Easiest way to view it on the merits is to ask whether Obama supporters would be resigning themselves to the inevitability of defeat if he had won CA, NY, NJ, OH, TX and could make the case for FL, MI and PA.

So we're going to have this out on the merits, and telling her that she should drop out not only looks weak and whiny, but isn't really supported by the facts anymore.

The "merits" include telling her she should leave for the good of the party, country, humanity, etc., whether it's true or not. I take this to be the HRC campaign posture as well. The "merits" also include ramping up the rage of Obama supporters to threaten the party--and in particular, the superdelegates--should he lose. You're trying to construct some broadly agreed upon rule that just doesn't exist. Clinton wins "on the merits" if she gets a majority of delegates, pledged or not. The same is true for Obama.

I'm not especially averse to having the superdelegates settle this. Breaking a deadlock is one of the kinds of things that superdelegates are there to do.

I think they'd be stupid to break for Clinton though. Her enormous negatives showed in her inability to put Obama way. So did her antiquated DLC policy stands, and her DLC refusal to run a ground campaign.

PGD assures me that the Democratic Party is so fucked up that it's silly to hope for the superdelegates collectively to do anything constructive, however. presumably we'll now have three months of public smears and backroom deals. Have I ever mentioned that I hate the Democrats?

I'm moving toward the Stras interpretation of Hillary. And I really hate to agree with Stras any more. She's a uniter in that sense.

could make the case for FL, MI and PA.

"could make the case" is doing a gawd-awful amount of work there. FL, where no one was supposed to compete, is by far the closest thing to a properly run primary, and it's so horrible as to not be trustworthy. Didn't HRC lose to "Anyone else" in MI?

OK, leave aside FL and MI then. Are you seriously telling me that, if the positions were reversed, we wouldn't be hearing the same thing from Obama supporters about Hillary winning a string of states that don't matter?

No, Hillary should drop out because she came out in favour of the Republican nominee over her opponent from her own party, and is thus damaged goods.

Yes, this is right. Also, if Obama isn't able to regain his footing in the midst of a storm (attacks from Clinton and the wingnuts), he really isn't the right guy for the right time. That's Clinton's argument. And I'm beginning to agree.

That said, I think he's a quick study, will regain his footing, will find a way to fight back without getting too dirty, and will win. But I'm a true believer. In the meantime, though, I think that a lot of my anger at Clinton has been misdirected anger at Obama for not handling her attacks more deftly. Which isn't to say that Clinton's CIC comment was okay. Or that trying to woo Obama's pledged delegates is okay.

Your anger is giving Obama cancer in his tummy, Ari.

1: I'm pretty sure Obama would have been out had he HRC's record. Not out of any high moral principle, but because she's only been in so long because she was the presumptive nominee and had a lot of institutional support and cash. An Obama who is behind at this point lacks the institutional support to hang on and probably is starting to lose the fundraising battle without a string of wins to keep pointing to.

But while I think it's too early for HRC to concede, I'm not liking how her candidacy looks if she's behind in delegates, and only looks competitive based on FL/MI and superdelegate power, and I think it will be very hard for the younger generation not to take it as a slap in the face even though it was won 'on the merits.'

8: If my anger could cause cancer... I'll leave it at that.

Isn't it turning out that Obama is going to win a majority of the Texas delegates? Perhaps caucuses are undemocratic, as is the exclusion of Florida and Michigan, but those were the rules going in, and Obama has been better within the established rules.

I heard on NPR today that it looks like they might to mail-in fire-caucuses in Florida and Michigan. (I learned from Mark Schmitt that they can't call them primaries unless they're run by the states, and the states aren't willing to foot the bill.) The state parties can raise soft money to pay for them.

I think it will be very hard for the younger generation not to take it as a slap in the face even though it was won 'on the merits.'

Oh, I agree. I'll spit and tell the Democrats (voters and officials) to go fuck themselves. I'm just trying to say that there's another side here beyond the overweening egotism of the Clintons.

Kotsko, the case that Clinton will make to the superdelegates is that she won more of teh popular vote and is therefore a stronger candidate in the general, i.e. she can take the bigger states. It's not liek California is going to go Republcian if Obama's the nominee though.

In a season of firsts, Hillary appears to be the first politician to pull off the maneuver of winning more favorable press coverage by whining publically about how bad her press coverage is. I doubt this gambit will work so well against McCain, but it sure is working now, as we all look ahead to the "next" primary in Pennsylvania. (Sure, there are two more primaries before then, but the Clinton line that they don't count because she won't win them has already been fully digested.)

5: Don't know. I think Obama would have been written off as having lost to the candidate who was widely considered the "inevitable candidate" by the media. And would be broadly portrayed as a spoiler. His supporters might say the same thing, but I suspect the number of his supporters would be much, much smaller, and of a more uniform hue. So I don't think you can simply compare the rhetoric here. Somehow you have to account for the likelihood that the other side would treat it as a legitimate argument. That seems unlikely to me.

This probably goes withotu saying, but I don't think Ogged is trying to re-litigate the relative merit of the two candidates. I think he's responding to Yglesias's recent spate of posts arguing that Clinton, because she "can't win" should get out of the race: for the party and, presuably, the country. Today's post in the series -- linked in Ogged's post -- is titled, "The Cost of Egotism."

Right. The Clinton argument that Bostoniangirl mentions is infuriatingly beside the point, as Yggles and others have pointed out repeatedly.

And pwned. As usual.

I'm moving toward the Stras interpretation of Hillary. And I really hate to agree with Stras any more.

Baby, we were made for love.

mano, Mississipi is tomorrow. What's the other primary before Pennsylvania?

Does anyone know what happens to Edwards' delegates?

Wyoming (won by Obama) was this past Saturday.

I agree with Ogged. It's just unrealistic to expect a politician who has shown as much strength as Hillary has in these primaries to drop out. Contrary to 9, I don't think Obama would be dropping out were the election results reversed.

if Obama isn't able to regain his footing in the midst of a storm (attacks from Clinton and the wingnuts), he really isn't the right guy for the right time.

I agree. We're on the edge of nominating someone who has never been in a tough election race ever (except for the House race against Bobby Rush, which he lost). Let's see if he can win this one.

This is a bad situation, but by and large it's the fault of the nominating rules, not the candidates. They are acting as one would expect politicians to do (though Hillary's been teetering on the brink lately).

Oh okay. I wasn't counting Wyoming as a primary, since it was a caucus.

Yglesias has been saying for a long time that Hillary is the worst possible candidate: a conservative who's though to be ultraliberal. She'll have trouble getting elected because she's thought to be "too liberal", but once elected she'll disappoint her supporters (the less-engaged ones) but triangulating.

Okay, to Ogged's points: SCMT gets it right about FL and MI -- as it stands, they shouldn't count for Clinton at all. If they re-vote, that's something else entirely. "Momentum" is a myth, as last Tuesday demonstrated once again, so even if Clinton does as well in PA as she did in Ohio, I don't see why that should count more strongly in the minds of superdelegates than Obama's delegate lead should.

Leading in the popular vote is something. But I can't imagine a situation in which Clinton has more popular votes and Obama has something like his current delegate lead going into the convention and the superdelegates give the nomination to Clinton and a large chunk of the party isn't infuriated and alienated. It just wouldn't seem fair, where seeming is everything.

So I agree with Yggles: There's almost no chance of Clinton getting the nomination, and she should drop out.

There are lots of arguments for voting against Hillary, but those aren't arguments for her to drop out.

And, just to note, I don't think the "what if the situations were reversed?" thought experiment is a good one, because, as people have said, and I said the last time this came up, Obama would be ignored if he lost 11 in a row.

24: Again, I don't think he'd be dropping out on principle, but that if the wine track/youth/Bradley-Dean-Tsongas black candidate had gone 11 primaries in a row without a victory, he wouldn't have the fundraising to continue, with the media narrative being something like how it was a good showing, but he needed another eight years and more supporters.

I think everyone would be calling for Obama to drop out if roles were reversed. This would be hailed as proof that foregone conclusion had panned out, the establishment will prevail, and the kid made a great go for it, and should go home now.

We're on the edge of nominating someone who has never been in a tough election race ever

Are Obama or HRC? It's equally true of each.

We're on the edge of nominating someone who has never been in a tough election race ever

Except for, you know, the current Democratic primary.

And we expect November to be a tough election race?

How tough have McCain's victories been? How tough has any frontrunner's? Are either party in the habit of choosing people who barely won elections previously, or is this another 'too young and naive to run' meme, which is to say, false?

32: that's my point. This is his first, let's see if he can win it and not call foul that it's tough.

30 has it right. Now I know where to go if I want a hooker who does political commentary.

This is his first, let's see if he can win it and not call foul that it's tough.

Right, but it's hers, too, so I don't understand the focus on him.

My mistake, I thought North Carolina was before Pennsylvania but I see now that it's a couple weeks after. Still, Wyoming doesn't count.

I think that Clinton's secretly-hoped-for-but-of-course-not-spoken-of plan of victory is for everybody to turn on Obama such that it doesn't matter where the votes stand now. She has visions of the Obama balloon finally deflating, of going into August with a slight deficit in pledged delegates but a decisive advantage in opinion polls, against both Obama and McCain. The nation cries, We're sorry, Hillary, please take us back! As I'm sure they recognize, it's not at all likely to happen, but she wants to stay poised just in case it does.

