Obama to declare victory on May 20th

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080508/pl_politico/10184

According to his campaign at least.

[ChrisFromNJ]

That reminds me of this:

[SomeLawStudent]

I don't understand the Obama logic in that Pledged delegates are all that matters and Popular Vote doesn't matter at all.  On one hand they say popular vote is irrelevant because Pledged delegates are how the DNC chose to allot its votes, not popular vote.  But on the other hand, Obama says that Superdelegates have to follow the Pledged delegate vote because that's the will of the people.  The DNC chose to also give superdelegates free will to vote for who they want... maybe some of them want to wait and support whoever wins the Popular vote?  It's funny how Obama has really commandeered this argument that we have to strictly follow some rules but not others to heed to the "will of the people" as long as "will of the people" is defined as more pledged delegates rather than popular vote.

[Verily]

Obama has won the popular vote decisively as well.

[angus]

apparently the opposition is getting ready.  I have been receiving tidbits from my local GOP organization.  (yeah,  I gave 'em my real email address, though sometimes I wish I hadn't.)

here's the latest from this morning.  I'll try to reproduce the horrifically large font that was used in the message.


Subject: Remember this picture on election day!


Let's all remember this on election day...if you have family serving in the military, make sure you send it along.  I don't care for Hillary, but at least she shows respect for the country she lives in!
I had heard about this but a picture is definitely worth 1000 words! God save us!!!

and it was also blue and red, but I'm to lazy to figure out how to do that.  And here's the picture that came with it:



made me chuckle a bit.  But this here's Romney & Huckabee country, so it may play.  Who knows?  In any case, they're taking Obama seriously at the Black Hawk County GOP headquarters.

[Josh/Devilman88]

Hasn't Obama already won? Does anybody (not a Clinton Hack) still thinks Clinton could win it?

[SomeLawStudent]

Obama has won the popular vote decisively as well.

Not everyone has voted and not everyone has been counted or is being allowed to re-vote, and I can think of pretty good demographic reasons why it was lobbied against happening.

[The Mikado]

That reminds me of this:

Really?  Superdelegates are essentially tied (when Clinton needs a dramatic win among them), Obama will have majority of pledged delegates, FL/MI don't effect the final results.  Checkmate.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

May 20th = Obama clinches the pledged delegate majority. Hillary's not going to get the 80%+ of superdelegates she needs after that happens.

[Verily]

Obama has won the popular vote decisively as well.

Not everyone has voted and not everyone has been counted or is being allowed to re-vote, and I can think of pretty good demographic reasons why it was lobbied against happening.

Not everyone has voted, but Clinton would need more than 65% of the remainder to catch up--not just in West Virginia, but in Montana, Oregon and South Dakota as well. And that's including Florida and even Michigan, where only Obama complied with the DNC's request that candidates remove their names from the ballot.

Clinton can't even catch up under her most contorted measures.

[Beet]

Can some Obama supporter explain to me the rationale for declaring victory on May 20 instead of when he gets 2,025 delegates? He has to know that the May 20 declaration will be disputed, and that it will cause acrimony between his and Hillary's campaign, and it will make him look as if he is trying to railroad himself through the nomination, all for what, a measly 3 weeks?

The only explanation I can think of is that they feel less secure than they want everyone to think over there in camp Obama.

[Alcon]

Can some Obama supporter explain to me the rationale for declaring victory on May 20 instead of when he gets 2,025 delegates? He has to know that the May 20 declaration will be disputed, and that it will cause acrimony between his and Hillary's campaign, and it will make him look as if he is trying to railroad himself through the nomination, all for what, a measly 3 weeks?

The only explanation I can think of is that they feel less secure than they want everyone to think over there in camp Obama.

I would imagine:

Not declaring victory on that date might appear as a concession that they don't genuinely believe that is the "true clinch" date.  "We'll wait and see" would be tipping their hand to the Clinton people, and they're afraid of giving a mile by giving an inch.

[Verily]

Can some Obama supporter explain to me the rationale for declaring victory on May 20 instead of when he gets 2,025 delegates? He has to know that the May 20 declaration will be disputed, and that it will cause acrimony between his and Hillary's campaign, and it will make him look as if he is trying to railroad himself through the nomination, all for what, a measly 3 weeks?

