So in the last season of “West Wing,” while the Democratic party was splintered in a divisive struggle between two contenders–one of them a long-time DC operator and the other an idealistic minority candidates–while the already decided white-haired GOP candidate, unpopular within his own party because of some of his policies waited patiently…
The President serving the second term of his presidency was busy organizing a wedding for his daughter.
PAD
• 
Does this mean that George W. has a son we didn’t know about somewhere who’s into høøkërš, wife-beating and blow?
PAD .. does this mean that, if all goes as scripted, the Santos/Obama administration will go “off the air” after being elected? No renewal for the new season?
Peter, have you read Lawrence O’Donnell’s script for how the whole thing might play out, West Wing style?
http://nymag.com/news/politics/45786/
Pretty entertaining, though the real thing hasn’t exactly lacked for that either.
Wow. That really makes me realize how much I miss The West Wing.
I didn’t watch West Wing. Was there a “Rush” organizing an “operation chaos” to keep the two candidates fighting? Or did he steal the idea from West Wing? Or are we actually in the Twilight Zone?
I didn’t watch West Wing. Was there a “Rush” organizing an “operation chaos” to keep the two candidates fighting? Or did he steal the idea from West Wing? Or are we actually in the Twilight Zone?
No, something as over-the-top as a blowhard media figure openly trying to throw a Party’s election process in to disarray like that is so ridiculous that it could never have been tolerated on a major Network show. Even the show’s loyal fans would have thought that that was a transparent straw-man of an opponent for the show’s characters. It’s so obviously wrong that it wouldn’t have worked. Sometimes fiction has to be more realistic than fact, or your audience won’t swallow it.
When someone told me that Jenna was marrying Hagar, I thought the wedding would rock. Then I discovered I was hearing the name wrong.
And president Bartlett was starting a conflict in the Middle East–with no exit strategy, leaving that to his successor.
— Ken from Chicago
Well, as remarked in previous thread, I’d sure think twice about becoming Obama’s VP…
I never watched West Wing when it originally aired – not only politics, but American politics, so guess how interested I was…
Then, last year I caught on to Studio 60, partly, I must admit, due to the mentions in this forum.
Loved that, so picked up a cheap box set of WW season one from E-bay. Was so impressed with that, that I got the family the whole seven season set at Christmas and we’ve all sat and watched the whole series in the last 3-4 months.
Then we watched The American President and our heads collectively imploded in the temporal anomaly that caused…
Sigh. I miss intelligent TV.
Cheers.
I wonder if they will bring back Commander and Chief repeats to show what a woman President is capable of (besides getting her show cancelled).
After re-watching season 6 & 7 and the whole Farscape series I can only imagine that the Republicans and Democrats have no original ideas and have decided to just copy the West Wing. They have monthly meetings to decide what will happen next for their little “show”.
I am now beset by mental imagery of Dubya as Scorpius and Hillary as Rygel…
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
Thanks for that!
Cheers.
You know, anyone who is following the West Wing playing out in the real world would never agree to be Obama’s running mate because that be a be a death sentence.
Nah, Dubya as Scorpius just doesn’t work. Scorpius could actually speak in coherent sentences.
Hey,
Looks like NBC is calling NC for Obama and Indiana is leaning heavy for Clinton though its too early.
Whatcha think? On to Puerto Rico?
–Captain Naraht
He cleaned her clock here in NC.
What’s interesting is that the exit polls are saying that the bitterness between the camps is increasing. While I don’t buy it when they say they will vote for McCain if their candidate doesn’t win–these are probably the same folks who said they’d move to Swaziland if a Bush got elected yet here they stay–it would probably be a good idea for someone to tell Hillary she made a great run but it’s not going to happen. The only way she wins it all now is if something incredibly bad about Obama comes out and if there were anything like that I’d expect they would have found it by now.
Clinton will lose more ground tonight in the delegate count, and yet I full expect her to talk about another great ‘come from behind victory’ in Indiana.
Oh, the humanity!
The Indiana numbers are truly fascinating so far. It’s down to a 52-48 game, and northwest Indiana (i.e. fairly close to Chicago) is the bulk of what’s still to come in.
I suspect that Clinton’s going to hold on and win Indiana, but in a squeaker.
North Carolina is looking like a pretty textbook rout.
TWL
This is going to be soooooooooooooooooooo bloody before the end finally comes.
