Hillary and Obama Campaign in Puerto Rico

By Jeralyn, Section Elections 2008
Posted on Sat May 24, 2008 at 05:19:01 PM EST
Tags: Puerto Rico '08 (all tags)

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(larger and clearer version here.)

Update: On Hillary's speech in Aguadilla Sat. night:

Clinton spoke at an evening rally in Aguadilla, where she reminded the crowd of her ties to Puerto Rico as a first lady and then as senator from New York, which has approximately 1 million Puerto Rican residents. "My commitment to Puerto Rico did not start last month or last year," she said. "I will always be your voice as president." Through her speech, Clinton drew applause by insisting Puerto Ricans should get the same tax breaks, health care and economic opportunity afforded mainland U.S. citizens. "You deserve a president who will give Puerto Rico's issues as much attention as the president gives to any state," she said.

****

The Democratic candidates today are in Puerto Rico. Hillary will be in Aguadilla tonight, on the northwest tip of the island.

There are 3.9 million people in Puerto Rico and 2.5 million registered voters. The major parties are the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) and the New Progressive Party (NPP). In 2004, 2 million people voted. [More...]

Stats from 2004 elections:
Registered Voters : 2,440,131
Voter Turnout: 1,994,269 81.7%

Here's how they voted.

Here is the delegate selection plan (pdf.) There are 55 pledged delegates and 8 unpledged:

District-Level Delegates 36
At-Large 12
Party Ldrs/Elec'd Officials 7
Unpledged Delegates 8
Total: 63

(Unpledged delegates include the add-on unpledged delegate(s), the state's Democratic National Committee members, and Democratic Members of Congress, the Democratic Governor, and certain former Party leaders, if any, who automatically serve as delegates.)

I'll leave the island political analysis to our resident expert Big Tent Democrat. While I spent every law school vacation there (my parents lived in the Mayaguez section then) and many high school and college vacations with friends in San Juan, I didn't get into the politics.

Puerto Ricans don't get to vote in November, but their votes count in the primary. A big win for Hillary could boost her popular vote even higher.

If on June 3, we find Obama ahead in delegate totals and Hillary ahead in the popular vote, counting MI, FL and caucus states, the remaining issue in my mind is electabilty in November. That goes to the swing states, particularly PA, OH and FL. Hillary outshines Obama there.

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Hillary and Obama Campaign in Puerto Rico | 90 comments (90 topical)

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My head hurts (5.00 / 6) (#1)
by coolit on Sat May 24, 2008 at 05:23:10 PM EST

I keep going back and forth from possible

to not possible

to possible

and back to not possible.

I'm one of those who just wants it to end. But not quite as much as I want her to win the nomination. Keep up the good fight everyone.

Thanks Jeralyn and BTD

With Hillary, all things are possible...just look (5.00 / 7) (#9)
by PssttCmere08 on Sat May 24, 2008 at 05:48:12 PM EST

at all her years of achievement, and no matter how much she gets beat down, she gets right back up and delivers a powerful blow to obama....DO NOT
GIVE UP....

GO HILLARY...


: No open thread - FULL context of Hillary remarks (none / 0) (#107)
by andrys on Sat May 24, 2008 at 10:27:56 PM EST

Yes, she can do anything IF she gets the chance to do it.
Huffpost is filled (by Arianna) with headlines from NYT and other papers excoriating Clinton for what she said, which CAN have an impact on current polling and, most of all, remaining Uncommitted Superdelegates. There are also egregiously bad featured columns there that enjoy distorting Clinton's words. We can ignore this and let those be the defining tale of the RFK remarks. Or more people can use the Full RFK remarks at a Truthdig link as a balance WHEN media manipulators are filling cyber-media with these willful misreadings.
Some had asked WHY didn't she mention the other years when the Democrats went all the way to the Convention. Turns out she did, but that was left out of the videos being circulated.
So, again, please see that this one is offered in the threads that already exist and which are bent on misrepresenting what she said. This is being done at all major media outlets, so they should be countered. Silence won't do it. The victors write 'history'...

I am dying to see BTD's take (5.00 / 1) (#24)
by ghost2 on Sat May 24, 2008 at 06:15:42 PM EST

on Puerto Rico.

Get to it, Big Tent!!!


