Hillary was always going to "win PA". No big surprise there. But last I saw she'd squandered a 40 point lead down to 10. That would seem important.
My bet is she wins the state by 20 points or less. Safe bet huh.
And Hillary is resurgent in many more states than PA.
Or hadn't you noticed?
Oh, and Obama is deceiving millions about his intentions on health care.
See
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/26/2264 6/9320
No kidding. I hear his plan is almost exactly the same as Clinton's, so I understand your skepticism of it.
His plan is inferior to Clinton's and was designed so the universal coverage portion will collapse, leaving the government subsidies to private insurance companies intact.
Whether that is intentional or just a dumb mistake is difficult to tell. Either way, Obama has never gone to bat or worked hard for any controversial piece of legislation.
Its hard to imagine he would suddenly change and promote real health care reform. More likely he would work on it enough to please his donors for the next election cycle, then let the rest of the more difficult provisions fall by the wayside.
Obama isn't a hard worker, he's a smart worker. He only does the absolute minimum necessary to benefit himself.
Hmm. You make some interesting claims there; the opinion based ones are yours to make, but I fail to see your point as to the health care differences between Senator Clinton and Obama.
Perhaps you could illustrate the collapse you speak or, or go over in more detail the shortcomings of his plan, I would be more understanding.
Google that word, in quotes, maybe add Obama to it..
Add "Jim Cooper" and then you will get an idea of whats going on.
Obama's plan is a very close replica of the Cooper plan that was used by the right to derail universal healthcare in 1993
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht ml?res=9B00EEDD1431F93AA25757C0A96295826 0&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId =4004
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1 282/is_n4_v46/ai_14885300/pg_1
There are many more.. Read my diary from yesterday...
Hmm.
I read your diary, the articles you quoted, re-watched the Harry and Louise commercial, compared it with the Clinton's plan from 1993, and I'm sad to say I don't see any of the similarities or downsides you are alluding to.
I'm afraid someone's going to have to explain it to me in more detail.
Here is Obama's spin on it:
"What I have said is that the way she approached it back in `93, I think, was wrong in part because she had the view that what's required is simply to fight. And Senator Clinton ended up fighting not just the insurance companies and the drug companies, but also members of her own party. And as a consequence, there were a number of people, like Jim Cooper of Tennessee and Bill Bradley and Pat Moynihan, who were not included in the negotiations. And we had the potential of bringing people together to actually get something done."
Except that in Obama's world "getting something done" seems to be sacrificing the parts of the Clinton plan that would bring the costs down for people. He doesn't seem to care that without a mandate, the cost would be high, comparable to today's 'high risk pools" because adverse selection would make it that way. And that would kill the entire thing, like it did in 1993, which suits the people who were doing the 'alternative plan' like Cooper, JUST FINE.
That was their goal.
Again, you're making generalizations and not providing any evidence. I'd say what killed the plan in '93 was the Clinton's unwillingness to deal with anything contrary to their vision, lack of transparency on the issue, etc. And I don't see how you can make "The Clintons wouldn't bring anyone else to the table to try and get things done" into "ZOMG!!! JIM COOPER!!"
But a side-by-side comparison of the two healthcare plans with the pros and cons would be helpful. But it seems to me you're unwilling to provide this sort of information, instead delving into rhetoric to support your point.
I'd like to see the Senator from Illinois stop telling me his story and start telling me about how he's going to change the story for people in places like Pennsylvania. I hear his plan is almost exactly the same as Clinton's, so I understand your skepticism of it.
I'd like to see the Senator from Illinois stop telling me his story and start telling me about how he's going to change the story for people in places like Pennsylvania.
I hear his plan is almost exactly the same as Clinton's, so I understand your skepticism of it.
It seems to me that Obama talked quite a bit about what he thinks needs to be done to help people who face losing their homes and neighborhoods being destroyed by evictions. I don't agree that Obama just talks about "his story" while Hillary is full of specifics.