Isn’t there a Santos line, regarding the long running infighting to get the nomination, about “being part of the democratic party”?
Certainly it looks as though come 2009 you’re going to have the leadership you deserve.
(Commenting, not criticising. The UK is in the same boat)
Out of interest, what kind of voter turnout is happening at this stage? Over here, New Labour just took a right royal kicking in the May local council elections, but that’s on a turn out of as low as 35%.
Cheers.
It’s bad enough that I think Clinton is unelectable to begin with. But if they go to the convention and the superdelegates place her in over Obama, gainsaying the popular vote, the Democratic party will have its own equivalent of Gore winning the popular vote but a (relatively) small group making the final decision. It will undermine the legitimacy of her candidacy and assure that a sizable portion of Obama supporters will drop out, not only from this election, but from any future political endeavors because they’ll feel disenfranchised and betrayed.
PAD
Well, she isn’t dropping out–she is apparently loaning her campaign more money.
I guess she figures there’s no point now in dropping out–what can anyone offer her? But this is becoming a Hail Mary pass with the home team down by 10 and only 8 seconds left on the clock.
The hëll of it is, I’ve no doubt she’s convinced that she’s operating in the best interests of the party. That she genuinely believes that she has a better shot at beating McCain than does Obama.
PAD
I can think of 3 good reasons why she might decide to stay in.
1- She thinks that Obama is another McGovern. Avoiding that possibility is the whole reason they went to the superdelegate plan.(of course, they didn’t exactly figure out just HOW the superdelegates were going to be able to thwart the will of the voters and be able to show their faces again).
2- She thinks he can beat McCain. She thinks ANYONE can beat McCain. And if that anyone isn’t her its going to be a looooong 8 years before she gets even the possibility of another shot. By that time she’s almost as old as McCain is now.
3- She wants the Obama campaign to agree to pay off all of her debts in return for her agreeing to tell her delegates to jump ship and give the nomination to him without any trouble, ensuring a huge post convention bounce. Also, she goes back to the senate with some major plum committee assignment from a grateful party.
She thinks that Obama is another McGovern.
Well, if it’s that, she’s going to have her case bolstered by the fact that McGovern himself just switched his endorsement to Obama.
TWL
Peter DavID: 00 It’s bad enough that I think Clinton is unelectable to begin with. But if they go to the convention and the superdelegates place her in over Obama, gainsaying the popular vote, the Democratic party will have its own equivalent of Gore winning the popular vote but a (relatively) small group making the final decision. It will undermine the legitimacy of her candidacy and assure that a sizable portion of Obama supporters will drop out, not only from this election, but from any future political endeavors because they’ll feel disenfranchised and betrayed.
I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to ask Clinton about that very point.
Funny, you think she’s unelectable and I think you’ve said the same about Obama. I, a guy who votes republican, thinks that McCain is unelectable. So, when all choices are unelectable, where does that leave us? (Well, given the skyrocketing gas prices and the domino effect that’s going to bring about, this will probably be a one term president, no matter who is in office.)
Bill Mulligan: “I can think of 3 good reasons why she might decide to stay in.”
How about:
1) She thinks that Obama will be hit by a bus.
2) She thinks Obama will be hit by a taxi.
3) She thinks Obama will be crushed by a falling star.
Hey, those have better odds than her winning any other way at this point.
Now, not being a total sarky fool, this is just getting sad. She can’t win and she should know by now that she will not be allowed to win through the superdelegates since it’ll turn the party into a battleground.
Her hanging on like this is making her look pathetic. She’s fast becoming the girl in high school who kept saying that she was going to the prom with the school’s #1 jock right up until the moment he walks into the prom with the head of the cheerleading squad.
I wonder if she’ll even have that look on her face at the convention?
Maybe she’s hoping that Obama will commit the one sin that (traditionally) cannot be forgiven: be caught with a dead girl or live boy.
Honestly, short of being run over by a bus, hit by a meteorite, etc, I think that’s what it’s going to take for Obama to lose the nomination.
I never really saw WEST WING. Was their ever an episode where two staes were denied their right to participate in an election? Nah….couldn’t have been because NO ONE would believe something like THAT could ever happen in the U.S.
I never really saw WEST WING. Was their ever an episode where two staes were denied their right to participate in an election? Nah….couldn’t have been because NO ONE would believe something like THAT could ever happen in the U.S.