She almost can't win in a way that wouldn't seriously harm her chances in November. The "almost" is in case they re-run FL & MI, she wins both fair & square & decisively, she wins Penn., & does well enough overall that she gets the pledged delegate count & popular vote count total to the point where it's really a tie & it's legitimate for superdelegate to break the tie. I find this pretty unlikely, but I suppose not yet mathematically impossible.

Does anyone know what happens to Edwards' delegates?

My understanding is they can vote for whomever they like. Pledged delegates obviously usually vote however their candidate tells them, which usually means for their candidate - at least until their candidate drops out, at which point they just end up voting for the eventual nominee. But they aren't strictly forced to vote for anyone - hence the various rumblings from the Clinton camp about going after Obama's pledged delegates. If Edwards makes an endorsement, I imagine most of his delegates would go for whoever he endorses, but again, they don't have to.

Clinton's only selling point any more is her toughness as a campaigner. Obama's out-fundraising her, he's got a better ground campaign, he's getting out the vote better, and he's got more delegates.

She can only show her strength by trashing Obama, which will weaken him in the general. She has no particular strength in the general -- she's got high negatives and isn't an inspiring campaigner.

She shouldn't drop out, but everyone should ditch her. She should be dropped out.

The problem with it being a tough primary isn't that it's unfair to the candidates involved; it's that it can harm the party and the prospects of the eventual nominee. This primary has crossed into that territory, I think.

How tough have McCain's victories been?

With the assistance of local political endorsements, his Washington connections, as well money that his wife lent to his campaign,[56] McCain won a highly contested primary election,[55] then easily won the general election in the heavily Republican district.

(from Wikipedia)

35: Hasn't he, in fact, won several tough elections this primary season?

36: I hooks em as I sees em!

And as to McCain getting into the Senate, Wikipedia says:

McCain took office after defeating his Democratic opponent, former state legislator Richard Kimball, with 60 percent of the vote to Kimball's 40 percent in the 1986 election.

So. Also not a tough race. Like both Hillary and Obama, he's only been in tough primary races, not touch elections.

Hillary had a definite strategy for the primaries, and it failed. She might just as well realize that rather than trying to improvise a destructive backup strategy. It was sort of stupid of her to put all her eggs in one basket, but that's what she did.

24: it's more than a little bizarre holding it AGAINST a candidate that he wins by too large a margin. What's the evidence that Obama's IL primary race was easier than Clinton's race against Rick Lazio? That he won by a lot & she didn't? Well, if she''d managed to match Gore's margin it would've been easy. And Blair Hull wasn't Obama's only opponent in the primary. For that matter, the main reason that no one but Keyes ran against him in the general was that after Obama's convention speech, it was very, very, very clear that his opponent was going to lose. He has a much better track record at winning elections than she does, if you go state by state & election by election, unless you give her credit for 1992 & 1996. Which would be stupid.

I also really don't know how Clinton's gotten away with the experience meme when Obama's actually had more years holding elected office. How the hell does that work?

And if Obama had Hillary's primary record he'd be in this thing for sure. I just don't get what people's conception is of how politicians operate to think that he wouldn't be. What politician doing as well as Hillary is doing has ever dropped out before the convention? Gary Hart went to the convention. Ted Kennedy went to the convention. Neither was doing as well as Hillary is today. Politicians really, really, really want to be President.

Obama also has a big fundraising lead, and has been out ahead in the money race for a while, which previous challengers have not been.

Finally, Hillary's argument that the big public primaries should count for more would actually suit an insurgent candidate better.

People seem to think that there's a big party conspiracy behind Hillary as the 'establishment canidate', and if she were a bit ahead now then shadowy party elders people would push her opponent out of the race. But I don't think the Democratic party is organized that way at all today. Obama has gotten just as much party establishment support, that's why he did so well fundraising.

I also really don't know how Clinton's gotten away with the experience meme when Obama's actually had more years holding elected office. How the hell does that work?

She was on TV for longer. Every day I drop to my knees and thank Zombie Jesus that Mr. Snuffleuppagus doesn't have presidential ambitions.

46 - McCain's first senate opponent was The Fugitive?

I don't get that either, leblanc. Why hasn't he pointed out that he's been an elected official longer.

She's getting cred for foreign policy too--except when Bill screwed up, and then she gets to say that she advocated a better course. Hilzoy had a good post up about Rwanda saying that Hillary couldn't have advocated very hard for intervention, since none of the principals knew of her position. (Plus you know, the U.S. actively interfered with the U.N.'s mission and failed to do simple things like block the radio signals. Not very convincing advocacy.)

49: I think this is an "it's good to be the King" phenomenon. MSM people have been aware of her as a person in politics since at least '92, and have a sense of "The Clintons" and various Clintonist minions dominating the Democratic DC sphere for about that long. They've been political players for a long, long time. How that relates to Executive or even elected experience is unasked.

People seem to think that there's a big party conspiracy behind Hillary as the 'establishment canidate', and if she were a bit ahead now then shadowy party elders people would push her opponent out of the race.

This is exactly what I think. I think it's called "Calling in favors owed to the Clintons."

Reading blogs, I get the idea that the campaign is all about defining narratives and every word the candidates utter is crucial in this larger context. If Hillary says that McCain passes a threshold that Obama doesn't, she is pushing forward a frame that will ultimately undermine the Democrats. The words are all-important.

When I see Clinton and Obama on TV, it looks much more like an entertaining sporting event: two worthy opponents go head-to-head, throwing punches. Lots of spectators have a rooting interest but people can also watch just to see how the particpants compete. Clinton says Obama is too inexperienced; Obama says Clinton botched the war vote. And back and forth it goes. The words don't seem *that* powerful; I imagine a lot of viewers see Obama and Clinton as fundamentally coming from the same place, and it's really not impossible for anyone to turn around later and contradict the logic of what they said before.

Anyone else have this feeling? I was starting to talk about this on the other thread but then I left my computer to go outside.

And if Obama had Hillary's primary record he'd be in this thing for sure. I just don't get what people's conception is of how politicians operate to think that he wouldn't be. What politician doing as well as Hillary is doing has ever dropped out before the convention? Gary Hart went to the convention. Ted Kennedy went to the convention. Neither was doing as well as Hillary is today.

This is probably true. However, Obama would be being treated like Jesse Jackson or Ted Kennedy were - i.e., as spoilers with no further real chance to win the nomination. Clinton is currently treated as though she's just as likely to win as Obama.

People seem to think that there's a big party conspiracy behind Hillary as the 'establishment canidate',

Because she is. She certainly was. Obama has brought people off the line because of his success; maybe now it's a fight that divides the Establishment. After all, she ran/is running an inevitability campaign.

When people say "Hillary should drop out" they don't seriously expect her to do that. They're just trying to push her out.

I think that everybody should be trying to push Hillary out. She's lost all of her positives except a.) battle-hardened and b.) DLC positions on issues, and for most of us b.) is a BIG negative.

Reasons to push Hillary out: 1.) what I just said and 2.) the harmful effects of a long Hillary campaign comprised mostly negative attacks against Obama.

In short, everyone should be saying "Hillary should drop out" as code for "Undecideds and weak Hillary supporters should drop her like a hot potato".

And yeah, Obama should play the superdelagate / committed delegate game too. It's the main game left.

The problem with it being a tough primary isn't that it's unfair to the candidates involved; it's that it can harm the party and the prospects of the eventual nominee. This primary has crossed into that territory, I think.

I agree. But it's not Hillary's fault, it's the stupid process. I don't think all this bitter animus directed against her is at all helpful. She was prepared to drop out had she lost either the Ohio or Texas primary (not caucus). I think she'll likely drop out if she loses Pennsylvania.

it's more than a little bizarre holding it AGAINST a candidate that he wins by too large a margin.

It's not a matter of election margins, it's a matter of being tested. And I'm not holding it against him. I just want to see what happens when he's exposed to serious public criticism. He's never been tested, Hillary has. I don't see why that's even controversial. If he can't overcome this relatively mild stuff directed against him in a Democratic primary, he's toast in the general.

What's the evidence that Obama's IL primary race was easier than Clinton's race against Rick Lazio?

Lazio was a much stronger candidate than Keyes. Hillary's Senate wins in NY State after being demonized for years by the Reps were much more impressive But you're right, I forgot about the race against Blair Hull.

This is a historically close primary campaign.

This is politics, and there aren't that many rules. I remember McGovern and the California delegation, I remember games played by state machine and party bosses. If Missouri can get a bridge or South Carolina a navy base, let them bargain. "Pledged delegates" are not pledged very securely, and Clinton does have the right to try to make them flip. Good grief, a couple hundred delegates is not insurmountable. We have months for Obama to fuck it up somehow, or history to shit on us.

Why do you think John Edwards is still playing?

I think Clinton will very likely lose, but of course she should stay in until the votes are counted on the floor. She can win. And of course the Obama supporters should try to make her quit, unless that loses delegates.

Whatever.

She was prepared to drop out had she lost either the Ohio or Texas primary (not caucus). I think she'll likely drop out if she loses Pennsylvania.

You think she'd have dropped out? I think winning Ohio was sufficient for her to stay in. What losing Texas would have done is brought a bunch of party elders to the "calling Hillary and telling her to quit" point.

Bill Clinton was on Rush Limbaugh's show in advance of the Texas primary.

primary, PGD. Dan Hynes was the primary opponent besides Hull. Like I said, he drew Keyes by making more credible opponents think "oh fuck, we'd totally lose to this guy", as well as with Jack Ryan's problems. I have no doubt that he would've beat Ryan; I assume the margin would've been a normal not-even-close Senate race rather than a complete laugher.

McManus makes an eerie amount of sense.