I also don't quite get the idea that the wife of the man who pushed NAFTA down congresses throat is going to be accepted as the person who can reverse that disaster.
I don't know how good your memory is, but that (NAFTA) was one of the areas where Hillary openly disagreed with Bill.
Google it..
There's no way to prove or disprove that claim. At best, is was very dishonest of her to openly and actively support something publicly she didn't approve of in reality; it's a diminishing of her character. Will she be able to stand up for the right things in the future? I'm unsure.
Supporting something publicly while not approving of it privately as DIMINISHING of CHARACTER?
Surely you're heard of the strange concept of politics, right?
I've googled it. In fact, it's very hard to find evidence that Hillary opposed Bill and it, and especially not openly.
On the other hand, it's very easy to find evidence that she supported NAFTA (whether on Bill's behalf or not) and that Clinton insiders such as David Gergen are now lying on her behalf to try to cover that up.
As first lady, Hillary Clinton publicly supported her husband's position. In 1996, in a visit with unionized garment workers, she said the words Obama now quotes. "I think everybody is in favor of free and fair trade. I think NAFTA is proving its worth," said Clinton, according to an Associated Press report. Clinton wrote positively of her husband's efforts on NAFTA in her memoir "Living History," published in 2003: "Creating a free trade zone in North America -- the largest free trade zone in the world -- would expand U.S. exports, create jobs and ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization. Although unpopular with labor unions, expanding trade opportunities was an important administration goal."
Clinton wrote positively of her husband's efforts on NAFTA in her memoir "Living History," published in 2003:
"Creating a free trade zone in North America -- the largest free trade zone in the world -- would expand U.S. exports, create jobs and ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization. Although unpopular with labor unions, expanding trade opportunities was an important administration goal."
source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ statements/374/
Obama's been way out in the lead on solid plans for the economy. It'll be interesting to see what Clinton has to say in her speech today. Obama's yesterday was very well received.
Clinton's plan for the housing market, on the other hand, has been described as "the dumbest solution to the current mortgage mess I've heard from a top presidential contender". Other publications have said that it would cause chaos and worsen the housing plight of the nation. It'll be interesting to see if she revises or dumps this idea.
The economy is not an issue that Clinton is going to be winning PA on right now, though. She still can -- it's a ways to the primary -- but right now Obama's plans are considerably stronger.
It depends on what you consider solid. If you look at his plans and listen to his speech Obama is advocating light regulation to allow the market to correct inequities, and he places the blame for job losses on lobbyists stifling competition:
I think all of us here today would acknowledge that we've lost that sense of shared prosperity. This loss has not happened by accident. It's because of decisions made in boardrooms, on trading floors and in Washington. Under Republican and Democratic Administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both.
This loss has not happened by accident. It's because of decisions made in boardrooms, on trading floors and in Washington. Under Republican and Democratic Administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both.
That is why the pro-business publications like Fortune and Conrad Black's right-wing NY Sun, which you link to approvingly, prefer Obama's plans. That is why Mayor Bloomberg introduced Obama for today's speech. It is also why Obama has such a tough time in working class states like PA. Workers and left of center economists like Paul Krugman do not like Obama's plans, and prefer Clintons, because Clinton recognizes that market forces cannot achieve universal health care or correct the growing income disparity.
This is a pro-regulatory stance. Obama is placing blame squarely on "practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices". That's the opposite of a free-market approach; a free-market approach would allow such practices.
Remember that Bill Clinton (not Congress under Bill -- Bill, by executive order) set the state for Enron by allowing accounting rules to be set up that allowed for things like Enron. Remember that deregulation is not solely a Bush-era phenomena, that Clinton set into motion quite a bit of deregulation.
The support that Obama is getting from that side of the table is based on an understanding that our system has become entirely too unbounded. We've dabbled with disasterous underregulation; we don't need to dabble with disasterous overregulation (not that I'm saying that Hillary Clinton is a vote in that direction).
