Obama added 5 more delegates from California.

were reacting to any "trashing of the caucuses." The kind of people who want to be delegates to county conventions tend to be activist types, and I assume that most of those Edwards delegates preferred Obama to Clinton anyway.

Sorry missed this last thing.

I was glad that you are posting about the Iowa votes, with all the fussing back and forth, it's nice to see something on the actual process.

This isn't the last process is it? I think there is another level to Iowa' primary.

Thank you.

given Clinton's earlier statements about caucuses, Obama's winning these six delegates shouldn't count

They shouldn't count because Hillary has already declared Iowa is too unimportant to count?

Or they shouldn't count because the only reason Hillary is losing support in Iowa is that she has insulted Iowans saying they don't count and lied to Iowans about her opposition to counting MI and FL illegal straw poll delegates?  If the decision had been over on Super Tuesday, her lies and insults wouldn't matter so it's not fair to count the repercussions now.

She's betting she can woo the superdelegates.  Otherwise, unless something totally dirty happens (don't discount the chance), she's done.

Furthermore, Hillary's campaign is not about America.  It's about Hillary.

to say nothing of the oxygen she's sucking up from downballot races.

this discussion accomplishes little but giving false hope

Can an Obama supporter actually use that phrase? If Obama HQ finds out will they take away your membership? Or just impose a fine? (just kidding...)

up at Bleeding Heartland. Feel free to drop by and share your story!

In addition, isn't the "with Florida and Michigan" delegate counter looking increasingly moot as those states move toward DNC-sanctioned contests?

These actions represent the party bosses in retreat.  Once again Clintonistas define up as down and down as up.

The Iowa party has been saying for weeks now that we should expect Edward's delegates to be flipped, because they didn't intend to send delegates to the national convention for a candidate who had withdrawn from the race.

I agree with you, Sven. There's way too much "horse race" coverage.  But it's even worse than you describe. The media bash the candidates for not having policy proposals or not being specific enough. But the same media refuse to cover policy details, details which are available at the .com campaign outposts for reporters to find and to explain to viewers and readers.

That said, there are occasional flashes of interesting policy discussions. Obama and Clinton have a genuine disagreement over whether there should be mandates forcing mid-life adults to buy private health insurance, and there was a lot of focus on that policy difference during the debates. (I happen to agree with Obama on this one, but Clinton makes a strong argument.) But I think the only reason that disagreement became known and got attention was because of the debate fireworks, the meta-story.

I think it's fair to say that the Clinton campaign's current "throw the kitchen sink" style is not conducive to level-headed policy discussions in the political arena. But hopefully we're coming out of that phase and can get some policy discussions going again.

things that are more likely to happen this year, like the earth crashing into the sun.

That would be fascinating.

Clinton wins many solid blue states, Obama wins some purple states and McCain wins solid red states.

Nobody gets the majority needed and the thing gets thrown to Congress.

The House picks by state delegations, which I think would favor the Democrats and probabl eliminates McCain.

I can't even begin to imagine how the fight between Clinton and Obama would resolve itself at that point.

Upon consideration, though, that might be the surest way to keep the White House out of Republican hands.

As an Obama supporter, I have too much respect of Hillary Clinton to think that she would ever do something like this. She will end this honorably, once she realizes that it is over. The same applies to Obama.

I've thought about that too

Even if Hillary Clinton is 100% selfish — a trait I'm not yet willing to ascribe to her, but let's play along for this hypothetical — a cold, hard political calculation would determine that she would not win an independent run, and she would lose all possibility of a future Democratic Party nomination. In other words, she would reduce a non-zero probability of her becoming president in the future to actual zero.

I don't think Clinton is stupid or entirely selfish.

By the way, I don't think Hillary Clinton is anywhere near "too old" to run in 2016. She'd be 68. McCain is a full cycle older now, and he's already the Republican nominee.

Lieberman was looking at losing everything if he didn't bolt.

Clinton would lose everything if she did bolt.

Because every thread has to be about the FactHub attack point of the day.

Face it, the reaction to Rev. Wright is a collective shrug.  It isn't changing anyone's mind about anything.

Not any less OK than having a friend who plays the race card every chance she gets (i.e., Geraldine Ferraro).

Since when do freeper talking points work with Democrats?

Eric, it's going to be a long(er), tedious, silly campaign if we're going to trade barbs about stupid things your friends say.

Obama used every word in the Thesaurus to say he denounces (rejects, disassociates, ...) Reverend Wright's remarks. I accept that, and it's time to move on. Most of America has. Of course, that previously gullable 13% of America just learned that Obama believes in Jesus Christ as his personal savior, so that's probably helpful.

I'm much more disturbed that John McCain hasn't criticized remarks two preachers made, two of his supporters, one of whom he describes as his spiritual adviser. They've said inflammatory things that are way beyond what Reverend Wright said. Yet McCain has not only failed to reject their viewpoints, he has apparently embraced them.

That's disturbing.

Funny you mention it because I just read an interesting piece on his visit to a mostly white suburb of Indianapolis today where he used Pastor Wright's own remarks as an example of the kind of rhetoric we need to get beyond. He condemned the increasingly toxic racial climate in general and held up Wright as an example of what to transcend. He's not running from Wright. But he's using the good of Wright - the inspiration, the Jesus, the faith, the hope - to expunge the bad of Wright - the anger, the bigotry, the paranoia, the cynicism about America. Obama has always been an expert at this sort of thing - taking what's good in somebody and expanding it and taking what's bad and rejecting it. If he continues in this vain, he may turn the Wright sermons into a net positive.

Here's an article about it:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23651086/

And won it back when Paterson endorsed Clinton.

Step off this site and you'll see it's not making much of a difference either.  It's basically getting mixed in with the rest of the stupid surrogate statements stories like Powers, Ferraro and Hagee.

Obama Picks Up a Net of 10 Delegates [from Iowa]

He points out that this extra haul alone is more than Clinton netted in Ohio.

Wow.

377 undeclared supers to be exact, counting Michigan and Florida. Clinton currently leads Obama 15-5 in endorsements from FL and MI, but there has been very little movement in these numbers over the last month due to the uncertain status of the 2 states.

76 of the 377 are add-on delegates that will just go with whoever picks them, usually the winner of the state.  There are a few add-ons in FL&MI as well, so the total "free" superdelegates is actually under 300.

Your link didn't work

Madame President of which country?

Too bad that in the General election we won't have the luxury of this constant "let's keep changing the rules until we find a way that makes our candidate win" thingy.

What you may be forgetting is that in the General Elections there will also be an "undemocratic" system with electorate votes.

Would you rather have as candidate the person who'll win the most electorate votes in the General, or the candidate that might potentially win the popular vote (or then again she might perhaps not) and then argues that it's the popular vote that ought count?

Even if she does, his margins in OR, MT, SD, NC and IN will more then make up for them.