Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Hillary's great Appalachian hope

By Brendan Loy

Jay Cost says Hillary still has a chance. Why? West Virginia and Kentucky, of course. "I think it is too hasty to declare her finished just days before two of her three best states."

In support of this notion, he posts the latest version of Sean Oxendine's Appalachia map (original here):

The blue counties are Clinton's, the green are Obama's. As you can probably guess, the darker the color, the larger the margin. South Carolina isn't included because it was still a three-way race then. The black line represents the boundary of Appalachia, according to -- um -- the Census Bureau, or somebody. I forget.

Anyway... I think Cost is right. And while he couches his analysis in terms of uncertainties and unknowns, I don't think there's any doubt that Hillary will win huge, huge victories in WV and KY. The only question is the turnout. Will it be high enough to give her the "popular vote" margins she needs? (This is what Bill Clinton was talking about, of course.) And then, if she does get the numbers, will anyone buy her illegitimate line of argument? Will it at least sow enough doubt and uncertainty to buy her time until May 31 (Michigan and Florida) and June 1 (Puerto Rico)? On Wednesday, I asked the question; today, I'll go out on a limb and say I suspect the answer is yes.

I have a growing sense that, if there was going to be a moment before June 3 for the party to truly and fully coalesce around Obama, this week was it, and it hasn't happened. Oh, they've half-coalesced, they've whispered their allegiances, and there have been superendorsements. But there's been no mass superdelegate movement, no intervention by party graybeards, no coordinated push to get Hillary out of the race -- nothing like that. In fact, there's been a coordinated decision by the Obama campaign to not push Hillary out, probably for fear of triggering further divisions within the party (and perhaps a wave of mutnemom). I'm not saying this was a bad decision, or that a more muscular approach wouldn't have backfired. I'm just saying that, if the get-Hillary-out moment was going to happen this month, I think it needed to happen this week, and it didn't.

"But what about May 20?" you might ask. Well, I'm not at all sure Obama's "declare victory on May 20" gambit will work. In fact, I think it may be a bad idea to even try it. Hillary will win a much bigger victory, percentage-wise, in Kentucky that day than Obama will in Oregon, and the concept of declaring victory on the basis of a majority of pledged delegates is almost Hillaryesque in its spinnish hamhandedness. A "majority of pledged delegates" is only slightly more meaningful than a "plurality of the popular vote": it may have some psychic or moral significance, but it's not the metric that determines victory. A majority of all delegates is what determines victory, and Obama should not want to get into a contest with Clinton over who can more blatantly move the goalposts. While she vascillates between metrics and rationales -- big states, swing states, popular votes, 2,209 as the new "magic number," etc. -- he ought to stand firm in stating that he'll be the presumptive nominee when he hits 2,025 delegates, including supers. No sooner, no later. Using his pledged-delegate majority as an argument to the voters, the supers and the media is fine; using it to declare victory, to assert that the race is over, is problematic and Hillary-ish, IMHO.

Matthews on the mound, Puerto Rico at the plate: let's play beanball

By Joe Loy

Note: Just so nobody will assume I'm Spinning this issue ~ I support Barack Obama, for whom I voted in my state's primary. (Admittedly, I was For Hillary before I was Against her. :) My sinister motivation here :> is that I'm Also in favor of (a) due Process and (b) Puerto Rico :}.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The host of MSNBC's Spitball Dirtball Screwball Hardball with Chris Matthews yesterday mounted another bold attack in his ongoing 2nd Battle of San Juan. Extremely extensive transcript excerpts (tendentious emphases added; my commentary follows):

...MATTHEWS:  And then you can see it going through Puerto Rico.

When it comes time to fight for who‘s got the most elected delegates -

pledged delegates, and if you lose that, if you come short, which is likely you will come short, can you add Puerto Rican votes to your claim of a popularity—of a popular vote victory?

[Clinton Communications Director Howard] WOLFSON:  Of course.

MATTHEWS:  Even though they can‘t vote in the presidential election?

WOLFSON:  Well, they‘re participating in our...

MATTHEWS:  Right, right, right.

WOLFSON:  ... in our primary process.

MATTHEWS:  But are you willing to say that you have a right to the nomination based on Puerto Rican votes?

WOLFSON:  Yes.  Which votes are you going to exclude from the process?

MATTHEWS:  No, just—just...

WOLFSON:  I said yes.

MATTHEWS:  Just people that are not American—are not voting in the American presidential election.  That‘s all.

[Much more after the Jump. / ~ the guestblogger]

Super Friday for Obama; Clintons still in fantasyland

By Brendan Loy

Bill Clinton -- who is reportedly among the people pushing his wife hardest to keep fighting, all the way to the convention if necessary -- told West Virginia voters today that an overwhelming turnout coupled with an overwhelming Hillary margin in the Mountaineer State (and neighboring Kentucky) can make the "earth move." Why? Because of that wonderfully illegitimate metric, the "popular vote," of course:

"She can win the popular vote, she is clearly the most electable according to all the national polls, and between now and August, the superdelegates are gonna have to think long and hard about how badly they want to win."

Meanwhile, back here on planet Earth, Obama made a net gain of 7 superdelegates today -- including a nod from the superdelegate superblogger, Mr. Super -- and he has now overtaken Clinton in some media superdelegate counts, for the first time in the campaign. (The count I trust the most, DemConWatch, has Hillary still up, but by a measly 1.5 super votes. So it's only a matter of time. Like, maybe a few more hours, the way today has been going.)

