Democratic primaries will be held Wednesday our time in Oregon and Kentucky, which will respectively choose 52 and 51 delegates. Below is another race associated with the latter state, which this year ended with runner-up Eight Belles having to be put down*. Does the knackers’ yard beckon for a certain second-placed Democratic nag? Discuss.
* Unfortunately for my metaphor, Clinton in fact holds a handy 30.5 per cent lead in Kentucky, according to Real Clear Politics. Obama however leads by 12.4 per cent in Oregon.
2,133 Comments
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 … 43 » Show All
98
Enemy Combatant
Except Clinton is NOT behind in the popular vote.
She says so:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is entering the Kentucky and Oregon primaries on Tuesday with one of the most pugnacious political messages of her campaign: That she is ahead in the national popular vote when all votes are counted, including from the unsanctioned primaries in Michigan and Florida and that party leaders who have a vote as super-delegates should reflect this level of appeal.
This argument is of a piece with Mrs. Clinton’s increasingly populist image, as a fighter on behalf of average people, but it is also a debatable claim: Most tallies of the national popular vote put Mr. Obama in the lead, especially when Michigan and Florida are not counted.
NYT
So, there.
Who does she have doing the counting, Bosnian snipers?
I know that good help is hard to find, but you’d think for $20m you could at least hire someone who could actually count!
I fear she will not go quietly into the night.
How many Bosnian snipers does it take to count the popular vote?
One, and she’s nine, reads you poetry, but she CAN count!
But Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan and he didn’t campaign in Florida: that tends to negate the legitimacy of Hillary’s argument! She’s clutching at straws, very thin ones!
Good morning Bludgers! How soon before Ron and his mates invade the board?
Speaking of elections: Labor in the UK will likely lose the Crewe & Nanwich byelection to the Conservatives on Friday. Gordon Brown is screwed: how soon before someone like David Miliband challenges, or will they let Brown carry the can for losing the 2010 election?
103
Progressive
Standing up and spinning a fantasy is a very good job interview style for POTUS. Look at the current job holder!
She really is toast now, and this stuff is just her trying to pull in a few more bucks before the final curtain.
I think she’s ably demonstrated that she’s more of the same and does not have the moral character for the job in 2008.
For anyone who needed proof, she’s delivered it.
Excuse the indulgence of an off topic post, but Bludgers, a toast to the PM:
KEVIN RUDD has established the strongest lead over an Opposition leader in three decades, just as Brendan Nelson’s feud with his Liberal rival, Malcolm Turnbull, makes their relationship almost unworkable.
A Herald/Nielsen poll taken after last week’s budget shows Mr Rudd leading Dr Nelson as preferred prime minister by 70 per cent to 17 per cent. It is the biggest lead since the poll began in 1972, and higher than the 42-point lead John Howard held over Simon Crean in May 2003.
“It’s the biggest hammering in history,” said the Nielsen pollster John Stirton.
SMH
Horatio, lower than Crean.
Suck on that Nelson.
Obama, needs to do better if he wants to be credible on foreign policy and especially in how he proposes to deal with America’s enemies.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/19/mccain_blast_obama_over_iran_t.html
Progresive @104,
It seems like the cuckoo is already in the nest.
Kirribilli Removals: it’s sad actually watching the disintergration of Hillary Clinton’s political career. I wish she’d have got out of this race much earlier with some dignity, followed the example set by Richardson, Edwards etc.
I guess the problem is the Clintons can’t accept defeat/reality.
Hopefully you and I will be celebrating the victory of President Elect Obama in November AND getting very drunk!
Folks, if you want a good laugh, check out the blog on Hillary’s site!
One wonders what those people over there are smoking LOL
It’s the number of delegates that matters, not who supposedly leads the popular vote tally.
Question for you Progressive and anyone else (just cause I love hypotheticals) if you were Hillary Clinton, when would you have pulled out of the race. HAs there been a really obviously time when she could have done it?
on the subject of god-bothering:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/anotherthing/316971
Whats truly amazing is that in such a strong Democrat year is that McCain is competitive at all – says it all really as to just how weak a candidate Obama really is!!!
ppfffttt!!!!
ESJ, they need someone more like Kevin Rudd, yes?
from her own mouth: why she won’t quit!
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/05/clinton-this-is.html
116
elitebutterfly
Her claim is that she can win in November?
Well, guess what lady, you can’t win NOW, so bugger November, coz ya won’t be running if you can’t win NOW.
Sheeesh, talk about lawyer speak!