The only explanation I can think of is that they feel less secure than they want everyone to think over there in camp Obama.

Or that they want to be able to campaign against McCain unfettered by the gnat of the Clinton campaign.

But really, we don't even know that they'll do this.

[Joe Republic]

I understand the reason for doing this, i.e. clinching a majority of pledged delegates, etc, but there just seems to be something slightly wrong with claiming an overall victory on the day he is overwhelmingly defeated in Kentucky.

[emergingDmajority1]

I understand the reason for doing this, i.e. clinching a majority of pledged delegates, etc, but there just seems to be something slightly wrong with claiming an overall victory on the day he is overwhelmingly defeated in Kentucky.

He's going to try to balance that out with a win in Oregon. If he loses Oregon then yea, he's going to look pretty stupid.

[Sbane]

He can just wait till June 3rd. That is unless Clinton starts attacking him hard. In that case the superdelegates would need to put her in her place.

[ChrisFromNJ]

That reminds me of this:

Really?  Superdelegates are essentially tied (when Clinton needs a dramatic win among them), Obama will have majority of pledged delegates, FL/MI don't effect the final results.  Checkmate.

You are the winner when you receive 2025 (or 2209) delegates. There is no other metric used to determine a nominee. For Obama to declare victory before receiving the neccessary delegates need to clinch the nomination is just like when Bush declared Mission Accomplished in May 2003. It is premature.

[Verily]

Maybe he has enough private endorsements from superdelegates to reach 2025 that day. You can whine about this if/when it actually happens, people.

[zombones]

Any Hillary supporter who believes she can still win is delusional. 
Also, Mission Accomplished Banner is not an adequate analogy since there is an obvious metric for Obama to win.  That is, 2025.  After getting the majority of pledged delegates, there will be no way for Clinton to match pledged delegate.  Supers will probably start moving toward him in greater numbers.

However, to declare victory on May 20 will probably piss of some Clinton folks.

That mass e-mail the Iowa guy got is awesome.

[Eraserhead]

If I was him, I might wait on until June 3rd. He's going to crush Clinton in both MT and SD.

[Gustaf]

IMO, Obama should be the gentleman from this point on. He can afford it. Clinton's last chance at getting this nomination was really to make it close in North Carolina and winning big in Indiana.

If I were Obama I'd let Michigan and Florida be seated, allow Clinton to have her wins in Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, sit back and enjoy the ride. He is STILL going to get the nomination, might as well act the bigger person and look better for the General Election.

[Lunar]

Can some Obama supporter explain to me the rationale for declaring victory on May 20 instead of when he gets 2,025 delegates? He has to know that the May 20 declaration will be disputed, and that it will cause acrimony between his and Hillary's campaign, and it will make him look as if he is trying to railroad himself through the nomination, all for what, a measly 3 weeks?

The only explanation I can think of is that they feel less secure than they want everyone to think over there in camp Obama.

IMO, Obama should be the gentleman from this point on. He can afford it. Clinton's last chance at getting this nomination was really to make it close in North Carolina and winning big in Indiana.

If I were Obama I'd let Michigan and Florida be seated, allow Clinton to have her wins in Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, sit back and enjoy the ride. He is STILL going to get the nomination, might as well act the bigger person and look better for the General Election.

After Oregon, there won't be much left for Clinton.  She can't spin Obama's arrogance to South Dakota and change her situation.  She's can't spin it like Puerto Rico's voice needs to be heard for the Dems to succeed in November.  Obama knows that a huge portion of Oregon has already voted and it favor shim.  The media won't officially declare things to be over until the margins are clear in Oregon, but once it's clear that no matter how much Puerto Rico loves her, she has no argument left to the superdelegates, they will tear into her like wolves.  Huckabee was comical and jovial so the media tolerated his mathematic insanity with a whimsical narrative.  Huckabee wasn't attacking and making McCain bloody or dividing the party so there wasn't any reason to hurry things.

