Divided Democrats could boost McCain

"This suggests that some Clinton supporters are so strongly opposed to Obama (or so loyal to Clinton) that they would go so far as to vote for the "other" party's candidate next November if Obama is the Democratic nominee," Gallup wrote in its analysis.

au1929 wrote:

"This suggests that some Clinton supporters are so strongly opposed to Obama (or so loyal to Clinton) that they would go so far as to vote for the "other" party's candidate next November if Obama is the Democratic nominee," Gallup wrote in its analysis.

Or, it could mean that some people are supporting Clinton as a "novelty" (i.e. first woman to run for President as the Party's candidate) and may have crossed party lines (or be independent/unenrolled voters) to support her campaign... or any of a host of other possibilities.

I don't know that it actually "suggests" anything other than that Gallup may be looking for some press.

Or, it could mean that some people are supporting Clinton as a "novelty" (i.e. first woman to run for President as the Party's candidate) and may have crossed party lines (or be independent/unenrolled voters) to support her campaign... or any of a host of other possibilities.

Fishin wrote

Quote:

Or, it could mean that some people are supporting Clinton as a "novelty" (i.e. first woman to run for President as the Party's candidate) and may have crossed party lines (or be independent/unenrolled voters) to support her campaign... or any of a host of other possibilities.

Could it be that Obama is the novelty?

People may not go all the way by voting for McCain. But many democratic voters will be torn enough to not vote at all. Which in essense is a vote for McCain.

fishin wrote:

au1929 wrote:

"This suggests that some Clinton supporters are so strongly opposed to Obama (or so loyal to Clinton) that they would go so far as to vote for the "other" party's candidate next November if Obama is the Democratic nominee," Gallup wrote in its analysis.

Or, it could mean that some people are supporting Clinton as a "novelty" (i.e. first woman to run for President as the Party's candidate) and may have crossed party lines (or be independent/unenrolled voters) to support her campaign... or any of a host of other possibilities.

I don't know that it actually "suggests" anything other than that Gallup may be looking for some press.

It's pretty early in the general election cycle for these types of polls to mean much. Still, if you are someone who generally believes in the Democratic agenda, I can't see voting for McCain. You can hate the way your candidate was treated in the primary, but voting for the other side to spite the party would be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Clinton, Obama supporters wrangle over delegates

The acrimony is evident at district conventions in Texas this weekend, with each side accusing the other of underhandedness.

Los Angeles Times
March 30, 2008

HOUSTON -- Less than a month ago, Texas Democrats turned out in huge numbers for the presidential nominating contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, confident that, no matter who won, the party would have a popular, well-financed candidate.

But that exuberance is gone now.

Across the state this weekend, tense confrontations -- even shoving matches -- erupted as partisans for Clinton and Obama battled over how to interpret the March 4 election results and how to choose delegates to the Texas Democratic convention.

At one particularly raucous session Saturday at Texas Southern University, a leading Clinton backer, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, was booed by hundreds of Obama supporters, and police were called later to break up heated exchanges that left some in tears.

"It's bedlam," said Houston lawyer Daniel J. Shea, a Clinton backer. [..]

In a year that looked to be a Democratic romp, Obama and Clinton are burning money, erasing goodwill and eviscerating each other's reputation while the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, prepares to kick off his general-election campaign with a nationwide tour designed to highlight of military and congressional experience. On Saturday, Clinton told the Washington Post that she was prepared to take her campaign all the way to the party convention in August.

"This thing has turned from being an adventure to being a grind," said Robert M. Shrum, a Democratic strategist who managed John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. [..]

The potential for anger is more pronounced -- and the consequences more dire -- than in most campaigns because this contest is being waged along the fault lines of gender and race, with the would-be first female president versus the would-be first black president.

That was starkly evident Saturday at one convention in Houston, where mostly white Clinton supporters repeatedly challenged the credentials of black Obama backers in a heavily black district that had voted overwhelmingly for Obama. Democratic leaders, who had been thrilled by the massive turnout in early-voting states, now fear the consequences not only in the presidential race but also in state and local ones.

