Congratulations to both Democratic frontrunners!

Hillary Clinton has won the popular vote by over 300,000 votes.  Barack Obama has won 130 more pledged delegates.

Here are the final totals:

POPULAR VOTE  (all primaries and caucuses)
Hillary Clinton: 17,785,009
Barack Obama: 17,479,990

PLEDGED DELEGATES
Barack Obama: 1766.5
Hillary Clinton: 1639.5

Currently, 2118 delegates are needed to win the nomination, according to the DNC.  A successful appeal of the RBC's recent decisions on Florida and Michigan would change that threshold to 2210, but that's less relevant now because the pledged delegate allocations are fairly final (pending completion of state conventions) and, again, neither Clinton nor Obama will have enough pledged delegates to reach either 2118 or 2210.

Since we got a lecture from party  member and SuperD Donna Brazile Saturday at the RBC meeting on the importance of her momma's lesson about following the rules, let's review the DNC's rules for winning the nomination.

It's not complex.  In a nutshell:    If a nominee does not win a sufficient number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination, the automatic (or "super") delegates must vote to determine who the nominee will be.  The automatic delegates, who are elected and unelected party officials, can use any criteria they each find appropriate when voting, but the original intent and purpose of the super delegate system was to ensure that the party nominate the most electable candidate for the general-election battle.

Most importantly:  The automatic delegates cast their votes at the Democratic National Convention along with the pledged delegates.  This year the convention will be on August 25-28 in Denver.  It will certainly be an historic event as presidential conventions go because of the extraordinary task at hand for the automatic delegates.  Their votes, by the way, will be cast by private ballot.

That's the status of the Democratic Presidential nomination process.

Now, Barack Obama can "declare himself the nominee" (FOX News characterization last night), he can throw all the big parties and make all the pretty speeches in as many hope-change-unity rallies he wants.  He can campaign with vigor against John McCain.  (And so can Hillary.)  The Clinton-hating party clique can "proclaim" that Obama is the nominee; the mainstream media can continue to ignore reality...None of this is surprising, and none of it matters...

Because there will not be a nominee until August.  There will not be -- there cannot be -- any nominee until August.   And even the "presumptive nominee" status is a stretch because normally that claim is made by a candidate who has reached the required number of PLEDGED delegates (as John McCain did).

And anyone who thinks that Hillary Clinton supporters don't understand all of this...is delusional and seriously underestimates the loyalty and passion of her quiet yet determined army  (although some of us aren't that quiet).

We are informed and engaged constituents committed to a brilliant and inspiring leader.  We are NOT going to fold our tents and hop on board Obama's train just cause that's what we are told to do by people who, frankly, are experts at losing elections.  NO.  We have collectively determined that we'd actually prefer that the Democrats win the Presidency this year.  No more McGoverns, Carters, Kerrys, Gores, Harts, Deans....Nothing personal, guys, but your track record stinks.

In the 2000 Presidential Election, Al Gore won about 550,000 more votes than George Bush.  Given the consequences of that election fraud, I thought it would be a cold day in h**l before Democrats would let anyone steal the election from another Democrat...But then again, these are the General Election losers running our party so...

So, while Obama is zipping around the country and world celebrating "victory," let the rest of us remain sober and focused in respect of these basic and indisputable FACTS:

1. Hillary Clinton has now officially won more votes than any person to seek the presidential nomination of EITHER political party in history, and her candidacy accurately represents the will of the people who voted in the Democratic primaries and caucuses.

2. Hillary Clinton won ALL of the major states except Illinois.

3. Hillary Clinton finished the primary season with momentum, out-performing expectations in several races such as, most recently, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, and South Dakota (see Obama's predictions spreadsheet); Obama, in contrast, is wheezing across the finish line with a downward trajectory that bodes poorly for the general election.

4. Hillary Clinton assembled a coalition of loyal voters that can guarantee victory against McCain, including white women, hispanics, catholics, jews, and lunch-bucket workers.

5. Barack Obama is still a relative unknown, remains unvetted by the media, and is teetering on the brink of being clobbered by the GOP, RNC, 527 Oppo Teams due to his treasure chest of bizarre skeletons.

In light of these cold, hard facts, Hillary Clinton bloggers and supporters will continue doing what we've been doing:  Passionately making the case that Hillary Clinton will be the best President, that she has a superior chance of beating John McCain. It's do-or-die for us, and for the country. And we have every intention -- indeed a duty -- to carry that message all the way to Denver.

Note:  popular vote totals from ABC News and pledged delegate totals from Real Clear Politics.

Cross posted at TexasDarlin
TexasDarlin, all rights reserved

On the rail this morning, I overheard someone making an analogy that to me was dead on. Please, no troll ratings. I have been trying to bring unity to the party but I need to share this analogy for those of you that see nothing wrong with what's going on right now.

