Democratic Primary

Ta-Nehisi Coates delivers that truth about the Clinton campaign:

Woflson claims that Edwards and Clinton voters were the same. Really? What happened in Wisconsin? What happened in Indiana? (you know what I mean) What happened in Virginia? This is, ultimately, why I'm glad Clinton lost. Accountability does not exist with these guys, and in that, they really are Bush-lite. They had millions of dollars, front-runner status and, allegedly, the greatest politician of our era stomping for them--and they got their asses handed to them. But they can't come to terms with it.

(emphasis added)

Instead of moving on and accepting their own failures (see Mark Penn), Wolfson continues to try and bring down the whole party by finger pointing their way out of any fault for their loss. They tried to make the Clinton campaign a campaign of old, attacking and slandering the opponent at every turn. Voters are tired of this, especially in the Democratic Party, and the longer Howard Wolfson keeps this up the more damage he will do to any of Clinton's future plans for a White House run. Hillary Clinton needs to throw Wolfson under the bus now. He is on a destructive path that threatens to bring down his own candidate.

Since the news of Edwards affair broke on Friday, I've been waiting for this:

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.

Does the Clinton campaign really want to base their loss on an affair? If they want to go there, then perhaps an argument could be made that Hillary would have won if people were positive Bill could keep it in his pants. I hate using an analogy like that, but with Wolfson saying this, I am sure more people will raise the same point now.

If I was Hillary Clinton, I would release a statement saying that Howard Wolfson no longer speaks for the campaign. It's time to throw this sore loser under the bus and move on.

[election 85]

I am going to try and keep up with delegate counts here. There's a lot of movement today, so it might be tough. Interesting is that FOX already has Obama as the presumptive nominee.

Updated 7:50 pm est.

And thank God. After tonight all the states will be counted. This has been a long primary season, but that's due in a large part to this new crazy schedule. That's also why I supported sanctions against Florida and Michigan. Without sanctions for violating the timing rule, we could end up with our 2012 primaries in 2010. States will keep jumping one another until we enter a time of perpetual primaries and general elections. It needs to stop, and the whole primary process needs to be revamped. Hopefully the DNC will take this on after November.

I must say this primary has brought out the worse in the blogosphere. I been reading blogs that are very pro-Obama and very pro-Clinton. The level of discourse these blogs are engaging in is disgusting. It also emphasis what I hear at every Jefferson-Jackson dinner, party fundraiser, etc., from people who have been active in the party for years; "we don't visit the swamp land of the blogs".

That's how many more delegates Obama needs to cross the magic line. MSNBC has it at 41.5. Obama picked up two new super delegates today, which should be a sign of the week to come. I am going to work up a new tracker for the remaining delegates sometime today.

That's the new magic number now that Florida and Michigan get their 1/2 votes.

[election 84]

As much as I wish he was, he is not. The media seems to not understand that though. They keep going on about "if Obama looses Kentucky". So? There is still a race going on. Neither candidate has reached the magic number to become presumptive nominee yet.

Yes Obama will be the nominee.

Yes Hillary doesn't have a chance to catch up with him.

But people know there is still a race going on. Some people are still hoping Hillary can pull off a miracle (sorry it won't happen). The media has this notion though that they declare the nominee of a party and all America should bow down to their infinite wisdom. Sorry but that's not how democracy works. Thankfully enough Americans do know that and still go out and engage in democracy. If they listened to the media then McCain wouldn't be the GOP presumptive nominee and Hillary would have been declared victor before the primaries even started.

So Fox, MSNBC and CNN, get over yourselves. You are not the king makers, we the people are. You do not dictate democracy, you report on it, and right now you are doing a piss poor job of doing that.

I doubt we will have any surprises tonight, but here it is:

[election 71]

There is a big debate going on if John Edwards said "I voted for him" or "I voted for 'em" on MSNBC this morning. Here's the video and the entire interview is damn good.

More at the HuffPo

If their numbers hold true, then what excuse does Hillary have now? He has won the most states, the most popular vote, the most pledged delegates and now the most super delegates. Perhaps she should have looked at getting rid of Mark Penn earlier, like when he thought Democratic primaries were "winner take all".

George McGovern has switched to endorsing Obama and is urging Clinton to drop out. Even though the Clinton campaign is vowing to "fight on", things are looking very bad for them. As I said earlier, I think her fighting on is just in order to raise money in order to help bail her out of debt.

It sounds more like Clinton is facing the fact she can't win, without screwing over the process. Even if Michigan and Florida get seated as is, Obama wins the popular vote, and she has no way to catch up with pledged delegates.

A lot of speculation has gone on that Clinton has been holding on, waiting for some big controversy to emerge about Obama. Well following Rev. Wright, Obama has shown he can muster through the controversies.

What happened last night was the exact opposite of what Clinton needed. For it to have been a good night for her, Indiana needed to be called early with a decisive lead and North Carolina needed to go on into the wee hours of the morning, and end up being a nail bitter. That didn't happen. All her arguments for winning are now moot.

It also looks like some of her supporters are starting to think the same way. I kind of expect to see more super delegates declare for Obama in the next couple of days. They may wait a couple of days, to see what Clinton does, but the party wants this thing over with so we can focus on John McCain. The DNC doesn't want to dump all it's money into ads against McCain, and having the Obama money machine will be of great benefit.

Finally, speaking of money, Clinton may not actually drop out. Instead she will probably do a suspension of her campaign so she can continue to try and raise money. She is in major debt, and this would give her a path to nibble away at that.

If Obama wins North Carolina and Indiana, do you think Clinton will do the proper thing and concede to Obama? I highly doubt she will. She seems determined to cheat and steal her way into being the nominee, even if that means John McCain becoming the next President.