Letters to the Editor
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Jack Spark
"If Clinton's age (60) means she should have the Presidential spot before she gets too old, then it would follow that she should not run when she is 64 or 68. If McCain wins and serves four or eight years, should Clinton not run against him?"
a) you're taking her age out of the context it's placed in. I didn't say she couldn't run again due to her age. I said relative to Obama's age, it makes more logical sense (as opposed to the other kind) that she be on the top. I'd flip-flop that if their ages were flip-flopped
b) despite that, I'd say she probably shouldn't run again should the Dem lose. I think her window would have passed (though that has less to do with age)
"The idea that Obama should not take the Presidential nomination if the majority of Democrats and elected delegates choose him, under the rationale that he should give up his seat for the white candidate, is likely to cause a backlash from all but Clinton's most ardent supporters. Hush that fuss."
Your first problem is the line "if a majority of Democrats". He currently doesn't have a majority of Democrats, so I wouldn't necessarily assume he will by then.
As for the "giving up his seat for the white candidate"--give me a break. First, my argument is that it isn't "his seat". Second, he isn't giving it up to the "white" candidate--nobody's saying he should give it up to Dennis Kuc. or Chris Dodd. He's "giving it up" to the candidate who has an equally valid argument that she should be the nominee. As for the offensive analogy to a black giving up their seat to a white, well, I can't actually write my response to that.
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Ban Johnson
"She is not winning the historic Democratic base."
Actually, factually, that is what she is winning. Damn things those facts
"The campaigns were never playing for popular vote; they were playing for delegates. Is it fair to let candidates allocate resources and attention based on one set of rules, and then have superdelegates essentially change the game by concentrating on another measure?"
a) this somehow assumes the Obama campaign had no interest in winning over actual voters? Seems a stretch to me
b) the "delegates" as the be-all is only a "rule" as it applies to achieving the magic number. The "rule" is not "the most delegates win". The "rule" is that "x number of delegates win". Once that isn't achieved, it becomes an argument and so, yes, popular votes can matter. Your athletic analogy is false for this reason.
"Concentrating on popular vote disenfranchises every single state that holds caucuses, since a smaller slice of the electorate caucuses than votes at a primary"
Well, yes. But that's also the weakness of caucuses. That it is determined by a "smaller slice of the electorate". And it's a weakness in this case because the discrepancy is so great--that much of Obama's delegate lead comes from that smaller slice
"his percentage margin may not have been quite as high in primaries in those states as it was in caucuses (who knows?)"
We can't "know" in the 100 percent sense. But we can make a very educated deduction based on the two states that held both primaries and caucuses and based on the very clear demographic information we have. And both show that Obama would not do as well when more people vote in a primary
"he other candidate was a virtual unknown just a year ago. A lot of Clinton's popular vote advantages in states were in Super Tuesday states, where her name recognition and the compressed schedule meant she was the only name with which a great many of the voters were really familiar."
Obama splashed onto the stage with his speech at the convention--hardly a year ago. and he was on the cover of both Time and Newsweek before he even announced for President, hardly an unknown. and by Super-Tuesday--this whole name argument is just silly. It's beyond believable that after the year of campaigning, and after Iowa and New Hampshire and S. Carolina that he was relatively "unknown". You also conflate "familiar" with "preferred"--a bad error.
" superdelegates' primary concerns will be 1) electability, and 2) fairness."
You're probably right. But you shouldn't assume they use your definitions of those two terms or that the popular vote won't be considered in their application of those two terms
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snoman
"Your example of an overblown 11 win streak must have taken place in a parrallel universe where those contests included"
my point was to focus on the silliness that the "number" made any difference. It's an argument against using so and so won "x" in a row rather that where they won
"claiming that a 100+ pledged delegate lead is insignificant because it takes 2025 to win the nomination is ignoring the reality of how the delegates are divied up. Because of proportionality it is very difficult for a candidate to get a large number of delegates from any win so every delegate is a significant gain. Yesterday, for example, the thresehold to move from a 7-5 split to an 8-4 split was getting 64% of the state delegates. Last Tuesdays "big" contests only netted HRC 4-6 delegates. When a 10 point Hillary win in 370 delegate California only nets her 36 delegates it becomes clear how significant a feat it is to get a 150+ Obama pledged delegate lead."
It isn't ignoring the process at all. I can do the math (I did have gone to school and all) We just happen to disagree on how much that matters when labeling something "significant". I can live with the disagreement.
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snoman
And for a much more important view than my own (hard as that is to believe) on the significance of the lead
"But Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury said that if there is no clear leader, he is prepared to exercise his judgment. "If the pledged-delegate total is within 100 votes or whatever, I don't think there's a great deal of significance in that," said Bradbury, who also represents other secretaries of state as a superdelegate."