Remember: If this was over, Obama wouldn't be (5.00 / 1) (#54)
by Exeter on Sat May 24, 2008 at 07:00:38 PM EST

in Puerto Rico.


Actually, he probably would. (none / 0) (#56)
by sickofhypocrisy on Sat May 24, 2008 at 07:03:19 PM EST

He likes to kick back and relax and I hear the beaches there are phenomenal. ;)


I get no comfort from that (none / 0) (#57)
by ajain on Sat May 24, 2008 at 07:04:02 PM EST

If he competes and wins I would be pissed off.


Yes, she needs a big margin there to (none / 0) (#108)
by andrys on Sat May 24, 2008 at 10:36:22 PM EST

...to claim popular vote victory in most types of tallies.

And Obama knows that, and he is there. To be frank, he looks Puerto Rican, which may be a "He's one of us!" moment for residents. And I see videos of him relaxed and getting good reactions from the crowds already.

It's clear he knows it's important to the SDs what happens here and he's just doing what he should do. Because it isn't "over" until that total delegate-number-requirement is met. So let's hope HRC will do what she needs to do there.

I was amazed to see Anderson Cooper once again not up with facts on the primaries. He 'corrected' Clinton's statement yesterday re Bill wrapping the vote up in 1992 in June, saying that he had actually well wrapped it up in April.

NO, Anderson. It's not "wrapped" up until the TOTAL-Delegate-Number is reached. His own hopes seem to interfere with facts. He was also hoping last week that if Obama was able to get 2025 before May 31 that then the committee wouldn't meet on May 31 because the nomination would have been 'won.' John King corrected him on that.


sotonightthatimightsee (none / 0) (#118)
by sotonightthatimightsee on Sun May 25, 2008 at 01:43:43 AM EST

"To be frank, he looks Puerto Rican, which may be a "He's one of us!"

With all due respect- I must disagree with you wholeheartedly!! The fact that Obama may look like "some" Latinos has done NOTHING for him! Puerto Ricans, like most Latinos, have very fond memories of the Clinton years and are very grateful to Bill for everything he did for Latinos all around the Americas!!

Take it from this Puerto Rican living in Pennsylvania..Hillary will win Puerto Rico and she will win it big. How big? I don't really know..but anything above 20% is big. A Kentucky margin would be nice because it will put her over the top in the popular vote. This is why the Obama Media and all his moronic supporters want her to drop out. for her to win the popular vote would not only give her the argument she needs to make to the super delegates, but it would be an embarrassment to him and his supporters and THEY KNOW IT!

The democratic party may still go with Obama in order to appease the AA community- even if they risk losing in November. But I believe Hillary may consider running as an independent based on her "popular vote" victory. God, wouldn't that be nice if she did?!?!


: In what sense? (none / 0) (#119)
by Y Knot on Sun May 25, 2008 at 03:36:13 AM EST

"God, wouldn't that be nice if she did?!?! "
In what sense would it be "nice?" Nice in the sense that it would tear apart the democratic party and install John McCain into the White House for at least the next four years?
"Nice" in the sense that we could count a few thousand more dead soldiers, tens of thousands of wounded and god knows how many dead Iraqis?
"Nice" in the sense of global warming accelerating past the point where it's too lat to do anything by the time the next election comes around?
"Nice" in the sense of a deepening recession, more assaults on our civil liberties, no improvements in health coverage, women losing freedom of choice, gays losing their (still nascent) freedom to make lasting commitments to each other, ever increasing gas prices with no plan to research alternative fuels and an ever more unstable and insecure world hurtling towards more and bigger wars?
No. In short order one of these two candidates will drop out of the race and would be able to make the case (as will many of their followers) that they 'should' have won. If either of them decided to make an independent run, it would ensure the destruction of both. In no way, shape, or form, would I consider that "nice."

: Your encouraging words about Puerto Rico (none / 0) (#123)
by andrys on Mon May 26, 2008 at 01:50:24 AM EST

Thanks for that info!
(And, Hillary is a Dem through and through...)

Obama just said in Puerto Rico (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by ajain on Sat May 24, 2008 at 05:33:09 PM EST

That if he won Puerto Rico he would announce that he has won the nomination.

