Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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What's A Superdelegate To Do? Betray Barack? And Be Labeled As A Judas For The Rest Of Their Lives?
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
8:53 AM
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"Unable once again to score a knockout, Sen. Barack Obama is likely to make his new negative tone even more negative -- with a sharp eye on trying to end the Democratic presidential nomination fight after the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina."
That's how the Washington Post opened an account of Hillary's pummeling of Obama in PA.
If Jonathan Weisman covered boxing, how would he have led an account of Ali-Liston? "Unable to score a knockout in his battle with Muhammad Ali last night, Sonny Liston is likely to throw more punches in any rematch."
This is a huge part of Obama's advantage: The MSM has attached an "inevitability" tag to Obama that protects him against the realities of his awful month of political ineptitude combined with the results of the slightest bit of vetting.
This sense of entitlement is so large among the Obama backers that it has created a gravitational force pulling in the media, which in turn reinforces the anger among Obama voters at the Clintons. "We have already won," they are thinking. "Why is she doing this?"
As John Podhoretz and I discussed on last night's show, the superdelegates must know the score, but they also see this MSM-constructed, enormous sense of entitlement among the Obama supporters. These supporters will be outraged if the nomination is "stolen" from Obama, even though Hillary is beating him again and again and his underlying numbers show a very weak candidate in the fall.
Each superdelegate has his or her own self-interest to look to, and for many --most?-- of them, betraying Barack is not an option. Their decision on the choice of Clinton or Obama will follow them the rest of their political lives. 20 years from now it will still be a tag, and the idea of having that tag be marked Judas just isn't going to fly for them.
Hillary could win in Indiana. She could keep it close in North Carolina, and win in Oregon and West Virginia and Kentucky, but even then the Obama will be furious at any superdelegate who betrays Obama.
The only way Hillary can overcome the force of self-preservation that is operating among the superdelegates is to argue to them that Obama will lead to down ticket disaster, taking many of the superdelegates who are electeds with him, and losing a rare chance at significant pick-ups in the Senate. She hasn't made that argument yet, at least in public, but watch that space. The superdelegates she needs need more than an argument that she matches up better with McCain, or that Obama will surely lose.
They need protection from the blowback.
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How about this for a possibility:
Closed, sealed, unnumbered ballots at the convention.
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You're on target--the super delegates must attend to their own interests. Voting for Clinton has a huge downside for them. But voting for Obama allows them to shift any blame to the voters if Obama loses to McCain in the fall. They simply need to say they voted in accordance with their constituents, doing what they were asked, and the constituents were wrong. A vote for Obama provides tremendous political cover. |
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Go, Chaos! Go, Denver...! Go, NO Conclusion...!
"I luv the smell of teargas in Denver...It smells like...CHAOS!" ('Apocolypse Now'..) |
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Is he skittish around her because he knows that she detests him and he’s used to charming everyone? Or does he feel guilty that he cut in line ahead of her? As the husband of Michelle, does he know better than to defy the will of a strong woman? Or is he simply scared of Hillary because she’s scary?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/opinion/23dowd.html?_r=1& hp&oref=slogin
Isn't life grand sometimes? |
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because we don't get Obama. Good to hear what the other side is saying.
http://www.observer.com/2008/g-o-p-just-doesn-t-get-obama |
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Face it, the Democrats are stuck with Obama.
Wright, Ayers, Bittergate, and so forth came out way too late to affect the outcome in the earlier primaries that gave Obama his initial momentum. Now, because Democrats didn't vet Obama, they will get buried in November. He's a black George McGovern.
Obama has a shrill core of support among, say, 25% of voters. But that's it. Too many of Clinton's supporters will either vote for McCain or stay at home--the numbers are far greater than the numbers of Obama supports who will vote for McCain or stay at home.
In the end, no one will say, but Obama just strikes too many people as un-American. And his associations, don't help. For example, Dorothy Rabinowitz writes the following in her great WSJ article today:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120891044439036617.html?mod =rss_opinion_main
"Mr. Obama's apparent inability to confront, forthrightly, the pastor's poisonous pronouncements and his own relationship with him is, of course, the cause of all the continuing questions on the subject. It had not been in him, for instance, to say publicly that for a pastor to have preached that the U.S. government had embarked on a project to inject blacks with AIDS was an outrage on truth and decency. He delivered a celebrated speech on race, one generally hailed as a masterwork, that was supposed to have explained it all. It was a work masterly, above all, in its evasiveness."
