Obama Supporters Countering on Michigan and Florida

obama has always contended florida and michigan delegates would be seated but they would be seated in a manner that is fair, given obama's name was not on the michigan ballot and both candidates agreed to abide by party rules and not campaign in those states.

hillary, in her despicable desperation, has incited her followers to protest the dnc may 31 to have the delegates seated according to the results of the january primaries. obama supporters are countering.

cnn:
Supporters of Barack Obama’s presidential bid are planning to demonstrate outside the Saturday meeting in Washington where Democratic officials are slated to debate the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations at the party’s summer convention.

The move comes days after backers of Hillary Clinton’s White House run announced plans to converge on the Washington, D.C. hotel where members of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee are meeting.

“Hillary Clinton's supporters are going to be bussing in protestors for the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, so it's critical that we show up for the counter-protest,” wrote on organizer in a post on the Daily Kos Web site Tuesday morning.

Last week, the pro-Clinton Committee to Count Every Vote said it was organizing a day-long May 31 rally outside the RBC meeting.

“Our purpose is not to divide the party or attack the DNC or Senator Obama. Michigan and Florida, however, in addition to Hillary's strong support nationwide, cannot and must not be dismissed in DNC efforts to unify the party.”

Hillary Now Pleads to Change the Nomination Process

first off, her popular vote argument is bogus.
she hasn't won it for one, and even if she did, it doesn't matter. obama and hillary campaigned according to the current rules. it's just that obama did a far better job at strategizing the delegate process. hillary's supporters are still in the dark on delegates.
obama needs 56 more delegates, clinton needs 246. there are only 86 pledged delegates (the remaining 3 elections) and 208 supers remaining. that's some pretty daunting math for hillary. it she'd have to win the majority of the remaining 294 delegates. if they split the remaining 86 delegates, that's 43 each.
add 43 to the 208 remaining uncommitted supers and you get 251. she needs 294. obama needs 56.
hillary keeps digging deeper but only gets dirtier.
the sad thing is in a few years she won't be known for advancing women, she'll be known as the divisive person who threw the kitchen sink in desperation.
here she is making her pathetic, last ditch efforts:

cnn: In the face of Barack Obama’s insurmountable lead among pledged delegates, Hillary Clinton on Friday again declared victory in the popular vote and suggested the current nominating process fails to represent the true will of American voters.

“We’re going to have to change the system by which we pick the nominees, I believe, and we are with the system we have now,” Clinton said, responding to a supporter here who lamented the role of superdelegates in selecting the party’s nominee. “And I’m a big believer in one person one vote, and I believe in as much democracy as possible.”

Clinton told the supporter that “superdelegates will play a big role” in choosing the nominee, but said she would prefer a primary-only system in which nominating contests would be bundled together.

“I think that’s an issue for debate in the future because I believe we should have primaries everywhere, and everybody, as many people as possible should be encouraged to vote,” she said. “We ought to group them so that nobody is at the tail end, so everybody has a chance to participate. But that’s all for the future.”

Obama Won't Declare Victory Tomorrow

he should, the race is over, but he won't. hillary is sucking up all the air, so for whatever reasons, people don't want to antagonize the political beast, who as of today is touting karl rove's assessment that she's the best candidate. her "exit" is getting uglier by the day.
it's sad that the clintons have led their supporters to believe that she has a chance. i believe that has to do with fundraising and paying off debts.
tomorrow, obama will have won the majority of delegates.

politico: Concerned about appearing presumptuous or antagonistic towards Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama will not declare victory in the Democratic nomination fight Tuesday in the event he wins enough pledged delegates to claim a majority.

Rather, he'll tiptoe right up to the line, without explicitly asserting the race is over.

While it may sound like an exercise in hair-splitting, the conscious decision not to declare victory is a revealing measure of the sensitivity surrounding overtures that appear to disrespect Clinton and her supporters.

It's also a reflection of the Obama campaign’s supreme confidence in the delegate math at this juncture — the campaign now appears secure enough in its commanding position that it no longer feels compelled to declare victory in an attempt to marginalize Clinton.