As for McCain being ‘competitive’, well let’s wait a few months until we have some consistent polls for Obama/McCain before we get too frisky. Although I know a couple here will be riding Eight Bells McCain to a second place and a short ride in the Equine Ambulance at the finish! LOL
110
Progressive
Hillary’s Kool Aid is just so past its use by date!
But come November Pro, we’ll be getting roaring drunk when Obama is elected.
Clinton is only fundraising now, she cannot possibly win. Although it will be a different atmosphere when she finally concedes that he’s won and starts playing with the team.
Zimmer unzipped
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/85827/
107
GG
What? Better than this:
“Senator Obama claimed that the threat Iran poses to our security is ‘tiny’ compared to the threat once posed by the former Soviet Union,” McCain said. “Obviously, Iran isn’t a superpower and doesn’t possess the military power the Soviet Union had. But that does not mean that the threat posed by Iran is insignificant.”
Obama did not use the word “tiny” to describe the threat, but to describe the size of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela compared with the former Soviet Union.
“Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us,” Obama had said.
“And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’ And, ultimately, that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war, and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall.”
…now, that’s called an argument based on the facts, and not peddling fear to keep your hegemonic ambitions fueled for constant war.
By the way, in his own voice, the voice of ‘experience’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
119 Good work codger. Talk about a straw in the wind. Can McCain keep the MSM on a leash? I doubt it.
119
codger
hey Codge, you beat me to it by 3 minutes, but I had more to type!
The viral vortex of the internet is spinning furiously! LOL
William Bowe # 25
May 19th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
“You people are lucky I don’t care anymore.”
No wonder, just three days I’m away & this lot of rampant academia inspired elitist lattee sipping butterflys have turned an intellectual thread on the US election , into a daffodil nest of giggling pixys & feline chirping butterfly insults.
The sole purpose of the Democrat Primarys is to select the ‘best’ Democrat candidate to win POTUS. ”Best” means the by far more electable.To argue otherwise as the Obama supporters have put, guts the very meaning of a political Party’s very existence… to win office.This basic point the Obamabots have been demolished on from day one). The ObamaRealists at least have conceded this. Clearly Hillary is the ‘best’ candidate on this priority criteria.
Whether or not Obama has better ‘character’ or ‘message’ (both of which I dispute in any event) are immaterial to the above Democrat Party’s prime objective. Historically the most electable candidate also wins the delegate race
The 2008 Democrat Primarys are unique because this is not the case , because the ‘best’ candidate (Hillary by far more electable) may end up with 49% of the delegates to Obama’s 51% (who is br far less electable) & obama only holds that 51/49 lead on the back of one ethnic voting bloc , his ‘own’ , a 12% minority in the population who have decisively voted 90%+ for Obama especially in key primarys.
All the credible electability criteria shows Hillary as by far the most electable which is the sole reason Obambots have never credibily challenged this fact
Beit the the swing state polls , all key demographics , other psephology factors, the only independent vote map by a registered Democrat,and Hillary’s majority voter support US-wide on the white working poor vote , as well as all white votes , all Hispanic votes & all Asian votes. Any sensible political analysis would conclude the ‘best’ candidate is clearly Hillary.
Team Obama have ‘played’ 90%+ ethnic race bloc to ‘play’ the Democrat Primary system against its fundamental purpose & against the Party’s interests (Hillary would have thrashed a white Obama) , and now compound this misuse of the same bloc as intimidatory desertion threats to secure SD’s for Obama. The SD’s should remedy this rort by voting in bloc for Hillary , the ‘best’ (the most electable) Candidate on merit , not on race.
As for ‘character’ (only some of his sketetons have descloed here), his
numerous dispeputable associations would render Obama completely ineligible
for any Government appointed position or Statutory position in ‘oz ,let alone for POTUS.
The ObamaRealists have been gradually quietened by the Obamabots increasingly becoming ‘bitter’ at the exposure of these twin voting/SD ethnic rorts , their now naked intellegentias elitist shallowness & their inability to articulate in detail the 3 core ‘one liner’ themes (more apparently hollow) of Obama’s candidature
GG at 107 [Obama, needs to do better if he wants to be credible on foreign policy]
Not a problem. He’s used McCain’s attack as a springboard for his own message again. The kid is not taking a backward step against McCain, and his line is a very strong one that ties in with the concept of the need for change. This spat about Iran wedges McCain – all it does is paint him with Bushwash.
“OBAMA FIRES BACK AT MCCAIN ”
Obama responded to McCain’s criticism of recent comments the Illinois senator made about Iran, linking the presumptive GOP nominee to what he called the failed policies of George Bush.
