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January 08, 2008
A major upset?
Posted by: Chris
Sometimes the expectations game in politics is so ridiculous that you just have to laugh.
Hillary Clinton was ahead of Barack Obama by a sizable margin for weeks -- months -- leading up to today's New Hampshire primary. And yet because of the 24-hour-news cycle and the proliferation of polls, it's somehow "a major upset" if Hillary Clinton eeks out a 2-percent victory there.
Yes, she won even though polls after Iowa showed her trailing in the last few days. But the polls were volatile and the attacks by Hillary and Bill Clinton in the last several days were predictably harsh.
Still, there are legitimate questions about whether Obama has been sufficiently vetted and battle-tested, so all in all I agree with Andrew Sullivan: "This will now become a brutal, long slog. Maybe that's for the best."
By the way, in terms of delegates, it was a Clinton-Obama tie; as of 11:30 p.m. ET, each have been awarded eight out of 22 delegates at stake in the vote.
UPDATE: Final New Hampshire delegate tally -- Clinton (9), Obama (9), Edwards (4).
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Comments
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I know it was too early to write off Hillary as "imploding". She has too much control in the Demo's Old Boys network to be written off this early. I was surprised to see CNN acuse "swift boat" antics by the gals over at Emily's List.
The fight is on.
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While it is about the delegates the early states serve a much different purpose. They provide the rest of the nation with a sense of who is viable and who should have never been in the race to start with. By the time we get to Super Duper (aka Tsunami aka Wild and Wacky aka ... you pick your name) Tuesday the list will be much smaller and the campaigns much more focused.
I'm so glad that Iowa and New Hamphire residents spend that critical time attending the rallies and grilling the candidates. 85% voter turnout is almost unheard of anywhere else in the nation.
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One other thing to note. According to CNN Clinton has 183 delegates to Obama's 78. They have 159 superdelegates pledged to Sen. Clinton which don't take any of the primaries or caucuses into account. Now of course that could change as the campaign winds down and these superdelegates try to garner favor by switching to the frontrunner but right now Clinton has the most delegates.
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Randy Bear, A pledge means NOTHING. A candidate doesn't have them, until they have them.
Here in Nevada things are getting interesting. Hillary win came from the Union vote. Yesterday the biggest Union in NV endorsed Obama. This shocked people because the County Commissioner Rory Reid promised he could deliver Union support. Rory is the son of Harry.
Harry promised to remain neutral.
Local papers ask, "When it's over will we have an ally in the White House or a friend in New York".
I am not neutral. GO OBAMA!!!!!
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Double T I'm just stating the current facts. That being said I also stated the Super D's could shift their support when they find out who the frontrunner is. That's typically the case. It does show where they cast their support right now.
Regarding Obama I think we're going to find out more about this guy as the process progresses. I listened to his qualifications of positions and he's more slippery than Bill Clinton ever was. This guy spent time in the IL legislature and the US Senate voting present to avoid locking down a historical position. I'm not sure I like someone like that leading the country.
I'm not a big Hillary fan but at least she took a position in a lot of cases. The war is probably the worse thing for us to pin someone down on. After 9-11 we were all afraid to speak our true feelings for fear of seeming unpatriotic. And please, don't go saying you were against the war from the start. I was as much for getting the cowardly bastards as anyone else was. I just feel our continued strategy was a farce.
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I was as much for getting the cowardly bastards as anyone else was. I just feel our continued strategy was a farce.
The comments to this entry are closed.
Rebecca Juro on Jan 9, 2008 1:37:39 AM:
Also worth noting, Chris, is that when combined with the Iowa results, Obama leads with 25 delegates, followed by Clinton with 24, and Edwards with 18.
I think a lot of people forget that the primaries are not about who wins the state vote percentage-wise, but who wins the most delegates. When we start getting to the "winner take all" states, where the winner of the state percentage gets all of that state's delegates, the stakes will become a lot higher than they've been until now.