Both former presidential candidates Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich easily defeated their respective primary opponents on Tuesday. Paul secured 70% of the vote and Kucinich got 50% with his four opponents splitting the rest. Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman had the best showing with 35% of the vote. Last week I predicted Kucinich to win but he got a higher percentage and beat Cimperman by more than I predicted.
Hillary’s wins in Ohio and in the Texas primary will likely continue her campaign indefinitely despite the fact that it is literally impossible for her to win the majority of pledged delegates. Hillary won the primary vote in Texas 51-47%, but for a reason that defies comprehension there is still only 41% reporting for the caucuses over 48 hours after the vote took place. As of now Obama is up 56-44 in the caucuses. If these caucus results hold, Clinton will have picked up 92 delegates in Texas compared to Obama’s 91. My prediction of 52% of delegates for Obama to 48% for Clinton was off due to Clinton’s stronger than expected primary vote in Texas. But still, that ain’t too bad right?
Anyway, Clinton’s “big win” gained her only 12 delegates on Obama’s total. Obama now leads Clinton by 144 pledged delegates and 109 when Super Delegates are included. The overall totals can be found here. Considering the fact that Obama raised $55 million in February and there are rumors that he has 50 Super Delegates about to announce their support in the coming days means that this race is essentially over. Fifty Super Delegates will give Obama the lead in pledged and unpledged delegates and considering the fact that every remaining state except Pennsylvania is very favorable to Obama there is every reason to expect that he gains heavily in pledged delegates. Break down the delegates yourself with this nifty little tool from CNN.
Basically it’s a little unfair to ask Hillary to drop out after Tuesday, but to quote her husband, “This is the biggest fairly tale I’ve ever heard.”
Based on the CNN Exit Polls from Texas and Ohio I think it’s pretty clear that if anything, Barack Obama will likely come out ever so slightly ahead tonight. Hillary will win Ohio by 3-5 points and possibly split 50-50 with Obama in the primary voting in Texas. However, the caucus portion in Texas should put Obama over the top by probably about the same amount of delegates that Hillary will win in Ohio, for the reasons I outlined earlier.
Despite the fact that the Rasmussen tracking poll has Hillary ahead of Obama for the first time since before Super Tuesday, she was ahead more than 10 points in both Texas and Ohio as recently as two weeks ago. Because of this, it’s really difficult to see how she can legitimately go forward from this point with no way of capturing the majority of pledged delegates. It wouldn’t be particularly troublesome for her to continue another week or so but for her to stay in until Pennsylvania on April 22 would really hold back the Democratic ticket. This would be especially true if she keeps running ads like this.
Update: So Clinton vastly exceeded mine and the exit poll’s expectations in Ohio, and it looks like she should finish around 55-57%. Texas will be about even but we won’t know the final results until sometime tomorrow morning. This will almost surely continue the campaign until at least April 22, where the demographics don’t bode particularly well for Obama. Also look for some endorsements to start coming down the pipes for Obama from the likes of Bill Richardson, John Edwards and All Gore; Richardson being the most likely and Gore the least.
You’re going to hear a lot of Obama saying, “John McCain and Hillary Clinton…”
I must say that this is undoubtedly the best I have seen Hillary Clinton the entire campaign. By ‘best’ I don’t mean the fact that she is attacking Obama for doing the exact same thing her campaign has done to him time and again. What I do mean is the fact that she is expressing authentic and passionate anger about something she views to be wrong.
Republicans such as George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, Donald Rumsfeld, anyone in the Republican presidential election, or international figures like Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jung Ill, the Janjawid or even the Chinese government would have been much better targets than Barack Obama. Directing this same kind of anger toward the actors would have enabled her to wrap up the nomination weeks ago. Of course she couldn’t have done this every day or every week, but to show this kind of aggressive emotion at the most opportune times would have showed that she cared deeply about making things different. Democrats right now don’t want the Stepford Wives candidate, they want someone who is visibly passionate about bringing change. (more…)
The Democratic Presidential Primary isn’t the only excitement going down in Cleveland on March 4th. Dennis J. Kucinich, is facing an intense primary against four Democratic challengers, the most serious of whom, Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman, has raised almost $1/2 million. Kucinich received 75% of the vote against a low-profile challenger two years ago, however, the anti-Kucinich vote will be much higher this year, as his opponents have called Kucinich an idealist who cares more about running for President than looking out for his district.
Despite the fact that I disagree with Kucinich on a vast array of issues and I think, in a lot of respects, he has done some less-than-positive things for the Democratic Party, I still hope he wins this primary. I think for the purpose of policy making it’s important to have some idealistic and sometimes fringe representatives around to keep everybody honest. However, to a point Kucinich has overstepped these bounds. But hopefully this close primary will teach him a lesson or two about the importance of party unity in achieving policy goals.
The number of candidates and high turnout that are expected for the presidential primary make this election extremely difficult to predict. However, I think that the Democrats in Cleveland will give Kucinich 38-45% of the vote and Cimperman will be about 5-8% points behind. Kucinich’s wife Elizabeth is always worth a bump of a few points in the polls.
Kucinich and Elizabeth during the presidential primary campaign.
Kucinich as the “Boy Mayor” of Cleveland at the age of 31. Elizabeth was 1 year old when this photo was taken.
In his Wisconsin victory speech John McCain just said he is now the nominee for the Republican party. He also generally categorized Obama’s idea of change as eloquent but empty and that Obama perpetuates the failed idea of the power of government over the power of the people.
Let me first say that the idea of “the power of the people” is a lot more abstract and fanciful than Obama’s principled call for change. Also, Hillary tried that argument and it’s clearly failing. CNN already called Wisconsin for Obama and he’ll probably win by more than 10. Hillary needs to get out if she loses in Texas or Ohio so Obama can adequately address McCain’s arguments.
March and April are going to be crucial for these candidates to establish their public perceptions before the other side does it for them. If Obama has this opportunity he should be able to deal with McCain’s attacks as easily as he did Hillary’s.
