RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Looking back, this 2008 event portends the inability of Obama to attract anyone to his campaign except limousine liberals and college kids. Hillary wound up with more primary voters than did Obama, he won all the wing-nut strongholds which he will neither have to work for in November, nor will he be able to widen his appeal to independents. Unless MSNBC's rating increase geometrically in the next 3 months, I do not see this election being close (except when I watch CNN and/or MSNBC. )

This country has never elected anyone to national office anywhere near this liberal, unless he could lie convincingly and be forgiven completely by the lunatic, liberal fringe in a desperate trade-off to accomplish wresting the White House away from a candidate unable or unwilling to campaign (e.g. Gerry Ford, Bush '41).

At this point, it appears that all of these primaries are just appetizers for the main dish of Pennsylvania.

Which may itself prove to be another tease, leading to a convention which from the point of view of this old apparatchik, should provide some blood sport.

Clinton's wins in Texas and Ohio this past Tuesday are important events of '08, because they keep the Democratic primary race too close to call. The Republicans find themselves out of the limelight now with McCain having secured the nomination. Most media attention will go to Clinton and Obama, and give them further exposure to the public. Who knows if this is a good or bad thing for them come the general election, but it will likely have an effect on how either candidate will be viewed.

Her win was not nearly as historic as Rush Limbaugh urging people to vote for Clinton. Ironically, the one time Clinton was actually correct about the vast right-wing conspiracy, it worked to her benefit. In the long run, though, Rush is wrong: prolonging the primary contest works to the Democrats' favor, big time. As people in states whose primaries never counted before suddenly realize they do count this year, they register to vote ... and high voter registration always helps the Democrats. Increasing familiarity with Obama helps people get acquainted with a lesser-known politician, while giving Hillary C lots of time to nuance her negative image with the public. And then, far from bloodying each other up, the two candidates could team up in the end by forming one ticket. Conservatives are wrong if they think the prolongation of this contest works to their advantage; on the contrary, it brings more liberals into the electoral process.

The sad part for Democrats is that Hillary's resort to negative campaigning worked, which means we're going to see a lot more of it. With her comeback, she has created the image of being scrappy, a fighter when she's down. That means Obama is suddenly being seen as someone who won't fight back. He will have to respond in kind to change that image. Net result--both are going to engage in lots more negative campaigning and mud-slinging. Conceivably this could go on until June, when Puerto Rico has its primary, and then all the way to the convention--I don't see Pennsylvania as being decisive. In the meantime, McCain benefits from the potshots Hillary and Obama are taking at each other, and gets needed time to get his campaign together to create the image of McCain they want to create, rather than playing defense. It will make the general election a lot closer. The emerging victor in the Democratic primary may be so tarnished by his/her Democratic opponent as to be unable to overcome that trashing and beat McCain.

Not nearly as big a story as how the Hillinator will (somehow) manage to steal this nomination (which I incorrectly once thought wasn't possible)

The big story here is that Obama was unable to completely put Hillary away and that he was unable expand his political base, therefore revealing significant rifts within the Democratic Party that have been evident for years but are now getting ready to be exposed. The only thing that these two victories signify is that the fight for the Democratic nomination will likely be dragged on for the next 2 to 3 months, possibly all the way to the convention if neither candidate gets a majority of delegates. Looking at the numbers, I believe that is a distinct possibility that this will go all the way to the convention. Obama does have a delegate lead, and I expect that he will maintain it. Why? Because the Democrats allocate their delegates proportionally. Even though Hillary won Texas and Ohio, since it was by a fairly close margin in both cases, Obama got almost an equal amount of delegates out of both states. Going forward, I fully anticipate a similar outcome in Pennsylvania: Hillary will win that state due to demographics, but Obama will do well enough to continue gaining delegates, thus sustaining his lead forward. I also anticipate that Obama will win a few other smaller states like Wyoming, Mississippi, and maybe North Carolina. So in short, this race is far from decided, and it will likely go on for a long time.

This is a historic primary race as Magellan points out: we haven't had a primary campaign go all the way to a party convention since Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford fought it out for the GOP nomination in 1976. That race came down to about 100 delegates. Expect a similar outcome in 2008 for the Democrats, but expect more backroom dealing and maneuvering on the part of the individual campaigns for the support of "superdelegates", party officials with a vote in the nominating process.

The closeness of the race can probably be attributed to the fact that Hillary and Obama are appealing to distinct coalitions within the party. While Hillary is attracting blue collar workers and Hispanics to her cause, Obama is bringing in blacks, the youth, and liberals to his banner. The defection of blacks to the Obama camp really hurt Hillary's campaign, as she was depending on them to secure her nomination. Hence we have a divided Democratic party. This can only hurt them going towards the general election, especially if the race gets negative down the stretch.

Hillary won Texas?? Did she blame that dastardly Right Wing conspiracy?

It will be interesting to see how the Democrats emerge from this very hard fought primary season. It's particularly significant that the Clinton campaign was taken off the critical list on the same night as the McCain campaign locked up the Republican nomination. If this battle goes all they way to the convention and stays as divisive as its been to date, the Democrats may find that they have snatched a defeat out of the jaws of what looked like an almost certain victory over the Republicans in November.

What a country! Lemme see now. We have John McCain, Mr. Stablility or Billary, Miss Congeniality or Barack Hussein, the Caliph of Change, the Pope of Hope.

Who is running on the third party tickets?

Just when you think the Clinton machine is down and out, Hillary pulls off two back to the wall victories. This has been a heck of a battle for the Democratic nomination - two compelling, historic, flawed candidates going all out. It looks like the Keystone State is looming large.