Politics News

Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:


Much of the Democratic party is now finding out what all of the Republican party already knows. The Clinton’s are ruthless when it comes to winning. Get in their way and the IRS will come visit you (when Bubba was president). Attack Bill or Hill and a private detective will be employed to find out how much dirt that can find on you. But the latest delegate battle is a whole new thing indeed. All delegates are Clinton delegates or didn’t you know that?

Everyone is now getting acquainted with the super delegate fiasco of the Democratic party; however, the Clinton’s are taking even the pledged delegates to a new level (low).

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after PLEDGED delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination. This strategy was confirmed by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. We’re not talking about super delegates- the 800 hot dogs who are not pledged to anybody. We’re talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

Is that fair, legal? Yep!

A pledged delegate is pledged to a particular candidate and cannot switch, right? Wrong!

Pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, not even on the first ballot. This has been an open secret in the party for years, but it has never really mattered because there has almost always been a clear victor by the time the convention convened. But not now that Hillary is behind. This time, one candidate may enter the convention leading by just a few pledged delegates, and those delegates may find themselves being promised the sun, moon and stars to switch sides. Would Hillary or Bubba do that?

Duh!

“I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates,” a senior Clinton official said Monday afternoon. “All the rules will be going out the window.” Rules of good behavior, maybe. But, in fact, the actual rules of the party allow for such switching. The notion that pledged delegates must vote for a certain candidate is, according to the Democratic National Committee, a “myth.”

Winning with superdelegates is potentially party-splitting because it could mean throwing out the choice of the elected delegates and substituting the choice of the super delegates. So, to give some semblence of fairness, go after the PLEDGED delegates and have them switch their votes..

Hey, the Obama tsunami must be stopped at any odds. If the Wisconsin primary doesn’t do it, if Texas or Ohio doesn’t do it, then Bubba will do it!

So why are we going through all this primary hullabaloo? We do it to provide some sort of integrity and legitmacy; however, in the event truth does not work out as the powers that be want, then we’ll do it the old-fashioned way. Can you say power-brokering fraud and intimidation? And then they’ll point fingers at people like Jason Rae and say it’s his fault. Blame shift seems to always work these days.

I can’t wait to see how this all works out. Could it be that the history-breaking female and African-American dream candidates implode and shoot themselves in the foot and give us four more years of Bush-i-ness? God help us all!

Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:


Before the polls had closed in the Potomac primary (Virgina, Maryland, and D.C.), Hillary was already in El Paso, Texas. She will probably live there for the next three weeks or until the March 4th Texas primary. And Obama was looking ahead to the next week, not three weeks from now, so he was in Wisconsin. Obama has won eight states in a row now, in just the last five days! But, that’s just part of the story.

What is amazing is the margin of victory and the internal voter profile data!

Obama won Virginia by 29 percentage points! TWENTY NINE (64-35%). That is staggering. And what must send shock waves through the Clinton camp is how well Obama did in her past strengths. Obama made in-roads to the women votes, older voters, and lower income voters. These historical strengths for Hillary faded big time in Virginia.

Obama won Maryland by 24 percentage points! TWENTY FOUR (60-36%). The polls had to stay open for another 90 minutes due to weather and long, long lines. Even the super delegates are re-thinking things now.

Obama won the DC vote by 51 percentage points! FIFTY ONE (75-24%). Hillary never expected to win the District Of Columbia but she sure didn’t expect to lose by such a great margin. She now has three weeks to re-tool and somehow hope that Obama will make some major mistake. That notwithstanding, the Clinton “dirty-tricks” squad will be working the late night oil to find something, anything that might stick like mud.

Get the picture? It’s called a landslide, a blow out, a massive TSUNAMI!

Obama now has the outright delegate lead. He has won 8 states in a row. And he has old MO (momentum) now firnly at his back shoving him onward. It’s not over by any means; however, Tuesday nights victory was like a literal tsunami that literally wiped everything out of it way and changed the political landscape- maybe for good!

PS. The good news is that Obama didn’t win another Grammy Tuesday evening.

