Ahh. Herein lies your prejudice, exposed for all to see. You really don't have any problems with Obama, except that he has the audacity to interfere with Clinton's "turn". This is also evidenced by your grasping-at-straws attitude and method of evidence gathering.

Sorry, you deserve this:

getting that amendment to the Constitution going.  It's quite an arduous process.  There's no time to waste.

Okay. You can't make this complaint in one breath, and then hope the "supers" overrule Obama's insurmountable pledged delegate lead because of your calculation of popular vote (that awards 0 votes to Obama in MI -- a nonstarter that you all know is a nonstarter.)

It's called cognative dissonance. Or Chutzpah. Or hypocrisy. Pick one.

"I hold Kerry and Kennedy and Daschel responsibile, they helped get us into the war and they're sinking our best chance to end it."

Seriously?

Seriously??

You're going to criticize them for voting the exact same way on the exact same vote as Senator Clinton?

They're not "sinking" anything, anyway.  Once this primary ugliness is behind us and our party has had months to heal, coalesce, and campaign, we will defeat John McCain in a landslide.  It doesn't matter if we nominate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or a sweet potato with a face drawn on it in Sharpie.  Both candidates' numbers are being artificially held down by the other candidate's supporters saying "I'll never vote for him/her!"  Nine out of ten of those people will forget they made that pledge when November rolls around, just like they did in 2004 after the nomination process wrapped up.

It doesn't matter how long this process goes on.  Even if it goes to a fight on the convention floor in August, the Democratic nominee (who is, at this point, going to be Obama) is going to win in November.

The sooner this primary process ends, though, the better it will be for DOWN-TICKET races.

Try using some of this anger on McBush...it's refreshing it really is..

 The argument that the outcome of the Primary/Caucus season is illegitimate is silly and tiresome.      

And you are welcome.  Glad to help a fellow Democrat  in need.

The statement is extremely misleading.  Anyway, there is a reason that the daily tracking polls factor in multiple days.

Any single day's vote has a very small sample size, and thus a HUGE margin of error, which is why they average the last 3 days in the poll.

besides "abcnews.go.com"?

Perhaps you can tell the blackmailers that then?  Because they seem to be under the impression that "the party" has denied Hillary the nomination, when in fact it's the voters who have done that, and the party elites are her only lifeline.

But she can no longer win it democratically.

It's probably true (not convincing anyone, not the lying part), but neither is the top level poster.

I am sure that Senator Obama will wind up well in excess of that number.

I don't think that we should paralyze our presumptive nominee for three months just in case he happens to throw his back out or something and the understudy want to take over.

She won't win.  She can't win.  He can only lose by doing something phenomenally stupid, and I am sick and fucking tired of some of you folks hoping against hope that our presumptive nominee flames out.

Shame on you.  You folks have (mostly) had your chance.  You didn't win.  There's no dishonor in that, so please stop acting like we don't know how this ends.

We do.

What is your problem?  Open the Gallup Poll link in your diary, read it, return to your diary, open up the EDIT function, select all, and then press "delete".  

I mean just for today's polling in which she was ahead.  He was on a down trend from Tuesday.  Whether or not her lead will stick over the course of a few days to register on the graph remains to be seen.  I do think their numbers will be closer over the weekend, and then he'll pull away again after Tuesday.

You don't "win" polls, you win contests.

I really think that the concept that 'Hillary can still win this' epitomizes what you might call 'audacious hope'.

Actually, it's more like 'bodacious'.... but I digress.

For such Hope-filled people to use the word 'hope' so derisively is ironic and a little sad.

This country does not and never has used popular vote as a metric for determining nationwide elections.

Per yor Gallup link:
"Barack Obama now only has a 4-point advantage in national Democratic preferences, 48% to 44%, according to Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 13-15."

Show me where Gallup shows Clinton pulling ahead.

It is continuing, about the number of delegates needed, we will find out May 31st...

Last weekend Cokie Roberts said that the Democratic ticket should include a "Bible-thumping, gun-owning, white guy from a swing state."  Cokie Roberts is seriously out of touch.

It's also possible that you could win $50 million in the lottery. But realists would say it's likely.

You can add?  Congrats.  In that case, you should be able to recognize the long-standing trend shown below.

Sorry if my comments offend you.  I am not looking for friends here.  I am merely attempting to present some uncomfortable facts to other posters here, many of whom, unfortunately, do not appear to wish to be confused by such facts.

