It may be good for HRC in the long run.  But it's piss for democracy in any form.

Wonder how Obama supporters feel about that now.

Here's something I am noticing (and if anyone else reading this wants to back me up, do so).

When I go to other blogs/new sites/conservative blogs, Talk Left is usually the first blog listed as a Hillary leaning blog.  

I would be interested in knowing how much traffic has increased on TL since it's getting around that this is the best place for BHO and HRC people to dialogue.

I think that as this thing heats up TL will become the vanguard site for Hillary.  I hope so.  Jeralyn does a mighty fine job at representing (has her name on it, so I would, too).  BTD is great balance for the site as well.

Anyway, on to Puerto Rico tomorrow for making that popular vote spread even larger!

Perhaps that is because, despite their protestations and exhortations, they know that the Party tends to nominate the popular vote winner.

I wonder why this worries them?

Harold Ickes and Tina Flournoy made the following statement:

Today's results are a victory for the people of Florida who will have a voice in selecting our Party's nominee and will see its delegates seated at our party's convention.  The decision by the Rules and Bylaws Committee honors the votes that were cast by the people of Florida and allocates the delegates accordingly.

We strongly object to the Committee's decision to undercut its own rules in seating Michigan's delegates without reflecting the votes of the people of Michigan.

The Committee awarded to Senator Obama not only the delegates won by Uncommitted, but four of the delegates won by Senator Clinton. This decision violates the bedrock principles of our democracy and our Party.
We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan's delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast.

As much as the DNC, MSM, and Obama camp would like to redefine winning to expedite their shared agenda, Clinton has sufficient grounds now to stay in the race until the convention in August.

In Michigan, the state party leaders acted and legislated in a manner that nullified the state's voters "will" to influence the primaries in January/February. Then, the DNC empowered those same state party leaders to allocate delegates based on "compromise" as 69-59 - the "popular will of the voters" entirely neutralized and then constructed by the state party.

In Florida, by Germond's argument, the DNC acted inappropriately to strip Florida of all its delegates in January, but having done so, the DNC made the Florida primary into a "beauty contest."  As a consequence of the DNC's actions, Florida's vote is a "beauty contest" that does not reflect the "will of the voters," therefore the DNC cannot re-instate 100% of the delegates. But, the DNC deeply apologizes for stripping all of the Florida's delegates, here are the 50% you should have had in the first place!

It is amazing how each of the actions that the DNC took in the past 6 months just happened to work against Clinton, and for Obama. They must truly be vexed that Clinton was such a strong candidate to have brought the inner workings of the Democratic party into the open in June. However, like Republicans in the 1990s, these folks regard themselves as the aggrieved party (for being exposed!) and regard Hillary Clinton as the enemy of the party (for winning the party's primaries well into June!).

I mean, for good God's sake, it was the REPUBLICANS who changed Florida's primary and we STILL decided to give our fellow Democrats there the big middle finger.

And as has been mentioned before, no matter what the SD's say in the next week or two, they don't vote until august, and what they say isn't binding.

I mean that's got to rankle his camp big time especially since he's called the primary march to the nomination the Bataan March.

This has to be frustrating Obama big time, I think I see egg on his face since he's been crowning himself the presumptive nominee didn't they say they were going to claim victory on Tuesday?

I see no need, whatsoever, to go to an Obama blog. If I want to hear what you folks think, I watch cable or networks news for 15 minutes, and I've got more than my fill.

Do you come here because you want to know what some pro-Hillary folks are thinking; and you just can't find that ANYWHERE in the MSM, or the ELITE blogs?

 So one woman got mad as hell and didn't want to take it anymore? You think that is going to ruin it for all women, who of course, up to now, would have coasted on petals of roses to the Presidency, right?

Unfortunately, they will not have the guts to do what is right for fear of repercussions politically and historically.  Or looking like they are racist.
They are going to risk loosing this election even though deep down inside they know they should back Hilary who they know is the stronger candidate to win the GE.

Barack Obama removed himself voluntarily from the ballot. Hillary has to be allotted her votes, and he has to accept the consequences of his action, which is that he gets none of the popular vote in Michigan.

It is this kind of insanity that is driving quite a few "neutrals" like myself into the arms of the Obama campaign.

It is obvious that SOME Michigan voters favor(ed) Obama; hence, because the slim margin, Obama DOES have more popular support (not a lot, but more) than Clinton.

That doesn't mean much in my book, but that is a fact.

* UPDATE * Also, according to those with knowledge of the Michigan agreement, it is fair to claim Clinton the winner of Michigan. But they caution against counting her popular vote in the state.

First, delegates are the metric that matters and Obama maintains strong leads in both pledged delegates and superdelegates. The popular vote has no official standing as a metric of performance. It isn't going to convince remaining SDs to sign on with Clinton.

Second, the only way Clinton is only ahead now in popular vote is if you count Michigan. To include the popular vote for a state where Obama was not even on the ballot is not compelling and only undermines the credibility of the argument.

