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Do you know how the vote by mail will work? There was talk of only Dems getting ballots, of Dems and Indies, or only the people who actually voted the 1st time. Any clue?
BTW I like the vote by mail option; cheap and simple. But this is FL and they'll probably let the vote be corrupted somehow.
The memo is quoted in that link I posted above. Just registered Dems. They had a closed primary last time when it didn't count, so this one being closed makes sense.
Nope. I think it was the first closed-primary showdown, because there was some speculation beforehand as to how McCain would fare finally going up against a strictly Republican electorate.
Feedback please, I would be interested to know if my basis is possibly askew.
ClarkGriswold
I don't think they're special interest groups, they're just different demographics that are setting much greater media coverage than usual. Voting is always broken down between race/religion/gender/age for the sake of the talking heads having something to talk about. And if you're need a white male to represent you, you've still got McCain
Not to forget that white dudes have overwhelming majority senate, congress, and state governement.
Now that their is a lot of mixture in politics the people are getting scared. Plus, if all those white guy in our history treated women and minority fair then we have nothing to worry about.
In a laudably bloggy spirit, the Obama campaign annotates a bravado-filled Clinton memo from earlier today ("Barack Obama cannot reverse his downward spiral.")
This exchange jumped out a bit though:
The path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes through Pennsylvania so if Barack Obama can't win there, how will he win the general election?
[Answer: I suppose by holding obviously Democratic states like California and New York, and beating McCain in swing states like Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin where Clinton lost to Obama by mostly crushing margins. But good question.]
That sort of suggests Obama is contemplating a strategy that doesn't run through the traditional swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, though an Obama aide assures me that's not what it means, and that he expects to beat McCain there as well.
Full, annotated, memo after the jump.
From: Bill Burton Sent: Wed 3/12/2008 6:36 PM To: Bill Burton Subject: FW: The Clinton Memo... as annotated by the Obama communicationsdepartment
To: Interested Parties
From: Clinton Campaign
Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Re: Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground [Get ready for a good one.]
The path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes through Pennsylvania so if Barack Obama can't win there, how will he win the general election?
[Answer: I suppose by holding obviously Democratic states like California and New York, and beating McCain in swing states like Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin where Clinton lost to Obama by mostly crushing margins. But good question.]
After setbacks in Ohio and Texas, Barack Obama needs to demonstrate that he can win the state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the last state with more than 15 electoral votes on the primary calendar and Barack Obama has lost six of the seven other largest states so far - every state except his home state of Illinois.
[If you define "setback" as netting enough delegates out of our 20-plus-point wins in Mississippi and Wyoming to completely erase any delegate advantage the Clinton campaign earned out of March 4th, then yeah, we feel pretty setback.]
Pennsylvania is of particular importance, along with Ohio, Florida and Michigan, because it is dominated by the swing voters who are critical to a Democratic victory in November. No Democrat has won the presidency without winning Pennsylvania since 1948. And no candidate has won the Democratic nomination without winning Pennsylvania since 1972.
[What the Clinton campaign secretly means: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT WE'VE LOST 14 OF THE LAST 17 CONTESTS AND SAID THAT MICHIGAN AND FLORIDA WOULDN'T COUNT FOR ANYTHING. Also, we're still trying to wrap our minds around the amazing coincidence that the only "important" states in the nominating process are the ones that Clinton won.]
But the Obama campaign has just announced that it is turning its attention away from Pennsylvania.
[Huh?]
This is not a strategy that can beat John McCain in November.
In the last two weeks, Barack Obama has lost ground among men, women, Democrats, independents and Republicans - all of which point to a candidacy past its prime.
["A candidacy past its prime." These guys kill me.]
For example, just a few weeks ago, Barack Obama won 68% of men in Virginia, 67% in Wisconsin and 62% in Maryland. He won 60% of Virginia women and 55% of Maryland women. He won 62% of independents in Maryland, 64% in Wisconsin and 69% in Virginia. Obama won 59% of Democrats in Maryland, 53% in Wisconsin and 62% in Virginia. And among Republicans, Obama won 72% in both Virginia and Wisconsin.
But now Obama's support has dropped among all these groups.
[That's true, if you don't count all the winning we've been up to. As it turns out, it's difficult to maintain 40-point demographic advantages, even over Clinton]
In Mississippi, he won only 25% of Republicans and barely half of independents. In Ohio, he won only 48% of men, 41% of women and 42% of Democrats. In Texas, he won only 49% of independents and 46% of Democrats. And in Rhode Island, Obama won just 33% of women and 37% of Democrats.
