETELY wrong, you do have to wonder! LOL
Interesting post Asanque.
Latest odds I have seen for McCain are 2.85 which indicates a 35% win chance. Given that the Republicans have won 7 of 10 elections in the last forty years I would have thought the odds quite heroic.
The final outcome will be at best 45/55.
I’d be taking the odds to McCain and punting your preferred Democrat.
331
davidoff
The only fly in the ointment, or maybe the biggest one, is that the longer Obama and Clinton slug it out, the more likely they’ll split the party and damage their prospects in November.
There’s no ‘quick kill’ for either, so the thing running to the wire and the Supers getting to do the thumbs up and down thing will be very hard on the respective supporters.
This is going to be a long year.
Dyno # 335
yes that will be the Hillary stategy you described
But a point comes for the party Chief’s & through them to the Superdelegates that the Party’s interests to have a Candidate (Hillary) who lost 26 out of 36 Primarys by end Feb
Its this credibility imbalance in States which may cause pressure to be put on her to exit gracefully paricularly if Superdelegates break for Obama
which I expect to occur
asanque @ 337,
Agree with you it all hinges on Ohio and Texas.
I think “momentum” comes with its own in-built trap – a trap called “expectations”.
If Hillary gets out of Ohio/Texas with a 50/50 result her campaign will say “we’ve stopped the bleeding, this guy looked unstoppable but we’ve slowed him down”. And of course they’ll only be, at most, 100 delegates behind if they can get that result on March 4.
In my view, at that point it will be a case of “stand back and watch the fight” for the following seven weeks (and probably beyond).
Obama probably needs to win 55-60% of the two candidate vote across Ohio and Texas to deliver the knockout blow (and even in that case, only if she then agrees to give up).
I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama won either Texas or Ohio. Here are his projected losses, from his teams spreadsheet.
Ohio 46%/ 53%
Texas 47%/ 51%
In the last week, he has performed about 15% BETTER than his projections. If the momentum keeps up, he could come close or even win. They are caucuses though which is against him. Latinos are evidently not won over by rhetoric so Texas won’t swing as much as the recent states.
Billary’s backers have said she needs resounding victories in both Texas and Ohio or they will be pulling out (but surprisingly wouldn’t be quoted on that!).
342 – GG
Given all polls are showing McCain neck and neck with Clinton and Obama, 2.85 is not bad odds.
However, I am of the view the current environment just is no good for the republicans this year.
Nevertheless, I won’t be at all surprised to see those odds shorten in the next few months.
I’m by no means an expert in US politics.
Nice to see today’s events in Canberra get noticed:
http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2008/02/11/D8UOCIB01_australia_aborigines/index.html
…and not word about what ’stolen’ does or doesn’t mean.
Bloody Julie Bishop trying to parse ’stolen’ was so damn tacky I hope she chokes on the word tomorrow.
Dio @ 346,
Well, you could be right about Hillary’s backers, I’m not sure.
Must say though that I don’t read her as someone who would quit having just got a 50/50 result, and still within strking distance of the lead.
Running out of money (or out of super-delegate support) could conceivably change it all, though.
Wouldn’t it be fun to be the one chosen to “tap her on the shoulder”!
It is high time for this simple, subtle statement.
And it is a pity for the Liberals that they cannot quite swallow their prejudices. Do they have no humility; no desire to improve? But enough of them. They are irrelevant now. They are the past and should be left to their futile laments, along with the indecencies, the cruelties and the bigotries that have called out for redress for so long.
It is high time to say and hear and think of these things; to make amends; and make a fresh start.
I am not easily carried along by political statements, but I am thankful for this one and – hopefully not for the only time – proud of the leadership that has been shown by the PM.
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