State of the Primary Race

After 8 straight wins for Obama, the media is talking about Obama's momentum and his newly acquired lead in all the various delegate counts. The Clinton campaign now finds itself in a precarious position as it tries to regain its footing to be competitive in Wisconsin, Ohio and Texas.

Given all the talk about super delegates, Michigan and Florida being stripped of delegates and all the spin coming from both sides, people are rightfully asking where do things stand now?

First, the super delegates: Super delegates are elected Democrats from across the country who are able to vote for who they want at the convention. I think all the talk of super delegates deciding the race is overblown, given that super delegates will end up voting for the presumptive nominee as they have done in the past. According to Democratic Convention Watch, Clinton currently has an 86 delegate lead over Obama. As I am writing this post, I noticed that Chris Bowers just announced the creation of the Super Delegate Transparency Project, which should help to clarify things.

Second, Michigan and Florida: For those of you not keeping track, both Michigan and Florida held primaries before they were allowed to under the DNC rules. As a result, both states were stripped of their delegates and both candidates didn't campaign.

So, what's next for the campaigns?

Wisconsin votes on February 19th and the latest poll has Obama leading Clinton 45 to 41. This will be followed by two debates that have been announced so far, one on CNN and one with NBC.

Then on March 4th, we have Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont going to the polls. Ohio and Texas have large numbers of delegates at stake and Clinton must win by large margins in both. Even James Carville, a big Hillary supporter, has admitted as much saying, "She's behind. Make no mistake. If she loses either Texas or Ohio, this thing is done."

It seems to be that it is highly unlikely for Clinton to come back and win the primary at this point. For Clinton to make up the difference in the delegate count, she would have to win Ohio and Texas by 20 points and that's considering she can squeak out a tie in Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, it looks like the race will be over by the time Pennsylvania votes on April 22nd. I think that Clinton will drop out after March 4th after she realizes that she no longer has a viable path to the nomination. I had been really excited that we would have almost a month of campaigning and attention given to Pennsylvania voters, but by the look of it, the race will be over after March 4th and Obama will win. That is my prediction.

Any thoughts? Disagreements?

~BT

Update: I have further explained my Obama prediction.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) to speak at Penn

This Sunday, February 10th at 5pm the Penn Dems, Lambda Alliance and Penn for Choice are co-sponsoring a townhall event with Senator Ron Wyden. From the Penn Dems email

Senior Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has graciously offered to have a Town Hall meeting this Sunday afternoon. He'll be discussing his policy and experience in government. Also, he will be fielding questions directly from YOU!

Sunday 2/10 @ 5 - 6pm in JMHH G65

From Ron Wyden's wikipedia page,

Wyden has opposed most limits on abortion and has publicly announced support for same-sex marriage and was one of only 14 Senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act

It should be fun!

~BT

Liveblogging South Carolina Democratic Primary

Let the fun begin. I am watching MSNBC and checking CNN on television and Brave New Films & Young Turks' coverage online.

At 6:02, we should now have exit polls. The results? coming soon...

Matt Stoller, who is on the ground in South Carolina, offers his closing thoughts:

The frame I want to offer is rooted in talking to voters. The primary questions on their mind seems to be who can win the White House, and who can fix what Bush did to the country. It is not which Democratic surrogate said what about which person, and race and gender in the negative sense are annoying everyone, unless it's framed as a positive, in which case all sides are proud that a black man and a woman are running. There is worry about a black man winning the Presidency, and Clinton being polarizing, but it's rooted in electability. These are Democratic partisans.

With Obama up around 12% in polls leading into today, the more exciting question is how well did Edwards do? Can he get past Clinton and take second? Edwards has outspent both Clinton and Obama and we can't ignore the appeal of his economic message.

First exit polls to hit the wire:

6:15	AP exit polls: 75% say country is ready to elect a black President, and the same percentage said the same about a woman.

6:15	AP exit polls: Roughly 80% of Dem voters would be satisfied if Clinton or Obama won the nomination

more to come...

~BT

1 Month Old!

I was really surprised to notice that I have been blogging at Progressive Dispatches for 1 month now, mainly because it feels like I just posted And we're back! So, why post about a such a minor milestone?

Well, I had previously blogged for 3 months at Canadian Liberal @ Penn in the summer of 2005. True, I am only 1/3 of the way to my previous record in terms of longevity, in terms of number of posts, this is my 21st post so far, which is getting close to my previous record of 27. Unfortunately, I am not anywhere close to the amount of traffic I used to get, which is disappointing because the traffic provided me with active comments and conversation with others that made blogging more fun and meaningful. But last week's discovery of a burgeoning blogosphere at Penn has been pretty cool.

This time around, I found blogging to be both easier and harder. It has been easy because of the large range of topics that I want to blog about but tough because of the high speed and breadth of the constant flow of new information. The sheer size of the American political system allows for a sizable political chattering class of pundits, strategists, lobbyists, and has seen the emergence (pdf) of a vibrant progressive blogosphere that is fascinating to watch flex its muscle within the Democratic party. The progressive resurgence nationwide and the real notion that I could be part of this avant-garde progressive movement has been exciting. Most of all, it it the desire to bring this progressive infrastructure and success back to Canada that is most interesting me about US domestic politics right now.

In comparison, I was able to blog about Canadian politics at a much slower pace and there were less blogs and not much of an online opinion infrastructure. Granted, I was blogging within a nascent Canadian blogosphere dominated by well organized conservatives. Progressive Bloggers had just been founded and was quickly followed by Liblogs, both of which I joined and saw a steady traffic of around 50 unique visitors per day.

We find the the same thing at the early stages of the development of the US blogosphere. It started with conservatives having a powerful top-down infrastructure which has since stagnated. Meanwhile there has been an incredible growth of the progressive blogosphere with some asking whether it has reached its apex. This example shows how the Canadian right is able to effectively emulate their American counterparts and implement similar policies, strategies and ideas on a slight time delay.

In Canada, Conservatives have long mastered the art of borrowing from the US conservative movement and I don't see why Liberals shouldn't do the same thing on the Progressive side. Across the pond, British bloggers are similarly learning from recent progressive successes in America. From an initial glance, the Canadian landscape seems to have grown in size but I don't see Canadian blogs having the same sort of impact on politics yet.

(cross-posted at Canadian Liberal @ Penn)

~BT