Good luck, Democrats. |
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...what would be required, other than a bolt from the blue, is a scandal, a slip, or an argument that separates him from his identity-political bases: African-Americans and the college crowd. Even though the former came on board rather late and the latter are inherently fickle, breaking Obama's ties to these segments of the Democratic coalition is easier said than done, but the wedge could take many different forms, or even conceivably be formed from disparate elements.
The Wright Stuff, Cling-Gate, and Ayers didn't affect Barack's base support. In fact, to greater or lesser extents they reinforced it - his black and latte liberal supporters identified with Obama in those controversies. If exploited properly - possibly by an MSM souring on the Obama candidacy - Rezko might provide elements of what would be needed, but there doesn't seem to be enough there.
It's possible that the weapon or the will to wield it don't exist, at least insofar as the Democratic race is concerned. Hillary's only chance in that case is to brand Obama so definitively as a surefire loser that even his African American and college crowd supporters can hardly move themselves to defend him, and might even begin to remember why once upon a time not too long ago they were loyal Clinton supporters. Blacks famously didn't turn into a Barack-bloc until he'd shown he had a chance to win. She'll need even more of his help to pull off that trick. |
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Rationally, it would be silly to think a super delegate was "betraying" anyone by voting for the popular vote winner. But who said the Democrats were entirely rational?
Geraldine Ferraro was right on so many levels. If Barry looked like Hillary, the super delegates(assuming Hillary won the popular vote) would rally around Hillary in a nano-second. But because Barry's dad was African, the Super Delegates are simply terrified they are going to be labeled as 'racist' if they offend him.
It's quite illuminating. The Democrats are used to playing the race card against Republicans, but they don't have a clue about what to do now that its being played in their own ranks. To paraphrase Reverend Wright, the multicultural, identity-politics chickenare coming home to roost. How long before we start hearing soon about the Demo-kkk-ratic Party?
Barry isn't going to play the race card; he is going to play the entire racial deck in a way the late Johnny Cochran would be proud.
Mark my words- the Obamabots will soon start saying counting the Florida popular vote total(much less the delegates) is an act of...racism.
We have come a long way, folks. Imagine being told during the height of the civil rights era that the first black candidate with a chance of winning the presidency would be SYSTEMATICALLY seeking to disenfranchise almost 2 million voters. Imagine 40 years ago, being told the first black candidate with a shot at the presidency would be arguing that an unelected party boss in D.C.(a white man) should decided what votes should count and which ones should not.
No one would have believed it.
If Hillary wins the popular vote, she is going to have an extraordinarily powerful argument. And if the super delegates DON'T select her, the entire country is going to know why, even if the Anderson Coopers of the world don't have the guts to admit on the air.
Barry is about to get a real lesson in the meaning of 'pyrrhic victory'.
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Outstanding post!
If Hillary wins the popular vote, I think she not only has the weapon, but I am fairly sure she and Bill have the courage to use it.
This will not end well.
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Clinton-Obama in the fall. Clinton has the best chance of beating McCain and Obama must be on the ticket to pacify the far left and the black wings of the Dems.
The Dem leadership will eventually come to realize this and before the convention it will all be worked out. They must do this to prevent the splintering of the Dem coalitions.
Obama will go along because he will realize the wisdom of it. Also, as VP he is set up in the Dem party as a leader for the long haul, as well as being part of history.
Clinton-Obama will present McCain the greatest challenge and consequently who McCain picks for VP will be more important than usual. It will be vital that McCain pick a VP that will energize the right wing of the GOP with whom McCain is weak. McCain himself appeals strongly to the left wing of the GOP and the Reagan Democrats. It should be a real donnybrook this fall. The November results will be 50-49, but I cannot predict who will have the 50.
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"This is a huge part of Obama's advantage: The MSM has attached an "inevitability" tag to Obama that protects him"
This is just silly considering that 4 months ago, Hillary was the inevitable candidate with all of the support, a vast number of loyalists and superdelegates already pledged, and the Clinton name and legacy that comes attached with it (which, at the time, was very favorable in Democrat-land) and Obama was the upstart who should wait his turn.
