"Hillary should do the decent thing: quit."

Oh, OK, I guess he didn't say it himself.

It's the kind of thing he ought to counter in public, though, perhaps with some high-sounding rhetoric about free democracy or something. (I could write it, you could write it, he could probably spin it off the cuff.) I saw the headline before, and assumed they were quoting the candidate, not just some of his more confused supporters.

It makes sense for Obama to encourage this meme. Hillary, remember, has a pretty good job to fall back on, and pushing the primaries up to a nasty convention fight with superdelegate arm-twisting could threaten her effectiveness as a senator--or even kick up a primary challenge next round. So, given the improbable odds she faces, pressuring her into throwing in the towel early makes some sense. The only problem with the plan is that she wants that brass ring in the Oval Office so bad, she can taste it and won't quit as long there's a .0000something%chance of her winning.

i Surveys have been showing that Clinton's working class white and Latino voters are less ready to rally around Obama than Obama's black and while liberal voters are to rally around her.

I'd love to see those studies.

But it sure takes a lot of gall to demand that Clinton quit the day after she won two huge states...

That would be fighting fire with fire.

As many have said: "Pass the popcorn."

This is going to be good.

Celebrity Deathmatch, anyone?

(Please forgive me my foray into schadenfreude.)

Everyone knows I'm an Obamaniac. But I never did understand this call for Hillary to leave the contest -- even if Obama had swept the board last night.

Maybe I don't understand the Democratic delegate rules well enough, but just as Obama won lots of delegates even though he lost, wouldn't Hillary have still won lots of delegates even if **he** had won?

In any case, I don't think Ed Rendell alone is going to be able to pull Hillary through in Pennsylvania. Ironically, because going back to the 2002 gubernatorial primary, his coalition that helped him beat now-Sen. Bob Casey, in Philly and especially in the increasingly liberal Philly burbs, is likely to go overwhelmingly for Obama.

Clinton is going to have to look for her votes in Pirates and Steelers and Penguins country, where Casey had the greatest support in 2002.

I'd love to see those studies.

IIRC Jay Cost of RCP has written about this in the past month, but I can't find a cite. Obama is going to have serious trouble winning over the white working class voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc. who are backing Clinton.

There's also this analysis of yesterday's exit polls from The New Republic's blog "The Plank":

"The question for the fall is whether there are Clinton voters who won't vote for Obama and Obama voters who won't vote for Clinton. The exit polls don't really answer this question. The closest they get is to ask respondents whether they would be "satisfied" or "dissatisfied" if Clinton or Obama were the eventual nominee. The results tonight do not look good for Obama. In Wisconsin, for instance, only 17 percent of Democratic primary voters said they would be dissatisfied if Obama were the nominee. In Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas, 30 percent or more of voters said they would be "dissatisfied" if he were the nominee. That means that a sizable percentage of voters who backed Hillary Clinton may not back Obama in the fall. But Clinton's percentages were not that much better. They were in the high twenties."

Maybe I don't understand the Democratic delegate rules well enough, but just as Obama won lots of delegates even though he lost, wouldn't Hillary have still won lots of delegates even if **he** had won?

Not necessarily. The Texas rules are kind of weird. Due to some weird juju, the districts that favor Obama get a lot more delegates than the ones friendly to Clinton. I think some Houston district gets 13, while another in Valley gets about 2.

It's mass hysteria, pure and simple. People jumping on the Obama bandwagon can't conceive of anything interfering with his coronation.

Derek, the Republicans don't have to be omnipotent, just vicious and ruthless, like they've been for years.

The Democrats put up awful candidates in both 2000 and 2004, and still only lost by the barest of margins.

This is still the Party That Rove Built, and McCain is more than happy to use that same system to his own advantage, even after what it did to him in 2000.

That's actually a bit of McCain's ruthlessness. He's been whining about a robocall that no one's been able to turn up. The fact is, he lost the 2000 race because he went out of his way to insult large voting blocs in the GOP, like the Religious Right. He hasn't given up these foolish ways yet.

The prospect of a President McCain is horrifying to me, but I have deep reservations about whether either Democratic candidate can actually beat him considering his advantages.

Again, if they can't beat a guy who's strongly disliked by his own base, has talked about staying in Iraq for 100 years and is acting like the successor to George W. Bush, the Democrats deserve to lose.