Hillary's Subdued Yapping In South Dakota

well, you've got to give her credit for going on and on and on and on. she's rallying in south dakota but is much more mellow and much more palpable. she is attacking george and not obama.
here is her plea to obama, who has said all along that the delegates of michigan and florida will be seated but maybe not her way. after all, michigan is really unfair because he wasn't on the ballot. she's just blathering on. why doesn't she just pick up the phone? oh, that's right, this is about scoring political points, looking good to her supporters:

cnn:
May 8, 2008

Senator Barack Obama

Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

Dear Senator Obama,

This has been an historic and exciting campaign. Millions of new voters have been brought into the process and their enthusiasm for the Democratic Party and the principles for which you and I have fought and continue to fight is unprecedented.

One of the foremost principles of our party is that citizens be allowed to vote and that those votes be counted. That principle is not currently being applied to the nearly 2.5 million people who voted in primaries in Florida and Michigan. Whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee will be hamstrung in the general election if a fair and quick resolution is not reached that ensures that the voices of these voters are heard. Our commitment now to this goal could be the difference between winning and losing in November.

I have consistently said that the votes cast in Florida and Michigan in January should be counted. We cannot ignore the fact that the people in those states took the time to be a part of this process and to make their preferences known. When efforts were untaken by leaders in those states to hold revotes to ensure that they had a voice in selecting our nominee, I supported those efforts. In Michigan, I supported a legislative effort to hold a revote that the Democratic National Committee said was in complete compliance with the party's rules. You did not support those efforts and your supporters in Michigan publically opposed them. In Florida a number of revote options were proposed. I am not aware of any that you supported. In 2000, the Republicans won an election by successfully opposing a fair counting of votes in Florida. As Democrats, we must reject any proposals that would do the same.

Your commitment to the voters of these states must be clearly stated and your support for a fair and quick resolution must be clearly demonstrated.

I am asking you to join me in working with representatives from Florida and Michigan and the Democratic National Committee to arrive at a solution that honors the votes of the millions of people who went to the polls in Florida and Michigan. It is not enough to simply seat their representatives at the convention in Denver. The people of these great states, like the people who have voted and are to vote in other states, must have a voice in selecting our party's nominee.

Sincerely,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Obama's Delegate and Popular Vote Lead

it's all about the numbers.
obama's rally yesterday in philly set records. 35,000 attended.
associated press analysis says obama could end up within 100 delegates of winning the nomination (2,025 delegates are needed), which is why hillary appears more desperate:

ap Clinton leads in Pennsylvania polls in advance of Tuesday’s primary there, with 158 convention delegates at stake. A victory is essential to her chances of winning the nomination, but far from sufficient. Instead, a triumph of any magnitude would instantly establish Indiana on May 6 as her next must-win state, particularly since her aides have privately signaled that defeat is likely in North Carolina on the same day.

Overall, Obama’s delegate lead is 1,645-1,507. That masks an even larger advantage among those won in primaries and caucuses. There, his advantage is 1,414-1,250. An additional 566 delegates are at stake in the remaining contests in eight states, Guam and Puerto Rico before the primary season ends on June 3.

If Obama captures 53 percent of them, which is the share he has gained in contests to date, he would close out the primary season with at least 1,945 delegates, only 80 less than the total needed to clinch the nomination. If he and Clinton split the 566 evenly, he would still be within 100 of the number needed.

Clinton needs to win a forbidding 65 percent of the delegates in the remaining primaries to draw even with Obama in pledged delegates. It’s a share she has achieved only once so far, in Arkansas, where her husband was governor for more than a decade.

Given the unyielding delegate math, Clinton has relied for weeks on forbearance from party leaders to sustain her challenge. And they are growing restless, eager for the epic nomination battle to end so Democrats can unify for the fall campaign against John McCain and the Republicans.

obama also has the popular vote lead by 717,086 votes. that's not including the caucuses, where obama has a 213,142 lead over clinton, for an edge of 930,228 votes altogether. (thanks to a reader for that, who sourced CNN). obama: 504,420 clinton: 291,278 other: 795,698
the caucus votes tallied were for 12 states not including texas. i'm not sure if texas caucus votes have been included in any statistics.
what hillary must do to win--one of the best videos yet.

