SLATE: Pundits, cut the fairy tales. Obama has the nomination. [View All]

[RainDog]

http://www.slate.com/id/2190556/

Go ahead and say, if you like, that Hillary Clinton retains a serious chance of winning the Democratic nomination. If you say this, however, you must describe a set of circumstances whereby this could happen. Try not to make it sound like a fairy tale.

Tim Noah, political correspondent for Slate Magazine, notes that it is mathematically impossible for Hillary to win via caucus/primary votes. Obama could possibly win, but he would need such huge percentages (71%) the probability of this is nil. This means that the super delegates will be making the tie-breaking votes.

Noah continues:

How do superdelegates choose the nominee? Answer: They tend to follow the popular will. That's why superdelegates gravitated to Clinton when polls showed she looked like a sure thing, and then to Obama when he started outpolling her. That's why more than one-third of the superdelegates remain uncommitted now. Believe me, it isn't because they haven't been paying attention, and (except for a few head cases) it isn't because, after 23 Democratic debates, they still don't know which candidate tickles their fancy. It's because they're reluctant to be out of step with the popular will as expressed through all the primaries and caucuses.

...This is an important point, so I'm going to repeat it. The longer a superdelegate waits to choose, the likelier he'll choose whoever the primaries and caucuses chose.

...According to Slate's delegate calculator, Clinton needs to win, on average, 70 percent of the vote in every remaining contest in order to surpass Obama on pledged delegates. Remember when I said there was no way Obama would capture 71 percent? There's no way Clinton's going to capture 70 percent, either.

Noah goes on to create a variety of scenarios in which super delegates might be persuaded that, even tho she is behind, she is "close enough" to overrule the primary/caucus votes. The only situation in which she can try to make such a claim is if MI is included... and Obama WASN'T EVEN ON THE BALLOT THERE. However, if you give the "not-Clinton" votes to him, he still maintains a lead over Clinton among primary votes.

The only way Clinton could win, Noah notes, is if she goes totally Lee Atwater. In that case, she will still lose because she will disgust so many people they won't vote for her. And she'd lose her senate seat.

so, pleeeease, Hillary people. Please read this with the knowledge that we need to begin to build unity. People on both sides have acted like jackasses... me included, unfortunately. We've invested a lot of emotion in one or the other candidate, so it's understandable that people in an internet environment can lose their cool.

OBAMA PEOPLE - YOU, ESPECIALLY, should read this with a view that we need to build unity. Time to stop giving out or rising to bait.

Winners do not need to do that sort of thing. If you are an Obama supporter, yet you continue to engage in personal feuds, who are you really all about on this board? If you post a factual thread and you have haters, put them on ignore. Alert if they try to call out with personal slurs. And most importantly, DON'T CREATE THOSE THREADS YOURSELF.

It is time to stop the haters on both sides. It is time to make apologies and work on the November election. I'm sorry if your candidate is not going to be on the ballot. I would be devastated myself. However, as I've noted before, I have voted "for the team" for nearly my entire voting life. It's not always fun, but the options are infinitely worse. We have lived through an amazing, historic moment and we can make history for our children and grandchildren to talk about. The smashing of the Republican Party.

As was also noted here this week, the Republicans strategy at this time is to divide the democrats and suppress the vote. Don't be KKKKarl Rove's useful idiot. Don't be McCain's tool.

when I was at the Wed. Obama rally, the campaign rightly said that you are representing for Obama, even if you are not part of the actual campaign, when you speak in support of him. So do the right thing. Dust the dirt off your shoulders. That's what you've got to do.