31% | 1130 votes |
2% | 87 votes |
51% | 1851 votes |
1% | 50 votes |
1% | 33 votes |
5% | 178 votes |
6% | 226 votes |
1% | 27 votes |
1% | 18 votes |
Which extreme minority do you think I voted in?
And how did you vote? And why?
31% | 1130 votes |
2% | 87 votes |
51% | 1851 votes |
1% | 50 votes |
1% | 33 votes |
5% | 178 votes |
6% | 226 votes |
1% | 27 votes |
1% | 18 votes |
Bottom line: With just 600 delegates up for grabs and front-runner Obama 658 short of the 2,025 needed for victory, it is mathematically impossible for either candidate to clinch the nomination before the process is scheduled to end with Puerto Rico's June 7 caucuses.Obama remains in the overall delegate lead, 1,567 to 1,462, according to Associated Press estimates.
With neither candidate able to wrap up the nomination during the primary season, Clinton and Obama must try to seal the deal by courting the 350 still-uncommitted superdelegates, including 14 from Texas.
A potential wild card is the continuing battle inside the Democratic National Committee over the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, two states whose convention votes have been taken away because they scheduled January primaries in violation of party rules.But governors of both states are talking about arranging for a June re-vote if private funding can be arranged to cover the costs. For very different reasons, the idea unites Clinton and GOP leaders.
Republicans see these "do-overs" as an opportunity to drain Democratic resources and create additional tension between the two foes. Clinton's strategists eye an opportunity to erase Obama's edge.
The crowd started growing well before the polls closed, and by 7:15 something resembling a mob had assembled in front of the Lovett Inn in the heart of Montrose. Patiently they waited for the chance to ... well, nobody was quite sure. ...
The hitherto obscure process, usually the province of the political hard core, was elevated to the main stage Tuesday by the tight race between Obama and Clinton and the unusual rules of the Democratic primary, which apportions delegates both by popular vote and success in the caucus straw poll."I've been doing this in Democratic primaries for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like it," said Annise Parker, the Houston city controller and a nearby resident. "This just shows that if you get the right scenario and the right candidates, people will come out to vote. Here you have a history-making election — either an African-American or a woman will be the Democratic candidate."
"I don't know how much difference this makes in the long run, but it makes a lot of difference to me," said 31-year-old Megan House, who was hoping to be chosen a delegate for the next stage of the process. "You've got to make a stand somewhere. People are understanding that democracy is controlled by those who show up."And show up they did. So much so that some precinct conventions took hours to resolve, especially in places where many people were still waiting to vote at the nominal closing hour of 7 p.m. The convention cannot start until the polls are closed.
Like the day's voting before them, most of the caucuses went off without a hitch. But there were exceptions, mainly because of large crowds and poor logistics. At the Harris County Courthouse Annex No. 31, the polling place for Precincts 325 and 327, the building's configuration made it difficult to organize the 300 or so people who turned out to participate, said Gertha Giles, a poll volunteer.
In Precincts 559 and 620, which also were combined for the primary, hundreds of people were still waiting in line outside the Westchase Public Library at 10:30 p.m. Poll officials did not open the doors and eventually police were called to the scene. Officers said there was never any violence, and once people were able to get inside the situation calmed down. ...
As the last of the people waiting to caucus filed inside the library about 11 p.m., police lingering in the parking lot said they'd heard calls over the radio for officers to help with overflow crowds at two other nearby caucus stations in West Side division alone: a church on Boone south of Wilcrest and a library in the 10000 block of South Kirkwood.
Across Harris County, from the inner loop to the suburbs, polling places were overwhelmed by unprecedented caucus attendance. At Precinct 64 in the predominantly Hispanic East End, the Democratic caucus drew a record turnout that astounded longtime participants.
The race for the Democratic nomination is a window into how the candidates view the future of the party, which is being shaped in large part by Dean's efforts. Are Clinton and Obama similarly committed to Dean's fifty-state strategy? How much faith would each, as the Democratic nominee, put in the party's grassroots? In the Internet era, the party is less about elder statesmen sitting in Washington than millions of people across the country organizing locally around issues and candidates. Dean and Obama have understood how the party is changing--and have embraced it. Clinton, thus far, has not. ...