[..] "Somebody who's mad enough at one of the candidates to want to vote for John McCain is more likely to [vote] down that side of the ballot" [said Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen].

The acrimony was on sharp display Saturday in Texas as Democrats met in 280 district conventions, part of the complicated system the state uses to determine the makeup of its delegation to the national convention.

Clinton won the primary in Texas, but Obama won the caucuses that followed after the polls closed. It was those caucus results that were being challenged Saturday at conventions that drew thousands of boisterous participants.

Even after Saturday, individual delegates can still be challenged. The count will not be secured until the state party convention in early June, and possibly not even then.

While party leaders openly fret about the potential harm in the November election, the ongoing battles in Texas and other states come with political benefits for Clinton -- particularly in states that held caucuses in which Obama was far more successful.

Not only do Clinton aides believe that scrutinizing the caucus process can help them squeeze out more delegates, due to math or certification errors, but they believe that a drumbeat of complaints about the caucuses bolsters Clinton's argument to superdelegates that they are not as legitimate as primary elections. In addition, the fighting delays the official delegate count, which helps keep Obama's lead from growing too fast and gives Clinton more time to raise questions about his electability.

Both the Clinton and Obama teams encouraged supporters to get to Saturday's conventions amid reports that dirty-trick e-mails told delegates the conventions had been canceled or moved. [..]

Definitive results were not available Saturday evening from the often chaotic district conventions. Nonetheless, both campaigns declared victory. Clinton field organizer Michael Trujillo said preliminary results showed a likely two-delegate shift toward Clinton, thanks to successful challenges in southern and rural Texas. The Obama campaign said Saturday's conventions confirmed that Obama still had the overall lead in the Texas delegation.

During the day, supporters of both candidates said they were disturbed by what they considered intimidation and cheap tricks from the other side.

Valerie Zavala, 38, said that as soon as she identified herself as a Clinton supporter, Obama backers demanded to know why she had even bothered showing up. "There's a lot of hostility," she said. "I see a lot of tension."

Adib Faafir, an Obama supporter, suspected that trickery by Clinton backers had blocked his chance of participating. He held up his cellphone to show a text message telling him to show up for the convention at a local school miles from the actual location. By the time he arrived at the correct address, he was out of luck.

"Only two of the people from my precinct have showed up, and they wouldn't let me register," he said.

The Clinton campaign had announced last week that it would not be officially challenging delegates. But behind the scenes, Clinton staff encouraged and counseled individuals in the challenge process.

Each side accused the other of gaming the system to its advantage.

Trujillo didn't bother with diplomatic niceties, charging that the "abundance of pure cheating from the Obama side escapes the imagination."

Obama's top field organizer, Temo Figueroa, said it was Clinton who had created the prospect of a nominating fight lasting to the convention, a nightmare for party leaders.

"The new rules are that she is not going to quit," he said. "She is going to fight over every single delegate, and the fight may go to the last vote and the last delegate."

engineer wrote:

fishin wrote:

au1929 wrote:

"This suggests that some Clinton supporters are so strongly opposed to Obama (or so loyal to Clinton) that they would go so far as to vote for the "other" party's candidate next November if Obama is the Democratic nominee," Gallup wrote in its analysis.

Or, it could mean that some people are supporting Clinton as a "novelty" (i.e. first woman to run for President as the Party's candidate) and may have crossed party lines (or be independent/unenrolled voters) to support her campaign... or any of a host of other possibilities.

I don't know that it actually "suggests" anything other than that Gallup may be looking for some press.

It's pretty early in the general election cycle for these types of polls to mean much. Still, if you are someone who generally believes in the Democratic agenda, I can't see voting for McCain. You can hate the way your candidate was treated in the primary, but voting for the other side to spite the party would be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

20-25% of the voters thusfar in the Democratic primaries have been Republicans and/or Independents (with Independents being the much larger share of the two.)

As such, they don't necessarily believe in the Democratic Party agenda (if they did they'd probably be Democrats). They are voting for a person, not the party.

