How A Primary Ends By Super Tuesday. Explanation Required From Clinton Supporters.

[gcomeau]

To set the context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HexrafhffJc (Skip to the last 45 seconds for the statement of interest, quoted below)

I have a campaign that is poised and ready for the long term. We are competing everywhere through February 5th. We have staff in many states. We have built organizations in many states...

... I'm in it for the long run. It's not going to be a very long run, it'll be over by February 5th. - Hillary Clinton, Dec 30 2007

Now, there is no arguing this point. Clinton expected this nomination contest to be wrapped up by February 5th. Well, that's nothing new, we've all know that forever. But here's the point I'd like to cover this time around:

I want ANY Clinton supporter to come in here and tell me HOW she expected it to be over, in a manner that stays consistent with the arguments now being made for why we should still consider her to have any hope in hell of winning the nomination, and why nobody should be expecting her to get out of the race.

Here's a little help to get people started:

Total states voting by February 5th: 28. (30 if you count Michigan/Florida)
Total number of Pledged Delegates up for grabs by February 5th: 1275 (1531.5 if you count Michigan/Florida half delegations)

So, explain to me why it was she expected the race to be OVER by February 5th? What was supposed to end it? What did Hillary think a candidate not just might, but almost certainly WOULD have achieved at that point in the race that would end the process and leave us with a nominee?

Was it because she expected to be the established front runner by then and the other Democratic candidates would put the interests of the party first and get the hell out of her way and let her focus on the Republicans in the GE rather than playing spoiler in a race they were clearly losing even though she had definitely absolutely NOT clinched the number of delegates necessary to cross the nomination threshold? Because we've been given the clear impression that the Clinton campaign these days considers that kind of thinking undemocratic and wrong. Declaring a presumptive nominee before they cross that threshold isn't how THE RULES say the nominee is chosen. Trying to let a front runner get on with their GE campaigning before all 50 states have voted is disenfranchising voters in those last states. So how WAS she expecting the campaign to end then?

I want to see any Clinton supporter explain this to me without throwing out every single argument they make for why Clinton is still justified in continuing her campaign in the manner she has chosen.

[Perry Logan]

1. You won. Get over it.

[gcomeau]

3. I'll remember you said that.

Seeing as you've been all over these boards this week bashing Obama and his campaign and supporters, if you admit he's won then what are you trying to accomplish by doing that exactly? I'm curious.

[scheming daemons]

4. Finally. You admit it. A breakthrough. Now... when the rest of your brethren face reality....

...then we can move on to McCain.

[Forkboy]

7. You first.

[lojasmo]

16. You get over it.

[beac]

50. Yes, we did. Please inform your candidate.

Mkay? Thanks!

[Why Syzygy]

56. I understand you better

now that I've seen these >

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb3fGkOi8tE

bad acid

[Lilith Velkor]

63. Bwahahahahahahaha!

That :rofl: was :rofl: AWESOME. :rofl:

[Arkana]

71. Cool! Thanks!

[mudesi]

2. EXCELLENT POINT. K & R (nm)

[rateyes]

5. What a beautiful sound I hear:

[ClassWarrior]

11. Crickets screwing?

What, exactly, does that sound like?...

NGU.

[rateyes]

17. The same as they normally do, except that....

as the sound seems to get the loudest, you hear a tiny "aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

[ClassWarrior]

20. Thanks for that mental image.

And I mean mental.

:silly:

NGU.

[rateyes]

21. No problem,

glad to educate you on the mating rituals of crickets. :rofl:

[hfojvt]

41. crickets don't make that sound when they are screwing

The sound they make is the male crickets trying to alert the female crickets - "hey baby, I am over here if anybody is interested".

[PassingFair]

6. Inevitability.

With all of the front-loading, it should
have appeared as if NO ONE COULD BEAT HER.

The lesser mortals would have dropped out.

And then along came Iowa and South Carolina.