…
Obama asked what Bush and McCain were afraid of when it came to dealing directly with Iran. “Demanding that a country meets all your conditions before you meet, before you meet with them — that is not a strategy. It is just naïve, wishful thinking,” he said. “I’m not afraid that we will lose some propaganda fight with a dictator. It’s time for America to win those battles because we have watched George Bush lose them year after year after year.”
40-love Obama.
The link for 124
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/05/19/1041108.aspx
123
Ron
You can ramble on Ron, but the fact is the voters don’t actually agree with you, and Obama has outflanked your horse, come around the outside, and raced home to the finish line ahead.
Your nag’s all but finished.
Do get over it, or do we have to see you bang on about Hillary being the ‘best’ candidate until Obama wins in November?
Really, Ron, we know what you think, but it’s your opinion, and it has no bearing on the fact that she is losing, has lost, is out.
Move on, Ron, move on.
124
jaundiced view
Even the Iraqis are wedging McCain, as they refuse to play this “axis of evil” gobshite stuff that Republicans use to scare the kiddies.
Obama just reminds everyone who the adult is whenever he addresses the issue and shows the utter hyperbolic nonsense coming out the Republicans for what it is.
JV, we’ll no doubt hear this line a few times:
“John McCain is right that the greatest threat we face is a terrorist with a nuclear weapon — that’s why when he was busy supporting a war against a country that had no nuclear weapons, I was busy in the Senate working with Republican Dick Lugar to pass legislation to secure loose nuclear weapons and loose nuclear materials around the world!”
Three trillion dollars later…!
Yay! We’re Pixies! GG is a hobgoblin, ESJ is a troll (nothing new there) and Ron is….the Jabberwock! Watch him, eyes aflame, whiffle through the tulgey wood and burble as he comes.
KR @ 128 – I hope we do hear that line repeated regularly – it’s McCain’s weakest point. But there are plenty of other McCain weak points to target – not least the economy.
Another huge win for Obama! Endorsement from the Decemberists (one of the best alternative rock bands in the world). Those 75,000 people in Portland weren’t there for Obama. They were there to see the Decemberists. Obama has proven very adept at getting brilliant indy bands to perform for him and booth the youth turnout.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/50740-photos-the-decemberists-at-barack-obama-rally-portland-or-051808
Dio #131 What’s he doing with young people in booths? Are you trying to start a rumour?
Diogenes
First it was the Flaming Lips, now the Decemberists.
I’m starting to suspect you’re a med student rather than a professional….
McCain’s campaign slogan has been released:
“WE are the only ones who can save you from the disaster we’ve created!”
Ron
Would you accept that Hillary also got a disproportionate vote from white women? Do you see this as a ‘bloc’?
130
Diogenes
The Decemberists of Stephen Colbert guitar face off fame?
Like, wow, man, that Obama MUST be cool.
134
Yo ho ho
Oh no, Yo ho ho, you can’t call he Menopausal Bloc a ‘bloc’, that sexist! But you can Obama’s ‘block vote’ a bloc, that’s different.
133
Ferny Grover
That’s slightly better than the anti-depressant TV ad slogan they chose recently!
Maybe you should send it to them. It at least has one element of truth to it.
Here’s a comment from a real voter in the US which provides an insight into attitudes underpinning the US voters approach to security issues.
“Here’s the bottom line: Iran wants the bomb. Period. They aren’t gonna voluntarily stop until they have it. Sanctions aren’t gonna work. Neither will “negotiations” and “diplomacy”, nor any of the other fig leaves that the pacifists typically trot out. The mullahs want their bomb and they’re just stalling for time. Anyone who seriously believes otherwise is an idiot.
Given this situation, we have two choices here:
1) Continue to dither, hem & haw, taking the “high road” while the mullahs get their bomb, then cross our fingers and hope to God that they don’t ever actually use it (or, more likely, give it to a terrorist group to use while they sit back and watch). This is what you’ll get with President Obama.
2) Send in the US Air Force and the US Special Forces to reduce Natanz to a pile of rubble. This is what you’ll get with President McCain.
There is no third option, people.
For my part, I’m going with #2, and it’s not even close. Anyone who has ever studied Shia islam knows that devout shia believe that for The Mahdi to return to Earth and usher in an era of perfect peace & justice, there has to first be a period of global conflagration to wipe out the existing order.
Barack Obama showed his ignorance when he stated that Iran isn’t as big a threat as the Soviets were. The Soviets, at the end of the day, valued life more than ideology. The religious zealots running Iran value ideology more than life. Religious extremists are capable of actions that normal people cannot comprhend, and this is precisely why the idea of an Iran with nuclear weaponry is patently unacceptable to all but the most delusional, pie-in-the-sky liberals.