Conversely, given the number of wins and the math behind it, it could be equally argued that the only reason the media is kind to Clinton is because of her past inevitability and the name/legacy attached to her.
"As John Podhoretz and I discussed on last night's show, the superdelegates must know the score"
They do, which is why many of them are breaking for Obama.
"But they also see this MSM-constructed, enormous sense of entitlement among the Obama supporters."
You must not keep up with the Democratic blogs I do, because there is an equal sense of rage, entitlement, and bitterness brewing between the two camps equally. There is a great amount of animosity in Democratic circles and pledges of both candidates supporters (though a greater number of Hillary’s) who have said they will vote for McCain instead of Obama.
As I said four months ago, it’s still a bad time to be a Republican, but never bet against the Democrats ability to shoot themselves in the foot and hand the GOP a victory.
Nice to see my cynicism is validated again. |
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What the various Obamagates *have* apparently accomplished is to increase the dislike of Obama among people for whom he is not the first choice. What are the latest numbers out of PA, that almost 50% of Hillary supporters would flat out not vote for Obama?
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..overlooks the fact that every viable Presidential contender has a unique set of family circumstances that made him or her a viable candidate in the first place. Where would HRC be without Bill? Would GW have been anywhere without his family name? Ditto Mitt Romney?! Would John McCain be where he is without his family background? Family is destiny.
Naturally, Barack's blackness has a role to play. I'm as racist as the next fellow, but it does not take much moral character to imagine you are a black person. Never in your life, or in the life of your family's 400 year involvement with this country, did you think an African American could become President. You go through your time on earth looking at people looking at you, registering that you are black. You yourself remember the time when you realized you were black. Blackness defines who you are--not because you want it that way, but because that's the way it is. And now, there's a black guy who might become President of the United States? Damn straight you'd be electrified.
The other thing is the assumption in here that Barack is far left. In fact, he is center-left. He only looks far left to the guys on the far right--i.e. you guys. Throw in his talent, his judgment, and his soul, so to speak, and you got a guy who is the proper combination of family luck and God-given ability. So get used to saying it: "President Obama". Sounds good, huh?! |
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There are no such numbers. All the excitement is on our side of the aisle. Your team is as uninteresting and stale as your candidate. When the heat of the contest dies down--and this is the real competition for the Presidency, not the general election--we'll come together and kick your butts. |
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Limbaugh's Operation Chaos has gone EXACTLY like he wanted it to go. It is amazing how well this is playing out for the GOP.
Even with the worst Republican possible running for the GOP, the Dems are now screwed. Obama is a terrorist loving, small town hating Marxist in many eys now.... all exposed due to these cross over voters who are keeping this going.
McCain is going to win 40 states all due to the train wreck that the Democrat party has created... all with the help of Rush Limbaugh and Operation Chaos.
Hey Medved.... why is this strategy so hard for you to understand? |
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He has the number one rating as a liberal in the senate. He hangs out with radicals and he spews Marxist propeganda.
Keep telling yourself that Obama is some center liberal... when he gets blown out you can ask yourself what the hell happened. |
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the Dems will nominate someone who is losing ground daily. The super delegates are neither idiots nor do they have a death wish. |
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Patriotic Liberal:
For whatever reason, MSM was unable to pounce on Obama for Wright--though it continues to linger.
But the Ayers connection is another matter. Even the Chicago Tribune, which seems to have ignored much of the Wright connection, is now on the trail on the Ayers connection.
Check out this motley crew on Michelle Malkin's blog:
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/23/barack-and-michelle-an d-bill-and-bernardine-the-obamaweather-underground-compendi um/
Oh, watching Chris Matthews this morning on Morning Joe, he believes that Obama paid dearly among Catholics for saying he didn't want to see his daughters "punished with a baby" comment. Catholics, like many Americans, are a little prickly about that sanctity-of-life notion. Just wait until Obama's role--as an Illinois state senator--in shelving a bill against partial-birth abortion begin to make the rounds.
Hope he's ready for more flak. INCOMING! |
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He's the pimple on his a** that kept him out of Vietnam. Because you guys fundamentally don't like democracy, you think democracy is bad for a party. It isn't. Our two candidates get stronger, sharper, harder by the day. What do you got. Some stale old-timer who isn't even a conservative. |
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McCain will beat either Dem nominee or even a combined Obama-Clinton ticket, so the superdels will just go w/Obama cuz why endure the blowback if you're gonna lose anyway?