Voooosh!

Talk about unexpected!

They thought they'd have to knock Edwards out
and didn't have a strategy against Obama....

[gcomeau]

8. That would seem to be the answer, true...

... but certainly only from our blinkered viewpoint over here in Obama land. Surely. I mean, there has to be some other explanation in Clinton land since the kind of thinking that expects other candidates who are clearly losing to drop out is proclaimed to be contemptible and undemocratic over there these days.

I am going to be fascinated to learn what that answer is. I confess it totally escapes me... but I'm sure if we're patient someone will be along to explain the obvious to us eventually.

[City Lights]

9. I predict one of two things:

Crickets or pretzel logic.

Great post, BTW! :thumbsup:

Recommended.

[Spazito]

10. Good post!

Will be interested in reading the explanations but will bring a book to read while I wait, it could be a while.

Recommended.

[hendo]

12. K&R

[hokies4ever]

13. Where's DemVet, papau, and 2trth2pwr at to defend this?

{crickets} :rofl:

[onenote]

14. busy attacking Obama's great uncle.

And ain't that special...

[rateyes]

18. You forgot about

MethuenProgressive.

[slinkerwink]

30. I don't think they can comprehend logic.

[mudesi]

15. Kick. Come on, Clinton loyalists! Let's hear it! (nm)

[rateyes]

19. oo oo oo oo oo oo oo,

oo oo oo oo, OO, oo oo oo oo oo,

oo oo oo oo oo oo oo, OO, oo oo oo, OO, OO, OO, Plunk Plunk.

(sung to the sound of the theme song from "Jeopardy."

-------------------------------------------------------------

We are awaiting your answers, Clinton supporters.

[rateyes]

22. Wow. This thread has been up and on the greatest page for

going on 3 hours and not ONE Clinton supporter has bothered to even attempt an answer to the question. That speaks volumes.

[rateyes]

23. I'm going to keep kicking this post every once in a while until

someone answers the question. It's a legitimate one. Why the silence???????

[beac]

51. Good idea. I'll join you!

[DogPoundPup]

24. I am so friggin' tired of this shit

Chaos ALL over the world and Hillary throws in a ton of her own. Good God, it's just like Bush starting "wars to bring peace." Well we sure as Hell have seen how that is turning out!

What is wrong with her?

[Willo]

25. Give them time to call a meeting, figure out the group response then, start a bunch of threads

Total states voting by February 5th: 28. (30 if you count Michigan/Florida)
Total number of Pledged Delegates up for grabs by February 5th: 1275 (1531.5 if you count Michigan/Florida half delegations)

So, explain to me why it was she expected the race to be OVER by February 5th? What was supposed to end it? What did Hillary think a candidate not just might, but almost certainly WOULD have achieved at that point in the race that would end the process and leave us with a nominee?

Was it because she expected to be the established front runner by then and the other Democratic candidates would put the interests of the party first and get the hell out of her way and let her focus on the Republicans in the GE rather than playing spoiler in a race they were clearly losing even though she had definitely absolutely NOT clinched the number of delegates necessary to cross the nomination threshold? Because we've been given the clear impression that the Clinton campaign these days considers that kind of thinking undemocratic and wrong. Declaring a presumptive nominee before they cross that threshold isn't how THE RULES say the nominee is chosen. Trying to let a front runner get on with their GE campaigning before all 50 states have voted is disenfranchising voters in those last states. So how WAS she expecting the campaign to end then?

*Ding Ding Ding* You have won the Amana Range Oven and a year's supply of Turtle Wax.

[Cha]

36. This is an absolutely Perfect analogy, Willo

[Vapor Trails]

26. Excellent! Well stated! n/t

[rateyes]

27. Still waiting...

tick tock, tick tock.........

[berni_mccoy]

28. Across the nation, Hillary Supporter Heads Have Just Exploded after reading post on popular

political forum, The Democratic Underground.