PGD, is "fault" in question here? We're talking about us, not Hillary. She may be the nicest and wonderfullest person in the world, but get her out of there.

What losing Texas would have donedid is brought a bunch of party elders to the "calling Hillary and telling her to quit" pointapproximately nothing.

Also, whenever I hear "momentum", I increasingly hear "the fickle media telling us who to vote for this week."

Wry, PGD has assured me that there are no party elders. The Democratic party is made up, as Marx pointed out, by simple agglomeration, the way a sack of potatoes is produced by putting potatos in a sack. Or as Yeats said, weasels fighting in a hole.

Anyway, staying in until the convention gives the candidate, and even more importantly, the candidates supporters, leverage on the platform, the rules for the next round of primaries, various party officials etc that to a degree you lose when you drop out.

A lot of groundlings have worked their butts off for years, and deserve the right and fun to wave their Edwards banner and cast their vote for Edwards at the convention.

This doesn't destroy the party, it is exactly what makes a party.

28: There are lots of arguments for voting against Hillary, but those aren't arguments for her to drop out.

I wonder whether, if Hillary were replaced in the current scenario by Edwards, people would be calling for him to drop out. To the extent that they would not, it would presumably be because we they simply like him more as a candidate. In other words, while it's a worthwhile exercise to consider arguments for or against Hillary's dropping out in isolation from arguments for or against voting for her, it's a difficult line to draw.

He's never been tested, Hillary has.

No, she hasn't. She was gifted a Senate seat by the retiring Senator. She had massive institutional support for a seat that belonged to the Democrats. Her election looked tougher than it should have been when her serious Republican competitor dropped out because she was/is a relatively bad candidate. It's the difference between winning and not losing, as people point out by noting (IIRC) the difference in spread between her number and those of Shumer or Gore.

Bill Clinton was on Rush Limbaugh's show in advance of the Texas primary.

As always, sucking up to the right wing. There's a reason I get so exercised at the notion of HRC as our nominee. Namely, I'm fucking sick of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

72 is right. She was "tested" because she was in the public eye during a political scandal? When you don't have an elected office to lose, it's not much of a test, now, is it.

65: Yeah and I know that '68 is verboten, but I fear a little bit of what I think happened in '72. (And note that this is not the "standard" narrative.) I think Humphrey and the pissed-off party regulars* prolonged a doomed campaign, hoping against hope for one of the long-shot delegation challenges to work and in the process really weakened McGovern. (Not that he probably had any chance that year.) There are differences, however, Nixon was an incumbent and his apres moi, le deluge style made some of the old-time party regs willing to actively sabotage McGovern, figuring they would destroy Agnew in '76 with whomever. No one anticipated the spectacular Nixonian blow-up.

I should note that I'm not a Hillary-hater or anything. I'm just tired of these "experience" and "she's tested" memes that keep getting accepted despite the fact that there's no sensible evidence that supports them.

I wonder whether, if Hillary were replaced in the current scenario by Edwards, people would be calling for him to drop out

One big difference is that we don't believe that Edwards would say that McCain is qualified to be president, but Obama is not. Edwards is politic.

Ah, Tim, but she was demonized.

I'm not sure why the year long "he's a crypto Muslim" whisper campaign against Obama doesn't count as demonizing. Also not sure why, if we award points for having negative campaigns run against you, this isn't a further example of Obama's success this spring being impressive--she has certainly run a more negative campaign, & if you don't believe me go take a look at some exit polls about "unfair attacks."

Schumer's race was relatively close the first time but it's partly because he took on the incumbent himself.

It will destroy the party if Clinton stays in the McCain camp, as I expect her to do.

I have many overlapping reasons for joining the Stras camp. Never having liked the Clintons is but one of them, and I've tried to bracket it out.

I started this primary season by rejecting my own candidate, Kucinich. I settled on Edwards, who's not that bad but too hawkish. He conceded, so I shifted to Obama, who bothered me in many respects. If Hillary whips Obama, then we'll be back to 1992 and DLC control. Nothing will have changed. And if anyone can lose to McCain, Hillary can. McCain-haters hate Hillary far worse.

Edwards is politic a Democrat.

Now that it turns out that the sleeping girl footage from Hillary's "3 AM" ad is 8-year-old stock footage*, will Al7h0use modify her views on seekrit racist pyjamas?

*The now 18-year-old woman is an Obama supporter.

The Obama-is-a-closet-Muslim whispers are probably coming from the Republicans, though, wouldn't you say? With Clinton being a not-so-innocent bystander in the drive-by.

Bill Clinton was on Rush Limbaugh's show

Wow. I'm surprised that I'm actually shocked by that.

but then I left my computer to go outside.

See, there's your mistake.

77: Very true. Obviously, among the reasons for wishing, if not calling, for her to drop out is that she appears to be damaging Obama for the general; that is, her merits (or lack thereof) as a politician affect the merits of the case for or against her staying in. And if Edwards had engaged in the sort of negative campaigning against Obama that Hillary has, would we have withdrawn our support from him on that basis? A slightly quibbling thought experiment, is all.

Limbaugh hates McCain. There were rumors that Murdoch might go for Clinton too, though he was playing with Obama too.

To finish up a point I did not make explicit in 75, a positive this year is that I think Obama will in the end enjoy universal support from the party apparatus, even if it is grudging. Although, I must admit at times I have suspected Clinton playing the game of helping McCain beat Obama, thereby inheriting the current big freaking mess and then she comes back in for 2012 against a failed McCain. But I think the pary itself will rally around him, unlike McGovern in '72.

Hillary will not stay with McCain, she will enthusiastically endorse Obama at the convention if she loses. I will bet a large amount of money on this if there are any takers.

Hillary's been tested because she's been subjected to a significant, well-funded attempt to drive up her negatives, while Obama has not. We have plenty of polling and several elections from after that attempt to see how her support held up. She's not teflon, it damaged her a lot, but she hangs in there. The last six months are the first time most of the American public are getting to know Obama. He has many potential vulnerabilities, and his background is so unusual we don't know how those will play.

Emerson might be right that it's better for the party for Hillary to get out now. If Obama can get through this then he's probably the better candidate -- certainly has run a brilliant campaign. But I like the Clintons and I hate seeing all this IMO unfair vituperation directed at them from within the party.

Bill Clinton was on Rush Limbaugh's show

I too am shocked. WTF did they talk about, on and off the air?

It was probably easy for Bill; he has no principles, he's just good at getting people to like him. But still amazing to me.

As for "Hillary can't win," agreed that this argument is proved only by her not actually winning.

65: I'm seeing much sense in McManus, Stras, and Emerson. Should I up my meds?

88: PGD, I expect Hillary to play the McCain card against Obama right up until the convention. And then, of course, she will switch.

I'm not sure why the year long "he's a crypto Muslim" whisper campaign against Obama doesn't count as demonizing. Also not sure why, if we award points for having negative campaigns run against you, this isn't a further example of Obama's success this spring being impressive--she has certainly run a more negative campaign, & if you don't believe me go take a look at some exit polls about "unfair attacks."

K, the point about "not tested" is "before now." Obviously, whoever wins this thing will be able to claim an extremely hard-fought victory. Furthermore, Obama won Iowa without anyone laying a glove on him - and that victory has defined the entire race since (if he had gotten a few more votes in NH, it would've been over in January, as everyone expected). It's not as if HRC was attacking him viciously in October.

I also think you tend to overemphasize the Secret Muslim thing - I doubt most Dems have ever even heard the charge, and even fewer are susceptible to it. Furthermore, it has little mainstream currency (although that one R asshole Congressman has been spouting it openly for the last week): unlike the KlintonKronikles, you don't have Secret Muslim consipiracy theorists going on Hardball. The Wall Street Journal suggested - repeatedly - that HRC personally had Vince Foster murdered. That's really not the same as your asshole brother in law forwarding an all-caps screed about Obama the Sekrit Muslim.

I know that if you follow the words, Clinton is suggesting that McCain is more qualified than Obama. But when I watch the clip, I don't see that; I see it as all about Clinton asserting herself. I'm honestly not worried about McCain playing that clip in October and undecided voters watching it and thinking, "Ah yes, I really trust Hillary Clinton; what's she saying, oh that McCain and Clinton pass the threshold but not Obama; hmm I guess since she's out, I should vote for McCain, she told me so herself." Sure logically speaking that sounds plausible but people don't really think in that way. Just in the way that I doubt there has been anyone who thought Clinton was more experienced than Obama but changed their mind when they realized that Obama has had more time in elective office. I mean please.

Barring some spectacular Obama development, there's next to no chance of Clinton winning the earned-delegates. And there's also next to no chance the super delegates will overturn an earned-delegate lead without a deal that includes Obama acquiescence.

Clinton would beat up Obama to look like a weak candidate against McCain. Party establishment proposes a Clinton/Obama ticket and pressures Obama to take one for the team.

The real challenge here, though, is not Clinton vs. Obama, but Clinton vs. the Democratic party. As Stras has pointed out often, the Clintons have never been Party supporters so to expect them to be so now is naive.

27: the momentum point is correct. On The Media this weekend made the point that everything that has come to pass was predicted or suspected by the majority of the media and the two candidates -- before it happened. Then when it happens, everyone acts "surprised" and drums up the momentum/comeback meme for one side or the other. Once you remove this simple-mindedness (although OTM did not make this point), the narrative is very straighforward: Hillary is the presumptive incumbent with a static base of support, and Obama is the newcomer with an expanding base, who has cut a 30-point deficit in the polls to pull ahead under any measure (delegates or popular vote). Further, there is little, if anything, that Clinton can do to take the lead in either.

