By Big Tent Democrat

blogtopus sent me this link which captures my concern about whether Obama is really building a movement for the Democratic Party. In the Texas primary, the Dallas Morning News found:

Backers of both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned out with passionate support for their candidate in last week's Texas primary. But once they got in the voting booth, they did something different. Obama supporters were more likely to vote in the presidential race and then skip the other contests than Clinton supporters, who tended to continue voting down the ballot, a Dallas Morning News analysis finds.

. . . [T]he numbers suggest that many Obama voters were drawn singularly to him and might not return in the fall if he's not the nominee – blunting the flood of new voters who Democrats hope will help revive the party in Texas and sweep it into the White House.

(Emphasis supplied.) There is a reason for this. Obama's campaign is not affirmatively pro-Democratic or even anti-Republican. They say that one of the key things a politician can do is ask for the voters' votes. In that sense, Obama never seems to ask (the exception being to ask for a vote for Bill Foster in the IL-14 race) the voters to vote for Democrats. This could be the upshot of Barack Obama's post-partisan Unity Schtick. We'll see.

By Big Tent Democrat

The excuses for Barack Obama to object to ReDo primaries in Florida and Michigan are becoming harder and harder to come by. Joining James Carville, Governors Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Jon Corzine of New Jersey have offered to raise $15 million for revotes in Florida and Michigan:

Two of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s biggest supporters, who are also two of the Democratic Party’s most successful fund-raisers, have offered to help raise millions of dollars to stage new primaries in Florida and Michigan. Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said Sunday that they would be willing to raise half the $30 million it would take to run new contests in those two states. Mr. Corzine and Mr. Rendell submitted their proposal to The Washington Post.

So money is clearly NOT an issue here. There is no reason now not to do this. Oh by the way, there is no reason NOT to do them via primaries, full blown ones. With absentee balloting, early voting, all the works. Let's count the votes. The Will of the People and all that.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for Me Only

One of the ironic aspects of the the wild success of the Obama campaign thus far is that it is succeeding in some ways in spite of itself. If you have read me, you will remember one of the aspects of Obama's political style I found most objectionable was his "appeal" to "values voters" by trashing Democrats on "faith." This was one of the reasons I found Chris Bowers' Reagan Dems post so absurd. But the very astute Paul Rosenberg has turned Bowers' lemon of a post into lemonade in this excellent post highlighting Obama's very real map changing successes. Paul writes:

As I wrote below, no candidate was required to withdraw from the Michigan or Florida primaries as part of the Four State Pledge (pdf).

John Edwards and Barack Obama were on the ballot in Florida, but withdrew from the Michigan race. Why?

Bill Schneider at CNN had a very plausible explanation:

CNN's Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider suggested the Democrats who withdrew may have calculated that it was simply in their best political interest to do so.

"If there's no campaign, the candidate most likely to win Michigan is Hillary Clinton," Schneider said. "Her Democratic rivals don't want a Clinton victory in Michigan to count. They want Iowa and New Hampshire, where they have a better chance of stopping Clinton, to count more."

More...

Judging from the comments the Obama supporters are leaving on TalkLeft, it appears there's a fundamental misunderstanding on what the candidates promised and didn't promise regarding the outcomes of the Florida and Michigan primaries.

Here's the four state pledge (pdf).

It says nothing about which delegates will count or not count in Florida and Michigan. It says nothing about whether a state's primary will count or not.

The candidates merely pledged not to campaign in any states holding a primary or caucus before Super Tuesday, other than Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The text of the pledge is reprinted below:

Space Shuttle Endeavor lifts off Tuesday.

In a little reported difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that was highlighted Friday in Wyoming , Obama said he proposes cutting NASA's budget to fund things like education, while Hillary has a plan to strengthen it.

2:40 p.m. A question about the space program is next. “Why are you pitting the space program against education?”

Obama says he wants to defer the program “because we’re not producing enough engineers to support the space program.” He said he grew up in the ‘60s and remembered the days when the space program captured the public’s imagination.

Including his. “I grew up on Star Trek,” he said. “I believe in the Final Frontier.”

Another reporter had more:

By Big Tent Democrat

Kevin Drum has an interesting post about when, if ever, attacks by a candidate in a primary contest was used by the opposing Party's candidate in the general election. But I am going to focus on what is at the root of the question - will any attacks by Clinton or Obama be used by McCain in the general election - not the substance of the attacks, which would come no matter what - but the fact that the primary opponent attacked on that issue. .

Three come to mind for me - one, Hillary Clinton's attack on Obama experience and Commander in Chief credentials. That one seems sure to surface in a McCain campaign against Obama. Two, Obama's attack on Hillary Clinton's health care plan mandates - the Harry and Louise stuff arguing Hillary will force you to buy health insurance even if you can not afford it. Three, Obama's attacks on Hillary Clinton's character, the "she'll say anything to get elected" stuff. This is why I have been highly critical of these three lines of attack.