[gcomeau]

29. **Oops. Damn... number correction for the OP.**

...which I should have spotted when I was writing this since I knew those numbers looked low considering Cali was moved up to Super Tuesday but I just whipped through the (incorrect) totals on the damn CNN "by party" tracking page up to Feb 5th without double-checking the math and now that I went back and did it it's too late to edit the OP. Sigh...

Anyway new line with correct values should be substituted in there.:

Total number of Pledged Delegates up for grabs by February 5th: 1815 (2067.5 if you count Michigan/Florida half delegations)

The point of course stands, and the question remains. Even if a single candidate won ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the pledged delegates in EVERY SINGLE CONTEST to this point they would not have crossed the nomination threshold. And there is no chance in hell anyone expected any candidate to get anywhere near 100% of the delegates up for grabs. In the interview in which Clinton made this statement she wasn't even expressing an expectation to win Iowa, let alone sweep every delegate.

So... WHY did Clinton think the race would be over Feb 5th? Still waiting for any Clinton supporter to explain this without destroying the foundation for all their expressed outrage over people suggesting Clinton should get out of the race.

[Occam Bandage]

31. Can't anyone help us?

[Spazito]

32. Geez, I might actually be able to read Tolstoy's tome...

War and Peace before there is any response to your question!

[Willo]

33. Wow, still nothing.

:kick:

[KaptBunnyPants]

34. Intellectual honesty died a long time ago in the Clinton campaign.

They argue as if there is no past and no future.

[Cha]

35. Here's a pic that goes with that statement of hilary's

[Stephanie]

40. Unbelievable. She needs to be hammered with this day and night.

She lies like a Bush. I can't even look at her these days.

[Occam Bandage]

37. And *still* no Clinton supporters can explain this? How embarrassing for them.

[gcomeau]

38. I'm alright with the ones who know it's over...

...and just stay in her camp out of loyalty because she hasn't thrown in the towel yet while laying low and basically accepting reality. It's... the others... who are going to keep getting this kicked up in front of them again, and again, and again, as long as they keep up their antics. We all know who they are.

I was never expecting a serious answer. Let's face it, there isn't one and they know it as well as we do. But until they admit it this isn't going away.

I am a little surprised that the usual suspects haven't even managed a ridiculous reality defying outraged response that incorporated "POPULAR VOTE!!!!!! DISENFRANCHISEMENT!!!! MISOGYNY!!!!" in it somewhere yet however.

And.... kick.

[beac]

52. don't forget "ELITISM" !!! We're nothing without our lattes!!!

;)

[americanstranger]

39. You made their heads asplode.

I'll check in in the morning and see if any of those who make Obama-bashing into a sport here have checked in to explain.

- as

[hfojvt]

42. the same way I thought it would be over

suppose it's a three or four person race. Hillary gets 45 percent, Obama gets 28 percent, Edwards gets 20 percent, and Biden gets 7 percent. That leaves Hillary with 573 delegates, Obama with 357, Edwards with 255 and Biden with 89. Of the 28 contests, Hillary has won 24 of them. At this point, Biden drops out AND endorses Hillary. Edwards goes a couple more contests which Hillary wins by increasing margins, except Hawaii, Obama's home state. Then Edwards drops out and endorses the front-runner Hillary. All this time the media is pounding the drums and Dandy Don is singing "turn out the lights, the party's over".
edit: I forgot Hillary's huge lead in superdelegates too. After a resounding win on Super Tuesday, those probably would have started dropping like raindrops in a T-storm, widening her lead.

If Hillary had won a fairly clear victory on Super Tuesday, it would have been essentially over. No OTHER second place finisher would have Hillary's advantages. The Governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania would be trying to get on the good side of the nominee (and hopefully future President) and not be endorsing, and campaigning for, a long shot. No other 2nd place finisher would probably have a popular former President campaigning for them.