So no, I don't see how this is party-building anymore, particularly where one candidate says the Republican is more qualified.

PGD, I've been deliberately suppressing my dislike of the First Family of Triangulation right up until now. I don't know why I bothered.

The Democrats seem to be competing to see which one can make me hate them most. Call me Sistah Soljah. And either one of the lame motherfuckers is capable of losing the election. And in the end, I'll somehow be the bad guy, because I'm unrealistic and ideological. Even though I'll probably even campaign for whichever one is nominated. (Fairly passively -- MN should have a good Senate candidate this fall, and I'll mostly talk about him. Al Franken is the Clintonista here; there are two better candidates possible.)

WTF did they talk about, on and off the air?

Limbaugh was on vacation and another host was filling in for him.

Not to be too touchy about details in a discussion of abstracts, but folks do realize that Clinton is behind in the popular vote, too, right? And absent blowouts in the remaining states, there's no reason to expect that to change?

93: "I mean please" yourself, Barbar. I'm happy to know that you're not worried about McCain using Hillary's words against Obama. Your medication must be very effective.

82: sure, but Barack Obama didn't accuse Clinton of killing Vince Foster. They've both been subjected to nontrivial amounts of right wing demonization--she's been subjected to more total, obviously.

I think some Clinton supporters are spreading them too, & Hillary herself has a laissez faire attitude towards the whole thing, but I don't really want to rehash that whole subject.

89- The Clintons have reached out often to Republicans. Agreeing to NAFTA without a deal on health care. Welfare reform. From early in this campaign, the Clintons have met with Murdoch and leaked to Drudge. The Clintons don't see Democrats so much as their Party than as their vehicle.

& the point about this year is that regardless of the outcome of the nomination he's won tough races in: Iowa, South Carolina, Kansas, Wyoming, Alabama, Illinois, Georgia, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Idado, Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, Delaware, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Missouri, Minnesota & North Dakota. (Okay, Illinois wasn't tough. Though, he won by much more than she won in New York.)

99: So can someone point to a Clinton supporter whose support was based on Clinton being more experienced, was introduced to the fact that Obama has spent more time in elected office, and then changed their minds? Because logically speaking these people should exist yet I've never seen one.

*The now 18-year-old woman is an Obama supporter.

That's funny. Maybe she shoudl make a commercial saying, "As a child I might have gone with Clinton, but now that I'm an adult I trust Obama with a national security crisis." Or you know, eloquent, or at least articulate, words to that effect.

On the Clinton-on-Rush thing (and yes, I'm stunned and repulsed*):

The Pirates are broadcast on the local hate radio station (I can't tell you how unhappy this makes me), so I get to hear their promos. It has changed a LOT from last season - it's all election-focused, and it's all anti-McCain. Including one of the hosts being quoted as saying that he'd vote for Hillary over McCain. My assumption has been that all this anti-McCain stuff would vanish once he became the nominee, but it's only accelerating. I know that the theory for this is that the haters expect McCain to lose anyway, so they want to be able to claim his scalp. Regardless, I don't see the R base turning out, even against HRC.

* Around '98, I was stuck in a work van with only AM radio, and got to hear a treat on Rush: a woman called in, telling him how her husband is a regular listener, relaying to her all the Clinton theories; she couldn't understand why they weren't in jail. Rush was forced to explain to the woman that there was no actual, um, evidence of Clinton illegalities - it was all blustersuspicion.

Regarding Edwards, he'll lose at least some of delegates as the various state parties hold their higher level conventions. They're not all going to wait for him to endorse one or the other of the remaining candidates.

Or you know, eloquent, or at least articulate, words to that effect.

She's white.

101 makes the point that 61 overlooks. Sure, it is still close, and it could still be revealed that Obama is having an affair with a transexual, but the battle here is about the future of the democratic party -- the Clinton way is a 50 + 1 majority and a mix of slash-and-burn politics or straight up cooptation of right wing issues, and Obama is calling for something else.

The interesting thing -- and the reason why the calls for Hillary to drop out will not abate -- is that all of the Obama supporters want his way and not hers, while I think all or most of all of Hillary's supporters are agnostic on this. That is, most of them are not making a choice between the 50 + 1 approach or Dean's 50 state strategy, between Clinton's war-room approach or something else -- they will take anything that gets results, and will mostly be happy with Obama.

So I see why Hillary isn't dropping out, but the tides are against her and her husband. Why, for example, have I heard no refutation of Obama's greater down-ticket influence, particularly in 'purple' states?

One of my best friends went to caucus for Obama. The line was really long, and she was hungry and had work to get done, so instead she caucused for Hillary, whose line was nice and short.

This is why I hide out at Unfogged and don't discuss politics much in my regular life.

94, 101. Should be asl.

You mean Gou Lehrig's?

Oh man, heebie. It would have been better if she had just left.

100: sure, but Barack Obama didn't accuse Clinton of killing Vince Foster. They've both been subjected to nontrivial amounts of right wing demonization--she's been subjected to more total, obviously.

Doesn't matter where the negatives come from - negatives hurt candidates (we've seen the recent study that, even after a person accepts that a false attack was false, the negative perception lingers). HRC has been exposed to exponentially more negative attacks than BHO - there's no plausible way to deny it. All I'm saying is that this is a sound basis for calling HRC more battle-tested.

102: OK, I know that you really just wanted to post that long list of Obama wins, but half of those were almost literally uncontested. Might not be a point you want to emphasize.

102: Yeeeeaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!

Why were they uncontested? Don't they count?

Clinton is more battle-tested, but one thing that means is that her negatives are already horrifyingly high. There are a lot of McCain hating Republicans who might go for Obama, who's a blank slate to many and talks the church talk nice and sweet. (Some of the most hard-core Republicans / Hillary haters deal with politics so personally that they're almost non-ideological.)

It would have been better if she had just left.

I know, I know, and we sort of light-heartedly acknowledged this. But without the judgmental "Are you fucking kidding me?" that was going off in my brain.

Half of those were almost literally uncontested.

A terrible overconfidence error by Clinton. She got herself in this mess and we should force her to live with it.

Cryptic Ned, Please check your registration in Pennsylvania. If you can't register at your new place, just make sure to go back to your old polling place--if you can.

109- There's a party over here; party over there!

If I'm not mistaken, there isn't any real way to calculate real popular vote totals, since the numbers for caucuses are state delegate counts, rather than vote counts. Right?

there isn't any real way to calculate real popular vote totals, since the numbers for caucuses are state delegate counts, rather than vote counts

This is why the Clintons will almost surely only count votes in primary states.

113: so "Clinton made a gross strategic error by not campaigning or organizing those states, so her opponents's overwhelming victory shows he can't win contested elections?" Wow! Do you also use Michigan to show her strength in the national popular vote count?

Half of those were almost literally uncontested.

Leading me to believe that Obama's campaign is way way better at electoral strategy than Clinton's.

Hillary's been tested because she's been subjected to a significant, well-funded attempt to drive up her negatives, while Obama has not.

Aside from assorted media silliness like "oh crying how fake," Hillary drove up her own negatives, for the most part. Nobody forced her to vote for the Iraq War, to continue defending that vote, to try to run simultaneously as an establishment and "change" candidate, to arrogantly approach the primaries as a coronation, to attempt assorted idiotic dirty-campaigning tricks like accusing Obama of "plagiarism," or to endorse McCain.

HRC must not drop out.

It is foretold that Obama will get the Democratic nomination, and HRC will join McCain in forming the National Unity Party. McCain will head the NUP ticket, getting HRC to take the VP spot in exchange for McCain's promise to die in two years. The Republicans will run Huckabee & Nader. The election will be close, finally being decided by a fourth recount of a precinct in Kansas with 17 permanent residents and 84,687 votes reported. The US Supreme Court will affirm, and president Huckabee will be duly sworn in.

How awesome would it be if Obama broke 70% in Mississipi?!

Michael, Now i'm going to have a bad dream tonight.

126: You forgot Poland Ron Paul's juggernaut independent run.

121: I thought this at first. As far as I can tell some caucus states do report popular vote totals, but others don't. If you're serious about the popular vote total I assume you'd estimate by multiplying total turnout x proportion of state delegate conventions. Though, the whole thing is pretty rich as a mandate for superdelegates overriding pledged delegate counts; it wasn't rank and file Democrats who opted for those caucuses, it was the party, & I bet Obama would have won primaries handily in a lot of those states too (though by somewhat lower margins). I can accept it insofar as they can credibly argue: "look, this is basically a tie, & superdelegates are the tiebreakers, that's all," but that's it.

Considering that Hillary's campaign says Michigan should count, they're hardly in a position to be discounting "almost literally" uncontested elections.

130: Because I'm dumb, will someone explain to me why it is accepted as true that Obama does better in caucuses than primaries?

115, 118, 123: God, this stuff is so predictable. Did I say HRC was right not to contest? Did I say uncontested states don't count?

No, of course I didn't. I said that it's pretty fucking asinine to make a list of hard-won contests and include a bunch where your opponent literally never visited. So the brilliant retort to this - in three-part harmony - is "it's her fault for not visiting!"

118, 124: agreed. Also, 126 really really speaks for me: I mean, I've been defending her all along, and the stuff Slack's pointing to is the stuff that's finally making me (reluctant though I am to admit it) start to think, jeez, maybe the haters kind of have a point. So much of it just feeds so well into the stories about her arrogance, her lack of principles, her hawkishness, etc.

