no win for Obama
written by Truthseeker , February 10, 2008

There is no way Obama will win. Remember New Hampshire? Obama had a two-digit lead there is scientifically conducted opinion polls. I mean even supposing anything outside the margins, +/-5%, he still wins, right? Well, Clinton won that one, shock, surprise, and this campaign would have been long finished, wouldn't it?
Check

...
written by D P , February 10, 2008

Truthseeker, he can and will win. Opinion polls in Washington State had Obama leading Clinton by about 12 points. Yesterdays result in the caucuses had him win by 37 points in Washington (with a similar result in Nebraska and a large lead in Louisiana) which puts him almost 70 delegates ahead of Clinton in pledged delegates and overall about 30 behind in total delegates. Once Obama cleans up in the Potomac primary (where he will likely lead in total delegates) the superdelegates are going to be feeling increased pressure to support the popular candidate and Clinton's 100 superdelegate lead is going to whittle away.

DP
written by Truthseeker , February 10, 2008

Come on, Obama was way ahead in New Hampshire, like 15% of the electorate there changed their mind in the last like 24 hours to voting and they all voted for Hillary Clinton!! And this only happened in machine-counting areas!! If Hillary had lost NH the campaign would be over by now.

There was also funny business in Nevada, remember?

Please do not be fooled by these small Obama wins, the fix is in for the large states, Ohio and Texas are coming, and Virginia is also a possible steal. Remember the super-delegates will also be swayed by the popular vote and if the Clintons win the big states, then the supers might just have every excuse for backing Hillary, even if that means McCain wins in November. Remember too that the caucuses traditionally have much lower voter turnout than the primaries, so for all the victories Obama is notching up, in the overall vote count, it does not amount to too many votes.

fact check
written by Truthseeker , February 10, 2008

I got this from Salon,

Given a set of medium-sized towns which includes a statistically significant amount of both hand and machine counting, the ratio of votes received by each candidate from AccuVote machines should match the overall ratio for the towns. For example, for towns with 500-800 votes, 40% of total votes were by AccuVote, so I would expect the individual candidates to show 40% of their votes from AccuVote.

Let's limit the sample to demographically similar towns with total vote counts of 500-800. Some of these towns count by hand, and others use Diebold optical scanners.

On the Republican side, the statistics look as you'd expect:

total: hand-47.0%; accuvote-53.0%
McCain: hand-47.5%; accuvote-52.5%
Romney: hand-46.3%; accuvote-53.7%
Huckabee: hand-47.2%; accuvote-52.8%
Giuliani: hand-45.9%; accuvote-54.1%
Paul: hand-47.9%; accuvote-52.1%

But look at the Democratic results:

total: hand-60.5%; accuvote-39.5%
Clinton: hand-57.6%; accuvote-42.4%
Obama: hand-64.0%; accuvote-36.0%
Edwards: hand-58.5%; accuvote-41.5%
Richardson: hand-59.8%; accuvote-40.2%

Thus, in towns with total vote counts between 500 and 800, the vote totals of Clinton and Obama -- and only Clinton and Obama -- differ significantly depending on whether the votes were counted by hand or by optical scanner.

Looking at Obama and CLinton Only
Clinton Optical Scan: 52.9507%
Barack Hand Count:52.9506%
Clinton Hand Count: 47.0494%
Barack Optical Scan: 47.0493%

The vote totals are swapped PERFECTLY. Even adding one single vote, and it starts to deviate from perfection! I don't know if that means anything, but it sure is WEIRD!!

Here is an article from Alternet.

...
written by D P , February 10, 2008

I think the reason for the discrepancies is fairly simple. Obama was trailing Clinton 20 points up until the middle of January. In those states people can vote early by sending in absentee ballots which will make the vote skewed towards the polling one or two weeks prior to the election. This leads to a less votes than a poll right before the primary would predict. But this doesn't apply anymore. Obama hasn't had any major changes in the last 2 weeks or so. Thus the absentee ballots will not be significantly skewed.

Additionally, I think people are making too big of a deal over Texas. As it stands Obama will lose in the primary side, but since 25% of the pledged delegates for Texas are determined by caucuses which Obama tends to win by larger margins than the polls (like yesterday in Washington) he will probably come out even.