That's the way it normally works. This year, is an odd case. First, the rightwing media, having the Republican primary settled, is more than happy to mess with ours and to create trouble for the likely nominee, and to stir up bad feelings. Second, it's kinda rare for a Democratic candidate to have $10 million to lend to their campaign. Even when it is possible, with Kerry or Edwards or Kennedy, for example. The media would usually start pounding on the "is this rich person trying to buy the Presidency?" and I am not sure if a mainstream TV network has even mentioned her loans to herself. Edwards probably did not help either. By not endorsing after Super Tuesday, or even after Wisconsin, he created the impression that he, or the nomination, could go either way.

Of course, it didn't work that way in 1980 or 1984. Kennedy took it to the convention, even though Carter had enough delegates to win. Gary Hart took it to the convention against former Vice President Mondale and doing so did not hurt him. He was still kinda expected to be the nominee in 1988 until the press caught him screwing around on some yacht.

[2rth2pwr]

43. Who cares? That was then.

[gcomeau]

44. Buy, we're on a roll with this one.

So after all this time and all these kicks all we have from the Clinton contingent is one joke "you win" response, and one response that declares "who cares" about hypocrisy. We have ZERO attempts to answer the challenge after many, many hours of waiting.

Anyone else want to take a try at actually answering the question? Or are we going to let 2rth2pwr be the reigning representative of the Clinton camp on this one and just conclude that the Clinton camp doesn't care about all the states participating, doesn't care about everyone voting, and doesn't care about hitting the delegate threshold before the nominee is named... the one and only thing they care about is having Clinton given the nomination by any means necessary and all their rhetoric about the democratic ideals of the party being upheld are pure bullshit?

[cali]

47. LOL!! You hillbots have been screeching about Obama's

arrogance in predicting, over the last couple of weeks, that he'll be the nominee. Hillykin's arrogance was far more marked and the hypocrisy of the hillbots here is astounding.

[gcomeau]

48. Dammit... responded to wrong post... -nt

[beac]

53. "then" was also when Hillary agreed not to count your vote, BTW.

Just sayin'.....

[ClassWarrior]

61. .

[Hippo_Tron]

45. Simple, you win the Iowa Caucus or Edwards wins it

Because even if Edwards won it, he took matching funds and wouldn't have the money for a Super Tuesday ground operation.

If that fails, you blow all of your money on media buys in "big states" assuming that the media must declare you the inevitable nominee if you win California. You really really hope that Obama doesn't pull any key endorsements before February 5th like say Ted Kennedy. And most importantly you hope that Obama doesn't lead in pledged delegates after that night because then the media will ignore all of your "big state" wins and say that the night is basically a draw. Of course the next morning they realize that Obama is still rolling in cash and your campaign is broke.

Mark Penn designed a strategy around the artificial construct of "momentum". David Axelrod designed a strategy of attrition.

[beac]

54. Unfortunately for her, it turned out that Hillary had "Joementum" instead.

[4themind]

46. Thank you for posting this

I've been wondering about this for months,and am wondering when a news caster would call them on this. The only explanation that I could come up with is that she has different expectations for others relative to herself

[gcomeau]

49. ****The Tally So Far, Before Signing Off Until Morning.****

I've got many kicks, a few joking scenarios, and two serious Clinton supporters responding so far that I can see.

Please, nobody take the "serious" there to be referring to their actual responses. Only to their publicly displayed levels of support for Clinton. One has responded with "You won, get over it" which he later disavowed in another thread as a joke. One has responded with "who cares"... basically conceding that the Hillary campaign is totally lacking in any guiding principles on this matter whatsoever beyond "Give Hillary The Nomination!!!! GIVE IT GIVE IT GIVE IT!!!" Don't care about all the states voting. Don't care about the nominee having to reach the nomination threshold before being declared the presumed candidate. Only care about saying anything to get what they want and damn the consequences to the party.

