Yes, the Obama supporters do not get it that we will not support him. Forget it, those bridges were burned down long ago, there is no way most Clinton supporters will ever vote for him.

that's the spirit of open-mindedness we're looking for! well done!

stop with the us vs. them thing......it's really a losing strategy. it's what's helped republicans dominate american politics for the last 30 years. unless you think it's been fun...? let's rally behind our candidate to beat mccain.

onward.....

tune, it's grating and we are way beyond that argument!

I noticed the same discrepancy.  Apparently a  64-64 delegate split where Hillary loses 9 delegates and Obama gains 9 delegates is better than a 69-59 split where she only loses 4 delegates, and he only gains 4.  Go figure.

Point of interest -- if you want a third party, try and push for Instant Runoff Voting. 76.239% of game theorists agree that it's the best way to get viable third parties!

In all seriousness, though, primaries don't have to be democratic. They're primaries. They exist to a) build the party and b) determine the best (or maybe most popular? or something?) nominee.

Both caucuses and primaries achieve those goals with different levels of efficiency -- neither is perfect  though caucuses approach IRV much more closely than straight ballots do -- and IRV HAS been shown to improve voter satisfaction with the final result (if you want me to go dig through the journal of econ perspectives and find the article I'll try and do it).

Obama supports exploring IRV as a viable election tool but I don't know if that's anything other than talk. I don't know if Clinton has ever said anything about it.

As for the whole "who's responsible" thing -- it's hard for the RBC to admit that they screwed up. I'm pretty sure the RBC believed the primaries wouldn't be this hotly contested and so therefore the sanctions wouldn't become this large of an issue.

Frankly, I think Michigan thought so as well and so moved theirs up as a protest against the IA/NH duopoly.

I sincerely hope that your illness goes into remission, and that you continue to fight the good fight.

As an Obama supporter, I hope you can take the words of your fellow Texan to heart Hats off to the great Ms. Ivins:

I will not support Hillary Clinton for president
January 20, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas --- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls?

Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008."

This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad news from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.

Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.

you just copy and paste that shit onto every thread don't you?

stop claiming to speak for all texans.

I mojo'd to boost you.

Don't sweat it.
It was a Clinton 'supporter'.

Uprated with relish.

mojo for sanity.  I don't know why people on both sides continue to not understand how troll rating works and when it is used.

Catfish2, serial TR abuser stikes again.  Uprated.

uprated as well

Obama has a lead in most polls from pennsylvania and some polls in Ohio.  So I disagree with you on those two fronts.  They are not foregone conclusions in either direction.  I am less optimistic in Florida but never say never.

polling with Edwards as VP looks like he would win 35 states

I can understand thinking Clinton should be entitled to more delegates.  But, can you understand the Obama point of view that the Michigan and Florida elections were flawed and thus any allocation based on those elections were flawed?  Or, do you really think those expressed views are insincere?

It was an argument, essentially by the MDP, that won over a 1/3 of her supporters on the RBC, and all the undecideds as well, I believe the initial Obama argument was to split 50/50.

I don't think either side was trying to "cheat" the other out of delegates, and I think Ickes (sp?) response was awfully hyperbolic in regards to 4 delegates.

I would have been sanguine with the slightly more favorable interpretation giving C those extra 4, but  Ickies' threat and temper tantrum makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The RBC accepted the solution offered by the state party, for both Florida and Michigan.  Each state submitted what they thought would be a fair resolution to their flawed primaries.  

I'm just glad that both Florida and Michigan will be represented at the convention.  Hooray for 50 states!

Yeah, but you're not running as my candidate for President.

I don't feel llike Obama represents my ideals for the Democratic Party, either.

And I know Hillay would make a better President.

Why are we nominating a person who is CLEARLY garnering LESS support than the other?  

Because Yes, we can?  

the "true" democrats work really hard to win over the others.

Your routine is tired.

You strike me as a northern guy who thinks he has the rest of the country figured out--and that there's just no way that they'll vote for the black guy.

You've argued that point so vigorously that now you're married to it--and you're actually hoping that it's true because otherwise you'd have to face the possibility that either you were projecting the whole time, or you just like to argue and you're wrong (my money's on the latter).

Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't understand this country at all. So, believe what you want, but we'd all really appreciate it if you dropped the doom and gloom crap--or at least keep it to yourself--because we've got an election to win.

...Obama team accused Clinton of wishing or was praying for his assassination.

Your comments are spot on, and I will try to keep an open mind. Frankly, I was for Mike Bloomberg until he declared that he wasn't going to run. And then I drifted back to the Democratic party, choosing Hillary as the lesser of two evils.

In that vein, both of these presidential aspirants voted for the recent Ag giveaway, and endorsed our country's bankrupt ethanol policy. This policy is exacerbating the hyper-inflation in commodities, especially the cost of grains...but who cares? Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, etc., are getting their share.

SO--does Barack understand what the concept of "famine"? Is he aware of the food riots occurring every week now, in the poorest of countries, such as Haiti and Indonesia? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt...he probably isn't even aware that this is happening. Ignorance is bliss.

How would the new Democratic hero explain away his support of this country's ethanol policy? I don't agree with many of John McCain's ideas, but at least he had the balls to denounce this boondoggele...BEFORE the Iowa Primary.