Jerry, you’re right but from her point of view what does she have to lose? At the very least she may want to wait until the next tuesday election where, if I recall correctly, West VA and some other likely Clinton-friendly state votes. If she wins she can quit with her head held a bit higher.
There’s also the additional possibility I hadn’t considered–she is willing, even eager to take the VP slot and have at least a chance of assuming the presidency. Me, if I were Obama, I’d seriously avoid choosing someone who wants it that badly…hey, if I were him I’d pick someone that people were genuinely afraid of becoming president. Ðìçk Cheney. Boy would that get some notice!
(I note that a similar strategy did not work out so hot for JFK)
I sort of expected more superdelegates to jump by now. Maybe this weekend?
The scary thing is that she has nothing to lose here. Whether you like her or or you don’t, it’s becoming clear to even the most politically inept that Hillary has had the goal of sitting in the Oval Office as something other than the first lady for a long time now. She wants the presidency and anything else is a means to that end.
I don’t see her going back to a senate seat and waiting patiently for the next four/eight/twelve years and going at the job again. If this doesn’t go her way she is, in her mind, out of the game. She’s got to get it now or there is nowhere else for her to go. If that’s the case, then she’ll be more than happy to get as dirty and as bloody as she needs to be to pull this out.
The reason that won’t play well is that it’s starting to smell less like confidence and more like desperation. Not a good smell when you want people punching your chad in the voting booth. It’s also just not going to work if she turns the convention into the SCOTUS and this into Bush v. Gore. The Democrats get away with playing the race card waaaaaaay too often and they have a large voter block amongst the black population in the US. They cut the knees out from under Obama and they can kiss the card and a lot of that voter block good-bye for a long, looooooong time to come.
I don’t like or greatly trust Obama, but Hillary is well on her way to living down to so many of the negative things that have been said about her.
Clinton is only 60, which means in 2016 she’ll be younger than McCain is now. She might be thinking that it’s all or nothing today, but 6 years from now she’ll be sitting in the Senate and thinking about another run. So she might believe she has nothing to lose, but in a few years she’ll regret that.
(Does anyone else still feel weird when writing dates like “2016”? Numbers like that still feel very sci-fi to me.
By the way, two states were *not* denied the right to participate in the election. Those states (one of which I live in) were given the same chance to participate as every other state. The state elected officials (both Democrat and Republican) screwed that up. So the leaders of the states threw away that right, it wasn’t taken from them.
Since then, those state level politicians have been talking about about disenfranchisement non-stop, essentially telling their constituents, “We took your votes away from you in the primary, so you should take your votes away from yourselves in the general election.” I hope the citizens of Michigan and Florida hold them responsible when their elections come around.
Bill Mulligan wrote: “I sort of expected more superdelegates to jump by now. Maybe this weekend?”
I expected that, too. MSNBC.com had an interesting article about why the remaining Supers are waiting. Basically, a lot of the undecideds are elected officials and they’re afraid that endorsing Obama will pìšš øff all the Clinton suporters in their constituencies. That’s how bitter this campaign got, some of the people who need to vote are afraid to because it could keep them from getting re-elected.
I think the best thing for Hillary to do is to stay in the race, but completely change the tone. No more negative ads, nothing bad said about Obama under any circumstances, occasional *compliments* of Obama, and every third sentence she says should be about unifying the party. Basically, she drops out without actually dropping out. If she does that for the rest of the campaign, she can make it seem like the whole thing was a friendly competition, not a death match where 50% of her supporters feel the need to swear allegiance to McCain because they hate Obama for winning.
Question about superdelegates. i know many have made commitments to one canditate or the other canadate. But is there any requirement that they can’t all switch their vote between now and then? Because if there is nothing focing those delegates to vote the way they annouced, then doesn’t Hilary still stand a dismally small chance, if she can convince them to change their vote (or if Obama crashes and burns)?
Correct, there is no requirement that they can’t change their minds. All they’ve done so far is indicate who they plan to vote for. Until they actually vote at the convention, nothing is official.
In fact, some superdelegates have already switched sides. Since Super Tuesday, there have been a handful that have switched from Clinton to Obama. There haven’t been any that have switched from Obama to Clinton.
As for the chance that a significant amount would switch to Hillary, yeah, it’s possible. The chance is just so small that scientists need special microscopes to measure it. Unless Obama is found having sex with the corpse of Adolf Hitler, they’re not going to abandon him at this point.