Which makes sense. If he wins in Puerto Rico there is no way Clinton could overtake him in either pop. vote/delegates. But the fact that he would announce that with such an air of confidence seems odd to me. Maybe we are over-estimating Hillary's support in Puerto Rico.

"such an air" (5.00 / 6) (#6)
by LHinSeattle on Sat May 24, 2008 at 05:40:55 PM EST

of confidence. Heh, he's a con man IMO.

Remember "Indiana is the tie-breaker"? and wasn't he going to announce his self-nomineeism after Oregon (and Kentucky, ooops).

Just all part of the uniting with the divisive candidate language.


and he said he was going to claim victory as (5.00 / 4) (#11)
by PssttCmere08 on Sat May 24, 2008 at 05:51:31 PM EST

the nominee last Tuesday....probably just says these things to get Hillary supporter's undies in a bunch. Frankly, I don't believe he is going to win PR.


Ok (5.00 / 0) (#20)
by lilburro on Sat May 24, 2008 at 06:11:54 PM EST

unless I'm missing some revelatory PR polling, he isn't going to win. So why would he say that?

Considering he called Indiana their tiebreaker, which he subsequently lost, I'm going to take this statement with a lot of water, because it's just too salty ;P


I've only seen one poll (none / 0) (#22)
by ajain on Sat May 24, 2008 at 06:14:31 PM EST

I saw one poll which showed her at an advantage: 50-33.
That was smaller than I thought at the time and now its been over a month since I have seen any other polling. But who knows. Maybe I just have no idea.


: poll in mid-April was 50-37, 13 undecided (5.00 / 0) (#70)
by Josey on Sat May 24, 2008 at 07:25:57 PM EST

Gives him (5.00 / 1) (#36)
by Ga6thDem on Sat May 24, 2008 at 06:39:51 PM EST

an out if he doesn't make it? I mean he's been declaring himself the winner for months now. How is this different?


This is a no brainer (none / 0) (#120)
by Y Knot on Sun May 25, 2008 at 03:48:09 AM EST

If he wins Puerto Rico, he'd be within spitting distance of the delegate count (or above it depending on how many more supers he gets before then), and be virtually uncatchable in the popular vote. So, he'd be able to make the claim.

Why say it then, if the polls show him behind? Well... I think that's obvious. He's essentially telling the Puerto Ricans, "If you vote for me, the whole world will know that you MADE me the nominee something no one else in this process will be able to say."

He's giving them the opportunity to be seen as making a difference. Maybe some people there will think that's a reason to vote for him, maybe not. By his calculations, if he wins Puerto Rico he declares there, if he loses, he declares in SD. It's pretty safe promise to make. Either way, he's not saying Puerto Rico is make or break. Just that if he wins it, he's the nominee. Seems like a pretty harmless promise to me.


What's Also Important To Remember (5.00 / 2) (#4)
by The Maven on Sat May 24, 2008 at 05:40:04 PM EST

This is an open primary;
Since the PDP and NPP don't really correspond to the Democratic and Republican Parties in the rest of the U.S., it's hard to know what exactly can be gleaned from the 2004 election figures; and
With a high turnout, it's entirely possible that with a big win in PR, Clinton could overtake Obama in the popular vote count even if Michigan's numbers are left out of the equation.

Clearly, the candidates are both well aware of all this, which is why they're spending some serious time there campaigning.

: The turnout in Puerto Rico will not evn come close (5.00 / 2) (#112)
by TomLincoln on Sun May 25, 2008 at 12:01:02 AM EST

to the high turnouts we have in general elections here. This is just a guess, but I would put it at about a maximum of 500,000 to 600,000, and that will be viewed as a good turnout for a national party primary. I'll get to vote for Hillary on June 1st, but really find little interest in most people here. Obama may be gaining momentum, so I really have no idea who will win this here. The PDP, which officially supports Obama is divided among its members on whether they should even be voting in national primaries. The PNP leadership is also divided among both candidates. But, the PDP is putting institutional resources behind Obama, which the PNP is not doing for either Obama or Clinton. The number of polling places is less than usual, but it is not like you will have to go real far to find your new designated polling place. In my case, I usually vote at a private Catholic school near home, but this time I have been informed I will be voting at a public school about one block away. I truly hope Hillary can win big here, but I am completely uncertain as to whether she will even win, and if so, by how large a margin.