As much as I don't want to admit it, Simon makes sense. Obama's Ohio showing is not good. That's a swing state. He barely won MO. Otherwise, it's been pretty awful.

Hillary Clinton's whole life has been geared toward winning the presidency. It could be said she's sold her soul and sacrificed her happiness on that altar. She today is as close to the presidency as she has ever been or may ever be, because who knows what 2012 or 2016 or later holds. And Obama has not won any big battleground state. Further, the more the electorate learns about Obama(you mean he doesn't walk on water?he's a POLITICIAN from Chicago?) the less they like him. why should she quit-to make Obama happy? She should not quit.

Anyone who has been followed the Clintons since 1988 thinking they would fold up their collective tent and walk away is a sign of serious naivete, may be even outright stupidity.

Andrew Sullivan is ____ing nuts. His columns are now beyond laughable. He's become the exact media hack he has spent a career decrying.Ain't it fun when you despise what you've become? This idea that the whole world will join hands and sing in perfect harmony like the 1970s Coke commercial upon Obama's inauguration isn't just moronic-it's dangerously simplistic.

It's mass hysteria, pure and simple. People jumping on the Obama bandwagon can't conceive of anything interfering with his coronation.

It's long been a campaign whose supporters are generally about resentments, latent conservatisms, purity mongering, and careerism or feelings of "our turn" advanced behind a rhetorical shield of "hope" and "change". Which one could accept, if reluctantly, out of sympathy for some of the particular groups involved.

But the rhetorical spear they've used against Clinton is crude pre-'94 conservative Southern Democratic revisionism about everything Nineties, classical Left misrepresentations and undemocratic puritan attitudes about the Iraq war and Cold War residua generally, and moderate Democratic unwillingness to deal with social issues and preference of indulging themselves in economic ones. In toto it's illiberalism constructed on all the detritus and political vices and insecurities of 36+ years of popular political minority.

***

Andy Sullivan has admitted to, well, simply not liking women very much in general, let alone at doing or running much of anything, on his blog. His Obama championing started as overtly sexist anti-Hillaryism. And then he apparently developed a crush on Obama's gaunt cheeks or something.

No kidding, Derek. No Child Left Behind, amnesty for illegal aliens, huge deficit spending, and no movement to the right on abortion or any other big issues. What's not for a liberal Democrat to like about Bush? The one and only thing is that he followed up on 14 UN resolutions and ended the cease fire and blockade in Iraq, which (according to UNICEF) was starving to death over 4000 children every month.

Even in Iraq, Bush only got into trouble because of his liberalism: thinking that if we just gave Iraqis food and voting booths, they'd all hold hands and sing and have a Coke together. It's the same liberal thinking that keeps pumping money into welfare in this country: poor, violent people of any nationality are simply rich, peaceful people without money.

And now we've got a choice between three people who think that way.

And now we've got a choice between three people who think that way.

Obama does support armed liberalism abroad, but it's a more constrained form. He'd also be a welcome departure from the seedy stink of the 90s and 00s. Enough with the dynasties.

BTW, does your handle come from the Stephen Donaldson novels?

Maclin,

Right quick, here's a paragraph from Christopher Hitchens (not my fave source, either, but still...):

http://www.slate.com/id/2182065

"During the Senate debate on the intervention in Iraq, Sen. Clinton made considerable use of her background and "experience" to argue that, yes, Saddam Hussein was indeed a threat. She did not argue so much from the position adopted by the Bush administration as she emphasized the stand taken, by both her husband and Al Gore, when they were in office, to the effect that another and final confrontation with the Baathist regime was more or less inevitable."

Thank you, David.

There are those of us who would not vote for John McCain no matter who the Dems nominated. (Within reason, and Clinton and Obama are both within reason.) I think he's a nice man, but he has his head wedged.

Can you say, "War in Iraq"? Can you say, "recession"?

I confess I don't understand either the adoration of Obama or the vilification of Hillary. Either makes McCain seem like a rational choice.

Simon
Obviously MOST Democratic primary voters will support the Democratic nominee in the fall. But it's what happens at the margins that matters. There's no spin involved in pointing out that Obama hasn't shown an ability to do well among working class whites who vote in primaries (and they are only a small minority of the working class whites who will vote in November).