I think that if Clinton is nominated and loses, all of her consultants and top advisers should be slowly killed. Some sort of formal arrangement to that effect should be a condition of general election support -- it should be negotiated at the convention. Pledges to support the nominee should be conditional on this agreement.

Part of the campaign debt could be paid off by a lottery of chances to whack Penn, Carville, et al. A lottery would be better than an auction because more people could be involved, and this would strengthen the party.

125: History did not begin in January, DS.

Obama in Mississippi today:

He referenced comments from Bill Clinton in 1992 that his "most important criteria" for vice president was that person must be ready to be commander in chief.

"They have been spending the last two or three weeks" arguing that he is not ready to be commander in chief, Obama said.

"I don't understand. If I am not ready, why do you think I would be such a great vice president?" Obama asked the crowd, which gave him a standing ovation during his defense. "I don't understand."

"You can't say he is not ready on day one, then you want him to be your vice president," Obama continued. "I just want everybody to absolutely clear: I am not running for vice president. I am running to be president of the United States of America."

135: Bipartisan hog farms?

Hillary's been tested because she's been subjected to a significant, well-funded attempt to drive up her negatives,

Which has worked. No one ever completes the thought. There have been polls (or maybe just one--I'm sure I saw it on Nyhan's blog) that show her negatives north of 50%. That she continues to win in NY--at a cost of $30 mil. last time out--tells us relatively little about her chances in the general. Obama will carry NY, too.

(At the same time, though, earlier in the thread I almost posted something about how it makes me uncomfortable when people talk too loudly about how she should drop out, how much she sucks, etc., for the same reason that her endorsing McCain pisses me off--it's all going to come back and bite us in the ass come the generals. So I continue to be conflicted.)

135: Yeah, every election. Obama's people too. It would be motivational for the consultants.

why it is accepted as true that Obama does better in caucuses than primaries

Because so far, he has.

A lottery would be better than an auction because more people could be involved, and this would strengthen the party.

Emerson is making sense.

137 makes me swoon a little.

But that's because I'm a dumb girl.

I may be naive and idealistic, but I think that hog farms would solve a lot of America's problems.

137: Nicely played.

142: I know, but why?

143: OK, I take back two of the "fuck you"s.

The level of demonization Obama has experienced is nothing compared to what's coming his way if he's the nominee. For Clinton, there's no where left for the demonizers to go. I have a friend who's convinced, thanks to right-wing whisper campaigns, that Clinton is a lesbian. She doesn't hold this against her, she has nothing against lesbians and she likes Clinton just fine, but in her circles, the idea that Clinton is a lesbian has been repeated so often that she just accepts it as fact.

My hope for Obama, if he really is Teflon, is that come November there will be people who hear the smear that he's secretly a Muslim, believe it, and vote for him anyway.

All I'm saying is that this is a sound basis for calling HRC more battle-tested.

Or battle fatigued. Nobody drafts a player on the grounds that he's been injured badly and still managed to perform well. We know the Republicans can't get her negatives to 100%. I assume that they can't them to 60%. Short of that, I wouldn't personally venture to guess.

121, 122, 130: From what I can find, IA, WA, NV, & ME are the only caucus states that haven't released popular vote information. I think the assumption is that they could come up with these numbers, but caucus states generally don't since it's not the point of the process. Note that 3 of those 4 were big wins for Obama, so they would only increase his popular vote lead.

148- The flirting between you two is distracting.

142: I think one reason is that in a primary, name recognition is a much bigger factor.

147: I think the theory is that he's good at organizing, and in a caucus state bringing out people is really important, because the numbers are smaller. Hillary wins with TV ads and name recognition. The criticism of Obama is that the general will be more like a primary than a caucus.

Also, more of Obama's supporters are upmarket types who can get to a caucus. People who work at restaurants and the like may be able to get to the polls, but they might not have the specific hours of a caucus free, and she's done better with traditional working class whites.

Clinton would be foolish to concede. There is plenty of time for something like this to happen to Obama.

Today in headlines that make you do a double-take:

Spitzer Is Linked To Prostitution Ring

My remark at 153 was aimed at 147, not 142 (though related). Gah, this is hard.

149: I believe there were news reports in the Ohio primary of voters (white middle-aged men FWIW) who had heard the most recent Manchurian Muslim rumors about Obama and were still really torn about how to vote.

m. leblanc:

(1) caucuses favor a candidate with more motivated supporters, because they're a pain in the neck
(2) caucuses favor a candidate with better organization, because they're a pain in the neck
(3) caucuses make it easier to win in a landslide, because if a candidate doesn't reach a certain threshhold in a district they get zero delegates. Obama has a couple 80-20, 70-25 caucus victories--I doubt he'd have been able to get those margins in primaries; he didn't in Illinois. So conceding a state can really kill you delegate-wise in a caucus.

Clinton also claims that caucuses systematically disenfranchise women & the working class & the elderly. I don't especially buy this one. The conventional wisdom until this year was that only elderly Democratic party regulars vote in caucuses, & the kids never show up. Remember Mark Penn making fun of the Des Moines Register poll? I'm sure there are specific voters who can't practically make it to a caucus site, but if Clinton had a decent organization & a decent base of support in various states she would have been able to muster a few thousand able bodied citizens to caucus for her. Obama hasn't run up huge margins in caucus states that Clinton actually contested; he lost Nevada and Texas & Iowa were closed. So part of this CW is that Clinton opted for a strategy of "don't campaign in a majority of caucus states & then argue that Obama's victory doesn't count", and that more caucuses were held in western states where Obama runs stronger than Clinton anyway.

147: Because in a caucus situation, the cult members can hypnotize ditherers.

156: Have to type faster to beat Shearer (#155). Too bad; I like Spitzer. I guess he has time to rehabilitate his career before the next election.

156: WTF?

oh, the other part of the caucus theory is that Clinton's female supporters are afraid of public speaking & meekly follow their husbands into the Obama camp when they really wanted to vote for Clinton. I find this pretty risible, and Obama does just as well in caucuses where they just count heads as opposed to making speeches & regrouping.

It's an "electability" thing, but you guys know that Mr. B. works with a bunch of right-wing nuts, yes?

A lot of those guys have told him they'd vote for Obama. There's no way in hell they'd vote for Hillary Clinton (or any Clinton).

Clinton's female supporters are afraid of public speaking & meekly follow their husbands into the Obama camp

Who's said that? That's completely insane.

159 is very funny. Now can we be friends again? Even though I favor videos of boxing cats?

156: Wow.

Tim, you don't think anyone follows Shearer's links, do you?

147: Everything in 154, plus: caucuses have traditionally been good for Establishment candidates, because party regulars have big influence. But HRC hasn't had as much Establishment support as was assumed pre-Iowa, and it turns out that really good organizing can swamp whatever you get from having the Establishment. BHO's got arguably the best ground campaign ever, presumably due to his experience with community organizing (which would let him know whom to hire, what will work, etc.).

I would add that caucus-organizing is different from retail politicking or GOTV - your organizers really need to be able to connect with people to get them to participate in the process. It's not enough to shake a hand, and then that person walks into a booth, checks your name, and walks out; nor to phone-bank and get a million people to do the same. You need to convince people to get off their asses and commit a couple hours to your candidacy.

After BHO won Iowa the way he did, I was pretty much ready to hand him the nomination right then - the organizing was just staggering. It has (generally) continued to be so, but at this point it's self-reinforcing - since Nevada, HRC has simply ceded the caucuses rather than try to develop suitable caucusing capability.

165: Were we ever not friends? Surely you realize that I am mean to my friends.

164: I dunno, man. When I was calling for Obama before Super Tuesday, I had two different men tell me that "we" haven't decided who we're voting for yet. Implying that they would vote as a family. Which I think is fucked up.

I also didn't talk to a single woman who said "yeah, I'm voting for Clinton." They either said they were supporting Obama, or were like "that's personal information and I'm not going to tell you."

Not to say that this is a reason to wave away the Obama caucus victories, but I think the fact that it's a social, public event does factor in to how people vote.

163: that's what it comes down to. Whichever candidate is better with the white male vote, my guess is it's Obama.

Primaries vs. caucuses: I can't even imagine the conspiracy theories we'd be hearing if it was Hillary who was taking all the obscure caucuses and Obama was taking lots of the big, publicized primaries.

167 is now weeping in a corner, so pwned has it been.

169: Meh. I agree that "we" haven't decided is fucked up, but it's generally true, isn't it, that a lot of couples end up voting for the same person--not because the woman meekly follows her man, but because they argue about the options together?

the fact that it's a social, public event does factor in to how people vote.

Probably, sort of. I dunno. Even though I dithered up to the moment I marked the ballot, I think that the This Is Important thing would have led me to do the same thing in public.

I usually tell my husband who to vote for, personally.

167 is right. The level of organizational competence Obama has been showing in this race is staggering.

168: Yes, I know.

Hey, how come here : roll over Texas, and it says that for the caucus results Clinton has more delagates than Obama so far?

The other thing about caucuses is that they REWARD organization more, meaning a higher ratio of delegates:man-hour of work by a staffers. Because of the frontloaded primary calendar this year, the Obama campaign was running a furious race against the clock, & so it made sense to concentrate more of their resources in the caucus states. When they have months to organize, they can do it pretty well in a primary state too--see: South Carolina. This is the only thing that gives me any hope at all about Pennsylvania, but it's a pretty slim hope.

170: Not the white male vote per se, necessarily. But the white male pro-military vote, yes: highly likely to be pretty open-minded about race, adamantly anti-Clinton, pretty damaged by years of anti-Hillary propaganda, way pissed off at Bush, completely uninterested in maintaining this bullshit in Iraq. (And, b/c of being pissed at Bush, likely to be pretty skeptical of any smears about Obama being a sleeper Muslim or such nonsense.)