However, Obama is in fact much better positioned to create new regulations and stabilize the system, because he is beholden to far fewer big-money donors and interests than is Clinton. His economic plan draws so much support from labor organizations because it focuses on improving labor conditions, wages, salaries, and trade agreements in labor-centric ways, and because he focuses on reregulation in ways that are actually likely to improve economic conditions.
Obama begins with a mandate for children only this is the critical issue I have worked in health insurance for 20 years If you dont start with a universal mandate, the ability of the health ins industry to raise premiums and vary risk 'pools' and limit pre-existing conditions is still intact
THAT is what drives the premiums that is where we will get the most savings
starting with the mandate on the kids only will INCREASE costs for parent b/c children with chronic illnesses will have higher premiums (b/c the risk pool is not universal since Obama didnt mandate universality) so adults with kids will pay more and due to mandate will be in worse shape
this is a really short brief, you need a white paper to see the money and the difference and you need a longer brief on how the risk pools work and premium ties ins to lives under the claims experience to really get the picture but it is a bottom line issue anyone in the industry understands, and so do Obama's advisers... it is very clear
If you do start with universal mandates and do not have an extremely strong regulatory position in place as to cost management on the insurance company side (which Clinton's plan really doesn't have, it has fairly weak cost controls that aren't significantly different than Obama's), what you've done is remove any incentive for insurance companies to cost-manage or cut front-end costs since their revenue stream is protected by the US government.
The risk pool is fully universal for children, so your argument makes no sense there. There is a mandate on coverage for children and not adults because there is already an existing framework for providing extremely low-cost coverage for children (SCHIP, for which Clinton gets some level of credit, and other programs), whereas there are not such frameworks in place for adults.
Again, without extremely stringent controls on front-end costs, what you're doing with mandates is not "making the risk pool universal", what you're doing is forcing low-income people to fund insurance companies by force of government. When you hear reports that Obama's plans will leave X million not covered, they're not referring to healthy people with decent incomes. Those people are overwhelmingly likely to opt in because costs are low, benefits are good, and they have the income to support it (versus more expensive partly-employer-funded options -- my "employer-paid" coverage costs me hundreds a month).
No, the people that they're arguing are left out are poor people with iffy medical histories. Such people definitely deserve coverage too. But including them does not improve the risk pool, it makes it worse. And for healthy poor people it actually significantly harms them, because they're now required by legal mandate to pay for health care that they do not need. For unhealthy poor people it's still a net loss, because we're shifting funding from emergency rooms to the backs of the poor. Yes, emergency room care is the worst way to provide health care, but this isn't a better way for poor people.
If you want a scheme like Clinton's to work, you need the "enforcement mechanism" to be an income threshold such that anyone who cannot pay for health care by some reasonable standard has it provided for them without mandates, sanctions, wage garnishment, etc. That of course starts to somewhat approach single-payer, at least for the poor.
In the absence of such a requirement, what you're really doing is mandating that poor people fund health insurance companies to their own detriment. That's hardly a progressive solution to health care.
Obama's plan, while flawed, at least provides some mechanism for cost containment and refuses to treat the poor as a mandatory profit center for the insurance industry.
The Clinton's sold the poor and the middle class down the river in the 1990s. The supposed economic boom was built on speculation in the tech market and now housing market that crashed and burned. While Bill's folksy accent fooled me before, NAFTA hasn't been good for PA. I live here. The area has been saved by the defense industry that has been propped up by horrid war. Like the 90s the current economic state isn't sustainable. The national debt will crush the working man. Pharma has been hit by major reorganizations and structural adjustments due to law suits. Ed Rendell's big plan? Casinos!!!! Awesome...more service sector jobs that don't offer much hope for upward mobility or an avenue for jobs the future.
I'm sorry to take an aggressive tone but this kinda crap, sorry for those words, is useful to low information voters. Peddle it elsewhere.
You are trying to change the subject..
