The Ashford Zone Blog

Bugs Bunny

The Polio Vaccine

Both of Obama’s Parents

Mount Rushmore

McDonalds

Alaska

From thingsyoungerthanmccain.com

UPDATE:

The Hillary-Obama feud is, in my opinion, overplayed.  Hillary will drop out, and the party will unite.  Most think McCain has has a gift by not having opposition all this time.

But there are clouds on the horizon.

Ron Paul Supporters Plan To Disrupt McCain’s GOP Nominating Convention Coronation

Is Arizona Senator John McCain facing an opposition-free Republican convention where it’ll be clear, conflict-free sailing as he wins the delegate count to make him the nominee and shapes a platform to his personal liking? According to the Los Angeles Times’ Andrew Malcomb, the answer is “nope”: Rep. Ron Paul’s forces will be there and they have other ideas:

…..[Q]uietly, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in St. Paul at the beginning of September.

Paul’s presidential candidacy has been correctly dismissed all along in terms of winning the nomination. He was even excluded as irrelevant by Fox News from a nationally-televised GOP debate in New Hampshire.

Heh.

And then there’s Bob Barr, running as a third party candidate, which will sap a lot of votes from the GOP.  He’s the Ralph Nadar of the right.

Barr unpersuaded by ‘don’t run’ pleas

Former Rep. Bob Barr says a number of Republicans have been trying to persuade him not to run for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, but none has given him a convincing reason.

The former Republican congressman from Georgia formed an exploratory committee last month and told The Washington Times he has since been subjected to the behind-the-scenes pressure from Republicans not to run.

Mr. Barr says even people who have tried to dissuade him understand why he thinks it important to raise issues from what he calls a "genuinely conservative" perspective and to offer alternatives to the positions of the two major-party candidates.

"In the month since we formed our exploratory committee, not a single Republican who has spoken with me to try and convince me not to seek the Libertarian nomination has disagreed with my reasons for considering a run," Mr. Barr told The Times today in an e-mail exchange before leaving London on a flight to Atlanta.

Most Republicans who asked him not to run "also said they understand why I’d run and why John McCain is not conservative and will not seriously tackle the growth in government power and spending," he said. "Some said they would vote for me if I ran, but for the sake of the Republican Party, they would prefer I didn’t."

Heh again.

And finally, who else might be drawing votes from the GOP candidate?  Well, Obama himself, if this is any indication:

Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man.

He’s a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he’s breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.

"I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University.

Dudley’s disenchantment with the GOP isn’t unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.

Even Robert Novak notes that McCain has an "evangelical problem".

I like the way this is shaping up….

First Read:

The Obama campaign announced three superdelegates — Jeanette Council (NC); Jerry Meek (NC) and Inola Henry (CA) — have pledged support. AP is reporting one more, a switch from Clinton in Virginia, Jennifer McClellan. (We’re working to confirm that and will update.)

The Delegate Counts:
PLEDGED: Obama 1,588-1,422
SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 273.5-259
OVERALL: 1,847-1.695.5

* Obama is 178 from the Magic Number of 2,025.
* There are 262.5 undeclared superdelegates, including about 50 who are not yet named and will be added on at state conventions or the like.

Says an insider to the Clinton campaign (sort of).  Larry O’Donnell writes:

A senior campaign official and Clinton confidante has told me that there will be a Democratic nominee by June 15. He could not bring himself to say the words “Hillary will drop out by June 15,” but that is clearly what he meant. I kept saying, “So, Hillary will drop out by June 15,” and he kept saying, “We will have a nominee by June 15.” He stressed what a reasonable person Hillary is.

Everything about our conversation implied that he had already had this reality-based discussion with Hillary. He said the Clinton campaign plan is to collect as many votes and delegates as they can right through June 3, then take no more than a week or so to make their case to the superdelegates. Nothing he said indicated that he actually expected the superdelegates to move to Hillary in the week after the final election. The Clinton campaign has not lost its grip on reality. Yes, Clinton spokespersons publicly seem to be lost on gravity-free planet Clinton, but privately they know the end is near.

TO:   Superdelegates
FROM:   David Plouffe, Campaign Manager
RE:   An Update on the Race for Delegates
DA:   May 7, 2008

There are only six contests remaining in the Democratic primary calendar and only 217 pledged delegates left to be awarded. Only 7 percent of the pledged delegates remain on the table. There are 260 remaining undeclared superdelegates, for a total of 477 delegates left to be awarded.

With North Carolina and Indiana complete, Barack Obama only needs 172 total delegates to capture the Democratic nomination.  This is only 36% of the total remaining delegates.

Conversely, Senator Clinton needs 326 delegates to reach the Democratic nomination, which represents a startling 68% of the remaining delegates.

With the Clinton path to the nomination getting even narrower, we expect new and wildly creative scenarios to emerge in the coming days. While those scenarios may be entertaining, they are not legitimate and will not be considered legitimate by this campaign or its millions of supporters, volunteers, and donors.

We believe it is exceedingly unlikely Senator Clinton will overtake our lead in the popular vote and in fact lost ground on that measure last night. However, the popular vote is a deeply flawed and illegitimate metric for deciding the nominee – since each campaign based their strategy on the acquisition of delegates. More importantly, the rules of the nomination are predicated on delegates, not popular vote.