[I'm sympathetic to their attempt to parse crushing defeats. And I'm sure Rush Limbaugh's full-throated endorsement of Clinton didn't make any difference. Right]
Why are so many voters turning away from Barack Obama in state after state?
[You mean besides the fact that we're ahead in votes, states won and delegates?]
In the last few weeks, questions have arisen about Obama's readiness to be president. In Virginia, 56% of Democratic primary voters said Obama was most qualified to be commander-in-chief. That number fell to 37% in Ohio, 35% in Rhode Island and 39% in Texas.
[Only the Clinton campaign could cherry pick states like this. But in contrast to their logic, in the most recent contest of Mississippi, voters said that Obama was more qualified to be commander in chief than Clinton by a margin of 55-42.]
So the late deciders - those making up their minds in the last days before the election - have been shifting to Hillary Clinton. Among those who made their decision in the last three days, Obama won 55% in Virginia and 53% in Wisconsin, but only 43% in Mississippi, 40% in Ohio, 39% in Texas and 37% in Rhode Island.
[If only there were enough late deciders for the Clinton campaign to actually be ahead, they would really be on to something.]
If Barack Obama cannot reverse his downward spiral with a big win in Pennsylvania, he cannot possibly be competitive against John McCain in November.
[If they are defining downward spiral as a series of events in which the Clinton campaign has lost more votes, lost more contests and lost more delegates to us - I guess we will have to suffer this horribly painful slide all the way to the nomination and then on to the White House.]
Okay, the whole Michigan and Florida re-vote thing reminds me of "the Little Red Hen" fairy tale.
They wanted to be first, they wanted to be noticed so they decided that they didn't care if their delegates were taken away. Now they're all crying foul because they were punished for not following the rules.
I know this has been discussed before, but I just saw a bit about it on the news and it just makes me mad.
Hillary's people has been asking for this for a while because the poll better in those two states. Howard Dean said he would only ask for it if Obama was on board also. Obama said okay, but what could he do. If he said no it could harm him in november. Although Hillary may win there is no way she can win enough to pull ahead she would have to get over %75 of the votes to get enough delegates to turn it around in those two states.
Wooz, maybe you should drop a message on her myspace and ask her to roo.... If not we can take up a collection or have a marathon to raise the money.
Actually, the picture I posted was from her myspace page. The media figured out who she was, her page got five million hits on Thursday and was said to have been taken down by the time I read that story this morning. She also apparently has pop star aspirations and the article said the two songs they found were Britneyesque.
I'm pretty she she'll be able to afford Roo herself with all the offers she's probably getting right about now.
Please do us all nasty style at the Roo, preferrably, for cheap. It'll be fun. We totally promise. Seriously.
Sincerely,
The Inforoo
We can totally milk her pop-star aspirations to lure her to Roo.
Maybe even make a guest appearance in The Boxxx.
We should make a plea to Superfly.
;D
Anyone bringing up The Boxxx is alright with me. As for Kristen in said boxxx, I'm sure she'd be more than welcome. I'm sure Superfly would be down for that last minute addition...
"...and appearing in The Boxxx, somewhere on the edge of tent only, near the guy with the crazy eye, whose tent may, or may not, have been on fire last night, but was put out by that other dude who smells like taquitos, of Eliot Spitzer fame...KRISTEN!"
For the record, I totally had to Google the characters to refresh myself, but then it all came rushing back. Kucinich was totally Simon and Hillary is clearly Roger.
And yeah, I hate to admit it, but Richardson is totally Piggy. Regardless, the conch is jammed somewhere it probably shouldn't be and the fire on the mountain is becoming more dim with each passing week -- we need something to happen...now.
The DNC's relative silence in all this is problematic to say the least. Hillary's campaign is just going to get filthier as time goes on, which will only make those of us who were already pretty lukewarm on her to begin with, fall into that ever growing group of folks who simply won't vote for her, no matter what. As for Obama, through no true fault of his own, his ability to stay out of the interparty slashings is crumbling, which, as all logic points to and I think everyone can agree upon at this point, is going to lead to a disasterously split party if this thing goes all the way to Denver.
It has been said over and over for months, but I guess I'm just now starting to feel sick about all this.
I'm an Obama mama and have to say if it wasn't for the threat of lawsuits from the Clinton campaign I'd love to tell FL and MI to go stick it. The one good this is it makes the generally useless NC primary into a very interesting place