Add in the fact that Obama is pulling in more money than Clinton 3:2 (with her $5 million loan) then we can see that Obama isn't going to be losing any territory in the future. If he maintains steady-state until the primary then it will be a brokered convention (where he will lead by 100 to 200 total delegates). If he continues gaining like he has for the last month then he will clearly win before the convention.

Anyways, I will see how well these predictions play out with the upcoming Potomac primaries. If those delegates are assigned as I expect, Obama will have an absolute lead early next week with a large amount of momentum going into the March primaries.

...
written by Mr. Vikii , February 10, 2008

Well, the truth is that the Obama campaign is doing well. In a race as close as this seems to be, I find it a little too Kenyan for anyone to say with iron-fist certainty that 'Obama cannot win' or 'Obama will SURELY win'.

The truth is that Obama has a far much better campaign strategy than Hillary. Anybody who listened to his Virginia address after the Washington state, Louisiana and Nebraska victories will see a man determined to win the Psychological battle. His decision to focus on McCainn instead of the more immediate opponent-Hillary, is cleverly calculated to show a candidate least worried by the Democratic Party nominations. He wants people to believe the nomination is in the bag and from what I have seen, people will start to believe him.

Bill Clinton, a man who enjoys tremendous respect and love from the African-American community has got it all wrong this time round. He has managed with some success to depict Obama as the black candidate (that obviously is negative ethnicity), but still Obama continues to cause his wife sleepless nights. His utterances about South Carolina can only be described as defeatist unless he can craft an explanation for Obama's easy victories in predominantly white states like Nebraska, utah, Idaho and Washington State. The truth is that Barack is giving the right message---Hope and change. I have no doubt in my mind that if he wins the nomination, he will hand McCainn a crashing defeat.

Then there is the issue of the 'Superdelegates' which I am a little ignorant about. Who exactly are these fellows? If what they are telling us is the truth, that superdelegates are well connected individuals in Democratic Party circles, does that not give Hillary an advantage (because their votes carry more weight)? For heavens sake Bill Clinton is the immediate former President. He only left Washington 8 years ago. Does that not mean he still has close ties with most of them especially because he knew all along that his wife would be running? I am foreseeing a situation where Barack will prove to be more popular than Hillary but still lose the nominations. Could someone please explain this to me?

re: super delegates
written by cindy , February 10, 2008

Then there is the issue of the 'Superdelegates' which I am a little ignorant about. Who exactly are these fellows? If what they are telling us is the truth, that superdelegates are well connected individuals in Democratic Party circles, does that not give Hillary an advantage (because their votes carry more weight)? For heavens sake Bill Clinton is the immediate former President. He only left Washington 8 years ago. Does that not mean he still has close ties with most of them especially because he knew all along that his wife would be running? I am foreseeing a situation where Barack will prove to be more popular than Hillary but still lose the nominations. Could someone please explain this to me?

The super delegates are the ones with the final say (quite tricky) and given that some of them had made their choice at the start of the campaign, Obama may find himself in a tricky situation. We have Texas and Ohio coming up in March which should really be decisive but I doubt Clinton will concede in case she under performs. Therefore, this means that the duel goes on till the convention (August) when the super delegates eventually bring it all to an end. I have a sneaky feeling we might have court cases coming up after this!

Super delegates explained
written by Nekessa , February 11, 2008

Super delegates are Democratic Congresspeople, national committee members, governors, or party leaders, such as former presidents (Bill Clinton) and vice presidents (Al Gore).

Here, Speaker Nancy Pelosi discusses with Wolf Blitzer the role of the super delegates in the Democratic Party.

...
written by Truthseeker , February 11, 2008

Obama seems to win by large margins where he does, and especially in the caucuses. Hillary wins in the big states, but by very small margins, so small in fact that in Nevada for example, she actually made off with fewer delegates.