Correct, there is no requirement that they can’t change their minds. All they’ve done so far is indicate who they plan to vote for. Until they actually vote at the convention, nothing is official.
That’s not entirely true. I believe that they have until the last primary date to change their mind. Once it’s past that date, whomever they’ve pledged their vote to, they must vote for them on the first vote at the DNC. If there’s a second vote, then ANY delegate can change who they want to vote for and it’ll be pandamonium.
That’s why it’s very important for Obama to have 2,025 delegates locked into place before the DNC. This way Clinton can’t do an end around to gain the nomination.
No, there’s absolutely no requirement about the last primary. That’s when the DNC would *like* to have this all wrapped up by. Howard Dean has been telling everyone who will listen that the superdelegates *should* make their decision by then, but that’s it.
The supers haven’t “pledged” their votes in any legal sense yet. They’ve made promises, but those aren’t binding in any way. Nothing binding actually happens until the convention. So if Hillary absolutely wanted to, she could continue asking them to change their votes after June 3rd.
Jason is correct. The super delegates can change their mind at any time until the actual vote at the convention. Remember, the purpose of the supers was to intervene if it looked like the leading candidate was going to be a loser.
If Hillary is seriously still in the race, she should put her focus on courting the supers.
My gut feeling is that Hillary does not really know what she is going to do at this time. I do not expect her to be consistent in her conduct for the next week or so until she decides what she is going to do: concede or fight to the convention.
Obama is winning in the white territories. He’s beating Hillary with the independents, with the youth vote, with the new voters who are pushing the primary numbers to record levels, and in small states that are almost exclusively white. He’s a smart accessible guy who owes his success to small donors, and his winning his party’s nomination isn’t casual.
Obama’s second place finish in Indiana pulled in more votes than John Kerry did in the 2004 general election. Even if the 25% of Hillary voters who say they’re going to refuse to vote for Obama in the general election are true to their word, that’s still like double the second highest presidential election total in US History.
All Hillary’s extended campaign seems to be accomplishing is beating the Wright issue to death, which means Obama can rightfully call McCain on playing the “Wright card” if McCain resorts to doing just that. Not a luxury Kerry could indulge in when he was swift-boated.
Obama’s vulnerability is with the older boomers. I think the best candidate should alienate the segment of the population who shelters our remaining severe problems.
Pertaining to my post of “two staes being “denied” their vote”….
I understand “why” they were stripped of their seats at the DNC…what I can’t fathom is the fact that more people aren’t up in arms about it. Think about it….if another nation had something like this happen, all of our political leaders would be makeing speeches condeming such an action. Seems to me like this is a HUGH civil rights violation. (Even though the DNC is considered a private organization…not public).
Which adds a point: Just because a delegate (not super delegate) was appointed to vote for a candadite by their states primary…they are not BOUND to vote for that person.
Can everyone say “Florida 2000”?
How have you not reconciled your own concern?
The rules the FL and MI democrats broke were their own rules. They both refused the opportunity to approve do-overs. There are no civil rights against the direct outcome of your own corruption.
Ok, I’ll bite. I know I’ll regret it, but I’ll bite.
Mike, since nothing you just posted up there really had anything to do with what I said and didn’t support or refute it….
Why’d you go and quote me before posting your little screed? Did you just miss having me smack your “logic” around the last few months while I’ve been mostly away from the blog or was I supposed to get something out of it?
How does my post qualify as a screed?
You brought up race where it wasn’t relevant, and I cited the facts that demonstrated it. The appropriate reply from you seems to be “thank you” — or no reply at all since I didn’t asked for any.
Jerry: “I understand “why” they were stripped of their seats at the DNC…what I can’t fathom is the fact that more people aren’t up in arms about it. Think about it….if another nation had something like this happen, all of our political leaders would be makeing speeches condeming such an action. Seems to me like this is a HUGH civil rights violation. (Even though the DNC is considered a private organization…not public).”
I think the difference between private and public is much more significant than that. I really can’t imagine the US calling this a civil rights violation if another country had done this. I have never heard a news story about another country’s primaries. This an internal party matter.
Also the punishment was only on the race for one position. All the state primary elections that were held that day still count. So plenty of people still went to the polls that day and had their counts voted on other races.
Another thing to remember, usually the nomination is decided by about 20 states. The fact that 48 states and a handful of territories will decide this time is actually a gigantic improvement. I grew up in North Carolina and their primary just mattered for the first time in my life. The people of NC are hardly going to shed a tear for two states that are crying about going through the same irrelivance that NC *always* goes through. Especially when it was those states’ own fault.