Obama Has More California Delegates Than Reported

several mainstream news organizations have tallied the california delegates as 207 clinton and 163 obama. it really is 203 clinton and 167 obama, according to blogger david dayen's calculations:

The Wall Street Journal has a writeup on my findings of the discrepancy between the national media's California delegate counts and, you know, the actual count.

A California politics blogger has argued that Sen. Clinton won 36 more pledged delegates in the state than Sen. Obama, rather than the 44-delegate margin that has long been included in the news organizations' tallies. A spokesman for the state party confirms the blogger's numbers.

The shift, if validated once the state certifies its election results this week and the party chooses its delegates, is a reminder that the commonly reported delegate totals are mere estimates, subject to change as states finalize election results. It also highlights how a blogger with intense focus on the numbers may be faster than the established delegate counters.

David Dayen, who blogs at the site Calitics and serves on its editorial board, wrote last week that Sen. Clinton won 203 of the state's 370 pledged delegates - and not the commonly reported total of 207. He relied on updated vote totals from the state, based on late counts of absentee and provisional ballots. Later, when he noticed that several major news organizations still were showing Sen. Clinton with 207 delegates, he wrote a follow-up post explaining his calculation and exhorting, "I know math is hard and everything, but get out your calculators, people."

so beware, the tallies that you see may not be correct. we know this because virtually all of the media outlets are in disagreement in total delegate counts.

Clinton Stays in Superdelegates To Decide

since clinton is counting on "buyers remorse" or some big misstep on obama's part, she's staying in with the pitch that she has the momentum and that she can convince superdelegates that she's the right candidate.

anyway you crunch the delegate numbers, she's still behind. she has to win 62% of the remaining delegates to take the lead. yet another delegate game.

but she's saying that any president who wins the general election wins ohio. that won't happen this time because it seems most of ohio isn't ready for a black president. ohio will lose it's bellwether status.

either way you look at it, get ready for the kitchen sink plumbing and the rest of the house to come flying.

the counts:
obama has 202 and clinton 241, according to the nyt's new superdelegate tracker. 256 are up for grabs. here's the delegate count (texas caucus still being counted) to date (nyt):

obama
march 4 win: 88
current delegates: 1,275
current supers: 202
obama total: 1,477

clinton
March 4 win: 115
current delegates: 1,150
current supers: 241
cllinton total: 1,391

salon: But what exactly did Clinton gain with her extraordinary win? The Democratic race has come down to a contest of numbers versus narrative. The numbers are on Barack Obama's side. Clinton won three of four primary contests but did little, or perhaps nothing, to eat into Obama's pledged-delegate lead of more than 100. Barring a cataclysmic event, Clinton isn't going to take the delegate lead from Obama, which means he can still make the case that he is the candidate of the people.

Upcoming primary and caucus schedule

Up to date delegate tracker

Ohio Delegate Calculator For Fun

the buckeye state blog has this fun little calculator, which gives you an idea of just how big clinton needs to win to gain on obama.
if clinton gets 60% and obama 40%, clinton will only have 9 delegates more.
the delegate count: Obama 1187 delegates; 193 supers; total 1380.
Clinton 1035 delegates; 240 supers; 1275 total.

opinion piece in today's providence journal. note, that he hit the nail on the head in the first two paragraphs. obama gets it, which is half the battle.

By Barack Obama:

MOST AMERICANS have simple dreams. A job that can support a family. Health care we can count on and afford. A retirement that is dignified and secure. Education and opportunity for our kids.

But today, the price of the American dream is going up.

All across the country, Americans are working harder for less. We’ve never paid more for health care or for college. It’s harder to save, and it’s harder to retire. There are things we need to do right now to give our economy a boost, but a short-term stimulus is not enough. We have to put the American dream on a firmer foundation.