And even these wins in the big states are explicable. First, New York and New Jersey are her home states. New Hampshire is still dodgy and would have been far different had the students not been away on the winter break. In California, a large percentage of ballots was mailed in early, when Clinton had a sizeable lead (some said insurmountable lead). Still she won by a mere 12 points, and campaigned there 11 times that final week. Obama started to close the gap before the election, and he still managed to win the white vote in California. He even managed to win the endorsement of the biggest Latin newspaper, which may portend a potential for an increased approval from Hispanics.

P.S. Mexican society is variegated but the darker you are, the closer to the bottom, so much so than American society even. This for me, along with all the gangland rivalries of the ghettoes, may explain why Hispanics are along with Asians, the only clearly anti-Obama demographic. Anyone care to explain Asian-Americans?

On endorsements, I am afraid many of Obama's came late in the game, perhaps a little too late, but they will continue to make a path for him right through to the convention.

It is not just cynicism, but I doubt that the Clintons, who do have a look-in on the true levers of power, will lose this election. Wasn't it old Uncle Joe who said you do not win an election by campaigning, but by counting the votes? Nevada and New Hampshire already reported irregularities, Florida and Michigan have been force called by Hillary, and will in the end provide justification for the super-delegates to announce in the Blinton column.

what now?
written by Stephen Wanyama , February 11, 2008

They have been dissing Obama on account of his wins in caucuses, saying it was peer pressure and all, that the turnout was too low, that only zealots attended, that it was mostly blacks and the upper class that loved Obama, that Iowa was an outlier, but, but the weekend wins show he can do well anywhere, and that he can beat Shrillary even in all white contests.

Weekend voting allowed a full day for any idler to come vote. Clinton campaigned very hard in Washington state, so hard in fact that the quite humiliating big margin defeats pushed her to sacking her campaign manager.

If Obama can, as expected win the Potomacs, he will have true momentum, some would even call it inertia, which is what I have but now the cliff is behind me and my legs are in the air and I am coming back to earth asking myself, 'why do I care? Does it matter at all?'

...
written by aeichener , February 11, 2008

I am glad he is doing well. :-) A much better candidate for the US people at large (Democrats and Republicans alike) than Shrillary.

There is one thing however that really increasingly ails me, and the more I hear Obama speaking on TV, the more it ails me.

Firstly, it annoys me ever more to see Obama being frequently called "black" or a "black candidate" (even here in KI who should know better). That good fellow is just as black as he is white, unless you are mentally caught up in pre-18161 slaveholder mentality. Once again: he is no more a black politician than he is a white American.

On another issue, I might politely disagree with Vikii who (app)lauded his campaign strategy.
The problem that I see is indeed that Obama - rather that being shoved into the "black corner" by Hillary, as had been alleged here - himself tries for a minority appeal not so much in content, but in style. The guy is certainly most able to speak a crisp and clear neutral(ized) "majority English" (which is the English he learned and grew up with), but instead, he purposefully employs black American English in his speeches, with a strong black English prosody. Furtheron, his very ostentatious Martin Luther King rhetorics imitation gets increasingly tedious (again, for me) the more I hear it.

There is nothing wrong in having an ethnic accent, in showing an ethnically rooted prosody. Politicians can even use it to their advantage. But Obama's team seems to forget that in order to be finally elected, he must appear to be a president of ALL Americans, and not just of 13 % or so. Flaunting a heavily black (or Hispanic) speaking style may not be conducive to this goal.

Alexander

* * *

As a slightly repetitive afterthought, here is a concurrent voice on Hillary's style and prosody, a blog entry somewhere from the Web:

"SFT" Nov 11th, 2007 at 1:32 AM:
He was sooooo Presidential and so huge in character and stature. He definitely owned the night. I was transfixed. It was as if no one else had spoken.
Sorry to disagree about Hillary, but her cadence tonight felt contrived - as if over studied. I'm a retired speech and language therapist and her 'prosody' was not a natural rhythm or tone. It was just odd. It made me feel uncomfortable as a listener."

Same here and even more, as to Obama. Once again, my take: that guy's handlers have not really understood to whom their candidate must appeal. Obama needs not appeal to black folks; they will vote for him ANYHOW.

He needs to appeal to a part of the large white majority: to the (au fond good-hearted) Bush-disappointed Southern hillbilly; to the Detroit manager; to the Midwestern farmer. And you don't win these people over just with an abridged second-class MLK pocket edition, suitably bleached and diluted for white folks. Which is what he is delivering right now.