Healthcare reformed failed because of Bill and Hillary's ego....plain and simple. I'm as progressive as one can be but you can't storm the Bastille with one pitchfork. You need a movement of millions who will stand together and let the companies and dirty politicians know that their time is done. Yet, they still haven't learned. Instead of going to the people they are repeating the same mistakes of the 90s.
On topic??? Answer the question? Come'on.
was deceiving them. But it won't be good for America or peoples faith in the current system. You could see a whole generation turn away from political activity. (which maybe is the whole point of this, I don't know. I wouldn't put it beyond them.)
And those demonstrations, riots (because of agents-provacateurs), etc, would be a Godsend to people on the extreme right who desperately want an excuse to declare a state of emergency and suspend democracy 'to preserve order'.
You know its true..
good post. nafta came late though, didn't it? the steel industry was on the skids before Deer Hunter (w/DeNiro) came out. whose fault was that? also, i hated to see three rivers stadium torn down. i recall the big fight: how was pittsburgh going to pay for two stadiums when they had not yet paid for one? btw, i love pittsburgh. i'm from the south and pittsburgh was the first big city i saw in my life. what wonderful bridges! go steelers!
Jim Cramer at PA last night said th old steel factory is being turned into a casino??!!!
my family must have missed that in the 90s, that's when we made all our money and moved into the 'upper' classes the NIKEs like to say only support Obama
I remember very clearly the booming economy, budget surplus, and the worker and environmental protections written into NAFTA that Bush has refused to enforce
I really appreciated your diary, thanks!
Such as, maybe Connecticut?
Barack Obama, 52 percent; John McCain, 35 percent; someone else/don't know, 10 percent.Hillary Rodham Clinton, 45 percent; John McCain, 42 percent; someone else/don't know, 10 percent.Barack Obama _ 59 percent favorable, 24 percent unfavorable.Hillary Rodham Clinton _ 46 percent favorable, 47 percent unfavorable.John McCain _ 52 percent favorable, 31 percent unfavorable.Independent voters support Obama, 45-38 percent and voters younger than 45 back him, 63-30 percent.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 45 percent; John McCain, 42 percent; someone else/don't know, 10 percent.
Barack Obama _ 59 percent favorable, 24 percent unfavorable.
Hillary Rodham Clinton _ 46 percent favorable, 47 percent unfavorable.
John McCain _ 52 percent favorable, 31 percent unfavorable.
Independent voters support Obama, 45-38 percent and voters younger than 45 back him, 63-30 percent.
Wait, I forgot, that's an insignificant state. Let's try California. That's one of those big states where Clinton wins and Obama loses, right?
If the 2008 presidential election were held today, likely voters say they prefer Barack Obama over John McCain (49% to 40%), while a race between Hillary Clinton and McCain would be closer (46% to 43%). Likely voters give Obama higher favorability ratings than Clinton or McCain. Obama and McCain split the independent vote (44% Obama, 42% McCain). Between Clinton and McCain, the race is a toss up: 46 percent of likely voters in the state support Clinton and 43 percent support McCain. Among independent voters, McCain has an 8-point edge over Clinton (44% to 36%).
Oops. But Obama's going to lose women and Latinos, right?
Obama leads McCain among women (50% to 37%), while men are divided (47% Obama, 44% McCain). Obama has higher support than McCain among Latinos (70% to 20%), while whites are divided (46% McCain, 43% Obama)
Oops again.
Yes, neither of these are Pennsylvania. They're not even demographically similar to Pennsylvania. But they put the lie to your contention that Clinton's resurgent. In fact, it looks like she's doing considerably poorer than Obama vs. McCain in Democratic states.
We already know Obama does better vs. McCain in red states. Apparently he does better vs. McCain in blue states too.
from the poll you cite above Clinton is ding much better against McCranky in CA then Obama is ..