Just as the Presidential election in November will be decided by the electoral college, not popular vote, the Democratic nomination is decided by delegates.

If we believed the popular vote was  somehow the key measurement, we would have campaigned much more intensively in our home state of Illinois and in all the other populous states, in the pursuit of larger raw vote totals. But it is not the key measurement. We played by the rules, set by you, the DNC members, and campaigned as hard as we could, in as many places as we could, to acquire delegates. Essentially, the popular vote is not much better as a metric than basing the nominee on which candidate raised more money, has more volunteers, contacted more voters, or is taller.

The Clinton campaign was very clear about their own strategy until the numbers become too ominous for them. They were like a broken record , repeating ad nauseum that this nomination race is about delegates. Now, the word delegate has disappeared from their vocabulary, in an attempt to change the rules and create an alternative reality.

We want to be clear – we believe that the winner of a majority of pledged delegates will and should be the nominee of our party. And we estimate that after the Oregon and Kentucky primaries on May 20, we will have won a majority of the overall pledged delegates  According to a recent news report, by even their most optimistic estimates the Clinton Campaign expects to trail by more than 100 pledged delegates and will then ask the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters.

But of course superdelegates are free to and have been utilizing their own criteria for deciding who our nominee should be. Many are deciding on the basis of electability, a favorite Clinton refrain. And if you look at the numbers, during a period where the Clinton campaign has been making an increasingly strident pitch on electability, it is clear their argument is failing miserably with superdelegates.

Since February 5, the Obama campaign has netted 107 superdelegates, and the Clinton campaign only 21. Since the Pennsylvania primary, much of it during the challenging Rev. Wright period, we have netted 24 and the Clinton campaign 17.

At some point – we would argue that time is now – this ceases to be a theoretical exercise about how superdelegates view electability. The reality of the preferences in the last several weeks offer a clear guide of how strongly superdelegates feel Senator Obama will perform in November, both in building a winning campaign for the presidency as well as providing the best electoral climate across the country for all Democratic candidates.

It is important to note that Senator Obama leads Senator Clinton in superdelegate endorsements among Governors, United States Senators and members of the House of Representatives. These elected officials all have a keen sense for who our strongest nominee will be in November.

It is only among DNC members where Senator Clinton holds a lead, which has been rapidly dwindling.

As we head into the final days of the campaign, we just wanted to be clear with you as a party leader, who will be instrumental in making the final decision of who our nominee will be, how we view the race at this point.

Senator Obama, our campaign and our supporters believe pledged delegates is the most legitimate metric for determining how this race has unfolded. It is simply the ratification of the DNC rules – your rules – which we built this campaign and our strategy around.

• 1,593,395 votes were cast for Democrat Presidential Nominee
• Statewide voter turnout was %36.42
• 897,107 for Obama (56.3%), 660,747 for Clinton (41.47%), 12,448 for Mike Gravel (0.78%), statewide
• In my district (Lewisville Elementary), there are 3,099 registered voters.  300 voted for Clinton; 369 for Obama; 3 for Mike Gravel; and 3 for "no preference"
• 404,599 votes in the Dem Pres Nominee were cast statewide by absentee or early voting.  Of those, 59.2% went to Obama, 38.64% to Clinton
• Forsyth County went 67.4% Obama to 31.53% Clinton

It was clear to me that Hillary lacked a clear path to victory even before Pennsylvania.  Now, in the wake of the North Carolina blowout and the Indiana squeaker, I don’t see how she has a path at all, clear or otherwise.

She’s behind in the popular vote.  Even if you "give" her the votes in Florida and Michigan (the latter of which, Obama wasn’t even on the ballot), she’s still behind.

She’s behind in the delegate count.  Obama is within 200 of the mark.

The superdelegates have got to be coming out for Obama, recognizing that he is the clear favorite of Democratic voters.

What can Clinton do now to win?  Absolutely nothing.

She has to think about her political future — either the VP spot (if she wants it), or a future run in 4 or 8 years.

I’m not saying she should drop out.  But she’s got to change the tone of her campaign and be more concilliatory — for the good of the party and the presumptive nominee.

It looks, however, like she has read the writing on the wall.  Not only did she cancel her morning show appearances this morning, but we have learned this morning that she has cancelled all public appearances for tomorrow.

It’s over.  Not signed, sealed and delivered — but it’s over.

UPDATE: On a conference call with reporters this morning, the Clinton campaign says there have been "no discussions" of ending the campaign.

Don’t believe it.  I’m sure it was discussed.

And although Clinton backer George McGovern says it’s time for her to withdraw, and do did Wesley Clark, it looks like the campaign is forging on, putting all their eggs in the argument that Michigan and Florida delegates should count.

I’m not sure I would put much stock in the campaign conference call.  I think that’s the campaign talking, and not Hillary.  They have to take that "full steam ahead" position until a decision and strategy has been laid out.

Gotta love this.

Get home from rehearsal, and I see Obama has won NC by 14%.  A lot bigger than polls predicted.  And Clinton barely squeaked a victory in IN, by only 2%, a lot lower than polls predicted.

UPDATE:  MSNBC is saying Indiana is too close to call.  Obama might win.  They’re saying that Hillary is cancelling her morning show appearances.

It won’t fly until this evening, but the NC Board of Elections has a cool webpage set up (with graphs, piecharts, etc.) for the official results as they come in.