Superdelegate Senators Assess ’08 Race

Do what the Demos always do – choose a candidate who will lose in the fall general election. Another typical Democratic presidential nominee.

Vanessa – Why should we bet another uncertainty for 4 years, while we have seen what that means in the past 8 years? Why should one blindly rally around someone who has shown not a single original idea of domestic and foreign policies?
At least, one knows what you will get from McCain, who has shown time again to work with Demos. Do you want another 4 years of nothing getting done by the far left and far right and fillbustered congress in BO?
It’s too bad that the Demos did it again, to shoot their own feet.

Olbermann3
the only times the dems lose is when they go for the “old party” candidate…
It’s not about liberal or conservative…it’s about who takes the party in a new direction…and who has just “paid their dues”…
there is enthusiasm with one…tiredness with the other.

true truth
Obama won despite being black not because of it. There are a heck of a lot more white women who wanted their first woman President as much as African Americans wanted the first African American.
Your argument is just sad that you don’t understand that in this day and age.

Maxidial
That’s fine is you choose McCain but when your daughter or niece or grandchild woner what happened and why roe vs. wade , the war went on, why she lives in a country still beholden to China and without affordable healthcare… and second to several nations in economic and educational opportunity and strength… and a land less safe because of our standing in the world.
You tell them you voted for McCain.

dl,
You are right in that a lot of younger, and whiter men and women voted for BO. When you ask them why you voted for BO? They tell you that they think he is “cool”.
Cool?! Is that what you want as the quality from a pres candidate.

Z,
The vote records are the fact how the voters voted based on the skin color or gender..
It is just the fact and nothing else. The question is how Obama can win over white votes and whether he can beat McCain by his own winning patterns..

Any Democrat who says if Clinton doesn’t win then they are not voting of voting for McCain is an IDIOT. Their football team mentality is getting in the way of what’s at stake for our nation. The last 8 years have been pure hell for some of us out here in the country so the petty and childishness makes people who say that look like complete fools to the rest of us. If Clinton was the nominee, and its obvious she won’t be now, I’d hold my nose and vote for her because even the chance of a McCain presidency is appalling. Geez..electing someone who can’t tell the difference between a shia and a sunni or doesn’t know that the Soviet Union is defunct is just laughable….can we get any more dissed by the rest of the world than we have with Bush as pres? Well, elect that old phoney and you’ll see we will.

Vanessa – it’s obvious as you have been a contributing member pro-Obama, that you are on his taskforce, and try to sway the blogs on his behalf.
Give it up.
I’m pro-Hillary and voting for McCain in the election.

I am 55 female and Caucasian by birth and race and age and gender do not matter.
Young people realize that.
There should not be concerns about “color” of people nor should states be considered of different “colors.”
It’s just people/places & we’re all the same under God.
Obama is at the right place and time in history.
Let’s make America a place in the world to be proud of again.
Let’s set an example.
Let’s overcome bigotry and divisions, end wedge politics.
Now is our chance.
Let’s end class politics – I am educated but did it on grants & scholarships. I own a house but couldn’t buy one in today’s dollars. My son is unemployed and has no insurance.
I am liberal but it’s nothing new and that’s not a bad word. It means I care about people. Is that bad?
I would be a latte drinker if I could afford it but the middle class is shrinking so class-division politics doesn’t work any more.
We are all hurting under Bush and McCain would be more of the same.
Let’s all get behind Obama.

And for all of you who think African Americans are only voting for Obama because of his skin color, I suggest you check the ratio’s that voted for Clinton, Gore and Kerry. Are all the women who vote for Clinton allegedly idiots as well? I think you’d argue not. Please explain to me why he’s getting the college educated vote. The elitists? You can’t have it all ways. Lick your wounds and then get back to being Democrats…

The reason why a lot of Hillary supporters would either stay home or vote for McCain is becuase they don’t like Obama and they don’t think he is qualified to be CIC and they think McCain would be better than Obama…
Obama looks to them not a convincing and capable candidate…
They put the country first instead of so called “Dems” party…
That is why…

I’m NOT voting for Obama. Neither are over 50% of the rest of the democrats. The DNC has to work something out – just telling everyone to play nice doesn’t solve the problem.

Bayh’s is an “IDIOT”. Nobody can honestly believe the debate will be respectable from this point forward. That suddenly the bad blood will vanish, because he says so. The supers need to get off their collective butts and end this thing. And Bayh needs to shut his damn mouth, he has already said too much.