So you told a bold-faced lie in the diary title to point us to a poll that shows mostly irrelevant trend changes.  Wouldn't it be better if you had some actual information to share in an honest manner?

Yes, I did. And I disagree with their assessment. Let's pick it apart point by point:

First, it was designed to anoint a nominee by early February, far too early in the process. The result: Obama built up an insurmountable lead at a time when he was still largely unblemished, untested and unscrutinized

Except Obama was still behind in early February. He continued to steamroll Hillary to the tune of 12 primaries all February long, right up until March; where yes, he lost Ohio and TX - however, I'll point out that it was one of his worst news cycles ever, as the conservative PM of Canada leaked a false description of an inaccurate memo to portray Obama as two-faced at a critical moment. If anything, Hillary should thank John Harper for allowing her campaign to survive past TX/OH.

Despite that awful press, Obama closed 20+ point gaps in those states to nearly win TX (and winning the delegate race there) and to a mere 8% in Ohio.

The past six weeks have brought tougher media coverage, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's tapes, the candidate's ill-considered comments about "bitter" voters and a wave of second thoughts among key groups like union members and white Catholics

Except that Obama's poll numbers have improved. After his string of victories in February, Clinton rebounded. And yet Obama has locked down a steady and solid statistically significant lead for weeks now. If people are having second thoughts, why is that not reflected? Obama has shown awesome leadership hitting back at McCain, linking Bush to McCain (appropriately).

Second, the nominating system was completely incapable of reflecting these shifts. Not only were few states remaining on the calendar, the rules of proportional representation made it almost impossible for Clinton to catch up.

The rules of proportional representation should have made it equally hard for her to fall behind, so this argument simply makes no sense. If this is a complaint that Clinton was so far behind she couldn't catch up, the question it begs is: Why didn't she quit?

It's not Obama's fault Clinton stayed in a race she couldn't win.

Since Feb. 19, seven states have voted. Clinton has won four -- Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island --building up a popular-vote margin of 483,000. Yet her total gain in delegates was exactly five. In Texas, she won by more than 100,000 votes, but because of that state's ridiculous rules, she actually came out five delegates behind.

She won the Primary by 100k votes, and lost the caucus. Calling them ridiculous doesn't make it so. Where was this outrage over their rules in 2004? Where was Hillary's outrage over the way Iowa works?

This is, frankly, a complaint that serves an agenda. The rules are the rules. You want to change them, you do it before the game.

How can that outcome possibly be fair? How can it possibly benefit the party?

It could give us a nominee elected according to the rules, for starters.

This is all a red herring. For all the rhetoric, Obama is winning in the popular vote. So the whole, "Obama is only winning because of Arcane rules!" rhetoric simply doesn't hold water. Is Hillary going to rest her case that she should be the nominee on the votes of Puerto Rico?

Wait, it gets worse. Obama built up sizable margins in small states that Clinton was foolish enough to concede. His delegate advantage in Idaho, Kansas and Louisiana -- three states that will never vote Democratic -- was a total of 38. By contrast, Clinton handily won three large swing states -- Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio. And yet, because of party rules, her combined marginal gain amounted to 28 delegates.

There are two assumptions here that deserve to be called out:

(1) There's no state we can't win. Period. And I'll point you to the Congressional win days ago in a deep red Republican +10 district. We need to get out the vote, get out the message, and get on our game. Do you realize how huge our party identification advantage is? We're a sleeping giant.

(2) Winners of primaries are more suitable to win in the fall. Obama is more favored to win NJ than Clinton. He has had periods where he polled better in Ohio - AFTER the primary there. (The win assumption is that if you won't go blue in the fall, your vote doesn't count. Well, if Cokie and Steve want to make that argument, go ahead - but next time, make it before the race starts.)

The Associated Press-Ipsos survey gives Clinton a 50 percent to 41 percent edge over McCain, while Obama ties his Republican rival.

Cherry picking for the win. Pollster's pollster average shows Clinton's current running avg vs McCain as a 47.0% to 44.2% lead (+2.8%), and Obama's 47.3% to 43.2% (+4.1%). So much for that.

But at this time, in this party, being black is an enormous asset. Given America's long, torturous path toward racial justice, many Democrats simply cannot imagine denying the nomination to the first serious African-American candidate for president.

This is borderline offensive, it's such a crock. Because frankly, AAs only make up 20% of the party, and women make up 55% of Dem voters. (I'm guesstimating)

So if we're trying to avoid offending a group, should we avoid offending women by denying the first credible female candidate, or offend AAs by denying the first credible black candidate?

Neither. We should play by the rules.