Let's see if I wake up in the morning to find anyone from the Hillary camp improving on their track record to date on this one.

[beac]

55. And one more kick before I end my insomniac DU'ing!

Kickity, kick, kick, kick!

[quaker bill]

57. It is fairly simple

Now understand I support Barack, but I postulate that the logic goes like this:

Because Feb 5 is so shortly after the beginning of the race, a significant number of candidates stay in through Feb 5. Having several still viable, if limping, candidacies on the ballot, the non-Hillary vote is split three or four ways. As a result, in most of the 22 states, most if not all the other candidates fail to make the 15% viability measure. In that case, the contests become defacto "winner take all" contests as all, or nearly all delegates are awarded to the one candidate who exceeds the 15% viability threshold, Hillary.

Poor logic, but it is a tenable path to early dominance. It just did not work out that way.

[rateyes]

59. And, even that doesn't explain why she continues to make the

argument that she needn't drop out until all the primaries/caucuses have been held.

[gcomeau]

66. That would seem to be one answer, but no Clinton supporter could give it...

...since it would mean:

1. Clinton expected the race to end when she did NOT meet the delegate threshold necessary to absolutely secure it. (THE RULES!!!!)
2. Clinton expected the race to end when 20 states still hadn't even voted. (DISENFRANCHISEMENT!!!!)

Both of which her campaign and a bunch of her more absurd supporters on this board are busily declaring great evils when anyone suggests Clinton should have conceded by now.

And of course even your possible scenario is highly unlikely. It has never really been more than a 3 person race at any time, and by late December that was very obviously how it was going to be going forward. No other candidate ever broke 5% support levels in any polling, only Clinton, Obama and Edwards were serious draws at the voting booth. And a 2 person race isn't enough to knock everyone but 1 person out of viability unless that one person is just flat out OBLITERATING them both since that single candidate would have to take a minimum of 72% of the vote in a contest to even have a chance at being the only viable candidate, and THAT would only do it if both the other two got exactly 14%. No polling in December or at any other time supported Clinton doing that... anywhere. And yet she was sublimely confident that Super Tuesday ended this race.

We all know it was because she simply expected to be the front runner and for everyone else to get out of her way for the good of the party once that was recognized, but nobody in Clinton land can admit that now without destroying all their credibility when they try to make these ridiculous arguments for why everyone is so wrong and mean to tell her she should get out and let Obama run his GE campaign now that she's flat out lost.

[quaker bill]

70. However,

regardless of the flawed logic therein, which I stated to be flawed from the outset, if the scenario had happened, per the script, Hillary would have had an absolutely insurmountable lead. Just like Kerry did when I voted in March 2004.

[gcomeau]

72. Entirely agreed.

Even if she had managed to sweep a large number of victories in the majority of states through Super Tuesday by halfway decent margins without having to appeal to knocking opponents into inviability in any of them, she still would likely have built a lead that it would have been unreasonable to think could be overcome in the remaining contests. And any rational person at that point who cared one iota about the Democrats winning the White House in November would start getting in line to make sure the person who was rather clearly going to be the nominee had the best shot at doing that and the competition would have gotten out of the way... either by withdrawing, suspending their campaigns, or at the very freaking least ceasing all negative campaigning of any kind or degree against them if they absolutely insisted on still running through the remaining contests. So even though she would have been nowhere near the 2026 delegate threshold that finalized the nomination it would indeed have been effectively over.

But as I said, Clinton supporters can't go there when explaining why Clinton expected it to all be over by February 5th, because it destroys all their current silly little arguments. And they can't explain it any OTHER way. So we get crickets.

[quaker bill]

75. I only posit it as a theory

Another theory is that Hillary and Mark Penn did not understand proportional allocation. I understand this might have been true in Penn's case, but I heard that Ickies sorted him out on this.