A lot of those guys have told him they'd vote for Obama. There's no way in hell they'd vote for Hillary Clinton (or any Clinton).

This is what happens when the right wing spends fifteen years demonizing center-right political figures as crazy left-wing radicals: a nontrivial chunk of the Republican Party is now willing to vote for the more liberal Democrat.

173: So do I, at least in local elections and on propositions and stuff.

175: It's only if I suddenly start ignoring you that you have to worry.

I hope that after Clinton loses, Mark Penn will be put on LB's all-lentil diet.

169: I'll be honest: I think my daughter would really dig a Hillary yard sign, but I'd feel a little uncomfortable with it on our street.

Compare Obama's competence to Hillary's disorganized campaign:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/us/politics/10clinton.html?em&ex=1205294400&en=91769ae2ce4b3cc0&ei=5087%0A

This is the second major initiative (after health care) where she's shown poor executive management skills. This campaign was really hers to lose.

At the end of the day, I feel like Obama's likely the better candidate. But with regret -- I like Hillary.

179: I think it's more important that the Rs abandoned their traditional constituents when they started kissing the feet of the Jesus freaks, myself. Faith-based rather than reality-based politics doesn't sit too well with guys who, no matter how selfish their politics, are nonetheless neither stupid nor inclined to ignore reality.

If they hadn't done that, these guys voting D wouldn't be an option at all.

My right-wing, retired Air Force uncle certainly won't vote for either Obama or Clinton, because he thinks they're both socialists. However, he does like Obama and hates hates hates HRC with a shining purple passion.

179: Fiendishly clever.

185: You couldn't get him to vote Obama (or at least stay home) by talking about what a fucking clusterfuck Iraq is, how much they've undermined the military with all these Halliburton, etc., mercenaries, what they've done to veterans funding, their abandonment of Afghanistan, what they've done to the economy, and all the bullshit profiteering?

184: Judis' Emerging Liberal Majority (or whatever it was called) semi-predicted this 5+ years ago: his premise was that the Rs have abandoned the personally-conservative, practically-minded small businessmen/professionals/engineers types, who used to be their backbone. That group now is faced with a choice between Dems, who are a little liberal for their tastes, or Rs, who are fucking insane*. It's why I was really pulling against Mitt - he's the kind of guy who appeals to that group, but all the other Rs were walking posters for voting Dem.

* In terms of finances, science, hate, and corporate whoredom

I don't think it's just the religosity. My data points are my 70+ stepdad and my best friend's 40ish husband. Both are consistent R voters, for tax and anti-regulatory purposes though they would deny any party affiliation (and I'm pretty sure neither voted for Bush in '04). Both are churchgoers who, while not wingnuts, don't get too worked up about the wingnuttery in the Bush Administration. I could easily see both voting for Obama over McCain. And both would be repelled by Muslim/race smear attacks. (My stepdad embraced interracial marriage long before my Democrat mother ever did.) The younger one might have even voted for Edwards (he liked him in '04 and really likes Elizabeth). But neither would vote for a ticket with a Clinton on it. Or even Gore.

heebie, could it be like the situation in Nevada, where Obama got a lower percentage of the votes but more delegates because of teh way that they're apportioned?

Dems don't have to win white males, just lose them by less.

But I do think Obama will lose Dems some votes among middle aged and senior females. A lot of them see Hillary's treatment throughout her career as a metaphor for the unfairness they've experienced. My Mom asked me the other day, "why isn't Hillary allowed to fight back? When men fight back, they're being the big man and everybody likes them, when I did, I wasn't being a nice girl". She slid right from Hillary to her.

Oh, the small businessmen were abandoned by the Rs long ago. I was speaking more of the pro-military, anti-tax guys. Who are *seriously* pissed about the effects of the unnecessary and prohibitively expensive war on both the economy and the military.

188.---That describes my dad perfectly. A registered Republican, he voted for Romney in the primaries, thinks that McCain is a dangerous lunatic, and dislikes the Clintons. Obama could absolutely win his vote. (In 2004, he went Badnarak, god help us.)

Obama will lose Dems some votes among middle aged and senior females

No he won't. Those women are very reliable voters (and they/we are pretty used to sucking it up and doing the practically necessary thing). They'll be angry about Clinton losing, but they won't stay away from the polls.

I think it's more important that the Rs abandoned their traditional constituents when they started kissing the feet of the Jesus freaks, myself. Faith-based rather than reality-based politics doesn't sit too well with guys who, no matter how selfish their politics, are nonetheless neither stupid nor inclined to ignore reality.

But the Republican Party - for as long as it's been recognizable in its modern form - has never cared about "reality-based politics." There was nothing "reality-based" about supply-side economics; it was little more than crackpottery mixed with a good dose of hucksterism in order to sell tax cuts for the rich. Each leg of the GOP base has needed its own desperately unsustainable, fantastically-premised set of policies to keep it happy, from the theocrats to the money men to the warmongers. It wasn't the Jesus freaks that upset the apple cart, either - it was Iraq, which was, at least on the GOP side of things, a neocon project.

they/we are pretty used to sucking it up and doing the practically necessary thing

Writing that made me feel really angry again. Dammit.

190: Possibly, but it seems biased to me because of the breakdown by precinct here. He's leading in 20 out of 31 precincts, and the count has been frozen since last week.

195: Nonetheless. In their personal lives, those guys believe in a strong military and fiscal responsibility.

Supply-side economics was also about cutting social spending, which fed right into the "responsibility" meme. But cutting taxes during wartime is a step too far.

Those women are very reliable voters (and they/we are pretty used to sucking it up and doing the practically necessary thing). They'll be angry about Clinton losing, but they won't stay away from the polls.

Alternatively, if Obama wins the nomination, he could do the right thing and put a woman on the ticket.

(The Jesus freaks, I think, are a kind of synechdoche for the whole neocon "who needs contingency plans?" attitude towards military planning."

194: I think you're right. I can't see a significant demographic of women who are pissed at Clinton not getting the nomination but also don't care about a McCain win enough to get past it and go vote for whoever has the D ticket.

199: He could, and it would make women like me feel a lot better, but I don't think he has to, and practically speaking, the possible negatives (too much! too soon!) for everyone else would outweigh making women like me feel better.

AS ALWAYS. SIGH.

I just want you to know that this brief conversation has once again reminded me of why I hate men.

199: As a woman, I couldn't agree less with your idea of what do the right thing would be. He needs a strong complement. Gender balance is not the right focus.

194 is the rightest thing ever. Sad, yes, but also right.

195: Depends on when you date "Party in its modern form." As late as the Contract with America, Rs were positioning themselves as practical-minded, fiscally-responsible managers. It was only rhetoric, but it was pretty effective with the types I'm talking about.

That said, I absolutely agree that Iraq has broken the camel's back, not the other stuff. But that's because, for a white male businessman, gay-baiting and the like don't even register. Depending on their personal religious views, the anti-Darwin stuff may not seem remarkable, either.

I think one of the reasons the R coalition held up so long was that its non-wingnut core consisted of guys whose lives were pretty good, and really didn't give a shit about anything but lowering their taxes - because otherwise civil society didn't touch them.

Nonetheless. In their personal lives, those guys believe in a strong military and fiscal responsibility.

Ha. Ha. Ha. "Strong military" is a euphemism for maintaining the U.S. on a permanent war footing, for keeping troops stationed in hundreds of countries across the globe and invading a couple every so often to show we mean business at the cost of massive amounts of blood and treasure. You can't have a "strong military" and be fiscally responsible at the same time. Those kinds of guys were never grounded in reality; Iraq just made those fantasies that much more transparent.

Supply-side economics was also about cutting social spending

Since when? The deficit exploded under Reagan. And remember, it wasn't supposed to, because the magic of supply-side tax cuts was supposed to grow the economy so much that the government would make up the revenue anyway.

Extending 205: Conversely, the kids coming out for Obama now will stay home if he loses the nomination. I have no doubt of this. And history, as always, is on my side.

203: Is it just me, or is B really emotional?

the kids coming out for Obama now will stay home if he loses the nomination.

From their point of view this wouldn't be so irrational.

199, 202: If Clinton gets the nomination, is she obligated to name a non-Obama black man as VP? And if she did, do you think Obama supporters would be happy with, say, a Clinton/Harold Ford ticket?

207: Don't underestimate the extent to which people vote based on stories they tell themselves. You always see polls about how people voted for Bush who said their most important issue was the environment, or who believe that Bush is pro-choice. We're political junkies, so we remember every dog whistle, and fact-check every claim. But the vast majority of voters go with their gut, pick up whichever bit of rhetoric satisfies their need for affirmation, and fill in the rest from their imaginations.

210: No, I agree. And I'm not laying blame (though I wish they would stay involved, of course). I'm just saying.

206 and others: finally, after many years, the automatic Republican brand identification with sensible suburban middle manager white businessman responsibility is breaking up. Part of that is due to the Clinton administration's record as well -- the contrast between the fiscal record under Clinton and under Reagan and Bush got too big to be ignored. Bush really frittered away what was left of his party's brand advantage.

211: No, she isn't. (not that either is `obligated'). It has always seemed pretty silly to me to think of race and gender to be fungible this way.

207.1: If you say so, Stras. How many of these military guys do you actually know in person? Because as much as I disagree, strongly, with their politics, my sense of them as individuals is that they are, in fact, highly principled and do not think of things the way you describe. Even if your point is that regardless of what they *think*, that's the *effect* of their beliefs, what *I'm* saying is that to them, those principles really do matter.