Obama is going to win the pledged delegate race. Therefore, superdelegates overturning his win would be "taking it away" using their party leadership power. If Clinton were in the lead, I'd say the same thing - you can put money in it. If she had a 100+ lead in pledged delegates, I would be absolutely livid if Obama were piling up supers and winning with that.

Ultimately, what we can say is true about Obama and Clinton is this:

(1) Both are closely matched candidates. Both have strengths, both have weaknesses.
(2) Both have had ups and downs in the nomination process
(3) Both have dedicated followings of critical Democratic core constituencies

Therefore, it makes sense to NOT be heavy-handed about the process. Everyone knew the rules to the nomination before we began - rules which included MI and FL being punished for jumping out of place, and rules which Clinton agreed to. (To draw an analogy, if my Primary was on Super Tuesday, and I showed up a week early and left a ballot in the mailbox, I have no business screaming about being disenfranchised. MI and FL merely had to wait until Super Tuesday, and they could have voted with everyone else. They tried to jump ahead of all the other states to have a bigger voice, and shot themselves in the foot. I think the Republicans had a better idea here - a 50% penalty would have been a better idea. But nonetheless, arguing their delegations "must" be seated as is in nothing but self-serving, and I'm quite certain that even the most die-hard Hillary supporter KNOWS that if the shoe was on the other foot (close race, Obama with big delegate leads in those states), Clinton would be arguing about the rules and how we had to follow them. Hard to say if Obama would pursue seating them as is so strongly.)

Ultimately, this race has been won Obama because he ran a better campaign. It's an incredibly close match. We didn't have a leader emerge. And so we have to fall back on letting the actual rules determine the winner. That's Obama. Because if we go and pick Hillary, it's a bunch of party leaders overturning the results. I'd feel the same way if she were ahead.

From my perspective, Obama's win is all the more impressive because Hillary came out of the gate with a vast advantage in terms of name recognition, money, and party support. Obama has simply outdone her. Cokie and Steve like to talk about how Obama wasn't known - but that's as much of a disadvantage as an advantage. We know that basically every state Obama has contested that Hillary has had a lead, he has narrowed it. Can you imagine how much more of a win he would have had if she didn't have her last name as a handicap?

All these things - my observations, and those of the Roberts' - are not really relevant. What matters is that we set up rules, Obama won (or will win) by those, and that's that. Although I still disagree with almost every premise the Roberts' have. It's largely spin. I do agree Republicans - once dreadfully afraid of Obama - are not so afraid now. They seem him as at least mortal. But the idea that they'll "stick" Obama with scandals like the Wright issue is ignorant, and they probably learned that this last week, as the candidates they tried to tar with the Obama/Wright brush took them to town, taking blue control of formerly red Congressional districts.

This election, as much as the Republicans wish it were otherwise, is going to be about the economy and the war. And they are screwed.

You're frankly way too nervous. I'd be glad to bet you that if it's Obama vs McCain, I'll give you 2:1 on $500 that Obama wins. McCain has had a free pass, and every time that senile empire-builder opens his mouth, something stupid comes out. He confuses Sunni and Shiite. He talks about negotiating with Hamas, then calls it capitulating. This guy is already tying off his own noose, and we haven't even begun.

Note that being up for re-election during a recession is a disaster. Your odds are miserable. And Obama is doing a great job so far painting McCain as GWB II. And that's all there is to it: you tie Mr. 27% to his ankle, and watch them both sink to the ocean floor.

Obama is also one of the most inspirational speakers ever; he has shown a prodigious ability to raise money; has has exhibited fabulous strategy in the electoral process. I understand being nervous - 4 or 8 years of McCain is absolutely terrifying. But Hillary, for all her tenacity, for all her fight - is still behind. Obama is still ahead. Not just in delegates, votes, and states, but in polling, and he had to fight a 2-front battle for a long time.

Let Hillary enjoy her valedictory. And if you think McCain is such a sure thing, I'll be glad to take your money ;)

Look at the link:

May 15

Obama 44%
Clinton 40%

Looks like a 4% Obama lead to me.  So this entire diary is based on misreading of a poll.  This looks like the type of research that got the Clinton Campaign in trouble.

Ignoring facts you don't like doesnt make them go away!

At this late date in the game, no prior presumed nominee has ever shown comparable weakness.

Look at today's Gallup Poll.

I think i rest my cast.

How about candidates who blow huge name recognition, a giant funding lead, and one of the most recognizable last names in politics, along with a 30+ point national lead?