After reading all of your comments, it is more than time for the Supers to end this. It should have been done after Super Tuesday. This is breaking up the party and it has damaged us.

Kudos to you Frank! Very well said.

Wow – Emily – my sentiments exactly.

Outside of what candidate is the best blah blah – I think in the future, IF the primary vote is as important as the party poo-bahs claim it is – then EVERY state should hold their primary/caucus on the same day.
Have a campaign of about 5-6 weeks, then bingo, pick a date, then EVERYONE votes. No one will be influenced by any other state’s vote, no one will be able to claim that they are part of “Rush’s Army”.
Then it will be all over on THAT day, and then the nightmare of a general election can commence….

idle, not ideal, sorry, typing faster than my brain

Obama is a disgrace! I don’t care if they put Clinton on the ticket and she has his child.
I won’t vote for this character on the top of a ticket.
It’s hard to believe the judgment of the Dem. party.

Just a note to the Clinton supporters that keep saying Obama can’t win the GE without white voter support you are 100% correct. Now let me give you a news flash Clinton can’t win the GE without Black voter support, and if she wins fair and square I think she would have that 90% black vote that the dems have enjoyed for a long time but if she steals this nomination from him which appears to be her only option left and apparently the white voters on here have no problem with the first ever AA nominee to win as the rules where laid out being told to shut up and go away, then she will not get black voter support and she will not win

True Truth,
Can the Dems win without the black and young votes?
Stop being an HRC idiot!

I hope they all come out for Obama and end this mess of crap now.
Emily then you can go and vote for Mc Caim and when another 1500 men and women die in the war just remember you played right into his hans keeping them there.

Even Tiki Barbers brother said he didn’t vote in the Florida Primary because he thought it wouldn’t count then afterwards it counts, how fair is it for those people who didn’t vote after being told it won’t count, they lose there right to vote. The Mich and Fl delegations will be seated even if seated as they finished in FL and mich(with Obama of the ballot) she would still be losin by about 100 delegates and 100,000 vote.

She made a pledge that these primaries would not count a pledge means to make a promise, like the plede Bill Clinton made when he married Hillary. After the Michigan vote she said Obviously the Michigan vote does not count thats what she said now that she needs it she blames Obama, all the Canidates made this pledge in the begining and only one is dropping that pledge the same canidate who people think is dishonest.
Ask yourself if Obama won florida and mich would she be championing there cause now?

z
There is no reason to believe BO won’t turn out to be a reasonable, or even a good pres. On the other hand, the same can be said that he will turn into a disaster just like Bush.
This is exactly the problem of doubting him because there is nothing for him to show to win or to gain confidence in him.
A glimpse exhibited by his judgment in the past 20 years has not been comforting. If he could sit in Wright’s church embracing what his pastor preached for 20 years, without saying anything, it is a problem in his judgment (not having to do whether or not he himself believes in it). On the other hand if he really did not know what is going on, so as he claimed and wanted people to believe, it calls into question of his judgment and awareness of his environment. Moreover, when it becomes inconvenient for his politics, he changed his explanations 5 times to finally “disassociated from Wright. This further calls into question of his judgment and decision making.
He is simply a gamble. You might win (and be right), or you might lose (and wrong). There was a gamble for 8 years already.
Even you do not have to like all McCain, you at least know what you are going to get, and there is a balance in the Congress.
With BO, there is probably not even a balance anymore, as Bush and the Reps in the past 8 years.

It’s all a mess. I agree that Obama will most likely be the nominee now but they are nominating one of the most left wing, unpatriotic politicians I have ever seen and putting him against a CENTRIST, ex-POW Republican.
Are they mad?

Obama used every trick in his power to prevent revotes!! Plain and simple.
That is the only thing I am laying at his feet.
We were trying to comply, but he sent lobbys to prevent that because if we voted he would lose.
Then he made fun of Florida and Ohio about their voting problems, again like bitterd-gate it was aired over live TV.
Then he called us renegades while blocking our opportunity. It was printed in the news.

Emily – the lobby bill was handed to him by the party elders to boost his resume.

Never put a man of Obamas’ character in a position of power.

Greg has it about right.
A president McCain would kow tow to THE BASE by appointing Bush Style Judges to keep them quiet.