208: Agreed.

209 is funny, I have to admit. And I hate you for it.

"And if she did, do you think Obama supporters would be happy with, say, a Clinton/Harold Ford ticket?"

oh boy, would that piss me off. (Not that I'm a good proxy for black voters on this.)

212: But this is exactly my point. To claim that there was some point in the past when the Republican Party was "reality-based" - not because its policies were, but because some imagined "jus' folks" types likes to imagine themselves as practical-minded as they voted for Reagan and Gingrich - is utterly silly.

213: Yes. It's a very real risk for the Dems this time round, I think. I guess it's a risk whenever you manage to engage in meaningful numbers with a demographic that you haven't tranditionally involved ... all your assumptions are under question.

talking about what a fucking clusterfuck Iraq is

No, I'm pretty certain he'd say that Democrats would have done it even more poorly (or, worse in his eyes, not at all). He's abandoned GWB for not cutting spending. Military adventurism is a-okay in his book.

but in her circles, the idea that Clinton is a lesbian has been repeated so often that she just accepts it as fact

I for one would like Hillary much better if she were a lesbian.

From their point of view this wouldn't be so irrational.

Same would be true of middle-aged white women, but *we'll* vote. Because *we* care about whether or not those young people can still get their birth control pills.

Sigh. Maybe they'll appreciate us *some* day, when they have kids of their own....

I hate that "reality-based" snark. The Bush people didn't "accept reality", they tried to change it, and they mostly succeeded. I think that Iraq was more difficult than they expected, but there's no doubt at all that they believe that all the costs so far, all the deaths, and all the destruction were completely worth it. Their goal was a permanent U. S. military presence in Iraq, and neither Democratic candidate has entirely renounced that. We have I don't know how many billion dollars tied up in permanent bases (and an embassy) in Iraq. Hundreds, I'd guess.

The Republican fiscal goals were lower taxes and a financial crisis, and they'll get those too.

The unrealistic Republicans in Congress, even as the minority, beat the realistic Democrats at almost every turn. They failed to destroy social security, but they had the Democrats playing defense on the party's greatest accomplishment of the last century. They got a lot of other stuff.

And they may bankrupt and ruin the US, but none of the big-money people have to live in the US if they don't want to. Finance can offshore anywhere. These people are all finance.

The Republicans' goals aren't our goals, and they are the Republican electorate's goals either, but they've attained a tremendous proportion of them.

Stras's rantings are clueless, which is why I tell him to fuck himself all the time. In order to oppose someone, it helps to have some idea what they're trying to do. Just throwing everything you can grab at them doesn't accomplish anything.

220: Wow. He's unlike most of the (younger, I assume) military guys I know, then.

From their point of view this wouldn't be so irrational.

What's their point of view then? "If Obama doesn't get to be President this year, then we don't care if we all die slowly because we can't afford our meds and abortion is made a felony in the meantime."

Yeah, totally rational.

How many of these military guys do you actually know in person?

Five that I can think of right now.

Because as much as I disagree, strongly, with their politics, my sense of them as individuals is that they are, in fact, highly principled and do not think of things the way you describe.

Do any of the people you were talking about before - the "srong military, fiscally responsible" types - believe that the US should be cutting the Pentagon budget in half, given that if it did so it would still have, by far, the largest and most destructive military force on the planet? Or that the US should cut its military budget at all? Do they think America should scrap most of our nuclear weapon stockpile? Or even any of it? Do they think the United States still needs to maintain a military presence in hundreds of countries around the world, as it currently does?

What I'm saying is: it's entirely possible that the people you're talking about think of themselves as "fiscally responsible," and are just incredibly ignorant and have never thought much about what this means within the context of the military. Now, you can still be "principled" about liking the military a whole lot without ever really examining what that means and what that amounts to. But I don't think it qualifies you for being "reality-based."

216a) How much of this is aculturation though? I've known a fair number of military folk. Most of them are about as ignorant of the large scale economic issues around military spending as anyone else is ... but a lot of them seem to feel that *any* sort of force or spending reduction was a threat to having a `strong military'. You're right that this was a reflection of core value for most of these guys (and a few girls) but it didn't mean they had a good handle on what sufficient conditions for a strong military were.

The fact is, the US hasn't been in even the remotest risk of not having a strong military at any time since WWII, under any reasonable definition of strong military.

Any more nuanced decision has to ask questions of precisely what you plan on doing with said military, for example does the US want/need the 700+ foreign bases it currently operates? And why? In discussions like this the average military member is slightly, but only slightly, more qualified to understand the issues than the average joe, and it's not a conversation that seem to be had much.

So it seems to me mostly acculturation.

225: No, many young voters perceive Obama as a transformational candidate, an agent of real change. And if he loses the nomination, particualrly given that he won't lose the pledged delegate lead, young voters will, likely correctly, believe that the establishment has thwarted change. Again. (This all begs the question of whether Obama will bring about real change, of course. We're just talking about what the kids -- get off my lawn! -- believe.)

Stras's rantings are clueless, which is why I tell him to fuck himself all the time.

Emerson, honestly, it wasn't me who ran over your dog.

I hate that "reality-based" snark.

And I'll second Emerson on this.

they may bankrupt and ruin the US, but none of the big-money people have to live in the US if they don't want to.

But why wouldn't they want to? Their money will just go further, and it'll be even easier to exploit all of us.

The Republicans' goals aren't our goals, and they are the Republican electorate's goals either

This I think is the key. The Republican electorate *really does* believe in some of the stuff that the Republican party uses as rhetoric. And the better educated, better traveled, more experienced, and sincerely patriotic among them are beginning to see very clearly that the party is actively destroying the country.

Which left-type cynics might say "oh well duh, those values always were just bullshit anyway"--one reason why R voters are damn reluctant to be or be seen as "liberals"--but to those voters, those values are real. And watching them pissed on by the party that used to espouse them makes them incredibly angry. They'll cross over for Obama in part because his inspiring qualities appeal to those values.

(Which is kind of ironic, because his ability to inspire is *also* what appeals to the left, regardless of the extent to which the left is seen as/really does think that patrotism is the last refuge of a coward.)

226: Stras, "rational" doesn't mean "right", much less "makes sense to Stras". It just means having definable goals and choosing reasonable means to attain them. To militarists war is acceptable and dedicating the whole country to world domination is the way to go. Militarists are completely right to support Bush.

225: No, quite a different view, and a matter of perspective.

You start off believing your vote effectively doesn't count. Someone manages to convince you that maybe that isn't true, that ideas matter and change is possible (whether or not they are full of shit is immaterial here) . Then, in spite of this `wave' of `change' ... nothing changes. You're guy gets tossed out by embedded interests and old school politicos. You just lost to `the man', even if she happens to be a woman this time around. So you realize no, you were right all along and your vote doesn't matter.

It really doesn't matter how accurate any of that is, if it's what people believe.

Stras, you can annoy me more when you agree with me than anyone else here can when they disagree. Your over-the-top cluelessness can be really grating.

232: Where does the word "rational" appear in 226?

Stras, you can annoy me more when you agree with me than anyone else here can when they disagree.

I know! It's really too bad, then, that we agree on so much to begin with. I think the only substantive disagreement we've had, up until now, was on whether Obama was significantly more preferable to Clinton.

Your over-the-top cluelessness can be really grating.

It's like looking in a mirror, isn't it?

Do any of the people you were talking about before - the "srong military, fiscally responsible" types - believe that the US should be cutting the Pentagon budget in half, given that if it did so it would still have, by far, the largest and most destructive military force on the planet? Or that the US should cut its military budget at all?

What I hear is a lot of bitching about how we need to get rid of the bullshit pork projects and focusing on actual strategic goals. Which fits right into the "goddamn government" rhetoric. And yes, does boil down, to some extent, to a belief that the military budget is much, much higher than it needs to be.

Do they think America should scrap most of our nuclear weapon stockpile? Or even any of it?

I don't know the answer to this specifically. I do think that the general attitude is that nukes are not strategically useful for the US and that we'd be much better served investing our resources in intelligence, mobile forces, etc. With, of course, the caveat that blah blah we have to keep an eye on China and North Korea.

Do they think the United States still needs to maintain a military presence in hundreds of countries around the world, as it currently does?

In order to "safeguard US interests"? Yes, I believe they think this. Your point that it's fiscally irresponsible isn't one that they share (and, given the size of the US economy, the fact is that doing this *is* quite possible for us, without massive deficit spending). If your point is that blah blah militarism inevitably involves imperialism and expensive foreign wars, I think they would answer that by saying that no, the miltary is a tool of last resort, and that what you're calling militarism inevitably involves imperialism, maybe (but who cares) and truly excellent diplomacy and intelligence.

Okay, I can't tell if all these comments about the relative rationality of youth voters/women voters staying home depending on how the nomination goes are sarcasm or not, but they're not the same thing. Yes, young voters (and independents and non-insane Republicans) could rationally conclude that the Democratic party doesn't really want their participation if, after turning out in record numbers in support of a candidate, the party gives the nomination to the other candidate who has fewer delegates and fewer popular votes. It's not the same thing for middle-aged white women (or other Clinton supporters) to draw the same conclusion if Obama wins the nomination when he has the most delegates and popular votes. It's not the party process at that point, it's the voters. And it has nothing to do with "appreciating" women generally. It's about the relative merits of this woman and this man. I would be a better president than most if not all of my male friends, and they'd agree with that, but I'm not running. Thank God.

but I'm not running

Are you sure? Because I've got a 527 ready to go.