And no, I don't think Obama would actually want to put Clinton on his ticket, not at all; the self-righteous never forgive and certainly don't trust. But it's still possible he gets strong-armed into it as the superdels' price of his anointment.
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Tell ya what?
I am willing to bet anyone up to 10k that McCain will win, regardless of who what Marxist the Democrats end up nominating.
You game? I can set up an account where the money will be held.
Also, Rush has 20 MILLION listeners weekly. Good luck getting a lib to have those numbers. Thousands of people have switched parties to keep Hillary alive, all so the riot at the convention will happen yet again with the Democrats who know how to riot oh so well. |
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They know Obama can't win at this point, yet they know if they give the election to Hillary, there will be a race riot at the convention because the black guy got screwed and the election was stolen from him.
Operation Chaos working to perfection. |
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I salute your willingness to put your money where your mouth is. Being aware of the massive gap between knowledge and predictions, much less the distinction between what I think I know vs. what I really know, I bet in much much MUCH smaller increments. But, again, I congratulate you for the courage of your convictions, and invite you to take that $10K to any one of a number of places and lay it down. |
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..and libs do not need to check in to the Mothership to be told what to think. Rush Limbaugh has 20 million listeners because conservatism today is so fragile, so tenuous, that the base needs to constantly be reinforced. The psychology of talk radio is very very easy. And it is easy to see why it does not make in-roads with the left--who already know how to think.. |
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The libs have no success with talk radio because their positions are not defend-able when a discussion takes place. End of story.
And fine, if you don't want to bet I understand. You libs never put your money where your mouth is.
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Well, talk is cheap. You go on over to the betting sites and lay down that $10K. For my part, I'll continue to hand my paychecks to Mrs. PL.
And btw, that's NOT the end of the story. Talk radio is the perfect metaphor for the state of conservatism in America today: the illusion of a marketplace of ideas that masks the reality of an authoritarian cult-of-personality (the radio host). THAT's the end of the story. |
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So, PL, how much *will* you bet beaumandy66, then?
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ony someone as far left as you would see BHO as center left, since he is to the right of you.
talk radio works because it is the only venue that a right thinking person can use as a sounding board to help with their beliefs and convictions. Just as I bounce my thoughts off of other Engineers in the office to be assured that I am headed in the correct direction. |
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beaumandy66,
Friend, you're just wasting your time with him.
He's a man of talk.
He's one of those lefties who doesn't even send his son to the public high school.
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It seems that we have on both sides of this Dem race, two people who arrogantly demand they deserve the Presidency by fiat! Talk about your elitism! These two have so many contacts with radical, undesirable people ; just think the Clinton friends like Charlie Trie, John Huang, et al and now we have the swimming pool of leftist scum that Obama apparently hangs out in the hood with!! It will not faze the socialist pacifist Dems like the loons on this board or on the Right or Left Coasts, but it may affect all those people in flyover country. Now if only the Pub candidate, starting with ole John would unite to tell the folks just what a Pub Admin. will do ala the Contract of '94. It might actually show they stand for something far different from the socialist Dem leadership. |
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You don't know what manner of man I am, creep. Besides, I am a typist, not a talker.. |
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Let's see, I bet Neo that Romney wouldn't win the Reep nomination. The stakes was dinner at a medium priced joint. And last month, I put $10 down on a March Madness bracket. And we make dollar bets all the time at work. I'm just not much of a betting man. Money hard earned is money hard spent. |
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When engineers bounce around ideas, that's knowledge. When right-wingers listen to talk radio, that's brainwashing--self-induced, but brainwashing even so.
Better to seek out people with contrary opinions and test your ideas. |
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use the "Judas" label as the title of this thread posits, then he will lasting damage to the chances of any black person becoming prez in the future.
By blackmailing (no pun intended) the supers into voting for him by playing the race card - and then losing the general by a wide margin - it will a couple of generations before the dem establishment will be positively inclined to support a black candidate out of fear that they will again be extorted to vote for that candidate or be labelled a racist and visited by the likes of Al Sharpton.