The dems sure do pick em. McGovern, Dukakis, Kerry, Gore, even throw in Carter for good measure.
You know the super delegates were created just so this wouldn’t happen again.
And you know what? There going to let it happen again.
The good news is that Mc Cain is a decent competent qualified man who will make a good president.
Dems don’t deserve to win if they are going to keep making the same mistakes.
Maybe they’ll go to winner takes all and let the states hold primaries whenever they want and have no caucuses next time so they can actually pick a winner. But that’s a big maybe.

Emily, you forgot the main reason you will never vote for Obama—because he’s half Black. You make some idiotic claims in your post, which you could never prove. You seem to be of the same mind as Sean Hannity and Karl Rove.
Try opening your mind and thinking for yourself sometime, it really can be enlightening. I guess you do not know even one racist? No one you know has been arrested? Never heard a friend criticize the war?
My point here is that even if your unproven feelings about Obama were true (which they are not), that does not define him. Senate confirmation makes Presidential appointments of questionable people impossible. Obama’s mother is white, so your apparent fear of a Black man is unfounded.
Perhaps you really are a Republican and only supported Hillary ’cause she’s part woman. In 8 years, Chelsea will be 35 if you start now, she may be electable by 2016. At least she won’t have the extensive baggage, lying tendencies, and devisive personality of her mom.
Hillary could have easily beaten Obama. She ran a poor campaign and did not have a vision. Those are qualities a good president must have, or it’s more like Bush. There will be no 2012 for Hillary, she likely will loose her senate seat in 2010.
Keep hope alive!

Its not Obama’s fault he ran a vastly superior campaign. When he won the moveon.org endorsement, that grass roots support was astronomical. Especially in fundraising.
It is true that you cant find any major analyst who says Obama is the better candidate for the whitehouse. All the Obama supporters talk about is the delegate math.
But being the best candidate for the whitehouse is NOT the way you nominate someone.
The person who runs the best campaign and gets 2025 delegates wins the nomination.
Obama won that. He deserves to be the nominee.
Lets rally around him.

Hillary is a power hungry fool. She can’t see the forest for the trees.
Throwing good money after bad!~!
If someone doesn’t like her all they would need to do to break her is tell her she’s got a real chance.
The only chance she has is if she buys the super delegate votes which is what her intention is anyway.
Personally, I hope she goes down!

I don’t think Hillary should step down now. But I think she has a very slim chance of being the nominee.

We are going to fight to the end it is not impossible for her to win it ain’t over yet.Even Joe Andrew Obama new super two min ago on fox.if she slams him in WV.PR. and Ky. his lead will shrink.

I have had to sit through months of Hillary bashing from blogs and the media as well as other Senator Obama supporters. We’ve had to sit and listen to the race thing and the gender thing. We are tired and frustrated at the lack of respect this process has presented. Obama will not win the general election because the main stream media such as MSNBC, NBC, FOX, and CNN are all Republican backed stations. They have fueled division between the camps. Some Obama supporters are cruel and disrespectful to Senator Clinton. If Obama looses and McCain wins, they will blame Clinton. When the only reason he lost was because of disrespect from the media and Obama supporters. I will sit this one out this year. It looks like the Democratic Party is putting a John Kerry up for the nomination. It’s like De Je vu all over again.

