Political Blog
So, I almost never use this cite for anything, but I felt that given who my friends are I could do you all service by writing a brief political blog on the state of affairs in this primary season.
So with the end of Super Tuesday the Republican circumstances are starting to take shape. Huckabee doesn't have a hope and a prayer of winning the nomination, but has strategically set himself up to be McCain's Vice-President. What evidence is there of this? West Virgina. West Virgina uses a very old system of delegate allocation called the Convention system. Basically all the state party leaders get together and vote on who the delegates are going to be. Romney won the first balloting here without a majority. On the second balloting all the McCain and Huckabee supporters got together and voted for Huckabee, giving him the delegates. It appears as though a back door deal is being made between the two men least alike in the Republican race. Huckabee, as part of this deal, can't drop out though because McCain needs him to siphon votes from Romney. So the unofficial word is a McCain/Huckabee ticket in November. Tough to beat because Huckabee will lend conservative credetials to McCain and McCain's appeal with independents is enormous. The other bad news is that unlike Romney or Paul, this ticket is likely to be pro-War, meaning a victory for them could devastate any chance of not 1984ing into the 21st century.
On the flip side of the aisle, things are about to get really ugly for the democrats. Obama's victories have devastated any hope Hillary had of securing an easy victory. Hillary's victories and larger war chest mean that she isn't about to back down in the face of opposition. As of 11am this morning, official returns gave Hillary 783 delegates to Obama's 709. That count includes all the primaries that came before Super-Duper Tuesday. To secure the nomination in the Democratic convention one technically needs 2025 delegates, twice as many as the Republican nomination. Obama's numbers also show some interesting facts: He will virtually always win a state that caucuses instead of holding a primary. Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, Alaska, and Colorado are all states which hold caucuses instead of Primaries and they are all states Obama won by impressive margins. This bodes well for him in the coming week because Washington, Maine and Nebraska all caucus. Also Obama is overwhelmingly popular with Blacks, even Black women. This means that an impressive turnout in Louisiana could give him a primary victory there. If Obama wins all of those contests, he will be back on top, but since no clear winner is emerging expect this one to go on for a long time. If it goes without a clear winner by the end of February expect a battle at the convention to seat all of Hillary's unseated delegates from Michigan and Florida, which would be very bad for party unity.
Hope you found that interesting. Comment if you have questions or concerns or never want me to take up your friends page with this sort of thing again.
EDIT: The Official counts are in and the delegates are being divided up by County. Final Score for the Democrats looks like it will end up being something like 1145 for Clinton to 1075 Obama. That is worse that I was expecting.
So with the end of Super Tuesday the Republican circumstances are starting to take shape. Huckabee doesn't have a hope and a prayer of winning the nomination, but has strategically set himself up to be McCain's Vice-President. What evidence is there of this? West Virgina. West Virgina uses a very old system of delegate allocation called the Convention system. Basically all the state party leaders get together and vote on who the delegates are going to be. Romney won the first balloting here without a majority. On the second balloting all the McCain and Huckabee supporters got together and voted for Huckabee, giving him the delegates. It appears as though a back door deal is being made between the two men least alike in the Republican race. Huckabee, as part of this deal, can't drop out though because McCain needs him to siphon votes from Romney. So the unofficial word is a McCain/Huckabee ticket in November. Tough to beat because Huckabee will lend conservative credetials to McCain and McCain's appeal with independents is enormous. The other bad news is that unlike Romney or Paul, this ticket is likely to be pro-War, meaning a victory for them could devastate any chance of not 1984ing into the 21st century.
On the flip side of the aisle, things are about to get really ugly for the democrats. Obama's victories have devastated any hope Hillary had of securing an easy victory. Hillary's victories and larger war chest mean that she isn't about to back down in the face of opposition. As of 11am this morning, official returns gave Hillary 783 delegates to Obama's 709. That count includes all the primaries that came before Super-Duper Tuesday. To secure the nomination in the Democratic convention one technically needs 2025 delegates, twice as many as the Republican nomination. Obama's numbers also show some interesting facts: He will virtually always win a state that caucuses instead of holding a primary. Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, Alaska, and Colorado are all states which hold caucuses instead of Primaries and they are all states Obama won by impressive margins. This bodes well for him in the coming week because Washington, Maine and Nebraska all caucus. Also Obama is overwhelmingly popular with Blacks, even Black women. This means that an impressive turnout in Louisiana could give him a primary victory there. If Obama wins all of those contests, he will be back on top, but since no clear winner is emerging expect this one to go on for a long time. If it goes without a clear winner by the end of February expect a battle at the convention to seat all of Hillary's unseated delegates from Michigan and Florida, which would be very bad for party unity.
Hope you found that interesting. Comment if you have questions or concerns or never want me to take up your friends page with this sort of thing again.
EDIT: The Official counts are in and the delegates are being divided up by County. Final Score for the Democrats looks like it will end up being something like 1145 for Clinton to 1075 Obama. That is worse that I was expecting.