further, i've been advised that "obama's the one!" (cue pic of a pregnant lucy, finger pointing out, and "nixon's the one!" printed on the bottom! lol). sen. obama has been deified as "the saviour of the country", the "only person able to unify both party and country", as a "new kind of politician".

can all these people possibly be wrong?

Your welcome.

Does anyone believe that if Clinton were winning now she wouldn't be using all of her political will to compel her competitors to quit?

And please spare us the "roolz" rant. There are more than "one" darn rule and a competent party would have been able to quell this impasse long ago.

And please spare us, "but, but Clinton" because this problem is about "voters" not "candidates" and Democrats now behaving no better than the disenfranchising Republicans they pretend to abhor.

Doing Obama's and team Obama's dirty work while the candidate stood off to the side avoiding saying what he meant and meaning what he said?

Getting all in a bunch because one standard is applied transparently to both candidates?

This doesn't seem new at all. I've waited for Obama to show leadership, guts and honesty. If those qualities haven't affirmatively been on display by now, they ain't comin'.

Simply put, HRC has shown more honesty, more guts and more fight in her.

Calling her names, repeating empty insults or pleading for her to quit doesn't equal "leadership" from Obama personally.

Nor does having pushy, persistent followers count for anything. Look, it's fabulous that people feel so attached to him (for whatever reason) but I'm not voting for the followers and ESPECIALLY not voting when they try obnoxiously transparent desperate sales pitches (eg, Oh, so you're going to let McCain win, huh?)

I would not look at delegate numbers too closely, they are skewed and biased in various ways, and for reasons that have nothing to do with either popularity or electability of a candidate.

Electability is state-dependent and demographic-dependent.

I would exclude most caucus states as being meaningless and unreliable this year, more so than usual. They disenfranchise too many demographics and are designed to be informal at the best of times anyway, with inadequate voter records, inadequate (or absent) voter elegibility checks etc, the list goes on.

Caucuses are mainly designed for the Party faithful who, unfortunately, through no fault of their own, live in small and/or red states. My heart goes out to them, it must be demoralising to be lonely blues doomed to be on losing side by reason of zip-code, so they get lots of extra delegates and butts on seats at the convention.

Then to top it off, you have some very creative caucus states like Nevada, practising the "Las Vegas Roolz" of caucusing to allocate delegates. In the Nevada State Party Rules, the caucus chair can shuffle a deck of cards, and one volunteer rep for each candidate cuts the deck and the highest card wins. Its fair, in the roolz chuckle How about best out of 3? Or a runoff on a blackjack table for double-or-nothing?

In theory, I dont have a problem with it, as long as it stays in Nevada. But when it comes to looking at the national delegate math, or even national popular vote, I would exclude it entirely. Stick to surveys from something with reliable numbers, like SUSA.

So electability being state & demographic dependent, need to look at which states, and who inside those states is voting, and are they voting Dem downticket as well, and which campaign messages are working, and with which demographics.

As of today, which is probably unfair as its still too far out from the GE, with several key primaries still to run their ocurse - but I would say the trends suggest that Hillary's dem base is far more solid in most of the key states, and the key demographics in those states.

Obama's, apart from the A-A vote, is too soft and fickle and unreliable, based on historical trends in those population groups, and not enough downticket Dem flow-ons.

On the capability side, thats much simpler -
Clinton wins - no-brainer - just use her wikipedia biography as a proxy resume, stacked against Obama's.

She dates back a long way with the Party, although being on McGovern's campaign staff, or a Dem Party lawyer on the Watergate team etc may be seen in a different light in 2008. But she even has longer legal career experience with an impressive number of positive achievements, including a lot of pro bono work in social welfare areas. Ohhh.. sorry forgot, she's a woman, that means her career resume doesn't count.

In Obama's much shorter resume, and much thinner public office record, he's managed to rack up a pretty large number of fuzzy question-marks in such a short period of time, (if not outright firm negatives), with very few solid positives that can be validated, to balance it up.

But then I don't count great oratories, or MSM love-ins either - other super-dels might, but I personally wouldn't bet a Dem WH on that basis.

Sorry Obama-supporters, no can do - my superdel-for-a-day vote goes to Clinton, she may be a weak candidate with a lot of baggage, but if the Party got its act together for once, and put effort into it in the GE, then I think that can be managed.  

She discounted the reports she found O arrogant. she said she found him "charming".

Clinton up by 9 in Indiana

Clinton up by 12 in PA

Clinton down in NC by about 12

Clinton up in Kentucky by 29

Clinton up in W Va by about 27

no idea about SD, Ore, Mont,Ouerto Rico

Below is the comment. Apologies if this has already been referenced. It's quite an interesting take on the Obama strategy and how they gamed the system to get out ahead in a way that was not designed for. And it lays out why the SD's should take this into account.

The Obama campaign undoubtedly gamed the nominating process better than the Clinton campaign. They figured out that they could get a lead in pledged delegates by winning Republican and GOP votes in small Red States. But it is pretty clear that the system wasn't actually designed to produce a Democratic nominee who lacks a majority of actual Democratic votes, nor a candidate for November who does well mainly in states the Dems will lose in the fall while doing poorly in states the Dems have to have to win.

I'm a game designer. It is how I make my living (such as it is). And thus I'm speaking professionally when I say that any complicated set of rules can be broken by those seeking to exploit ambiguities and loopholes over the intent of the designer. In my field we call them "rules lawyers" and when they "break the system" we issue changes to the rules (errata) to force them back to playing according to our intent.
The Dem nominating process was a very poorly designed set of rules (probably because there was no single designer) and the Obama camp broke the system. Well, good for them, but it places the Super Delegates in the roll of the Designer: they can in effect say, "Sorry, it wasn't our intent that the system be gamed in that way so that we have a candidate a majority of actual Democrats rejected, and moreover who has the lesser chance in November."

And just as I have the authority to issue such changes at any time to my own designs, the Supers have the authority to issue their own "errata" on the campaign by voting for Hillary over Obama. And it is hypocritical for the Obama camp to complain about that: it is, after all, in the rules (the same set of rules the Obama camp swears by) that they can do so.

After all, they would consolidate his position as the front-runner, even if he still lacked the requisite delegate votes.

The only reason, explain to me if I am wrong, for wanting Hillary to get out now is that Obama and his supporters are afraid that he won't rack up lots more votes & delegates. But if he can't strengthen his lead against another Democrat, then perhaps that will say something about his strength against McCain.

As soon as enough delegates are secured in the early primaries to put a candidate over the number needed, the rest of the voters might as well stay home.

I was looking for the recording of it, someone posted it at TL a few days ago. She sounds angry about the votes not counting, not supportive of it.

The truth is, Clinton was so confident that she would have this contest sewn up on Super Tuesday.  She never planned for the contest to go past that date and that my friends is arrogance.  Moreover, financially, she has not ran her campaign well.  So if I am to believe the hype that she is more experienced, then why is she behind in delegates and why has her campaign suffered financially?  

Yes Obama is out spending her to win but that is the name of the game.  Obama has run his campaign much better than hers.  She has been playing catch up throughout this process when if I am to believe the rhetoric, she is the "incumbant".  I am a little worried about her being the nominee and in charge of our governments budget because she has not done such a great job of managing.

I will vote for her in the general election should she be the nominee but she should be a little humble because with her 36 years of experience, the newby to the block should not have been able to make her work so hard or look so bad and that is the truth of this primary season.