Gurumurthy Kalyanaram asked:


We (consumers) make choices based on their reference points/anchor points. Or put it differently, we evaluate our choices as prospects given our own reference frame based on past experience and other information. Given a particular situation (prospect) with two potential but very different choices/options, two individuals may adopt the two different choices and both would be considered rational and reasonable by the individuals because their choices are consistent with their reference framework and experiences. Colloquially, sometimes we call this as “optics.”

Two behavior psychologists (Kahneman and Tverskey, 1979) discussed this at length and proposed a general theory to explain choices made by human beings. Kalyanaram and Little (1994) demonstrated the application of this theory to marketing, particularly, to pricing.

The prospect theory is applicable to the current Democratic party presidential contest too. Both Senators Obama and Clinton earnestly believe that they have a reasonable path to party’s nomination. Using the formal expected utility theory, Clinton should not be so hopeful but she is because she is seeing the nomination road through a different frame than Obama is seeing. That’s why this is such a dogged race. Only when one of them — Clinton or Obama — perceives his/her prospect dimly will the race for the nomination end.

The report filed by Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic (based on the conference call with the reporters by the two campaigns on May 1, 2008) clearly illustrates the different optics/frame employed by the two candidates.

“THE OBAMA UNIVERSE is governed by the reality that every night, when the Clinton campaign turns out the lights in Arlington, Clinton is not really any close to winning the nomination that when the first intern trudged in at the crack of dawn. The math hasn’t changed. Obama is 283 delegates away from declaring victory. Obama is winning two superdelegates for every one she wins; every additional superdelegate he receives equals at least 1.X more superdelegates that Clinton must pick up. Not a single pledged delegate has switched to Clinton — indeed, when was the last time a pledged delegate ever switched sides; not a single superdelegate has switched to Clinton; a few superdelegates who’ve counseled patience (like freshman Bruce Braley of Iowa) say they now support Obama. The progressive media establishment — the Olbermanns and Chris Matthews of the world — are regularly inveighing against Clinton’s decision to stay in the race. Obama has way more money to spend, the support of the party’s most reliable constituencies, the ability to expand the map. His divorce with Rev. Wright takes a general election hot pot off the table. He is much more likeable and seen as much more honest than Clinton; Republicans and independents still have warmer feelings for him than they do with Clinton. Clinton’s embrace of a gas tax pause shows that her campaign isn’t serious about policy and voters perceive that. Oh, and voters in Indiana and North Carolina aren’t watching cable news and aren’t really paying attention to Rev. Wright. And besides, they’re tired of all of this: tired of the noise, tired of the distractions, tired of old politics, and ready for change. This long race is hurting the party; superdelegates know this, and the tipping point has been reached.

IN THE CLINTON UNIVERSE, Clinton has all the green cards. Victory, (enough) money, momentum in the national polls, the public acknowledgment of Republicans that she’d be the tougher candidate, the fact of undecided superdelegates, and the testicular fortitude that impresses white working class voters… A month of scrutiny has noticeably eroded reduced Obama’s standing with critical constituencies, and in many critical states, Clinton’s brand is a winner: according to three new telephone surveys by Quinnipiac, in Florida, Clinton leads McCain by eight points; Obama and McCain are tied. In Ohio, Clinton leads by ten points; Obama and McCain are tied. Both Clinton and Obama lead McCain in Pennsylvania; Clinton’s margin is twice that of Obama’s. Most of the remaining superdelegates represent white working class districts (about 75% of them, in the estimation of one Clinton strategist.) They haven’t come out for Obama when was winning; they surely won’t support him when he’s losing. They’ll wait for information to see who’ll beat John McCain, and right now, that evidence points to Clinton. After Indiana (and depending on the margin in North Carolina), it will point even more to Clinton. Obama has proven himself out of touch and unable to dent Clinton’s standing with a critical swing constituency; even if African American turnout exceeds 100 percent, Obama would not be able to win Ohio with a double-digit deficit among white, working class voters. Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania precipitated a change in the fundamental dynamic of the race. Obama no longer appeals to independents; Clinton and Obama now have roughly the same appeal to independents. In a (near) recession, with expensive gas and good prices, with foreclosed homes and rising health care premiums, Clinton has the knowledge and leadership to turn this economy around, and that explains why she’s done so well. Finally, she’s an underdog, and Democrats root for the underdog. This long race is helping the party; Democrats are excited; Superdelegates perceive this, and the tipping point is coming soon.”

Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:


Is the Hillary Clinton campaign machine in the last throes of life? There is no mistaking a certain flailing, a lashing-out, as Hillary Clinton has become angry, mocking, and offensive in the last few days leading up to today’s Ohio debate- the 20th such debate and the LAST! Tonight is D-Day for the Hillary express. A kick off or the boot?

One such indicator of a failing campaign is the denial of any sense of reality. Harold Ickes as an example, gave the following description of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s prospects, “We’re on the way to locking this nomination down,” he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction. Locking it down? Get real!

The Austin Texas debate did not help Hillary. Will Ohio tonight?

Ickes added, while played the good cop role also said, “We think we are on the verge of our next up cycle,” he reported, even suggesting the apparent impossibility that Clinton “may be running even” with Obama when all the contests are over. “This race is very close,” he judged. “This is tight as a tick.”

Someone get that man a cup of coffee and wake him up!

In case the Clinton camp missed something, Obama has won ELEVEN election contests in a row, is ahead in teh pledged delegate count, the total delegate count, and the popular vote. Granted, we have four primaries coming up next week with 400+ delegates at stake, but it’s doubtful those four will change much of the current trend if anything at all.

The Obama tsunami rolls on!

Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:


How is it that Hillary can be “ready on day one” when her campaign is in a shambles now? Since she has been running for president for eight+ years now, why is her campaign so dysfunctional? She has the democratic machine behind her, Bubba, and access to wealth and power beyond limits and yet she now finds herself in the second slot in this horse race for the democratic nomination.

And if anyone thinks she’s going to bow out, you have another think coming. She’d rather sink the party and the nation before losing. Hillary doesn’t lose! So, while Barack Obama’s campaign touts “the math” as pointing to an insurmountable delegate lead for the Illinois senator, Hillary marches on and even has the audacity to say Obama would be a good VP on her ticket!

I’m here to tell you that IF she won the nomination, and IF Obama was amicable to a VP role (and he’s not), she could not stand having him as a VP because of his popularity. Hillary will not have anyone looking good around ehre except here image in the mirror.

Rich Lowry nails it on the head when he wrote, “Hillary isn’t electrifying on the stump, her campaign is dysfunctional, and — truth be told — she’s not particularly experienced. What Hillary has is a shameless will to power, and a near lock on an old-school Democratic coalition built on working-class whites. That is enough for her to try to pry the nomination from Obama’s hands one finger at a time.”

It’s impossible for Hillary to gain enough delegates over the enxt eleven primaries to exceed Obama. So, other behind closed door methods will have to be employed. And she can do that! Obama will most likely continue to lead Clinton by about 100 pledged delegates, but won’t get enough to secure the nomination before the convention in August. Obama, and Hillary for that matter, will need superdelegates — elected officials and party officers who are free to vote for whomever they choose, Lowry notes.

Ahh, those fluid super delegates! Who knows how many each candidate has?

The super delegates won’t necessarily support the candidate with the most pledged delegates. The Washington Post spoke with 80 superdelegates who said they will support the candidate who will run the strongest campaign against Republican John McCain. And just who is going to determine who that might be? The Magnolia state gets to add it’s feelings today!

Obama has downplayed the possibility of taking the vice presidential slot, but hasn’t totally ruled it out, and until he does, doubts will remain about whether he has the stomach for what Hillary will drag him through. Hz Obama got the guts, the will, the moxy to take all that Hillary and Bubba can throw at him? We’re surely going to find out.

The Hillary Clinton campaign may be short of professionalism, but it’s not short on intimidation and pwoer brokering. Stay tuned for……….NEWS! :-)Hillary Clinton Campaign