If you thought the kitchen sink strategy was bad earlier, anyone see the threats against Nancy Pelosi recently?  Clinton supporter(s) are threatening to cut off millions of dollars if Michigan and Florida are not counted, presumably in their entirety.  The recent comments about her strength with "hard working voters, white voters" similarly are a blunt message to superdelegates.  What Obama wants to do is shut out that last figment of hope for Hillary so that she stops her attacks and becomes forward-looking.  He wants to stop the bleeding with the Democratic party.

Obama's declaration of victory will be a message to superdelegates that he expects their endorsement sooner rather than later once that occurs (or better yet, sooner, so that his announcement is made more legitimate).  It also is a message to the media to stop covering Hillary and the primary contests and start covering the general election.  Obama doesn't really care that much about mobilizing support in Montana and Puerto Rico for the general, but he wouldn't mind organizing and runnings ads in West Virginia (however unlikely) and Oregon for November.

But yeah, this announcement of an announcement might preemptively cut off some of Hillary's strategies by demoralizing her campaign's chances.

[Beet]

Can some Obama supporter explain to me the rationale for declaring victory on May 20 instead of when he gets 2,025 delegates? He has to know that the May 20 declaration will be disputed, and that it will cause acrimony between his and Hillary's campaign, and it will make him look as if he is trying to railroad himself through the nomination, all for what, a measly 3 weeks?

The only explanation I can think of is that they feel less secure than they want everyone to think over there in camp Obama.

IMO, Obama should be the gentleman from this point on. He can afford it. Clinton's last chance at getting this nomination was really to make it close in North Carolina and winning big in Indiana.

If I were Obama I'd let Michigan and Florida be seated, allow Clinton to have her wins in Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, sit back and enjoy the ride. He is STILL going to get the nomination, might as well act the bigger person and look better for the General Election.

After Oregon, there won't be much left for Clinton.  She can't spin Obama's arrogance to South Dakota and change her situation.  She's can't spin it like Puerto Rico's voice needs to be heard for the Dems to succeed in November.  Obama knows that a huge portion of Oregon has already voted and it favor shim.  The media won't officially declare things to be over until the margins are clear in Oregon, but once it's clear that no matter how much Puerto Rico loves her, she has no argument left to the superdelegates, they will tear into her like wolves.  Huckabee was comical and jovial so the media tolerated his mathematic insanity with a whimsical narrative.  Huckabee wasn't attacking and making McCain bloody or dividing the party so there wasn't any reason to hurry things.

If you thought the kitchen sink strategy was bad earlier, anyone see the threats against Nancy Pelosi recently?  Clinton supporter(s) are threatening to cut off millions of dollars if Michigan and Florida are not counted, presumably in their entirety.  The recent comments about her strength with "hard working voters, white voters" similarly are a blunt message to superdelegates.  What Obama wants to do is shut out that last figment of hope for Hillary so that she stops her attacks and becomes forward-looking.  He wants to stop the bleeding with the Democratic party.

Obama's declaration of victory will be a message to superdelegates that he expects their endorsement sooner rather than later once that occurs (or better yet, sooner, so that his announcement is made more legitimate).  It also is a message to the media to stop covering Hillary and the primary contests and start covering the general election.  Obama doesn't really care that much about mobilizing support in Montana and Puerto Rico for the general, but he wouldn't mind organizing and runnings ads in West Virginia (however unlikely) and Oregon for November.

But yeah, this announcement of an announcement might preemptively cut off some of Hillary's strategies by demoralizing her campaign's chances.

Surprisingly lucid response, thank you.

[Gustaf]

Lunar, I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying, but to clarify my main point:

Obama would probably get a lot of goodwill by allowing Florida and Michigan to be seated and letting all the states vote. In a way it may demoralize the Clinton forces even more, because it would make clear what low chances she has.

But, again, that's not the key point. The key point is that it would give him goodwill for the GENERAL election which is what he ought to be thinking about. Defusing all talk about disenfranchising Florida and Michigan and being generally anti-letting the people have their say is nothing but good. Strengthening his image as above dirty politics and following principles is even better.

[ottermax]

... That would be a good birthday present for me!