What BTD said in the live blog today made an impression on me. If FL had been seated fully, if Clinton had argued more strongly they should be (because of - not in spite of the rules), I could see her carrying that case to the convention floor. Upping the requirement to 2165 would've made Obama need about half of the remaining supers. Under those terms, I can see him having difficulty reaching a majority.

It just seems to me, with the weak argument employed in favor of FL, with her campaign's continued recital of the "we expect there to be a nominee in June" mantra, that she has no intention to fight to the convention. I suppose she could merely suspend her campaign, but waiting for Obama to implode between now and August doesn't sound too promising to me. I think his campaign could probably even survive NoQuarter's apocryphal October Suprise video at this point.

I hate to be a nay sayer, to be negative at this point, but I expect Obama to hit 2118 this week or next, and I expect Clinton to withdraw or suspend at the same time. 50% of FL and MI just wasn't enough.

This does give more time for a Credentials Committee review AND a few more YOUTUBE videos! FOX (I can't believe 'm watching this station) has been running Obama and his Rev's and earmarks most of the day.

All states us instant-runoff primaries for nominee choices.  Caucuses are perfectly fine for internal party elections and such, but it is also fine to do them in the primary instead (state party's choice).

The slate of national candidates is set by the national party before any primaries.  The rules can be pretty derivative at first... just get a sufficient number of signatures (or whatever other ballot qualification hurdle) for say 20 states (the specific number isn't too important).

Specific scheduling is done via random selection or rotation through 'pools' of states with various demographic characters.  

First 4 primaries are 'up front' separated by 2 weeks each.  A small state, a southern state, a midwest state, and a western state.  No 'big' states in this list... mainly because they are so damn expensive to run in.

Then a series of 4 big multi-state (something like 12 states each) primaries separated by a month each.  Just randomize which states go on which day.

This gives a good chance for retail campaigning up front, and even enough time to briefly campaign in every state for the big primaries.  It is all over in 6 months... and the convention can be a month later.  

Importantly, IRV means votes for candidate which don't make it aren't wasted... just retabulate when a candidate drops out (or falls below threshold).

Obama has obviously won more pledged delegates.  That does count for something.

Of the remaining 86 pledged delegates it is very unlikely she will win more than 55% of them.  Even if she wins 60% of those delegates she will still need to win 90% of the remaining SDs to get the nomination.

Voting is a measurement system.  We are tying to measure the intent of the votes (duh).  Like all measurement systems, it isn't perfect...  some votes are miscounted, there are biases in how outside influences keep people from participating, and lots of other 'stuff' going on which makes the totals not exactly equal to the actual intent of the voters.

The popular vote arguments just piss me off at this point.  The honest answer is 'we don't really know with any confidence'.  Fl was bad enough with the 'it won't count', but perhaps that was mostly equal in effect... a wash (I personally don't think so, since the demographics of people more likely to vote even in a contest which presumably doesn't matter favor Clinton.)  But MI is completely crap.

'Uncommitted' = really uncommitted despite the state party and the vocal supporters of two campaigns telling people otherwise... this is incredible dishonesty.  Really, count all the votes, so long as they are for my candidate... anyone remember dimpled chad?  Add in 30K+ write-ins that are not and never will be (by law) counted and anyone saying either candidate is 'clearly ahead in the popular vote' by 10s of thousands is seriously either dishonest or stupid.

Oh, and there is of course the little factor that votes taken months ago are a little stale.  How much new information, positive and negative, has come out about both candidates?  How many candidates have dropped out?  What is the will of those voters in FL and MI "now"?  Who knows...

I wouldn't claim that pledged delegates is a more accurate estimate of will of the voters, but it is less uncertain.  Hell, all of this hierarchy is a historic legacy anyway, and I'd love it if we would do something better.

What I will claim, is that when we have different voting systems in different places voting at different times, just summing up the totals is not a generally valid methodology.

I'll go farther to point out:
The difference between the number of people who intended to vote for each candidate and the number of votes counted for each candidate (regardless how you do the counting) is almost certainly far larger than any 'popular-vote lead' either candidate's supporters may claim.

That is what I mean by uncertainty.  So lets be a little less dogmatic.  

He insults the auto industry the two times he's been here and is totally unempathetic to anyone suffering here because of it. Construction skilled trades workers are not voting for Obama, they sense he could care less about them. The blue collar workers in general do not like him for the same reason. Our black columnists in the Detroit Free Press have called Obama out on his neglect.  

Other things about MI most don't know is that we are not a solid Blue state at all. Without the blue collar crowd, our state could easily go Red since the SW side is DeVos/Blackwater/Cheney country, we have a super strong Repug senate, and our Democratic House Leader should have been recalled long ago. He and 10 other democrats play footsy with Bishop the Senate Leader all the time. To top it all off, we have a really bad habit of electing Repug governors like that piece of s--- Engler, not once, twice, but three times!  

I just don't understand why some people think that M and F can be solved to everyone's liking?  Or why their way of seeing things is the RIGHT way. The problems with voting in M and F provide us with lessons to be learned.

All those running for the Dem nomination when M and F were 'punished' agreed to what was going on at the time.