John McCain understands this. Barack Obama does not.”
Some recent numbers:
RCP has bumped Obama’s SD lead up 3 to 25.
Most recent Oregon Polls: RCP average is Obama by 12.0
Suffolk 05/17 – 05/18 600 LV 45 41 Obama +4.0
PPP (D) 05/17 – 05/18 1296 LV 56 38 Obama +18.0
SurveyUSA 05/16 – 05/18 627 LV 55 42 Obama +13.0
American Res. Group 05/14 – 05/16 600 LV 50 45 Obama +5.0
Portland Tribune 05/08 – 05/10 400 LV 55 35 Obama +20.0
Most recent KY polls: RCP av is Clinton by 29.2
Suffolk 05/17 – 05/18 600 LV 51 25 Clinton +26.0
American Res. Group 05/14 – 05/15 600 LV 65 29 Clinton +36.0
SurveyUSA 05/09 – 05/11 641 LV 62 30 Clinton +32.0
Research 2000 05/07 – 05/09 500 LV 58 31 Clinton +27.0
Rasmussen 05/05 – 05/05 800 LV 56 31 Clinton +25.0
And, finally, Slate has docked Hillary another 0.1 to sink her chances to 1.6%.
Here Sharky, Sharky Sharky….!
YHH, that brings up the profound question: are menopausal women intelligent individuals who can see past Hillary’s gender, or are black people only capable of seeing the colour of Obama’s skin?
Of course white women are thinking people if they prefer Hillary, but black people are just tribal jungle bunnies who can only identify with someone of their skin colour.
It’s obviously not possible for black people to prefer Obama’s message and character over Hillary’s on objective criteria, is it?
138
Greensborough Growler
A truly well informed commentator, huh Gruffy?
This is exactly the type of tripe that pushes Iran to want one, and the kind of mindless idiocy that’s put them in Iraq for no advantage and at endless cost.
This poster is so uninformed about the realities of Shia, Iran, and the geopolitics that it’s not worth even starting.
If this swill is the limit of your understanding, (and I haven’t seen otherwise) can I suggest you spend a few years reading about the regional players and the history of the place?
You just might, with effort, learn something.
135 KR
Yes, the Decemberists had a guitar faceoff with Stephen Colbert. The group has created a new genre of music called “hyperliterate rock” or “thesaurus rock” due to the ultra-genius IQ of its lead singer, Colin Meloy. About the only time I get out a dictionary now is when I’m listening to a new album of theirs. What other rock group uses the words tamaracks, palanquin, falderal and chaparral in a single song!
This just reinforces the stereotype of Obama and his supporters being intellectual elites but WTF, I don’t care!
KR
Ron’s assertion that Obama’s leading position comes from the black vote (10% as he says) sort of got me thinking (as much as i can these days). I assume that if the black vote is 10%, i can’t imagine the Hispanic vote being much more (let’s say 10% as well). Chuck in the other racial groups (Asian etc) and let’s say the minorities come to 50% of the vote.
That would mean that white woman are around 25% of the rest. And i’ve been led to believe they vote strongly for Clinton. And she still lost.
Of course, this is horrendously crude and uninformed pseudo-psephology. And i apologise to all for even submitting this comment. Just thinking out loud i guess.
“The Soviets, at the end of the day, valued life more than ideology.”
If that line alone didn’t alert you to the level of uninformed shite in the post, GG, then nothing will.
Someone on Daily Kos has made a good case for Al Gore to be Obama’s Veep – as an experienced white Southerner with labour ties and a burning interest in fighting global warming.
So, in the lull before the OR/KY storm we’re distracting ourselves with musical appreciation?
In that case, I’m working at the moment to the accompaniment of The Blue Nile’s ‘High’ album, having just enjoyed David Gilmour’s “On an Island.” Nice.
145
Phil Robins
“a burning interest in fighting global warming”…now, that’s a unique way of putting it! LOL
I don’t think Gore is even remotely interested in being a polly again, but an interesting argument.
138 – GG ["Send in the US Air Force and the US Special Forces to reduce Natanz to a pile of rubble."]
That apocryphal citizen advocating the same arrogant and dangerous intervention is clearly one of the 28% of his fellow citizens who believe the US is headed in the right direction. In the meantime Obama is addressing the other 72% about the change in direction they want.
142
Diogenes
Dio, that just proves that the world is running out of rhymes and these poor deluded people have turned to the Thesaurus for inspiration! LOL
Now, another thing to worry about: Peak Rhymes!
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 … 43 » Show All