If that group is largely voting for Clinton because she is a woman or Obama because he is black (or perhaps because he isn't a woman...) then I can easily see them shifting to McCain if their preferred candidate loses.

I happen to be one of those Independents that voted for Obama in the primary. There isn't any way in hell I'll vote for Clinton in any election but I will vote.

We're at the McCain Town Hall event in Alexandria. It's at Episcopal High School and the bleachers behind the podium are stocked with sparkling white, youthful Republican faces. I'm here with Matt Stoller and he says they all look like the kids of trophy wives who decided not to go to Choate.

I wonder how many high schools McCain is visiting? In the Republican era where Backdrops Are Everything, it was obviously a choice to parachute McCain into the middle of an abstinence-only club.

There's creepy new age music playing in the background. Keep him calm, I guess.

McCain went here for high school, graduating in 1954. It was an all-boy's school at the time. He's being introduced with a lot of elitist, "upholding a code of honor" boarding school crap.

Makes me want to go light up in the can.

Some guy is talking about how he knew John McCain from wrestling. Paging Jesus' General.

Okay McCain's here now, and he's talking about his "youthful indescretion" and how much he's learned over the course of his life. Obviously trying to get out in front of all the womanizing and temper outbursts.

Can I just say how empty the parking lot was? There are more people in line for the bathroom at an Obama event.

He's talking about how so many black and hispanic students don't graduate from high school, and how we need to empower parents with choices about where to send their kids. I'm sure all the white people in this crowd appreciate the reassurance that they can keep their kids away from all of that.

We talked to Ana Marie Cox about campaign finance reform before the event began, and she was talking to Mark Salter of the McCain campaign about it afterwards. He agreed to talk to us about it, but between the time she asked him and the time we caught up with him he changed his mind and decided to put us on with their campaign finance lawyers.

I guess he used The Google.

The student questioners are quite consumed with asking whether the values he learned at Episcopal have influenced his conduct as a public official. None of them seem to have heard the words "Vicki Iseman."

So the divided Democrats are allowing the floundering McCain to appear less floundering because the focus is on Obama and Clinton. Still, the best John W. McCain can do is a virtul tie in the polls.

It is going to get ugly for the old geezer real soon.

Conventional wisdom rules out chances of a Republican victory in the US elections, less than a year away. This is in no way a reflection on the qualities of its Presidential nominee, John McCain. With US economy in a huge slump, with the US army bogged down in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and with the tattered record of the Bush administration tainted by misinformation through its entire first term, the odds would be daunting for any candidate. Yet the prospects of a McCain victory cannot be ruled out. And the bleak prospect of an upset victory does not rest on the bitter war between Democratic hopefuls Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080402&fname=puri&sid=
1

Teeny
let ignorance prevails.

By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN - Associated Press Writer

LANSING, Mich.(AP) Michigan Democrats are not going to hold a do-over presidential primary.

The official decision came Friday in a statement from the state party's executive committee. The state party officials say "it is not practical" to conduct a party-run primary or caucus as a way to get the state's delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

Michigan and Florida were stripped of their convention delegates for moving up their primaries in defiance of party rules.

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Jan. 15 Michigan primary. Rival Barack Obama had pulled his name from the ballot.

Michigan Democrats hope the campaigns can agree on a way to split Michigan's delegates so they can be seated at the Aug. 25-28 convention.

Speaking of "divided democrats"...

Quote:

By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN - Associated Press Writer

LANSING, Mich.(AP) Michigan Democrats are not going to hold a do-over presidential primary.

The official decision came Friday in a statement from the state party's executive committee. The state party officials say "it is not practical" to conduct a party-run primary or caucus as a way to get the state's delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

Michigan and Florida were stripped of their convention delegates for moving up their primaries in defiance of party rules.

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Jan. 15 Michigan primary. Rival Barack Obama had pulled his name from the ballot.

Michigan Democrats hope the campaigns can agree on a way to split Michigan's delegates so they can be seated at the Aug. 25-28 convention.

So now I guess the dems in Michigan dont count.
Why should the delegates be split?
Shouldnt they be allotted to the winner of the primary, like they always do?

I think this will end up hurting the dem party.