That’s going to take a change in the way Washington works. It’s time to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and to put a tax cut in the pocket of middle class Americans. That’s why I’ve proposed a “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 for American workers, and $1,000 for working families, as well as an additional tax credit for struggling homeowners. This will cut taxes for 150 million Americans, give our economy a boost, and put fairness back into our tax code.

We also need to protect a secure retirement by easing the burden on America’s seniors. That’s why I’ll eliminate income taxes for any senior making less than $50,000. And I’ll change our bankruptcy laws to protect workers’ pensions instead of protecting banks. Because I believe that if you work hard and pay into the system, you’ve earned the right to a secure retirement.

It’s also time to stop talking about the outrage of 47 million Americans without health care, and to start doing something about it. I expanded health care in Illinois by bringing Democrats and Republicans together. We took on the insurance industry, and provided health care to hundreds of thousands of families. And as president, I’ll cut a typical family’s premiums by up to $2,500, and make health care affordable and accessible for all Americans.

We also have to be clear that the American dream must never come at the expense of the American family. But even as politicians in Washington talk about family values, we haven’t had policies that value families. As the son of a single mother, I don’t accept an America that forces women to choose between their kids and their careers. That’s why I’ll expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover millions of additional Americans. We need to make sure you can take leave to care for elderly parents, and to join school activities with your kids.

We also need to expand paid leave. Today, 78 percent of workers covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act don’t take leave because it isn’t paid. And this has a far greater impact on families with less income and less savings. To make sure our system is fair, I will press states to adopt paid-leave systems, and set aside $1.5 billion to fund the start-up costs and help states offset the costs to employers. And I’ll require employers to provide all of their workers with seven paid sick days a year, because you shouldn’t be punished for being sick.

Finally, we have a responsibility to make sure that our young people can reach a little further and rise a little higher than we did. But too many Americans are weighted down by student loans. I know because Michelle and I just finished paying off our loans a few years ago. It’s time to put a college education within reach of every American. That’s why I’ll create a new and fully refundable annual tax credit worth $4,000 for tuition and fees. To receive this credit, we’ll require 100 hours of public service. Because it’s time to call upon our young people to serve our country; in return, we’ll invest in their future.

We’ve recently been reminded that when some folks hurt in our economy, all of us hurt. When things are going bad on Main Street, that catches up with Wall Street. And that’s how it should be. Because what binds us together, what makes us one American family, is that we have to stand up and fight for each other’s dreams. It’s time to reaffirm that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — through our politics, our policies and in our daily lives. It’s time to reclaim the American dream.
Obama’s message
Obama's legislative accomplishments
Obama’s mathematical delegate lead
what are presidential qualities?

Upcoming Democratic Primaries and Caucuses

some fabulous spreadsheet whiz created this chart of upcoming primaries and how many delegates are at stake and all kinds of good stuff.
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Popular vote count
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Obama newspaper endorsements
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Upcoming primary and caucus schedule
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Obama Beats Clinton in Delegates?

what's next?

there are several states holding caucuses and primaries coming up this month, feb. 9, feb. 12, feb. 18. more are in march, april and june.

where it stands: obama's got popular vote in Alaska, Missouri., Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Connecticut, North Dakota, Utah, Kansas, Alabama, Delware, Illinois, Georgia. he's won more states but clinton won the biggest two states in terms of delegates: new york and california.

it's the delegates that matters. 2025 are needed and neither have reached the 1,000 mark. and obama may have beat clinton in terms of delegates. that's some math those democrats do. then there are those so-called superdelegates and who the heck knows what they do. i haven't been able to figure it out and it doesn't seem like anyone is certain.

i see that clinton has more than obama but when do they matter? can they just be super at any time? or do they kick in at certain times? don't know.

delegate tracker

Obama: Georgia Illinois

Illinois, New Jersey California, New York are the big states.
Illinois= 153 delegates
Georgia =87
delegate tracker

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