Even though Hillary Clinton received more votes than Obama in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, Barack Obama has not yet conceded those elections. Until he does, Hillary is not the winner of those states.

Obama to concede for the results to become official.

Now, HRC is using the same strategy to keep the campaign going. Even though, Barack has won the nomination, it is not official until Hillary Clinton makes it so.

Go to YouTube and search for "Young Hillary Clinton" and watch the "Connect Four" section. It is happening right now.

Why are some of us pretending to live in an alternative universe?

Both Hillary and Obam gave great speeches at AIPAC today. Obama's speech was especially well received with several and continuous applause coming from those in attendance. They both did a great job at making strong and positive comments about each other but Hillary is still talking like a candidate for the nomination.

Is this good for the party or for Hillary? I'm conflicted.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

How can anyone not be proud that this is the couple our party intends to send to the white house? They will represent our party well in the fall. Congrats to the entire Democratic Party for letting them officially lead us into the future:

Alright, this will be short.  

Regardless of who we supporting going into the nomination process those many months ago or who you supported today, it is time to rally around the democratic nominee.

Barack Obama today crossed the magic number threshold and became the presumptive nominee.

As the democratic nominee, we must now support and protect Obama against the swiftboaters and malcontents of the Right.

This means it is time to cease Obama attack diaries on this site.  

If you want to elect John McCain and therefore want to continue to attack the presumptive nominee of the party that represents true progressive values in this election, please find another site.

The time is now.  The general election will soon be upon us.  

Let the attack diaries be solely upon McCain.

"People have been trying to get me out of this race since Iowa...my political obituary has yet to be written..."

"It's not over until the votes are cast. It's not over until there's actually a tally that gives someone the nomination."

 -- Hillary Clinton on the campaign jet, June 2, 2008

Hillary Clinton is right, morally and legally.

I'm a person who likes to deal with facts.  So let's review some.

FACT: Superdelegates don't have votes until the convention. Until then, they have preferences.

FACT: The Clinton campaign reserved its right to appeal the RBC's Michigan decision to the Credentials Committee. A favorable outcome of that appeal will change the number of delegates needed for the nomination.  Until that appeal is heard, no one should be declaring victory based on 2118.

FACT: Barack Obama literally stole 59 delegates in Michigan: 4 from Hillary Clinton and 55 from Uncommitted, a legally recognized presidential status.  In a tactical error, Obama took his name off the ballot, and now a handful of political hacks at the DNC have set aside fundamental principles of election and constitutional law to effectively reverse his voluntary action.

FACT: These same RBC hacks lecture us disenfranchised Democrats about playing by the rules, but only when the rules favor Obama. (Case in point: the rules give my candidate Hillary Clinton the absolute right and authority to stay in the race and to take her case to the convention floor no matter how many superdelegates "declare.")

FACT:  Caucuses are unfair.  If Michigan delegates can be re-allocated using hokey-pokey methods, certainly it would be reasonable to use the results of actual primary elections in states which had caucuses  to "correct" the delegate tallies so that they are a fairer reflection of the peoples' will.

FACT: Hillary Clinton has won more popular votes than Barack Obama. And, yes, that includes Michigan. You can't have it both ways -- if Obama wants delegates from Michigan, then the popular vote counts.

FACT: Hillary Clinton is the stronger candidate -- by miles -- against John McCain. She has assembled a demographic coalition that has a 100% chance of winning the Presidency for the Democratic Party. She can win crucial states in the general election like Florida and West Virginia that Obama doesn't have a prayer of winning.

FACT: Hillary Clinton still out-polls both Barack Obama and John McCain in Electoral Vote surveys even in a climate of overt misogyny and sexism, even though the media has stopped treating her like a contender, and even in the face of criticism by officials in her own party for continuing to participate in the election.

FACT: Barack Obama's momentum has been sliding downhill since February, even though he has enjoyed the most lopsided media coverage of any presidential candidate in history, and even though he has spent more money, up to 4 times the amount, on advertising than Hillary Clinton. There is no indication that Obama's trajectory will recover anytime soon, especially not given the treasure chest of ammunition he and his wife have produced for the GOP and 527's.

FACT: Barack Obama -- the candidate who promised to transcend race -- threw the race card around in this campaign without shame and with no apparent regard for the long-term consequences to the reputations of two loyal public servants, the Clintons, or the long-term impact on society.

FACT: Barack Obama, if not directly, suggested that white voters who chose Hillary Clinton over him by 30 and 40-point margins in some states did so because of racism, when HE is the one hanging out and praying with his group of racist friends and preachers.

FACT: A huge portion (some polls say up to 50%) of Hillary Clinton supporters would not vote for Barack Obama in the general election, regardless of whether Clinton endorses him or campaigns for him.

FACT: Hillary Clinton will not only be a superior general-election candidate for the Democrats, she will be the best President our country could elect during these perilous and serious times.

On behalf of millions of Hillary Clinton supporters, I want to be sure that she knows where we stand.