I think the simplest theory to explain the evidence in hand and their contemporary statements is that they thought Edwards would take either Iowa or SC (likely Iowa with Hillary second), Clinton would take New Hampshire (Obama or Edwards second), a very tight race with Obama for SC, and perhaps second for Richardson in NV. With this sort of scenario, three to four "strong" candidates go into super duper tuesday, with three splitting the non-Hillary vote. Then out of Feb 5 comes Hillary with a big pile of delegates and the three others with a tiny collection each.

If this scenario played out, she could reasonably have walked off with a lead of 400 to 500 over any one of them. At this point the "inevitability" argument takes on a potent character, and little more campaigning would have been needed to make her case. Like Kerry in 2004, once he got the ball rolling, the thing took on a life of its own, and was unstoppable.

She has been running the Kerry game plan in every other aspect as well. The 20 state campaign, winning the "big" states, the "blue" states.... The problem is that this plan only works in the primaries (at least when it works). In the general, everything must go exactly according to the map, there is no room for an unexpected loss, like FL and Ohio.

Barack saw the weakness, and took full advantage.

[Why Syzygy]

58. Edwards?

Was she counting on Edwards to play a larger role in vote distribution for February 5th?

In retrospect, isn't it interesting that had he not dropped out, her chances most likely would have increased at that time?

[rateyes]

60. Still no takers to your challenge...

Amazing.

[IndependentDem]

62. wow gcomeau you got owned...

:sarcasm:

[rateyes]

64. Damn. You'd think that there would be ONE Clinton backer who

would try and answer your question. Looks like there's no valid answer to be had.

[rateyes]

65. The Clinton Supporters' reaction to this thread reminds me of an old Simon & Garfunkel

song. "The Sound of Silence."

[Onlooker]

67. I'm an Obama supporter, but I can explain it

It's called political expediency. Just as Obama is against gay marriage, as gung-ho on Israel as Clinton, champions an insurance-industry friendly health care plan, etc., Clinton does says and does what she thinks is necessary to win. As far as disenfranchisement goes, Obama ignored states like Kentucky and West Virginia, thus denying people there equal opportunity to know him. Both Obama and Clinton are playing politics. Obama's better at it, and posts like yours sort of prove it, especially if you don't see how both sides use political expediency. It's the nature of American politics and always has been.

[gcomeau]

69. Not "*but* I can explain it"..."*so* I can explain it".

You can explain it because you're an Obama supporter and so are not shackled to the ridiculous arguments the Clinton apologists absolutely must cling to in order to keep up this ludicrous argument that Hillary has any legitimate reason at all to still be running the campaign she is. It's easy to explain. we all know the explanation, it's painfully obvious. it's how the primary process is supposed to work when everyone involved actually has the party's best interests at heart.

The Clinton apologists on the other hand, if they said what you just said, would be conceding the entire debate over whether Hillary should still be campaigning.

"Yep, we don't care about so-called 'voter disenfranchisement' because we don't wait for every single last state to vote because we wanted this to be called for Hillary WAY before all the states voted. We don't care about a candidate actually crossing the threshold before they're considered the nominee because we were banking on Clinton being declared the nominee before that would have even been theoretically possible. And we don't have any problem with the idea of expecting trailing candidates to get out of the way after a certain point because that's what we wanted and expected them to do for us when we thought our candidate would be the front-runner. We're not making a single sincere argument these days... we just want our candidate to be given the nomination whether she won it or not and we're going to yell and scream and stamp our feet and attack the presumptive nominee and the party itself right along with Hillary if we don't get our way."

That would effectively be what they were declaring if they acknowledged the reason Clinton expected this to be over February 5th. They won't admit that, so they remain silent.

[Crunchy Frog]

68. "We are competing everywhere through February 5th."

[americanstranger]

73. Kick.

Still want to see one of our Clinton-supporting friends give a clear answer to this.

- as

[redqueen]

74. How? Cause she's a CLINTON, duh.

It's... like... a no-brainer.

Almost all the pundit class agreed.