Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Clinton's Big Night
Hillary Clinton is back... sort of. She has won the Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas primaries. Barack Obama won the Vermont primary and is leading the Texas Caucuses which are still reporting results. Texas is likely to be a wash in terms of delegates. Clinton's primary victory gave her exactly four more delegates than Obama. This is because delegates are elected by a sort of Multi-Member Plurality version of PR. Her win in Ohio gives her a twelve delegate edge. She picked up five more in Rhode Island. So, all those wins last night gave her 21 more delegates than Obama. Subtract the result from Vermont, you're down to an 18 delegate edge before the Texas caucus results come in. Obama had a much bigger win in the so-called Potomac Primaries a while back (about 45 delegates over Clinton). However, the media will play this as a big win. The perception will be larger than reality. Having said that these good times are unlikely to roll for Clinton as the road ahead gets bumpy from here to Pennsylvania. Obama is likely to win by sizeable margins in Wyoming this weekend and Mississippi next week. This is still Obama's race to lose. All Clinton did last night was to give herself another day to fight on.
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9 comments:
Could you point to one poll that suggests Obama has a sizeable lead in Wyoming or Mississippi? Also could you point to one poll where Hillary faces a battle in Pennsylvania, especially considering this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/pa/pennsylvania_democratic_primary-240.html
-scott
thescottross.blogspot.com
I'll answer the second question first. Even the link you have shows Pennsylvania tightening. The latest poll has it within six points. I expect Pennsylvania to end up like Ohio (a small Clinton win).
As for your first question... There are no polls in MS or WY. However, Mississippi has a large African American population, and is in the deep south. Similar states, AL, LA, GA etc. have gone for Obama. Thus, I expect the same there. Similarly, Wyoming is another one of these rural Western Caucus states. Obama has been successful in the mountain states winning CO, ID, UT all of which neighbour Wyoming. He also has had great success in caucuses (see Texas, Iowa etc.). The exception to both these rules was Nevada which was basically a tie between the two.
Hillary won Ohio by 10 poiints, is that a small victory?
Also with no empirical facts whatsoever, all you offer is opinion. The fact that Mississippi has 30% blacks, and Obama gets 80% of those, thus 24% I don't see how that implies he'd get an additional 27%. You may say well history shows that in other demographics he would get over 27% the thing is every state has been different.
I honestly think those who are Obama friendly or Obama supporters have a high propensity to ignore any logic in their arguments.
-scott
thescottross.blogspot.com
New York which has more black people then some of those states you mentioned at 26.6% yet Hillary won handily there, but then that doesn't agree with you're opinion.
-scott
thescottross.blogspot.com
Scott, don't blacks make up a very large percentage of Democratic primary voters in Mississippi, the "blackest" state in the Union? Your criticism seems to assume that the entire state is voting in the Democratic Party's primary, when in fact white voters in MS are mostly Republicans.
Where are you getting this information? Please provide some evidence that suggests in Mississippi most blacks are democrats.
-scott
Umm... Scott, really? The number of black republicans is about equal to the number of gay and lesbian republicans. They exist, but not in any large number. Hillary won New York because... wait for it... she is the Senator for New York! New York is irrelevant. States that are relevant are states with similar demographics that are in the same REGION. Thus, I pointed to Alabama and Louisiana where a large black population voted overwhelmingly for Obama.
Alabama is a good case study. There Blacks made up 48% of voters and voted 83% in favour of Obama. On the other border of MS you'll find Louisiana where blacks made up 48% of voters and voted 86% in favour of Obama. By contrast only 4% of Republican voters were African-American.
Here's something to mull over in the 2004 general election, 90% of Mississippi African-Americans voted for Kerry. They made up 34% of the voting population. They made up roughly 2/3 of the Democratic votes in the election. Here's the link:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/MS/P/00/epolls.0.html
I saw it but again you saying most blacks in mississippi are democrats, and that is not a fact as you illustrated. You cite because most blacks voted democrat they must therefore be democrat. If that logic is true most Americans are republican because they voted republican.
You're argument was most blacks are democrat, ie registered democrats, but again it appears this was just speculation on your part.
-scott
Maybe this is a Canadian thing, but I would say that if most X voted Y, then you have a fairly good argument, all other things being equal, for the assertion that most X are Y (politically speaking). The assertion becomes even stronger when most X have voted Y repeatedly, election after election, for generations.
That southern blacks have voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates since they began voting in large numbers in the 1960s is, to the best of my knowledge, undisputed. If you know otherwise, I'd be delighted to see the evidence.
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