I came to a realization last weekend while watching Mike Huckabee, Harold Ford, Jr. and various pundits discuss VP candidates on Meet the Press. We’re going to be hearing this exact argument for the next three months. I’ll care then. After the Oregon and Kentucky primaries tonight, I’m going to stop paying attention to the presidential race. There’s just not going to be any news of note until this fall. Why worry?
But before checking out for a few months, I’ve got one last Presidential Primary post left in me.
The question for the last few weeks has been “why is Hillary still in this race?” She can’t win a majority of pledged delegates, overall delegates, states, or votes (unless you use very strange definitions of who “counts”). Could she have something up her sleeve with Michigan and Florida?
According to Daily Kos, here was the delegate count at the end of the night:
Pledged
Super
Total
Needed
Obama
1,656.5
304.5
1,961
64
Clinton
1,501.5
277.5
1,779
246
Remaining
86
214
300
Obama passed 1,622 pledged delegates tonight and claimed a majority. But that excludes Florida and Michigan. Florida had 185 delegates and Michigan had 156. To get an absolute majority of pledged delegates including Florida and Michigan, he’d need 1,622 + (185 + 156)/2 = 1792.5 delegates. With only 86 pledged delegates left, there’s no way he can make Florida and Michigan irrelevant.
Or so goes the argument. But what did those excluded Florida and Michigan actually look like?
I don’t know precisely how the “Uncommitted” delegates work, but I imagine they’d be under enormous pressure to vote for Obama at the convention. Add those in and you get:
Pledged
Fl.+Mi.
Total Pledged
Needed
Obama
1,656.5
124
1780.5
12
Clinton
1,501.5
178
1679.5
113
Remaining
86
0
86
So if you include the Florida and Michigan delegations, he hasn’t passed that magic mark, but he’s extremely close. And more interestingly, he’s the only one that can pass that mark. Hillary needs 113 pledged delegates for a majority, but there are only 86 left. This is because of the Edwards delegates.
If you don’t give Obama the 55 uncommitted delegates from Michigan though, he’s unlikely to pass the 50% mark, even by June 3. Could that be the trick? It seems a bit far-fetched. We’ll find out in three months when I start paying attention again!
The big news of the day is that John Edwards is dropping out of the Democratic presidential race. It’s not clear to me whether this helps Clinton or Obama. From what I can tell, Edwards’ main constituency was older, white men. In the past, men have tended to favor Obama, whereas older people have tended to favor Clinton. It will be interesting to follow the polls over the next few days.
One thing that’s certain about Edwards’ decision is that it’s a good one for the Democratic party. Because each state awards delegates proportional to its popular vote, he could have grabbed maybe 5-10% of the delegates. This would have almost certainly prevented either Clinton or Obama from getting a majority, and led to a brokered convention. Now, that could only happen if there were an exceptionally close delegate race.
The Stanley Fish blog on the NY Times has a post looking at Hillary’s potential running mates this morning. This kind of piece does a lot to reinforce the “Hillary is inevitable” meme. I’m tempted to buy into it myself. Hillary’s been running the best campaign so far, and she’s been effective in all the debates. (Except for that quip about lobbyists representing the real America.)
At the same time, I know that the Hillary machine is trying to project a sense of inevitability. It’s all part of their plan, and I don’t want to buy into it.
I’m generally a big fan of Barack, but this gaffe really bugs me. It’s so incredibly heavy handed. The asking price was a pittance for his campaign.
I doubt Barack himself had much to do with it, but it makes me sad to see his organization strongarming an ardent supporter like this. Or, as the Daily Kos article puts it, “Shitting on your biggest supporters is generally not a wise thing to do.” Ugh.
Cut the guy some slack, already! He’s just doing the white guy dance. I’m sure all of us have done this many times. I know I have. I’d like to see Jon Stewart, Wolf Blitzer, or Jack Cafferty do any better.
I’ve enjoyed the few episodes of the Bill Moyers Journal that I’ve watch so far. There’s:
Buying the War, a look at press coverage in the runup to the Iraq War. This is pretty terrifying stuff, but what’s most interesting is that there were journalists who uncovered the truth about Iraq and WMD before the war. They were just relegated to the back pages.
Interview with Jon Stewart, in which they dissect Jon’s recent interview with John McCain. I remember seeing the interview, so it was interesting to hear Jon’s take on it.
Josh Marshall, of Talking Points Memo fame. A succinct summary of the U.S. Attorney’s scandal and the role that blogs played in it.
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for new episodes in the future. Fortunately, he’s got an RSS feed to make the job easy!
A&L Daily linked to an interesting article in The Boston Globe that attempts to examine the logic behind President Bush’s position on stem cells.
The article makes some good points, most notably that there’s no inherent logical contradiction in the president’s position. This is one of the reasons that stem cell arguments are so maddening. There’s a consistent position to be found on both sides of the issue, it’s just that most people don’t find the President’s side very compelling.
I watched the Daily Show for the first time in months today. Did it have a noticeable “jumping the shark” moment? It’s not what it used to be. It’s entirely driven by news clips. Play a funny clip, Jon Stewart makes a face and says something sarcastic. Jon laughs at his correspondent being absurd. Jon does an uninteresting interview.
America: The Book was a highlight, but the Crossfire Interview was undoubtedly The Daily Show’s high point. In retrospect, I first remember having my doubts about the Daily Show shortly after the Colbert Report started. I still enjoy Colbert. Somehow their two styles clash in a way that’s very unflattering to Jon. Whatever edge Jon used to have, Stephen’s got it now.
I just watched the Crossfire segment again, and it still brilliant after 18 months. Where’s that Jon Stewart? I wish he’d just talk on his show, instead of falling back on all the news clips and “correspondents”. Maybe then I’d start watching again.
I was struck by this story by Holly J, a woman who attended the recent anti-war protest in Washington. It’s mostly about the anti-anti-war protesters, who frighten her on her way to the protest. Then she unexpectedly comes face-to-face with one, and finds some perspective on the whole issue.
Part two of Frontline’s News War is on at nine tonight. I’ve never fully understood the Valerie Plame business or the Scooter Libby trial that’s going on right now, but I have a feeling this is going to be the show that makes me get it. You can watch part one online here.