LIVING POLITICS
Howard Fineman
Decision Tuesday: Indiana
‘The Die Is Cast’
Obama's plan to end the race in Oregon.
Mark the date: May 20. That night, Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is planning to declare victory. At his campaign headquarters here, the number crunchers figure—with pretty solid justification—that, on that date, after the returns come in from the Oregon Democratic primary, their man will have won an outright majority of the pledged delegates to the 2008 convention in Denver.
"The die is cast," campaign manager David Plouffe told me after the early returns came in Tuesday night, revealing that Obama had won a big victory in North Carolina. According to Plouffe's math, Sen. Hillary Clinton still could win big in West Virginia and Kentucky. But even with those victories, Obama pickups in those states, plus a likely big win in Oregon, would be enough to reach the magic number: 1,627, a clear majority of the pledged delegates.
At that point, his strategists say, Obama will be able to turn to uncommitted superdelegates and say: "I've done my part." Party leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have said, in effect, that they will support whichever candidate wins the most delegates in primaries and caucuses. And, by then, Obama will have done so. I am told that Pelosi herself may remain neutral until the convention, but that 60 or so House members who have been hanging back would be free to commit.
As things now stand, Obama remains short of the 2,025 total delegates he needs. But his campaign is determined to reach that goal by no later than the morning after the May 20 vote.
Obama strategist David Axelrod, confirming the target date, cranked up the May 20 spin machine: no Democratic nominee who had won a majority of pledged delegates has ever been denied the party's nomination, he said, and Obama was not going to be the first.
Clinton's argument, of course, is that winning a majority of "pledged" delegates isn't the real test: to her, it is the total number of delegates won, pledged and "super." More than that, Hillary argues that the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch should more properly be 2,209, if you count, as she does, the Florida and Michigan primaries. (Both states moved the date of their votes up on the calendar in defiance of the national party, and were stripped of their delegates as a result).
Clinton plans to take her case to the party's rules committee on May 31 in Washington. Obama's plan is to make it all seem moot by then, or at least by Oregon.
© 2008
Loading Menu
Member Comments
Posted By: ToadTreeHugger @ 05/14/2008 5:34:40 AM
Comment: Seattle Times, Obama supporters unwise to attack Hillary Clinton - PART ONE
Many in the Barack Obama camp, having outfoxed the apparently not-so-formidable Hillary Clinton machine, can't seem to get the hang of winning gracefully. They feel a need to drive a stake in Hillary Clinton's reputation, then dance. If they were smart, they'd heap praise on Clinton and let her finish out the race, however she chooses to do so.
That's sage advice, even though offered by Republican mastermind-turned-pundit Karl Rove. Treat Clinton shabbily, he says, and many of her supporters "will remember it by November."
Nonetheless, Obamites are throwing victory parties over the impending defeat of a fellow Democrat who has thus far pulled in more than 47 percent of their party's primary and caucus participants. Some take a more direct approach. In anticipation of the West Virginia primary, college students for Obama were hurling insults at farmers and truck drivers holding signs for Clinton.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, unable to contain himself, administered one last kick to Clinton's dignity by opining that the New York senator lacks the "real leadership" needed for the job of vice president. He said that Obama should pick someone who is "in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people."
So much for the nobility of aspirations held by his own state's Democratic primary voters, who preferred Clinton over Obama by 15 percentage points. Next door in Rhode Island, Rep. Patrick Kennedy dittoes Dad as an unwavering superdelegate for Obama ??? this despite Clinton's 18-point win in that state's primary. It's as if the voters are invisible.
Disrespecting the nearly 17 million who have supported Clinton is politically unwise, but turning them into "the enemy" is insane. Last week's enemy was working-class white people. The Democrats can win without a majority of white voters ??? as Obama strategists undiplomatically note ??? but they can't win without a strong showing among them.
Posted By: ToadTreeHugger @ 05/14/2008 5:34:11 AM
Comment: Seattle Times, Obama supporters unwise to attack Hillary Clinton - PART TWO
So Obama partisans do not help their cause by willfully misrepresenting Clinton's reference to "hard-working Americans, white Americans" as racist rather than as a poorly worded observation made in a state of utter exhaustion. The fervor of their outrage suggests that some regard the mere consideration of white people, particularly white men, as a demographic needing a special message is an act of bigotry. (That's as opposed to a thousand other racial and socio-economic groups that politicos routinely slice and dice.)
We now hear pained remarks from the Obama camp that many white men won't vote for any black. Oh really? No one was complaining during the early races in Iowa, Maryland, Virginia and Wisconsin, when most of the white male participants backed Obama. That was before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ugliness became public.
Weirdly, Obamite triumphalism seems to be merging with the festivities on the Republican side. You can understand why the right would welcome what it prays is "the end of the Clinton era." Bill Clinton presided over the longest peacetime expansion since World War II. His budget surpluses put his so-called conservative predecessors and successor to shame. Wouldn't a vow to build on the Clinton legacy, rather than dismantle it, be a better tack for the Obama campaign?
Obama can't beat John McCain without large chunks of Clinton's core constituency: women, Hispanics and the white working class. Dumping on their candidate is one step removed from dumping on them ??? and some of the Obama people don't even bother with that step. Rove must be enjoying the show.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004411946_harrop14.html
Posted By: not_another_american_idiot @ 05/14/2008 1:39:04 AM
Comment: Screw advertising, Newsweek is completely funded by Barack Obama Inc. Or they're just a bunch of egotists that can't admit when they're wrong, either way this is an anti-democratic publication and they should be put out of business. Shame on all of you, journalists are supposed to reflect the voices and opinions of the people, all people, not just the biased voices of those you choose to consider! NOBAMA and NONEWSWEEK!