Among likely voters in California, 46 percent would support Clinton and 43 percent would support McCain if the presidential election were held today. Clinton enjoys solid support among Democrats (80%), while McCain has solid support among Republicans (85%). Among independents, 44 percent would vote for McCain and 36 percent would vote for Clinton. Clinton outpolls McCain among women (54% to 37%), while McCain leads Clinton among men (49% to 37%). Latinos solidly favor Clinton (74% to 18%), while whites are more likely to back McCain (50% to 39%). A recent national USA Today/Gallup poll finds Clinton with a slight edge among likely voters (51% Clinton, 46% McCain).
The big numbers were: Obama 49, McCain 40 (Obama +9) Clinton 46, McCain 43 (Clinton +3)
That's not doing better under any measure I understand.
Clinton is doing better than Obama with women and very slightly with Latinos. Obama is doing better with men and among independents of all subgroups.
Yes, they'll both win California in the end. That's not the point. The point is that Obama is clearly running better than Clinton in one of those big Democratic states that's supposed to be her base, and isn't losing to a major extent any of the demographic groups that are supposed to be his undoing, while doing much better than Clinton with independents, which are (as always) the true key to victory.
Travis,
Greg Palmer who is a local blogger is giving your candidate very good advice.
You (Obama and other Obama supporters) should listen to this advice instead of trying to make some gratuitous point about poll numbers.
Obama is not going to win if he is the nominee without attracting working-class voters in places like PA, OH, MI, WV, and KY. You should acknowledge this and want him to start focusing on this if you have his interests at heart.
Local blogger with a bias.
This kind of dismissive attitude towards constructive criticism is not the way to expand your voting base or win elections.
Like it or not, the empirical evidence is that working-class Democrats are not voting for Obama. He is not connecting with them. Without winning their allegiance, Obama is not going to win anything.
You and other Obama supporters can be snarky, engage in wishful thinking, and attack Hillary all you want. None of that changes the fundamental fact that his rhetoric is not appealing to working class voters.
As a Hillary supporter, I am happy you all are so defensive and dismissive about this problem.
As an Obama supporter, you have a point. This has nothing to do with Hillary, this is something Obama needs to focus on more. He is doing a small-group trip around the state, and I think will be able to make some inroads with that, in addressing this group of voters, in settings where some of the garbage being flung in this election is less intrusive.
I agree with you. Obama has an opportunity to appeal to them with this bus trip. This is a good move on his part and a good beginning.
But we are trying to help you. If Obama came out and spent a few days working through these issues, question by question, and addressed them, many of us might consider voting for him.
What does he have to lose? Seriously.
Unless he has something to hide-
He has given hundreds of town hall meetings where he truthfully and completely answers these questions as asked by voters. I'd really suggest going to one, they are quite enlightening.
He's doing a whole series of them with his bus tour through PA.
Obviously, these "thousands of town halls" still haven't helped him one bit in appealing to working class Democrats (which will be known as McCainDemocrats if Bambi wins the nomination). The rhetoric of "hope" and "Change" and constantly complaining about how mean ole Hillary is attacking you at campaign rallies does not appeal to these people. Barack needs to change the narrative, because if he can't attract that base, there's no way he's going to win key swing states in November if he wins the nomination. Say goodbye to Ohio, Michigan, PA, and there are other states that he is polling down to McCain in, such as New Jersey and Mass that could go red.
"Bambi"? Really?
Jerome asks people here to act more mature and you call him "bambi"??
Obama's problems are more geographical then demographical. He has won a lot of working class Dems in the upper midwest and rockies.
Would you like me to call him "High Lord and Holiness", or what?
Bambi has a problem winning states with large populations of working class voters that identify as Democrats. Please don't try to counter Ohio, PA, Michigan, etc, with Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado, because that doesn't really add up, you know what I mean? (PS--talk about working class in the West--Hillary wins AZ, CA, NV on the strength of that group, so no, I don't think Obama does that great with them).
Call him Barack or Obama, just like the most of us call her Hillary or Clinton.
There is just no need for a derogatory name like "bambi".
What makes you think that performance in the primary has any affect on performance in the general?