...
written by a guest , February 11, 2008

(See editorial note below. Eds.)

The black-white issue. Well, it is interesting to note that people of colour didn't attain their full rights until the 1960s (The independent black nation in the USA is not really much older than ours). Until that point in time anyone who had a drop of black blood was black, no matter how white one looked. This is why BLACK offers such a wide spectrum of colour.

So culturally and historically speaking, even if people might want this definition overhauled, the term being BLACK, esp. in America, has a history deeper than mere appearance or ethno make-up of the individual. It is paid for and bought by the blood of all those individuals, irrespective of hue, who died in the struggle, being BLACK. All this folk who were born as a result of their BLACK slave mums being raped or came to being in any other way as a result of BLACK/white interaction (Thomas Jefferson comes to mind) found a home and comfort in being BLACK. They were part of the struggle and they were/are all degraded and bound by the N-Word, Obama is no exception.

Knowing also how much currency light skinned people have, it is probably not surprising that thess folks intermixed with other BLACK folk and one could argue that there are few BLACKS in the US of A who don't have some white blood in them. Conversely, there are probably a few white people running around who have some BLACK blood in them. I believe there's a movie or two about this.

Now times are a changing and people can be bi-racial or multi-racial ala Tiger Woods which is fair enuff.
While one can argue that Obama is not BLACK, one can say with certainty that he is not white and he'd probably be laughed off the park if he went around making such proclamations, as opposed say to a Mariah Carey or a Wentworth Miller.

As for the Obamas speeches and their relation to the good reverend, one might argue that the reverend Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't BLACK either considering the amount of racial mixing that has gone on in the USA. The good reverend might just have had a few pints of white blood in himself too, therefore Obama is just stealing from one of his own anyway. Are you trying to fault MLK jrs great oratory skills? What is this disdain for the way black folk talk?

PS: I don't see any problem in any person BLACK or white emulating or stealing from Dr. King. He was a class act. Is there any evidence of Obama talking any different now than he did before? If we go strictly by the ethnic make-up of people, Malcolm X (probably the greatest BLACK hero)wasn't BLACK either. He was a product of intergenerational mixing. And neither was our very dear Bob Marley who strictly speaking was biracial. By that logic you could discount most of the BLACK folks in America, from being BLACK at all.

However it is important to point out that the candidate views himself as a BLACK man (after a lot of soul searching, I gather. He wrote a whole book 'bout it) and probably identifies himself more with that side of himself. As for me, he's BLACK (all you need to get into this exclusive club is BLACK lineage [nothing purer than a Luo from Siaya] and identifying yourself as such).

(The editors would welcome an explanation by the author (however brief) inhowfar s/he distinguishes beteween "black" and "BLACK" and what exactly his/her difference in capitalization is meant to convey. Eds.)

BLACK
written by Johnny B.Goode , February 11, 2008

No distinction really. Just forgot to capitalize some of those black.

...
written by Cicero , February 12, 2008

The republican smear machine has been plugged in. Will Obama survive the Swift Boating that is about to come his way?

Watch this video.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sVeFVtcdSYY

Opinions from across
written by New Day , February 12, 2008

Below are some views expressed by a cross section of Americans during an interview about Obama's prospects for the US presidency before he declared his interest for the top seat.

Scot Reid, Redwood City: Not a chance. Yes, he is the darling of the left, but his lack of experience and his liberal views will not sit well with states besides California, New York and Massachusetts.
Steven Bobb, San Francisco: I think he would make an excellent candidate. Chances of getting elected? Zero to none. The Old South will rise up and stop any chance a non-white man has of being elected.
Michael Dortch, Santa Rosa: Obama stands an excellent chance of becoming the next Democratic presidential nominee. Sadly, persistent race and class issues among voters -- across this country's entire ethnic spectrum -- may affect his ability to get elected. We'll see...

Madelon Deys, Belmont: I read an excerpt of his book "The Audacity of Hope." He has integrity, he's deeply philosophical and very smart. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate his chances 9. Why not 10? He needs more experience. He might be ready in 2008!

