Glenden BrownPrimary Election Calvinball
Over at his place, Atrios comments on a weird experience - that he started his political life defending the Clintons and he’s reached the point that he’s disgusted by them.
Hillary’s playing Calvinball. The rules change every day and with each play, the sole purpose of all her activity is to stay alive. Here’s the deal. There’s no way the math works out. Try as she might, Hillary is not going to get the required delegates to win the nomination.
I’m not a fan of the Electoral college - I think it’s an undemocratic holdover. The party’s delegate race is similar but the rules were set out at the beginning and Obama and his campaign played a really smart game. Hillary didn’t. She seemed to assume she’d have the race locked up after Super Tuesday and didn’t seem to have a fall back plan. When Obama emerged victorious from Super Tuesday, Hillary suddenly found herself campaigning against a much smarter team (fwiw, her campaign wasn’t helped by a level of internal chaos and dissension with high level people coming and going). She was knocked off her game and she never really got it back.
Obama looks like he’s locked up the nomination at this point. Hillary’s options are increasingly few and increasingly unpalatable to the long term health of the Democratic party. I’d be surprised to see any of the Super Delegates lead a charge to overturn the results in favor of Clinton. But Clinton and her campaign keep offering a moving goal in an attempt to keep her campaign alive (the latest is “How can you say that with a straight face?” argument about a majority of voters that is arrived at by excluded any state with caucuses rather than primaries).
She seems to believe if she can just stay alive long enough, she’ll arrive at the convention in August and get the nomination. It won’t happen provided Obama manages to not be smashed by a meteor between now and then.
That leaves us with a Hillary Problem. She’s not going away. The Clintons are proving a more and more paradoxical legacy to the party. I believe as a rule they share goals and values of the emerging progressive movement, but the lens through which they see politics is isolating them from that movement.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I was a fan of Hillary’s involvement. I thought it was good for the party to have a front runner and a protest vote. I thought we were having a national conversation here. But my mind changed after West Virginia. I’ve come to feel that all Hillary’s accomplishing is cynically giving credence to a bunch of whack racist crackers. They boost her numbers but won’t be any use in the general election, because they can’t see their way clear to voting for a colored. As of West Virginia, she is officially “not helping.” John Edwards was right to steal her thunder with his endorsement and may her campaign RIP.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 pm
What this post needs is a wiktionary link to Calvinball.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Howard Dean and DNC planned the primary process especially to make it a cakewalk for Hillary. It was supposed to be a coronation. They couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams that Hillary would have any real competition. This entire primary fiasco can be laid squarely at the feet of Howard Dean.
Barack Obama is in real trouble because even with his early wins and the media on his side he has not been able to muster the votes needed to secure the nomination and can only get it with the Democrat elite Super delegates. This process has divided the party down the middle and the beneficiary to all this will be John McCain. A divided conservative wing of the Republican party is what got him the nomination and a divided Democrat party is what will win him the presidency.
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Ken:
Where in the wide world do you get this information. The Democratic party is divided between the DLC and DNC. The DLC has been mostly for Hillary, the DNC has mostly sided with anybody getting the majority of the peoples votes. You really have to stop listening to Limbaugh and Hannity. I can only assume this is where you’re getting this stuff from, since I don’t listen to either.
I really think you’re just a mean person, trying to upset us liberals.
WELL IT’S NOT WORKING! I’M JUST FINE!
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Ken may have some ‘mean’ but basically he’s a child-programmed-puppet, spawn of the One-True-Party. We may very well have Rush Hanity and Dick Cheney to thank for the ever-shrinking ilk. I yammer.
The more I find out about John McCain the greater my pity for the dyed-in-the-wool Gooper. Where’s Eisenhower? Where’s Lincoln? Right now they’ve got Johnny, Dick, and KKKarl. It’s sad really.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Breaking…Texas state court rules that FLDS children wer not in danger and shoulod not have been separated from thier families.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:44 pm
House Subpoenas Karl Rove
The head election fraudster/architect might have to come clean before the next stolen election.
The media may be forced to cover it this time!
Let’s party!
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Larry
If you think I am “mean”, ask anyone who knows me. I’m about as mean as a bunny rabbit and not the Monty Python kind. No need for Holy Hand Grenades.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:39 am
Ken:
That’s a pretty irreverent movie for you to be watching. I hope you didn’t see “Life of Brian.” Come on over to the liberal (generous and tolerant) side. We’re much more bunnylike and would never send people to die without good reason, or for profit.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 am
AD - I agree. Back in January I was sure we had an amazing group of candidates and I’d be happy to see any of them as nominees but Hillary and her campaign have changed my mind.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:56 am
I will say this. I do think that the long process has honed at least Obama’s foreign policy position to where he can really differentiate himself from the party line. This business about being willing to sit down with pariahs. I think it started as a misstatement. But he’s made it his own. So, thanks, I guess, to Hillary, for being the party line there and giving him a foil.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
That’s a really refreshing way of looking at it. I think Obama has grown as a candidate and leader through the process. Look at the difference in how he handled the non issue over Jeremiah Wright and the non issue over Michelle’s comment about being “proud to be American.”
I was and continue to be frustrated with the Jeremiah Wright brouhaha however. Wright is an amazing and inspiring preacher and the fact that our mainstream media was so freaking stupid they fell for the whole non issue and forced Obama to jump through hoops annoys me. With his wife, he basically said, “Quit being a bunch of limp dicks and take your fight up with me.” It shows some interesting growth.
But, Obama also learned from that mess how to defend his friends and supporters so that’s a good thing.