Yeah, but you were going to embezzle all the donations anyway, weren't you?

231: But why wouldn't they want to? Their money will just go further, and it'll be even easier to exploit all of us.

Because in the Bahamas and Caimans servants and concubines are cheaper and more grateful, and they can be kicked off the island more conveniently.

Tyler Cowen didn't make this argument in his recent book, but he might as well have.

Stras, if you want to go off-blog, email me. Seriously. If you want anonymity, get a hotmail account.

McManus too, though he doesn't seem to want to go off-blog.

I hate that "reality-based" snark.

You're aware, no doubt, of the origin of this snark? The language originated with a Bush official who was praising Bush as not being part of the "reality-based community." The clueless left (including me) took this an unintentional and somewhat hilarious self-indictment of the Bush administration.

But you're right. It's the Bushies who got the last laugh on that one.

...could rationally conclude that the Democratic party doesn't really want their participation

With the campaign rhetoric about "new" and "change", the message on Social Security, and the youth of his advisors, no, I don't think Obama's Democratic Party wants people like me or others over fifty around anymore.

Stras, if you want to go off-blog, email me.

Emerson, seriously, I like you, but in that way.

in the Bahamas and Caimans servants and concubines are cheaper and more grateful

For *now*.

218: Probably no real disagreement here, but the Republican Party of the 50s, for instance, actually did favor, and work for, balanced budgets. In the 80s, there were still a ton (maybe a majority) of Congressional Rs who would vote against deficit spending (some of them even tried to rein in the Defense budget). The Republican Party as the home of fiscal restraint has been a myth for at least 30 years, but the (semi-)real thing existed in living memory.

I've said a hundred times: "The point isn't to understand the world, but to change it". (Theses on Feuerbach.) People who pride themselves on being "reality-based" are easily suckered and blindsided. Republican policy entrepreneurs are always looking for little temprary instabilities and flaws and rifts to take advantage of, and Democrats are always standing there sucking their fingers and saying "99 times out of 100 that wouldn't have worked". And the Democrats are right, but they should always be keeping an eye out for the exception.

Likewise, in a perfectly functioning economy there'd be no profits, but entrepreneurs look for the transient inefficiencies where profits can be picked up for a little while.

Republicans are semi-criminal entrepreneurs, gamblers, and cheating athletes, and Democrats are wise, rational administrators and philanthropists. R: game, set, match.

I really hate Mr. Matalin, but he understood that. Maybe that's why he's darn near a Republican.

Stras, you're tremendously annoying, and people here are getting tired of hearing me tell you so, and why.

249: Actually, John, it reassures me that it's not just me.

I love 248.1.

Stras, you're tremendously annoying, and people here are getting tired of hearing me tell you so, and why.

Feel free to stop telling me, then.

I like Stras. Suck an egg, Emerson.

I'm an Obama supporter, but I don't think Clinton should drop out.

I do think that the superdelegates should let Clinton know that they're going to be considering party unity and not endorsing the fucking Republican as very important factors in their decision.

OK, Stras's older brother.

254: I really hope that that's going on behind the scenes. ("Not endorsing" meaning "entirely quit comparing McCain favorably to Obama"). PGD doesn't believe that the Democrats work that way, though.

2 or 3 Clinton superdelegates jumping ship, or 2 or 3 pledged Clinton delegates making restless noises, would probably chill Hillary out.

244, whoever you are, if you've convinced yourself that Obama's "change" rhetoric means he wants to bring Logan's Run to life, there's not much I can say. But you've completely missed the point of my comment that you've quoted. It's not "Obama's Democratic Party" nor is it "Clinton's Democratic Party." They each have their campaigns and are vying for support from voters. The extent to which either is successful reflects more directly on the Democratic electorate, not the party as power broker. The dangerous step for the party is to select as nominee the candidate who has fewer delegates and popular votes because it says to those who would try to engage in the process, even if you have the most support, we won't let you win. Putting up a good fight and losing because you don't have the numbers is qualitatively different from pulling the numbers but still losing. Call me naive, but I give the youth voters, independents, etc., enough credit to tell the difference.

244 had to be trollery.

Re the dialogue on the beliefs of military people: material interests affect ideology. Even if you're honest and principled and straight-arrow (which I have no doubt most military types are). It's hard to look at the institution you work for and conclude that it's not making America safer and might be doing the reverse.

We're in a funny position with military spending right now. Annual military spending has increased by almost $400 billion per year since 2001. That's real money -- enough to plug the SS funding gap plus do universal health care plus have some left over to reduce the deficit, all without raising taxes. Or whatever. Yet it's still too small if we really want to invade and occupy other countries. Too small to be an unquestioned global hegemon, even too small to fight our two little colonial wars. But it's also far too large for simply defending our borders and territorial security. Because we won't clearly articulate what our post Cold War mission is, we're stuck in this uncomfortable middle position.

But B is right that it's not much compared to the economy as a whole. If we wanted to ramp things up to the same percentage of the economy we spent at the peak of the Cold War, we could double military spending and really try to turn the Persian Gulf into a U.S. lake.

One thing the Republicans do get: this is a massively wealthy country and most of the limits we put on the scale of what government can do are artificial, from a lack of daring.

244 was obviously McManus.

I like stras. At least I don't find him significantly more crazy than anyone else here.

Because we won't clearly articulate what our post Cold War mission is, we're stuck in this uncomfortable middle position.

Right, but not having that conversation at all nationally works to the advantage of well connected, influential interests.

At least I don't find him significantly more crazy than anyone else here.

Perhaps a tad bit more convinced that he's right? That can start looking crazy in this environment.

But that can't be Emerson's problem with him.

I'm actually coming around to the opinion that following politics very closely on blogs has become counterproductive to seeing what is actually going on.

I think it's that stras comes across as if you could never disagree with him/her (I've forgotten which; I don't see gender) in good faith. By definition, if you disagree it's because you are stupid or corrupt in some way.

I should clarify that I have no idea if stras thinks that; not much nuance comes across in these tiny little comment boxes, especially since Ogged banned emoticons.

I'm actually coming around to the opinion that following politics very closely on blogs has become counterproductive to seeing what is actually going on.

it takes you even further away from typical voter's mentality, that's for sure. After a while it's almost impossible to project yourself out of the blog bubble into the head of someone with a reasonable relationship to politics. Now everyone can feel like an out-of-touch beltway insider.

249: people here are getting tired of hearing me tell you so, and why.

Well, this much is true.

I'll cop to having occasionally been irritated with stras, but there's something over-the-top going on here and I can't figure it.

I should back off. Stras refuses to go off-blog so I can explain to him what I find annoying.

248

"Likewise, in a perfectly functioning economy there'd be no profits, but entrepreneurs look for the transient inefficiencies where profits can be picked up for a little while."

What does this mean? In the Econ 101 world there are no sustained excess profits but there are profits.

In the Econ 101 world, there are no economic profits. There might be accounting profits, but that's blamed on the accountants.

Emerson, what's your view on Ciresi dropping out of the MN DFL primary?

I liked him and supported him in the caucus, but I think that he was just too far behind. Franken has great name recognition and lots of $$$. Ciresi's campaign was short on money and the convention is still in the future. I'm really sorry he didn't make it and hope he runs again for something.

Franken, alas, isn't quite DLC but he's pretty mainstream. MN could have don better. Franken will still be a better than average Democratic Senator.

270

"In the Econ 101 world, there are no economic profits. There might be accounting profits, but that's blamed on the accountants."

The profits may be called the cost of capital but they are still there.

James, I meant about what Walt said. It was a comparison, leaning on the idea that the big profits don't last long, and the average profit isn't large, so that good businessmen try to take advantage of the transient events and deviations rather than just going for the average, predictable profit.

Ciresi was better than the underfunded peace candidate Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer?

Not really, but NP was / is a very long shot.

Way more attractive than Kucinich, though, and an excellent speaker.

I could have been happy with any of the three. I hope both the others stay in politics.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a long and drawn out primary process. Keeping attention on the Democrats and starving McCain is a theoretical good. Building up grassroots activist organisations well ahead of the general campaign is good. But these goods are in serious threat of being undermined if one of the candidates, for example, endorses the fucking Republican nominee.

It's not Clinton running the campaign at all that's a bother. It's what she's doing in her campaign that makes us cringe.

So that was me above... somehow the software didn't recognise that.

James: Those are accounting profits, but not economic profits.

from the Clinton camp's point of view, there's a reasonable case to be made that she's certainly close enough to stay in,

Especially because of Texas. Since Hillary won the more popular primary but lost the less popular caucus, it's easier to argue that Obama's caucus wins are a result of the demographic he appeals to, not because of his strength as a candidate. His strength, based on his caucus wins, is something of an illusion. It amplifies the appearance of his support.

I think the national polls have Hillary up nationally by a good margin. She really may be the most popular candidate, and the people's choice. And she may lose the nomination because of the caucus system, and voter demographics.

So, to iterate, Hillary's in second place, but they can make an argument that her being in second place is an artifact of an unrepresentative system, not a true expression of voters' preference.

to put some numbers on the diff b/w the turnout in the primary and the caucus:

it likes like about 50,000 people have voted for Obama in the caucus (estimate from % reporting). Nearly 1.5 million people votes for Hillary in the primary.

Hillary took the primary because of a disparity of votes of about 150,000. Obama might take Texas because he won the caucus by about 10,000 votes.

So one candidate takes the popular vote while another takes the delegates.