“True Truth” (yeah, right):
Convenient how you exclude the caucus states when you talk about the number of white voters vs black voters Obama has won. If Clinton had been stronger in caucuses than Obama, I’m sure you’d be taking the same stance.
Anyway, you miss the larger point, which is that Obama will pick up most of Clinton’s supporters once he becomes the nominee. Sure, not the bigoted ones, but who needs ‘em?
The rest of you whiners need to get a grip. Those of you who are not racist against African Americans need to do a gut check and really ask yourselves if John McCain is what you want for another four years.
He would prolong the war in Iraq for God-knows-how-long, until we achieve “victory”, even though McCain hasn’t been able to define what “victory” would be in pragmatic, realistic terms.
He is opposed to Universal Health Care in any form (THE centerpiece of Hillary’s campaign).
He wants to continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy while our schools and infrastructure crumble.
While he’s one of the few Republicans to actually believe in global warming, his overall voting record and that and other environmental issues is dismal.
He will continue to reward corporations for shipping our jobs oversees so that they can get even richer while working class people find it harder and harder to get by.
McCain’s flip flopping on major issues like the Bush tax cuts will make Republicans sorry that they ever perfected that line of attack four years ago. He is a very vulnerable candidate who has so far escaped the intense media scrutiny both Democrats have received. That is about to change.
And have you seen/heard McCain’s preacher friends like John Hagee and Rod Parsley (whose political support he actively pursued) and other shady associates, Emily? Far worse than Obama’s, my friend. Just wait and see.
Also, I can’t stand by and let you make such woefully ignorant statements as “He also can’t win the G.E. having colluded with the DNC to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan voters.”
He followed the rules (which he had nothing to do with making)! It is much more disenfranchising to change rules in the middle of the game. Obama supporters didn’t even have a chance to vote for him in Michigan, and many stayed home in Florida because they were told their vote wouldn’t count, while Clinton heavily encouraged her supporters to turn out in large numbers there. Furthermore, she went into that non-contest with the best known name in the Democratic Party. You can try to assign blame for no revotes to Obama all you want, but the evidence is heavily stacked against you.
“I can’t live with betraying my own principles to vote for Obama. I also can’t live with those who may be Obama’s choices for the Supreme Court. His choice of wife, pastor, and friends tell me his choice of appointees will be similarly reprehensible.”
So who would you presume his Supreme Court and cabinet choices to be? Jeremiah Wright? William Ayers? Osama bin Laden? Give me a break. Obama has a long, consistent history of working with Democrats and Republicans and has often said that his cabinet would consist of highly qualified people from both parties.
Why do you think that people from all ends of the spectrum in the Democratic Party, many of whom are far more experienced than Clinton, are getting behind Obama? I dare you to find one person who has actually worked with him that would say they think his views are anywhere near Wright’s crazy talk, or Ayers’ past radicalism. And to clarify, his wife’s “proud” statement was about the country’s political process, that people for the first time (in her adult life) seemed to be forcefully rejecting, in large numbers, the political games of division and fear-mongering. The same games you sadly seem content to perpetuate.

I see the Obama supporters are already pulling the ‘if you dont vote for Obama you are a racist’ card .
Look. Obama won the nomination. Every single analyst says he is the weaker nominee. So what? He won the nomination fair and square.
You dont upset the whole process and give it to Hillary just because she is the better nominee. Thats not fair to Obama .
The dems should have thought about this before they HYPED Obama to death. Its their own fault.
Now they will run him against Mc Cain.
Instead of complaining about all this, lets just rally behind him.

Why do we have super delagates.what are they for. If they don’t do this fair it will rip the party apart any way.

tomdavie:
It’s well documented that many of Clinton’s supporters wouldn’t vote for Obama because he’s black. Sorry, just a fact.
As I said, those people are in the minority and are unnecessary for a win in the general election.
The rest of my message was aimed at Clinton supporters who are NOT racist but are still threatening to defect to McCain. They need to do a gut check and honestly take a look at what a McCain presidency would look like as opposed to an Obama presidency. They’ve spent so much time getting angry at Obama over the course of this head to head contest with their candidate that they’ve neglected looking deeply into what McCain is all about. Not just on policy, but also character and his own shady associations.

Just wondering when some of the super delegates are going to get some courage and actually support Hillary who will fix this economy. Seriously, American needs to prosper again and prosper safely.

What do you think is going to happen to Obama in the general election when the African Americans who have voted for him realize he does not identify with them either? Surely McCain will win the election- Obama will not whether he is the nominee or not. Wake up and smell the roses Obama supporters. If you feel strongly for Hillary, you really do not like Obama however, Obama supporters will support Hillary in the event he does not get it. They have in the past. The AA’s forget that it was the Clintons that stood up and fought for all of us, AA’s included. What has Barack Obama done for you? Its like a cult of ignorance that just follows him around. I’m disgusted.

Hillary Clinton has planned all along to let Obama sink or swim on his own. Clinton really didn’t want to use her pincers on her old friend John McCain.
If McCain wins in November, he’ll be a one-termer and HRC will have an easy run in 2012. If Obama wins in November, she will work against him behind the scenes and undermine him to a degree that Obama will be impeached. Hillary would then be the inescapable alternative.
She’s very tricky.

Why are they racist if they switch to McCain. What is your evidence. McCain has many years of political experience and is fairly moderate. Hillary has been in the political game since way back in the eighties when she started with the McGovern campaign. Obama is hot air and they think that his lack of experience, his ties to crazy Ayers and crazy Wright and racist Michells are just too much and so wouold rather live under a more moderate President. Nothing racist about that.