Obama has had more working class white people vote for him in this primary than any primary candidates in a two person race before this point. (Not hard, when you get that sort of turnout.)

As for panicking Repuvlicans, you've got to be joking. Every Republican I know is pleasantly astounded by the way the Dem contest has unfolded.

Really? Pleasantly astonished by massive Democratic turnouts?

I love how the Republican narrative just steamrollers over the unpleasant fact that suddenly there appear to be five times the active Democratic volunteers this year as in 2004 and that people are fighting to get into the caucuses and participate. That, as I said, more people voted in the Texas Democratic primary Tuesday than voted for the Democratic candidate in the general election in 2004. There already was a massive sweep in 2006, do you guys think it's over?

I'm sure they're all there to only support their guy, though, and will wander away and not vote in the general election if their person doesn't get in. Because Democratic primary voters aren't, you know, actually that interested in politics and wouldn't mind if McCain got in.

The Obama Adulation bubble bursts, as Barack loses the last three major contests (Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania), but because of his pledged delegate lead the Democrats nominate the fading Illinois Senator anyway.

The 'Obama Adulation bubble' is going away the second he wins the primary anyway. It doesn't even really exist except as a difference between how he and Clinton run their campaigns. He says 'I have good Democratic policies, and I think the future is hopeful', she says 'I have good Democratic policies, and I think I should be president and not him'. At this point, it is a popularity contest, not an issues contest, because they have the same issues.

Once there are actual disputed issues on the table, once they can say 'Here are my policies', either one of them can trivially take McCain down. 'Less jobs, more war!' is not exactly the most popular slogan right now.

I love how the Republican narrative just steamrollers over the unpleasant fact that suddenly there appear to be five times the active Democratic volunteers this year as in 2004 and that people are fighting to get into the caucuses and participate. That, as I said, more people voted in the Texas Democratic primary Tuesday than voted for the Democratic candidate in the general election in 2004.

Sorry, David, but primary turnout isn't much of a predictor of general election results. Texas, for example, will not be in play in November regardless of who the Democratic nominee is.

Right now there's a great horse race on the Democratic side, and anyone who follows politics is excited by it. If I were a Texan, I might well have been an Obama voter on Tuesday; I certainly won't be one in November. But expansions of the primary electorate have to be seen in proportion: The bigger picture is that most of the folks voting in November will not have participated in either party's nominating contest.

There already was a massive sweep in 2006, do you guys think it's over?

There was a far more massive sweep in 1994, which didn't turn out to be very useful in predicting the 1996 Presidential results.

I expect Democrats to build on their House and Senate majorities this year -- the structural advantages of incumbency are such that they will keep their majorities in Congress until the next big shift in partisan tides. Presidential voting works a lot differently, however, as people look very carefully at the individual they want to put in that job.

This cycle favors a Democrat in the abstract, and John McCain isn't exactly an inspirational figure. OTOH, he has a long-established image as "Not George W. Bush", which appeals strongly to independents and which isn't going to change no matter how often Democrats try to talk about the "1,000 year war." The worst-case scenario for him is probably a Bob Dole performance (losing by about 8 points and getting only around 200 electoral votes). But fortunately for McCain, instead of running against an incumbent President, he'll probably be running against a candidate who represents a huge roll of the dice by the Democratic Party.

Once there are actual disputed issues on the table, once they can say 'Here are my policies', either one of them can trivially take McCain down. 'Less jobs, more war!' is not exactly the most popular slogan right now.

Personally, I oppose the Iraq War, but mark my words: If Iraq turns out to be the central issue in this campaign, John McCain is going to win in a landslide.

Most likely, the election will be fought over the economy, with Iraq and foreign policy only a side issue. Economics aren't McCain's strong suit, but I don't see how that issue plays to any strength of Obama's either.

Florida Democratic voters have already been disenfranchised once, in 2000. Now their own party is disenfranchising them.

In my view the only fair thing is to hold the Florida and Michigan primaries again, in mid-June. Regarding the superdelegates, the only fair thing, it seems to me, is to follow the same rules as in previous elections. When the election wasn't in dispute superdelegates were never an issue. If they become an issue, perhaps it's time to get rid of superdelegates, but it's too late to do that in this election cycle.