Blair Calhoun, Half Moon Bay
Though 2008 may be an exception, senators don't win presidential elections. Obama should become governor of Illinois, then run for president in 2012. He'd beat the pants off of Schwarzenegger.

One Comment that caught my eye and I couldnt help adding it on here, a prediction of things to come (these comments were posted in 2006:
SteveBroke (an alias): He is a great man and politician, but needs more experience (such as an executive post, i.e. governor of Illinois). He should run for governor in '08, then president in '12. If he ran in '08, he would lose for a variety of reasons:

1) Lack of experience: He has only been in federal office for a short period of time, and needs another term or two before middle America will accept his credentials.

2) Lack of executive experience: Voters will usually vote for a former governor over a former Senator. Obama needs a term at the helm of a state so he can get executive experience. Being a legislator won't prepare you for being head-of-state. It's like expecting an accountant to become a CEO overnight.

3) Racism: America has made significant progress in racial harmony in the last 30 years. Unfortunately, it still has a way to go. Rural white voters will not vote for a black man in '08, tragically.

The next president of the United States will be John McCain, provided he decides to run. He has a lot of support from both Democrats and Republicans, and is respected by a wide variety of American demographics. The Democrats are, unfortunately, going to run Hillary, and she's going to lose by an even wider margin than Dole did in '96.

re: Opinions from across
written by Johnny B. Goode , February 12, 2008

Below are some views expressed by a cross section of Americans during an interview about Obama's prospects for the US presidency before he declared his interest for the top seat.

Scot Reid, Redwood City: Not a chance. Yes, he is the darling of the left, but his lack of experience and his liberal views will not sit well with states besides California, New York and Massachusetts.
Steven Bobb, San Francisco: I think he would make an excellent candidate. Chances of getting elected? Zero to none. The Old South will rise up and stop any chance a non-white man has of being elected.
Michael Dortch, Santa Rosa: Obama stands an excellent chance of becoming the next Democratic presidential nominee. Sadly, persistent race and class issues among voters -- across this country's entire ethnic spectrum -- may affect his ability to get elected. We'll see...

Madelon Deys, Belmont: I read an excerpt of his book "The Audacity of Hope." He has integrity, he's deeply philosophical and very smart. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate his chances 9. Why not 10? He needs more experience. He might be ready in 2008!

Blair Calhoun, Half Moon Bay
Though 2008 may be an exception, senators don't win presidential elections. Obama should become governor of Illinois, then run for president in 2012. He'd beat the pants off of Schwarzenegger.

One Comment that caught my eye and I couldnt help adding it on here, a prediction of things to come (these comments were posted in 2006:
SteveBroke (an alias): He is a great man and politician, but needs more experience (such as an executive post, i.e. governor of Illinois). He should run for governor in '08, then president in '12. If he ran in '08, he would lose for a variety of reasons:

1) Lack of experience: He has only been in federal office for a short period of time, and needs another term or two before middle America will accept his credentials.

2) Lack of executive experience: Voters will usually vote for a former governor over a former Senator. Obama needs a term at the helm of a state so he can get executive experience. Being a legislator won't prepare you for being head-of-state. It's like expecting an accountant to become a CEO overnight.

3) Racism: America has made significant progress in racial harmony in the last 30 years. Unfortunately, it still has a way to go. Rural white voters will not vote for a black man in '08, tragically.

The next president of the United States will be John McCain, provided he decides to run. He has a lot of support from both Democrats and Republicans, and is respected by a wide variety of American demographics. The Democrats are, unfortunately, going to run Hillary, and she's going to lose by an even wider margin than Dole did in '96.

I think that if the young unenthusiastic voters coming out don't desert him, then Obama will beat Senator McCain. In fact I wager that if the nomination goes to Hillary, then McCain wins. Obama will be no pushover and if white folk can't vote for him, why are they doing so now? He's beaten Hillary in some pretty white states. I get the impression that this views were collected before the race began. The issue of senator vs. Governor is a dud as all the 3 people running with a realistic chance are all senators. As far as experience goes, that could get in the way, especially against McCain, but he could always pull the line that his cousin Dick Cheney, probably has the longest resume in America.