I think there isn’t more outcry simply because it is the states’ fault. They broke the rules, they got the consequences. It’s hard to feel sympathy for a basketball player who intentionally fouled the other team. Plus, the focus has been on how this affects the candidates more than the people, so the actual voters of Florida and Michigan seem pretty faceless in all this.
That could be the name of a band: Hugh Civil and the Rights.
Yeah, I think Jason has it right. The DNC can do this any way they choose. There’s no law that says they HAVE to have primaries at all. They could go to the convention and release a statement saying they appreciate the input but they’re going with Elliot Spitzer.
Now, jerry’s right that the voters will take it as a dis, which, given the importance of Florida and Michigan, is a pretty dangerous game to play.
Especially since their “crime” was to dare challenge the “right” of Iowa and New Hampshire to have such influence on the result. Now I don’t know if the average person is all that bothered by this. The Democrats better hope not since now they have a good reason to feel disenfranchised. The counter argument that they brought it on themselves for daring to think they should have the influence of sacred Iowa may not win too many hearts and minds. But they’d better do something; losing Florida and Michigan and winning the election is a difficult task.
Of course, the irony is that both states would have had more influence if they HAD waited, since the early contests only got rid of the marginal candidates like Edwards and Biden.
FL and MI weren’t encroaching in IA’s or NH’s influence, they were encroaching on SC’s influence.
Candidates have more access to the totality of IA and NH’s populations, so reporting on those states is more telling of the campaigns’ effectiveness and competence. Then following up with SC diversifies the campaign audiences. Those are virtues other than vanity, and I haven’t heard anyone say why that isn’t as good a primary set-up as we can systematize.
FL and MI could hold their primaries now, and they could have as much an influence on this race as they could hope to have. They passed on the opportunity to conduct redos. No one is entitled to civil rights protections against the direct and equal outcome of their own actions.
Well, I’d probably pick two states that were a little closer to the actual demographics of the country as a whole. Given that both are something like 96% White that shouldn’t be too difficult. Even South Carolina hardly makes up for that (and Hispanics seem very underrepresented in all 3).
At any rate, I suspect that the folks in Michigan and Florida might not be swayed by these arguments, if they are truly sore about this situation. Sadly, I don’t think even Howard Dean will be able to keep their electoral votes from counting in the general election.
But Obama is smart enough to know he has some work to do there and it isn’t an insurmountable hurdle by any means–Florida might be the tougher nut to crack.
At this point the only thing standing between Obama and the White House would be some of his nuttier supporters scaring off folks who are on the fence. I look at McCain and I see Bob Dole, with much the same end result.
There have been a couple of proposals to limit the number of primary days. One was to have all the primaries split evenly across 6 days, the other plan was 4, I think. Both went nowhere, but maybe after all this is over they can try again with better results.
I hope something like that happens. If nothing changes then the next dozen elections will go the usual route, with the first 20 or so primaries deciding the whole thing. That sucks for the later states, they get very low voter turn out, which affects the local races.
Or maybe more states will move their primaries to Super Tuesday, which is the earliest date the rules say they can move to. If everything other than those earlier states did that, then maybe the rest would concede and move their dates to Super Tuesday also. Even if they didn’t, it would still shorten the process. I hate how long this is taking. I also hate how states were trying to leap frog to get earlier and earlier, so I support the exitence of the rule that Florida and Michigan violated. We don’t need primaries happening a full year before the actual election, which is what we’d be headed for if there were no rules.
At this point the only thing standing between Obama and the White House would be some of his nuttier supporters scaring off folks who are on the fence.
There I totally agree with you Bill (though I’m not so sure I agree it’s a fait accompli and Michelle should start picking out curtains yet….) The more I hear from some of his more deluded supporters, the more the bloom comes off his rose. Honestly, I think they’re more a danger to his chances than anything his enemies could do.
FL and MI will be a problem, hopefully a solution will be found. However much some people like to bany about that it’s all thier own fault, so they can’t complain, the fact is that is was not the voters in those states who decided to move things around. The state leadership did, so however you slice it, the voters had thier rights taken away by the actions of others. So telling them ‘tough noogies’ and blaming them for it doesn’t strike me as a particularly wise strategy if you want them in your corner come election time…