The first non-white president will be a republican - the party that doesn't play identity politics. |
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To listen to most people around me in CA exposes me to the other side so I can test my ideas. TO listen to most of the MSM does the same. |
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Great conclusion. It is support well in your analysis. |
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Nah, you guys confuse "non-conservative" with "anti-conservative." That's why you call the corporate media "liberal." Anything that is not lockstep is opposition. As for swimming around in CA, that's called "life." We live with human beings and, lo, we find they see things differently. That is hardly "testing" your ideas.
Testing your ideas means building philosophic friendships--i.e. ongoing conversations with those who, like you, value rationality, but also hold deep and fundamental disagreements with you about meaning and truth. Talk radio is just inculcation. |
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The Dems have former domestic terrorists in their midst. Also check out some of the comments Senator Byrd has made in the past. Racism exists in all parties. Only the Dems play racist and sexist identity politics to the nth degree.
As for potential GOP non-white candidates see Colin Powell, Ms. Rice and my fav - JC Watts who framed the likes of BO perfectly when he said they are "race-hustling poverty pimps". |
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JC Watts. Yes, you guys tried to convert him into something big. I think he had the #4 job with the House majority for awhile. Nothing came of it, of course. The guy is a big zero. The only reason you backed him was--oops--identity politics. He was black. And so he got a fast track to the top of the GOP pile.
The modern Republican party is about serving what I call the red state elites. These narrow interests basically use the public business for their own private enrichment--the corporation being the modern political machine. The Bush family is the living reminder of this unholy nexus of business interests and government policy. The Republicans use their deep pockets to develop their political technics, which bamboozle broad sections of undereducated white people into voting against their own interests and those of their country. There is your Republican party. Give me the motley, disorganized, hodge-podge of Americans that make up the Democratic party any day.. |
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Yep, that Rush is sure dealing from weakness and fear. OPERATION CHAOS marches on in gathering triumph. You can hear The Bloviator and others whining-crying like girls at the injustice. NO Fair!!! |
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Our candidates come through this hardened, sharper, tough, nimble, skilled, smart. Your candidate is like you guys: stale, uninteresting, faded.
Funny, no matter how toadying the corporate media, no matter how ruthless Barack and HRC are with each other, McCain can't top 45%. Why? Because he's got a ceiling. Why? Because this year, it's gonna be Dem 55%+, McCain 45%-. The subtext is in place. Your idiotic Operation Chaos is like the idiot football fan who thinks he's responsible for the touchdown pass down on the field
The only thing you guys are responsible for is running the country into the ground. |
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lackies is hilarious and revealing, your worried, very worried, and you should be, the "manufactured one" can't close the deal, can he, he can't beat the girl, because he's a girly man, a couple a weeks ago on Bryant's "Real Clear Sports" on HBO, they had Hussein talking about basketball, his love for the game, don't ya' know, well, theres a term in the game called finishing, meaning the player can finish the play and score, well i know basketball and Mr.Soetoro, your NO finisher, and you Barry lackies, know it don't cha'!
Onward to Denver and the teargas convention, Tom Spagnola, awaits..... come you lackies, come... its gonna' be a high old time....breathe deep... |
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that they're not whining??
Are you getting your digs ready for us Righty Cabal Members to crash on your floor during the Demo-Denver-Bloodbath?? We'll be wanting to see the action and smell the teargas.
"I love the smell of teargas in the morning...It smells like...Operation..Chaos." ("Apocalypse Now") |
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..are jackular fools who think they are maestros when in fact they are just tools. |
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candidate, whines about the girl being "to mean", and not "telling the truth" about me, waaaaaaaaaaa..........if you don't pull yourself together fast, wimp, the girl's gonna' whip ya', we want you, Barry, cause your an electoral nightmare for the"blojob", so man up, son, pull yourself together, for crying out loud.....OPERATION CHAOS...working perfectly, driving fascists to near hysteria, onward to your just desserts, here in Denver and the teargas convention, come blojob, come, and remember, BREATHE DEEP......... |
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..in his confused ravings, he thinks it is the fascists who get gassed. |
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to The Stockman's Exchange? K.G. pointed out their menu on another thread and it was instantly obvious that the Dems won't spend their $$ there. Ya know with elk, buffalo and venison on the plate. So, it's up to the Cabal to strap on Gas Masks and brave it through the anarchic streets to eat game. |
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