Democrats set for twin primaries
Clinton boosted her campaign for the nomination when she won the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.
While Obama has sought to distance himself from controversial remarks made by his former pastor, support for Clinton in North Carolina has grown, eroding Obama’s lead in that state.
Clinton is also leading Obama 49 per cent to 43 per cent in Indiana, according to a Suffolk poll with a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
Clinton has argued that she is the Democrats’ best hope winning the White House, in part because she is more popular with the party’s working-class base.
The candidates clashed on Monday over Clinton’s plan to suspend the federal vehicle fuel tax, with Obama saying that his rival’s proposal to suspend the levy over a holiday period was a “stunt”.
But in a campaign advertisement aired on Monday, Obama said that Clinton was offering “more of the same old negative politics”.
Clinton’s advertisement claimed she is “the candidate who is going to fight for working people”.
A combined 187 delegates are offered in the two primaries, but due to Democratic party rules the delegates are shared out according to the proportion of the vote received by each nominee.
Each nominee requires 2,025 delegates to secure the nomination to run for the US presidency.
With neither candidate likely to reach 2,025 delegates by the final primary vote in June, the contest is likely to be decided by superdelegates – high-ranking Democrats that can vote for their preferred nominee regardless of primary and caucus results.
From contests held so far, Obama currently holds 1,746 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 1,611, according to MSNBC figures, including superdelegates who have already pledged their allegiance to the candidate of their choice.
The 16-month battle between Clinton and Obama has raised concerns in the Democratic party that it will appear disunited to voters ahead of the November general elections.
Tags: indiana, voting
Is there any doubt about who this would be?
To be fair, part of the reason for having caucuses and superdelegates is to address just this type of issue. The public nature of caucuses makes torpedo votes like this harder to perform. When such votes do occur, the superdelegates should take them into account before making their decision. It is the responsibility of the electorate and the press to ensure that the superdelegates are aware of what’s happening.As for the McCain landslide, it will only happen if the Democratic party, press, and public continue to allow one family to play games and call the shots in this primary. It can be prevented through grass-roots activism and intelligent consideration by party and elected officials.
Well, it’s a bit of a complicated gambit because they can vote only once and must be registered in the state in which you cast your vote. So, when they choose to vote Democrat in the primary they can’t vote Republican in the congressional races. This is why the map shows such clustering for these votes. Republicans could safely cast a primary vote for Hillary because they didn’t have anything meaningful going on in those particular congressional districts.
Yes, but giving them credit like this doesn’t help. :/
So now it’s the Republican’s fault no one voted for Gravel?
Someone needs to investigate the massive voter fraud that goes on in this country, both electronic and classic!Palast is pretty well informed and well connected. According to The Guardian, Tribune magazine called him “the most important investigative reporter of our time”, and he has investigated the 2000 and 2004 US Elections as well.Wikipedia Article on PalastOf course not everyone agrees with him. And although I thought you guys would be in the same boat, the inside job guys don't get along with him either.Crazy or sane? Effective or a waste of time? Help me out, redditors, should we donate?
Some states have open primaries. You can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary regardless of your party affiliation, but not both.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primary
Democrats did do it to the GOP in Michigan. I decried it then and I’m decrying it now. It’s a dirty strategy and no one should engage in it.
Cabals and conspiracies and elites, oh my!
That’s funny, I seem to remember a story a while back from dailykos suggesting that democrats go vote for huckabee so as to sabotage the republican primaries
FTFA: Republicans are crossing over in large numbers for HRC because they want to prolong this battle, and bloody-up Obama. That’s fine and it’s fair game [emphasis added]permalinkparentAtheinostic (1 child) [+]Atheinostic 2 points 1 month ago [-]Open primaries are retarded
So I like a lot of things about the caucus system. Mainly that it encourages you to vote for whomever you want on the first ballot and then you can vote for a “real” candidate on the second ballot. The only problem I have with it is that you do not get to have a secret vote. I think this is a real problem and I don’t know a good way around it.
Well if anything the Democratic party has been sabotaging itself.First it has the caucas system which allows a candidate who lose a primary to stil take more delegates. E.g. Clinton won the TX primary and popular vote, but because Obama won the caucas and significant chunk of the primary’s popular vote, the Obama got more delegates.Second, the Democratic party created the super delegate system because it was unhappy with a system that produced what weak nominees that were supported by the party’s rank and file. More anti-democratic principles.Third, the Democratic party refuses to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan at its national convention. It is stunning that a major U.S. political party would select its nominee for the highest office in the country without input from two of the largest states.The democrats devised a system that will cause a massive drain of campaign money, and leave whoever is crowned in Denver in a very weak position against McCain, who I guarantee you is attending nothing but fund raisers and building the mother of all war chests, while his video editors are cutting and pasting everry nasty sound bite Obama and Clinton are saying against each other. McCain will not have to fling a single pile of dirt. He’ll use clips of the nasty crap the runner up has been saying against the winner of the DEM nomination, whoever those end up being.The fact that the GOP has organized its members to vote in DEM primaries shows that the GOP is far from dead. If it can execute this well this far from the general election, it is going to awfully scary come November. McCain landslide and coat tails? Bet on it.
Just to clarify, the primary are not the general election. In the primary you are deciding who a party runs. You can still vote for a republican in the election. The goal of republicans voting democrat in the primary is to get the democrats to run someone they can easilly beat.(and vice versa in the case when democrats vote in the republican primary - this happens as well) This is why I don’t like the primary system, the parties get no control over who decides what they do. In a caucus system (which I prefer) the party can kick anyone out who they feel is not a member of the party.