Hillary Denies Ceding the Race

before i checked cnn i was -- how do they say -- cautiously optimistic that hillary would acknowledge obama as the nominee tonight. i knew it was too good to be true. seems the ap report below is incorrect, according hillary's peeps. whatever.

ap: Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president.

Obama is 40 delegates shy of clinching the nomination, but he is widely expected to make up the difference Tuesday with superdelegate support and votes in South Dakota and Montana. Once he reaches the magic number of 2,118, Clinton will acknowledge that he has secured the necessary delegates to be the nominee.

The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City.

She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.

McCain Hopes to Woo Hillary's Forlorn

mccain wants hillary's crowd, the ones who won't vote for the democratic man but will vote for the republican one. as a woman i truly have no idea how sexism made them hate obama. he certainly hasn't been sexist. i hope that they come to their senses but i'm guessing they don't like obama for other unspecified reasons that i'm not interested in writing about anymore, at least not now. on the upside, i don't think there are many of these hardcore women voters who haven't already signed on to the obama camp.

ny observer: The major newspapers now regale us with stories about the many women, especially but not limited to the Geraldine Ferraro generation, who threaten to withhold their votes from Obama. Such angry and disillusioned female Democrats seem, for the moment, to be everywhere.

But even if we accept that this phenomenon is real (even if encouraged by Clinton herself), the question going forward is this: Will these voters will really turn tail on the Democratic nominee and vote for John McCain?

Recent history suggests that the idea of a mass female defection to the Republican side is more than a little unlikely: In 2000 Al Gore carried women voters 54-43 percent, and John Kerry carried them 51-48.

More significant, though, is the fact that John McCain doesn’t appear to have much innate ability to appeal to female voters in the way, for example, Bill Clinton did. McCain doesn’t have the patience to feel anyone’s pain, and he would, if left to his own devices, talk 24/7 about foreign policy rather than issues, like health care, that resonate strongly with women voters.

So is it at all reasonable to believe, even if lots of women are mad at Obama right now, that McCain is the guy to reel them in?

The Apathetic Hole

people are trying to discount the youth vote as fickle. as one person put it: "They are all excited about him, and they don't have any staying power. If Obama doesn't get the nomination, do they get angry again and crawl back into their apathetic hole?"

see, it's not like that.

i think young people and others who support obama aren't necessarily party affiliated. we may be on paper because we have to be to vote. but we're not entrenched in that partisan mindset. we are looking forward to the new politics that obama offers.

if clinton is the nominee, why vote for her? just because she's the democratic nominee? i don't think so. i've based my decision on the person, not the party. it's not that i'm apathetic, but why would i vote for someone who i thought would be a bad leader? just to go along with the party? that doesn't mean anything to me.

i'm not voting for obama because he's a democrat, or the best of two democrats. i'm voting for his leadership.

Obama Leads In Latest Polls

rasmussen shows obama up by 7 points and gallup by 3, abc by 7 and newsweek by 1

No Do Overs in Michigan and Florida

DNC chairman howard dean said sorry michigan and florida, no do overs. both states opted early on in the democratic nomination process not to follow the rules of the game. michigan and florida are one part of clinton's strategy to win at all costs.

Michigan and Florida have two options: either submit a new plan for a process for choosing their convention delegates, or appeal to the Convention Credentials Committee, which resolves issues about the seating of delegates.

"The Democratic Nominee will be determined in accordance with party rules, and out of respect for the presidential campaigns and the states that did not violate party rules, we are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game," he said.

update 3-6: obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in michigan, yet clinton is insisting the votes be counted.

Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady, was the only leading Democrat to appear on ballots in Michigan and made a handful of allowed fund-raising appearances in Florida in the last days before the vote, while other candidates skipped the state. She won both contests.

Now, as she trails Obama by 100-plus delegates, Clinton has called for the Michigan and Florida delegations to be seated at the party's convention in Denver, Colorado. cnn

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