Can you folks think of any others?

Can anyone tell what Barack Obama will agree to and won't agree to in terms of a Michigan and Florida re-vote? Here's the latest. The comments on Big Tent Democrat's earlier post are full, this is a new thread on it.

The AP reports a consensus is being reached about a mail-in do-over vote in Florida and Michigan. Where is Obama on this? Will he agree?

Were Michigan voters really excluded? Here's the map of how Michigan voted. It looks like about 675,000 Dems voted. In 2004, about 150,000 Dems voted in the MI primary.

It was widely circulated in Michigan that Obama and Edwards supporters should vote uncommitted. Clearly, Detroit and Washtenaw County got the message (see the map.) So did Emmet county, which by the way, went 60% to Bush in the general election. It's not clear who Emmet s votes were for. Hillary's supporters came out. How much support does Obama have in MI outside of Detroit and Washtenaw county?

Both candidates have to agree to any new plan. If Obama withholds consent, does he raise the chances the delegates from the first votes will get seated in time to count?

There are new articles today in the Dallas News and the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the Republican cross-over vote (Dems for a Day)and whether it had any effect on the outcome. Some Obama supporters would have you believe that it was of such significance as to result in Obama's loss in those states.

In Ohio, the article says there were 16,000 cross-over votes in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland.) The article talks about Rush Limbaugh urging Republicans to vote for Hillary, but of those interviewed in the article, one Republican voted for Hillary and one for Obama. They had different opinions on who would be better able to beat McCain. Obama won by 23,000 votes in Cuyahoga. Effect of the cross-over vote on the election: none shown and it's not even determinable which candidate they voted for.

In an opinion piece, the co-author of the Dallas News article, Wayne Slater, shows how the effect was negligible on Hillary's Texas win. [More...]

In 2004, the Democratic ticket carried 20 states with 252 electoral votes. Obviously, it wasn't enough. What other states are most likely to play a role in 2008? Which of the Democratic candidates would be the Party's most successful candidate in the general election?

William Arnone, a long-time Democratic Party activist who worked with Robert F. Kennedy in 1967-68 has updated his July, 2007 and February, 2008 analysis (reprinted here) of "Key States in the 2008 Presidential Election."

The ten states are: Arkansas; Colorado; Florida; Iowa; Missouri; Nevada; New Mexico; North Carolina; Ohio; and Virginia.

With his permission, I reprint below his newest analysis, received yesterday, which also includes a thorough discussion of whether the Dems will keep Pennsylvania:

By Big Tent Democrat

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, Barack Obama has a 14 point lead in Mississippi, 53-39. But because of the demographic disparity, Obama leads by enormous margins among African-Americans and trails by enormous margins among white voters, Obama is likely to suffer, at best, a repeat of what happened in Alabama, a virtual tie in the delegate count.

Because Alabama voted on Super Tuesday, the strange and troubling Alabama result flew under the radar. On Tuesday, Mississippi votes alone and its results will receive full coverage. A review of the Alabama result is instructive. Obama won the state by a very comfortable 56-42 margin in the popular vote. But he barely won the delegate count, 27-25, and in fact only tied Clinton in the congressional district delegate count.

How could that happen? Well, since, like Mississippi, Alabama has a majority-minority district, most of Obama's African American support was to be found in that congressional district. He also won the AL-3 district by a thin margin, because that district included two strong counties for Obama, Macon, heavily African-American and near Montgomery, and Lee, where Auburn University is located. Obama won the delegate count in CD-7 and CD-3, 5-2 and 3-2. But he lost most other congressional districts in Alabama and won no others. I expect he will lose all but Bennie Thompson's 7 delegate congressional district in Mississippi. And that is a bad result for Obama, because the other 3 Mississippi Congressional districts are 5 delegate districts, insuring AT LEAST a 3-2 split for Clinton.

More . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

(Original Post here.)

Yesterday, Barack Obama won Wyoming by 2,000 votes of 8600 cast. He gained a 2 (and with the add on delegate to be added later likely 3) delegates to his pledged delegate lead. Last Tuesday, Hillary Clinton won Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, while Barack Obama won Vermont. The difference in the popular vote that day was was 334,000 in favor of Hillary Clinton, as she garnered 2.84 million votes to Obama's 2.51 million. We are told that Hillary gained a net 4 delegates that night.

This is because Ohioans choose one pledged delegate for every 15,000 Ohioans voting, Texans choose one pledged delegate for every 22,373 persons voting, Rhode Islanders choose one pledged delegate for every 8800 persons voting and Vermonters choose one pledged delegate for every 10,066 persons voting. By contrast, Wyomingians choose one pledged delegate for every 725 persons voting (not counting the add on delegate.)

The Democratic nomination system is institutionalized vote dilution. It is undemocratic. It is a travesty. It is no way to pick a nominee. The will of the people is reflected in the POPULAR VOTE, not the pledged delegate count.

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