FIGHT ON, Hillary. For the people.

Cross posted at TexasDarlin

Certainly popular vote holds merit. It is intended for the superdelegates. Remember in January when the Obama people said the supers should follow the will of the voters. Well it is time to stick to the word. We have to remember that Obama cannot win the nomination without the supers. So it's all fair game. Forcing the supers to pick Obama is undemocratic and will make this election cycle illegitimate.

As for counting the popular votes, we should just follow what the state decides. If we want to consider things like caucus, open primaries, closed primaries for the popular vote, then why not do the same for the pledge delegates where we take the primaries rather than the caucus results (for those states that held both). If we want to be fair, we have to be truly fair and not be fair to one candidate and unfair to another. This will not bring about unity as dedicated supporters of the that candidate will feel disfranchised and cheated. Remember that millions of people dedicated so much of their time and money investing on their candidates. The investment and time by the people is unprecedented and therefore very unique. Assuming that the party will come together once we get a nominee without resolving the problems is a fairy tale. Never once in our nation's history have we had a primary like this.

In this case, Hillary decided to give up on the caucus states and that's for her to lose. She made a strategic blunder and it's no one's fault but hers. This goes with Obama as well. Obama decided to team up with Edwards and Bill Richardson to pull their names out of Michigan. Out of 8 candidates, 4 pulled their names out. These 3 candidates did distribute fliers and such asking the voters to vote uncommitted. Dennis Kucinich even campaigned in Michigan. So it is their strategic blunder and therefore should not have gotten any popular vote. As painful as this might sound, we have to be fair. The RBC made an unprecedented precedence by allocating delegates to Obama even though he was not on the ballot and they awarded him more than he should have received. The RBC's job is to adjudicate instead of playing politics. They failed in their job and with this hundreds of thousands of Hillary supporters had felt the nomination stolen for her. Rules are rules. If the DNC decided to cherry pick rules, then we had become the entity which he pledge to get rid off and is no difference than the Republican party.

"One final word....Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee."

-- Harold Ickes, Hillary Clinton Campaign representative, Washington, D.C., May 31, 2008

Saturday, the Democratic Party's Rules & Bylaws Committee (RBC), in a surreal act of political suicide, awarded Barack Obama 55 "uncommitted" delegates from the Michigan primary, even though he voluntarily removed his name from that ballot in a tactical move to curry favor with the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.

As Ickes noted, "uncommitted" is a constitutionally recognized presidential status, the same as a named candidate, and therefore delegates earned by "uncommitted" cannot legally be reallocated to another candidate.

But the RBC didn't stop there. They also STOLE 4 delegates earned by Hillary Clinton in the Michigan primary, and transferred them to Barack Obama, as if punishing Clinton for winning an election that Obama boycotted.

Then the RBC had the audacity to call their ruling a "compromise" and cloak it in sugary calls for party "unity." Trying to shove unity down the throats of 18 million angry Democrats, a bit of a joke...Message to the RBC: See videotape of Harriet Christian from Manhattan, voter who was ejected from your meeting. That should give you a flavor of our reaction and a taste of what to expect in August, in Denver.

More from Ickes' closing statement on Michigan, which is already written into history:

"This is in the charter, this is not a bylaw..this is in the highest document of our party.. this is in the constitution of our party....fair reflection..you cannot take delegates from one candidate and give them to another..."

~interrupted by raucous cheers~

"Finally...there's been a lot of talk about party unity...let's all come together, wrap our arms around each other...I submit to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that hijacking 4 delegates.... is not a good way to start down the path of party unity."

It's ironic, given his unique history, that Barack Obama would seek to benefit from an election in which his name was not on the ballot, especially since he removed it voluntarily. If anyone understands the importance legally of being on the ballot, it should be Obama...

In 1996, when Obama first ran for public office in Illinois, he employed a cut-throat gimmick of challenging petition signatures to knock long-time community activist Alice Palmer off the ballot for the state Senate. There is much more to the story, but the bottom line is that Palmer had been a mentor and supporter of Obama's before he steam-rolled over her in his eagerness to serve the public. Ms. Palmer, not surprisingly, campaigned for Hillary Clinton this year in Indiana.

Seems like the party elite and the hope-change candidate are clueless when it comes to "unity." But us regular folks have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done in Denver to unify the country.

Note on the Popular Vote: The silver lining for Clinton from the RBC's ruling is more like platinum: Now that the Michigan and Florida primaries have been "recognized," Clinton is justified in adding those votes to her popular vote total. At the end of the primaries on June 3rd, Clinton will be the official popular vote leader, even excluding Michigan. If memory serves me correctly, it wasn't so long ago that party officials such as Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Donna Brazile were touting the popular vote as the appropriate metric for super delegates to certify the "will of the people."

Cross posted at TexasDarlin

TexasDarlin, all rights reserved
Not affiliated with the Hillary Clinton campaign