In other news, Rasmussen Reports will be stopping its daily tracking poll of the Democratic race:

[W]hile Senator Clinton has remained close and competitive in every meaningful measure, she is a close second and the race is over. It has become clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. ... With this in mind, Rasmussen Reports will soon end our daily tracking of the Democratic race and focus exclusively on the general election competition between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. Barring something totally unforeseen, that is the choice American voters will have before them in November. While we have not firmly decided upon a final day for tracking the Democratic race, it is coming soon.

And, on an unrelated note, Joe Lieberman would like you to know that he, uh, checked John McCain's bearings, and, uh, they're just fine.

Teehee.

So, you think YOU had a lousy day?

By Jay Johnson

I'd say that this guy has had it just a bit worse than you likely have.

Estimate: cyclone could kill 500,000

By Brendan Loy

Will Cyclone Nargis, the catastrophic storm that ravaged Burma/Myanmar, ultimately be worse than the 2004 tsunami? Christ almighty.

That fearful prediction comes from the Sun, so you may want to take it with a grain of salt. But it's based on an estimate of what could happen "through disease and hunger if the nation's hardline army rulers continue to block aid for the devastated lowlands of the Irrawaddy Delta."

And blocking aid is exactly what these evil rulers are doing. They've seized all food supplies and are preventing it from being distributed to the victims, forcing the U.N. to suspend its relief efforts. Meanwhile, according to Nyo Ohn Myint, leader of an exiled opposition party:

"The bodies need to be collected and burnt as soon as possible or disease will claim many more lives. But the government has organised nothing and its 400,000 soldiers are doing nothing while undistributed aid piles up.

"They are hoping bodies will be washed out to sea so the final count is smaller – but it could kill half a million people within a matter of weeks. The world must know what is going on."

There is a special circle of Hell for these junta bastards.

Incidentally, a death toll of 500,000 would place Nargis on the Top 5 list of deadliest natural disasters in history (excluding famines and diseases). Although, the term "natural disaster" may not be entirely appropriate, as Myint pointed out: "Much of this will be a man-made disaster, caused by the military regime."

P.S. The deadliest tropical cyclone in world history was the 1970 Bhola cyclone in India and Bangladesh, which killed between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

Barack Obama, mountain mama?

By Brendan Loy

Hillary Clinton says "West Virginia is a test" of electability. Heh, yeah, a "test" she can't possibly fail. That's a little like Michael Jordan challenging Wayne Gretzky to determine who is the greatest athlete of their generation -- by playing a basketball game.

Here's a look at just how challenging impossible West Virginia's political landscape is for Obama. A new poll released yesterday shows him down 63% to 23% (with 14% undecided, I guess). Daniel Larison has more grim poll numbers. [UPDATE: ARG says it's 66% to 23%.]

Mark Halperin wonders, "Why is the likely Democratic nominee not visiting the next state up? Is it the expectations game?" Um... yes? Duh? Look, Clinton's people have consistently made the (bogus) argument that, if Obama spends lots of time and money in a state, that means he "should" win it, even when he's clearly the demographic underdog and is obviously just trying to hold down her margin (see, e.g., Pennsylvania). He knows he can't come remotely close in West Virginia -- the best he could hope for would be to maybe reduce her margin to 20% or 25%, and will anyone really give him credit for that? -- so why give Hillary the ability to make that argument? It's like Larison says:

[W]hat he needs to do is to change the subject and act as if these primaries [in West Virginia and Kentucky] are not happening (or, to borrow a page from the Clintons, to claim that they “don’t really count”), because there is simply no way that he is going to change the powerful opposition to him in these states.  Imagine the resistance that he faced in the Monongahela Valley, and then expand it to include entire states, and you have an idea of what he’s up against.

I don't support the "claim they don't count" strategy -- when she wins, he should graciously congratulate her, reiterate that he is the choice of voters all across the country, and proceed with his general-election arguments against John McCain -- but there's nothing wrong with lowering expectations, nor with pointing out that these states shouldn't count extra just because they happen, coincidentally, to take place near the end of the calendar. Hillary's inevitable blowout wins in West Virginia and Kentucky should "count" no more, and no less, than Obama's blowouts in, for instance, Georgia and Kansas on Super Tuesday.

That said, I'm of two minds about this, because if Hillary racks up a huge popular vote margin, and wins the WV delegate count by something like 32 to 7, it'll probably rejuvenate her spirits and at least dampen the media's "it's over" meme for a while. But at the same time, if Obama campaigns heavily in West Virginia, the media will declare that he is trying to "close the deal" -- and when he "fails" to do so, losing by, say, a "whopping" 22 points (which would actually be pretty good), that'll be disastrous for him in the campaign's meta-storyline.

So, all things considered, I think Larison is right. Obama is better off basically ignoring West Virginia, and spending the next week campaigning in general-election states. Even if she wins almost all of the Mountaineer State's 39 delegates... it won't change a damn thing. His mathematical advantage is still insurmountable.

Now, if we want to talk about real "tests," this would be an interesting idea:

[T]here is one last chance for the Clinton campaign: make Oregon definitive. Everyone knows she's going to win Kentucky and West Virginia. Everyone expects her to lose in Oregon. If she throws down the gauntlet and says: "Oregon is it. Obama has home field advantage. If he wins, I'm out. If I win, we go all the way to the convention. Game on."

Who, really, could resist? Certainly not the cable networks!  And the state is home to millions of white people.

Heh.

Obama, for his part, plans to declare victory in Oregon on May 20, on the basis that he will have clinched a majority of the pledged delegates -- not 2,025, but 1,627, the number that ObamaIsWinning.com has been touting for months as "the real magic number."