(i'd like to point you to the poll out today that shows Obama outperforming Clinton in CA in the general)
Michigan? The place where Clinton running uncontested only scraped up 55% of the vote and where 2 out of 5 democrats decided to show up just to vote AGAINST Clinton?
If that's the sort of place where she's strong, I'd hate to see the sort of place where she's weak.
Obama is going to get wiped out in the general because of it. His main argument towards working class whites is to accuse them of racism if they don't support him.
The primary is April 22 and Obama will be do plenty of campaigning there, right along the lines outlined.
Yeah, I like BO and I thought this was a good diary. He needs to put some of those Chicagolanders from the mills from the 80's in busses crisscrossing the state talking about how he helped them.
Where PA is now, New England was in the 70s and 80s, and soon the South will feel it more than they do now. Everyone is interested in how to lift post-industrial America up, either by bringing it back or finding something else.
If we all scuttled the snark for a bit and contributed like this diarist did we might survive this election.
Agree. This is one of the best posts on the primary I've read here in a while. It was fair and even-keeled. I don't care about balance, don't expect balance. But this, too, was balanced.
And the advice was good. I would like to see Obama push hard on Nafta and individual post-industrial issues. That worked wonders for Clinton(B) in New Hampshire -- his awareness of that issue and its deep hurt is likely what made him survive the early states and win the nod. maybe even the presidency.
But let's remember -- this has been an issue for years. And if Billy Joel couldn't solve it in "Allentown" -- I doubt either candidate can.
/snark. But seriously, good post.
Actually, I agree with this. This is why Obama is hitting hard on the economy and why he's doing a bus tour of Pennsylvania, to get out there and appeal directly to the voters on the real issues of this campaign.
Obama's economic plan is considerably better than Clinton's. I wrote earlier on her plan for foreclosures, which has been described as causing chaos, destroying the housing market, and the stupidest plan any serious contender for the Presidency has proposed.
The problem, as you say, is connecting with the everyday voters, and that's why he's going to be doing small-venue events. He does extremely well in a town-hall meeting forum, because he's both highly intelligent and does a great job of putting things in terms regular people understand.
Clinton's doing well in PA because the perception is that she's strong on the economy, and perception really is everything in politics. But perception sometimes does catch up with reality, and you can be sure Obama's working hard to make that happen.
I'm not sure why you think right-wing pro-business attacks (stupid, chaos, wreck the housing market) on Clinton's progressive economic proposals will win you any converts in Pennsylvania or on a Democratic blog.
Obama recognizes the problem and has reasonable, market-based proposals, but they don't go far enough to make a difference in the underlying economic problems. More progressive proposals would, though of course they will be attacked by Fortune and the WSJ.
Those are not "right-wing, pro-business" attacks, unless you consider homeowners to be business.
Clinton's proposals on the housing market are terrible. Yes, they would bail out people with bad mortgages now. They would also make it pretty much impossible for anyone else to buy homes for the foreseeable future.
I agree with you that more progressive proposals would be better, actually. I'm a proponent of that approach. But Clinton's proposals on the housing market are not progressive, they're a combination of anti-business and anti-consumer, and act to protect existing homeowners for a limited time by destroying the lending industry (rather than merely the bad part of it) and destroying the ability of existing homeowners to refinance out of the disaster, so that when her freeze ends there'll be nowhere for them to go.
I wouldn't be attacking Clinton's progressive economic plans; to the limited extent that she has any, I supporting them. I do support some of her views on redoing the tax system, but then Obama has the same view. Aside from that, Obama has put himself in a better position to actually make progressive economic changes.
I'm not denying this at all. PA is bleak. Woe is the Obama campaign. She's going to win by 20 points.
What's funny is that the diarist argues that NAFTA anger works to Clinton's advantage...you know, the candidate whose husband actually passed NAFTA.
I also find it pretty laughable that Pennsylvania voters would take their NAFTA anger out on Obama because he's a "visionary" and "smart guy", who would by association be likely to pass another NAFTA.
