This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

Categories

Calendar

January 2008
S M T W T F S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Post-SC Dem Delegates

There we go. After Obama’s big win we can see that the lines moved… a little bit…

Actually, even though it wasn’t by a huge amount, this is the first time you can see the Hillary line make a move that didn’t seem trivial. She dropped from having 54.8% of the delegates yesterday to having 51.9% of them now. Now, that is still more than 50%, but it is dropping.

Obama went from having 31.9% to having 34.3%.

For the Dems, next stop is Super Tuesday. So far there have been 443 delegates determined. On Super Tuesday there will be almost 1700 determined. In other words, aside from “momentum” factors, what has happened so far isn’t worth all that much. So all those percentage lines may well make sudden step-change moves on that day rather than the sort of gradual stuff we have seen so far with Clinton basically holding steady, Obama slowly gaining, and Edwards gradually dropping. There will be nothing gradual about Super Tuesday. We will come out of it, and things will have just changed.

And the next 10 days… they will be intense.

In the mean time… Republicans on Tuesday in Florida.

And a meaningless Democratic Primary in Florida too… except it may show if Obama gets any kind of bounce out of South Carolina. And of course, Hillary wants to change the decision about seating the Florida delegates. If she has her way, it may matter after all.

Double

Now that’s a margin. With 99% reporting as I write this, Obama got more than DOUBLE the number of votes that Hillary did. That is big. This will get some momentum going into Super Duper Tuesday. It is mathematically impossible for us to exit Super Tuesday with an absolute majority in anybody’s hands in this race. It is possible however for somebody to get a commanding lead and momentum at that point. I hope that doesn’t happen though. It is VERY possible at this point that we come out of February 5th with the game still not over.

As of the last polls I have seen, Clinton is still ahead in all the big Super Tuesday states. We’ll see if that starts changing in the next 10 days. I think this win is big enough, and the distaste at the tone of the Clintons in the last week or so may well start to change that.

We shall see.

But this result is EXACTLY what was needed to make this a big battle and continue things forward. The only thing that would have made it more so is if Edwards had done better today. But one can’t have everything.

At the very least Edwards has promised not to get out of the race. To go all the way to the convention. And that is exactly what is needed to enable the brokered convention scenario. So, for the moment, GO EDWARDS! :-)

Having said all that, Obama really is inspiring. As much as I may or may not agree with him on many issues, just listening to him makes me want to vote for him. And I still stand by my pre-Iowa predictions. He will win the Democratic nomination. McCain will get the Republicans. And then Obama will win in the general election. That is not only my prediction, but the more things go on, the more I feel like any other outcome will just make me massively depressed.

(Assuming of course Ron Paul doesn’t make a come from behind win. :-)

Clinton in Second

CNN just declared Clinton for 2nd place. Damn. Edwards in 2nd would have been really exciting.

Not like we don’t have enough excitement. This race in both parties has been awesome so far.

I just keep rooting for the scenarios that will keep it all going as long as humanly possible.

Obama Wins South Carolina

Projection as soon as the polls closed on CNN. Hillary fighting for second with Edwards. Apparently first place wasn’t even close. Just as the polls predicted. Unlike New Hampshire.