Tensions have cooled since then, and both Clintons have voiced their support for Dean's fifty-state strategy. Yet in a larger sense, Hillary's candidacy represents the polar opposite of what Dean built as a candidate and party chair: her campaign is dominated by an inner circle of top strategists, with little room for grassroots input; it hasn't adapted well to new Internet tools like Facebook and MySpace; it tends to raise big contributions from a small group of high rollers rather than from large numbers of small donors; and it is less inclined to expand the base of the party.
In his sprint across the country before Super Tuesday, Obama wisely hit places where the party had barely existed years before. "They told me there weren't any Democrats in Idaho," Obama told a raucous crowd of 14,000 in Boise. "I didn't believe them." On Super Tuesday Obama won fifteen of Idaho's eighteen delegates and virtually swept the Midwest and Mountain West.
Tradition dictates that whoever wins the White House will install his or her own regime in the DNC. Dean says that if a Democrat wins in November, he does not want to hang around the building past 2009. Yet few in the party believe it's possible, or preferable, to go back to targeting a dozen swing states every two or four years. "You cannot lurch from one election to the next with no game plan," Dean says. "I do believe the Democratic President is going to want a permanent political operation, and I think we're going to leave a very strong one here." Dean says the state party chairs have already persuaded Obama and Clinton to commit to funding the fifty-state strategy, which at a cost of $4 million to $5 million a year is a tiny fraction of the $300 million budgeted by the DNC for '08. "The one thing they should not get rid of is the fifty-state strategy," says Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. "We need to do more, not less."Dean had the vision, but others will get or share the credit. It took an Obama to realize the potential of the Internet and grassroots organizing to transform politics. And it will take the commitment of future DNC chairs to the fifty-state strategy to continue building the party from the ground up. "You know the expression, to be a prophet without honor in your own land," says Steve Grossman, Dean's former campaign chair. "That's Howard Dean."
... We saw the party elite (dominated by the Clintonistas) in DC hoarding their power, sure, but we also saw that the masses outside the Beltway were far bigger, and collectively wielded far more power than the Ickes and the Podestas. Sure, they could raise a buttload of money and get their new organizations funded (and there's some good ones in that mix, like the Center for American Progress and MediaMatters), but their efforts to dominate and control the party machinery were doomed from the start. The people-powered movement would swamp them out. So Dean became our surrogate and we propelled him to a dramatic victory as chair of the party. Sure, establishment Dems wailed and threatened and tried unsuccessfully to find an establishment-approved alternative to Dean. ...
Those of us outside that DC cesspool knew better and we have been obviously proven right in the subsequent years. It's amazing how responsive the nation gets when you reorient your efforts beyond a few special states and decide that the whole country -- and the grassroots in each state -- actually matters.But what's surprising to me is that in this day and age, the Clinton people are still so wedded to the early 90s that they continue to misread the political landscape -- a mistake the Obama camp has exploited to full advantage.
Precisely. And also this, from Booman:
Maybe Hillary Clinton's personality blinded people. Maybe her gender was weighed too heavily. Maybe they took her voting record and policy positions at face value. Maybe they just craved partisanship. Maybe they were just afraid to stand up to the 'inevitable' candidate. But, for me, this has always been a contest between the DLC and the netroots/grassroots, with Obama and Edwards on one side and Clinton on the other.We netrootsers have been going into battle every day for five-six years without the Clinonistas at our side. Half the time, and on the most critical issues, they have been standing on the opposing sidelines or actively undercutting our positions. How could any blogger/activist have ever seen the Clinton campaign as anything other than the mortal enemy of the movement, I don't know.
I have blogger friends (hopefully still friends) whose support for Mrs. Clinton remains steadfast to this moment. It's easy to disagree over candidates in politics, even -- sometimes especially -- those within your chosen party. Obama is going to have to mend fences after Tuesday, irrespective of the outcome in the headlines. Even if he does not 'win' Texas and Ohio, he will almost certainly pad his delegate lead, continue to erode Mrs. Clinton's last remaining base of support -- the superdelegates -- and eventually be conceded the nomination. If not on Wednesday, then shortly thereafter. Much sooner than later, I would hope.