Hillary Clinton has actually already won the democratic nomination if you remove the republican vote fraud.

Haven't looked at every state yet won by Obama and Hillary (and some are missing) BUT it looks like Obama still wins Iowa and S. Carolina on democrat only votes. Hillary still wins NH. And Obama won a key purple state, Wisconsin, with 53% of the democrat vote. I'm sure the margin of victory would shrink, and some states might flip if republicans and independents are subtracted, but alleging fraud is a bit much. I would also mention that a lot of independents are ex-dems and any candidate will need to be nice to them in order to previal in November. Just a thought whilst we go around telling different voting blocks they don't matter because they live in the wrong spot or vote funny or are just voting their bias.

On a personal note, I never did like that razor. "All other things being equal..." Well how do we know everything else is equal? And did we leave something out? So we have to run around and prove everything else equal and we probably need occams's razor to do that. Oh no! An infinite regress.

My theory, only partially substantiated by the facts (haven't crunched all da numbers, for starters) is that the percentage of Republicans voting for Hillary has been growing as the campaign season continues. And as this percentage has grown so has the number of spoiler votes, either against Obama directly or to extend the campaign season. I'm assuming that earlier in the contest, Republicans had significant, viable choices to make. Based on the fact that many republican candidates had large negatives within the party (Romney, Guiliani, even McCain) that Republicans voted for Obama because they either really wanted Obama or really really disliked Hillary. I know that's subjective, but animosity to Romney shouldn't be underestimated. It's one of the reasons McCain is the nominee. Later on, after McCain sewed it up, it's more likely that Republicans started voting Democratic to skew the results, and not out of who they want to win in Nov.

I usually say that's my 0.02 euro, but this one is probably worth only 0.01.

However, what if Obama realistically stands no chance of actually gaining the presidency? Then maybe Clinton is doing the right thing by doing everything she can to defeat him. He is certainly doing everything he can to defeat her. If she wins and defeats John McCain then, to me, it's worth it. Obama will have his shot later. If she wins the nomination but then loses to McCain, she will clearly hurt the party. Same formula applies to Obama.

I don't think we can ever know "realistically" if Obama stands no chance until his approval ratings drop to like 20% or something. Right now the daily gallup tracking polls show both Obama and Hillary really close (as an example of something non-definitive). It will be a judgement call.

There's also some history of extended primary campaigns fatally damaging the winner that shouldn't be ignored.

I don't think Obama is doing everything to beat her. If it was me, I'd start with Bill. What about Bill? What's he supposed to be doing? Is he the 2nd VP? I also think there is no guarantee that either of them have another shot at this.

However, hurting Obama's chances and hurting his supporters feelings is no great crime. I agree about hurting supporters feelings, but if you want a Democrat to win and you thought Hillary could only win by going nuclear, then you may honorably conclude it's not worth it.

When you figure out a way that people can campaign in a primary and not hurt their opponent's chances in the general, let me know.

I think the issue is relative amounts of damage. Initially I thought this was good because Obama and Hillary definitely needed some sparring practice, but I think we are past that point. Huckabee wanted a brokered convention, but he didn't go nuclear to get it. Must have thought it wasn't in his own self interest.

It was a presumptive strike.

Leaving aside all moral, ethical and all other useless non-realpolitik crap (practicing thinking like a politician here), I think it was a bad political move. I couldn't believe I was hearing it on the tube tonight. She compared a hypothetical personal judgement of hers to the one Obama has made. Now it's legal for the press to compare and constrast other personal judgements Hillary has made to see if they conflict with this hypothetical. It gets attention off Obama and on to her, and not in a good way. It will remind people that they may not have agreed with some of her personal judgements in the past.

We'll see if I'm right. Put that down in the book of bad predictions.

http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/03/25/clinton_wright/permalink/73918bd4b45f07962cf261d1b85a6e35.html

If you want to find a super delegate, start looking under rocks.

Other than the fact that opensecrets.org is an awesome website with a killer web tool: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/moneyweb.asp?cycle=2008

Hillary received as much if not more cash from Citi, Goldman, etc. And the broker dealers are not directly in the mortgage business. They buy and sell MBS products, among other things, FYI.

And correct me if I'm wrong, aren't these the contributions from individual employees?

Goldman is an international firm with many employees making big bucks. So of course they can split a million between Obama, Hillary, and McCain (McCain only got around 100,000 though).

Corporate and Union Activity

Although corporations and labor organizations may not make contributions or expenditures in connection with federal elections, they may establish PACs. Corporate and labor PACs raise voluntary contributions from a restricted class of individuals and use those funds to support federal candidates and political committees.

http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/fecfeca.shtml#Corporate_Union

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