Why are we so jazzed about the states which will NEVER be under Democratic rule such as NC and SD .The dems need to get that revote going in Florida and Michigan BEFORE AUGUST!!Its already been paid for by private donors yet OBAMA is blocking it!!

Hillary is !!!!! ROCKY !!!!!. Yes, remember when the big fight was coming up and Rocky said to Adrian.-(Ah come on, Adrian, it’s true. I was nobody. But that don’t matter either, you know? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, it really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. If I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood-)– Then in the fight when Rocky was bloody and Apollo Creed looked at him with a look of sad wonderment. Like he was thinking “why don’t you just quit?” but Rocky fought on and TIED the fight and at the end it was Apollo saying ” in a loud voice, ” Don’t want no rematch!.”

Oh, let’s not confuse voters in West Virginia! Dodd should ask Jon Stewart for a job as an intern, because the arguement is hilarious.
Senator, just look at the polls: If Obama runs against McCain, West Virginia is not even close for the Democrats! Clinton would carry the state, Obama does not have a snowball’s chance in that hot place…
Let’s face it, Obama is the black candidate and he will lose the white rural and working class vote, in the primaries to Clinton, in the General to McCain.

Emily -” I Refuse To Buy Into the Obama Hype” by grassroots mom – dailykos diary Feb 20, 2008 has all of Obama’s and Clinton’s Senate accomplishments right from the Library of Congress. THIS is research. Much of what you spouted is second hand half truth garbage.

The reason there is this acrimony in this comment thread is because the candidates are nearly equally matched according to the voting public… if we respect all voters and their decision making process. The idea that McCain would be a better choice than either HRC or BO is nonsense. It is hard to lose…I know, I lose all the time! And I would be bummed for a bit if my candidate isn’t nominated. So, when the dust settles and one of the Dems comes through, I will be voting for him or her. Would I love a better candidate than either NRC or BO, and by that I mean someone more socialist and left wing – absolutely. But until that happensm I will stick with the party that at least tries to do something for all, rather than destroy whatever goodwill is left in this darn beautiful country.

These Dems threatening to vote McCain in Nov- you don’t scare anyone. Obama will prevail in November. He has the right ideas, right plan, campaigns honestly and has plenty enough backers to beat McGrandpa in the fall.

If BO is only getting black votes and blacks are only 11% of the population please explain how and why BO leads in delegates and popular vote.

Obama, while in the Illinois State Senate, passed an eminently sensible law requiring all police interrogations to be videotaped.
There had been a recurring problem with coerced confessions. If all interrogation is videotaped, it becomes pretty obvious whether a confession is coerced or not. This helps innocent people who are coerced — but it also helps police, because shyster defense attorneys won’t be able to claim coercion where there was none.
Yet this law faced massive opposition at first, from police, the Republicans in Illinois, and many of the Democrats as well. Eventually he managed to convince the police, the Republicans, and so forth that this would actually make the job of prosecuting criminals a *lot* simpler.
Obama’s a political genius and he’s got good, *down-to-earth* ideas.
Obama tells the truth and is remarkably uncorrupt — in fact, he’s boringly honest. Some of his friends are wackos and some are crooks — but everyone has some friends like that, and he has a lot fewer than most politicians. (Look up McCain’s links with extremely deranged pastor Hagee, or his sweetheart deals with lobbyists, or the Keating Five.)
I don’t fall for Obama’s lofty rhetoric, but I do think it will be a hell of a big help in the fall, compared to Hillary’s incompetent rhetoric (she can’t even win Minnesota or Oregon? Seriously.)
McCain has literally reversed himself on *everything* he ever stood for — he was against torture, now he’s for the ‘water cure’, he wrote the McCain-Feingold campaign financing rules, then he broke them, he was against Bush’s War, then he hugged Bush and announced his support, etc. etc. You want dishonesty, unfortunately you should look there.
Electability? Sure, Obama probably won’t win West Virginia in the fall. He’ll make up for that by winning Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, Iowa, etc.
Bayh – ‘As long as it is a respectable debate , I don’t think this will be harmful for the Democratic party.’
Absolutely, which is why some of us are so ticked off that Hillary Clinton has abandoned respectable debate in favor of nonsense like the gas tax scam ( http://www.gastaxscam.com/ ).