Mind-melting logic there.
It can't be her husband's work passing NAFTA and all the meetings she went to to support the effort. People in PA and on this blog can't be that gullible.
It has to be her six years on the Board of Directors of the heavily anti-union and anti-worker Walmart that attarcts the average voter in PA. I mean she is the people's champion, right?
See: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex? id=4221079
But whatever you do, don't vote for the other guy. He is just an empty suit.
What a joke.
It wasn't because she agreed with them...
Silence, most often, equals complicity.
she was a thorn in their side..
That would be why she burned her bridges with Wal-Mart and they hate her now, right?
Oh wait -- that says Clinton gets more money from Wal-Mart officers and directors than any other Presidential candidate. She should be a thorn in more people's sides, if that's how thorns get treated.
I'm not as critical of Clinton on Wal-Mart as some people are. She really did do some good on the board there; she did good things on breaking the corporate glass ceiling, for instance.
But on economic issues, such as unionization, benefits, wages, etc, she was silent. And in the end Wal-Mart cares much more about money, where she was not a thorn in their side, and continues to not be a thorn in their side, than about promoting women.
You are a heart without a brain. In order to be an effective progressive, you are going to have to use both.
Yeah, pretty mind numbing since the Clinton's, including Hillary, pushed through the NAFTA, which this Clinton did help push through NAFTA as recent information has come to light, it seems extremely strange that those voters in PA would take out "NAFTA on Obama now doesn't it?
Must be something else at work there, ya think?
Also I find it very interesting that the diarist didn't mention that obama has been advertised to give this major speech on the economy that's on right now.
Obama is also going to have a major bus tour through PA for the next week, why that also should bring information that those folks in PA should know.
I think they will be informed, now that's not saying that Obama will 'win' there, no, that's a Clinton state but what it means is that more much needed and sought after information will be available to the voters so they can make better, informed decisions.
And information such as the voters in PA get means that voters in other states will have as well--it's a win, win, win situation all the way around!
Too bad BO really needed to win PA to show his viability in the general. Last night I heard BO's campaign was trying to make it appear as though Hillary has to win by 20% in order to claim victory -- ha, ha. You guys are so funny even as you appear clueless about presidential politics.
Wouldn't it be wild if with FL and MI counted (after revoting) and Hillary's wins in some of the upcoming states that she has more pledged delegates going into the convention? I would just love to hear the wild spin BO puts on that. She can do it, too...but, I suspect BO and the press knows that which is why they are trying to spread this lie about she can't win.
I also loved that she opened the door for an independent run if something isn't done to rectify MI and FL. That would be awesome -- the DNC has treated her and her supporters so badly -- we'll take our experience, sound economic policy and military support and win against mccain. BO can have the AA and youth vote and lose.
Actually, Obama doesn't need to win PA at all. It's Hillary who has to win it by at least 20 points to not be a joke going forward. Carry on.
Hey friend, does Keith "Next Connie Chung" Olbermann email you his talking points every day so you can copy and paste?
The bottom line is, according to the most recent poll, 84% of Americans want Hillary to stay in this race. She's taking it all the way to the convention--obviously if Bambi has this locked up, you wouldn't be using half your time to beg her to drop out, McCain didn't do that to Huckabee because he wasn't a thread and there was no way he could win.
You know the Bambi campaign is getting desperate when they are now trying to project what's going to be a 15 point loss as a "moral victory" for Obama. Shit, losing by only 22 in MS would be a "moral victory" for Clinton in that case.
The math is simple... Oh why bother. Sure. She can win. Carry on.
Yeah, that's what BO and his supporters say. But, as you know, since neither one is likely to win enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination the campaign is now about making a case for the best candidate going forward. The factors that will play into the super delegates decisions:
1. pledged delegates
It's funny how you keep talking about the math, as though this were a math problem. It makes me realize how ignorant BO and his supporters are about presidential politics.
