Talk Elections

Barack Obama's approval rating are steadily going up, but are still in the lower 40's. From an unemployment high of 16% in 2010, it has since gone down to 11%. However, the recapture of Congress by the Republican Party has stifled most of what remained in his program. Challengers, though prominent, have been few. The only thing of major note is that Biden has declined to be reelected a second term as Vice-President, perferring to retire.

Hillary Clinton the one who won the popular vote in 2008.

Assuming the GOP had a nominee and the Democrats didn't, by the time the process rolled to Indiana, I would vote for Hillary Clinton. She's one of the few Democrats I could see myself voting for in the GE.

Hillary Clinton

Neck and Neck between Obama and Clinton, while Warner is not far behind. Kucinich is where he always is.

Where are Republicans going to pick up the seats to get control of Congress? especially in the Senate where they would have to pick off a bunch of deep blue states. 

The recession is bad enough to allow the Republicans to make large gains similar to that of the Democrat's gains in 2006. However, I agree that it would not give them the Senate. At the same time, it would be a rather narrow Democratic Majority, possibly 53-47. The House would be the reverse of today.

Also, Warner, Clinton, and Obama are practically tied.

Warner. he's the moderate god.

Obama

Democrats only gained 30 seats in 2006.  Republicans would need to gain 80 seats to get to where Democrats are now.  To do that they would have to pick up seats in inner cities and other safe Democratic districts. 

Republicans gotta be kidding if they think the recession getting worse will allow them to make gains in 2010.

The Great Depression went far into FDR's tenure with little to no improvement and the Democrats managed to survive because they still were able to keep the blame on the GOP.  This recession will still be seen as the effects of the Bush recession even if it's under Obama.

Also, when it comes to Congress, the incumbents--even during bad times and especially in the House--are almost always still favored because Americans have a tendency to believe that "it's the other Congressmen who are screwing up and not mine."

I'd probably vote for Obama if he was actually in any kind of real danger. He won't be though, so I might vote for Gravel or something.

Mark Warner.

2006 was the exact reverse of 2004. And 2008 made some improvements. So it's possible over two cycles.

I agree.

But for the purposes of this scenario, I probably will have to go with this:

If a Democrat had to be elected I'd choose Warner.

In 2004, the Republican House majority was as large as it can possibly get.  Democrats have far more safe Democratic seats than Republicans do. 

Clinton: 18,045,829
Obama: 18,107,587

(Going off of this sites numbers)

Barack Obama:17,628,560
Hillary Clinton: 18,055,516

It's complicated though. It all depends on what you figure in. Personally, I don't count caucus states, as they are more inaccurate.

Look, the argument of who won the popular vote is irrelevant, and the exact answer can never truly be known. Primaries aren't about votes, they are about delegates. However, if you really care about who won the vote, you must include caucuses, too.

Obama:
17,628,560 Primary
383,317+ Caucus
18,011,877+ Total

Clinton
18,055,516 Primary
179,604+ Caucus
18,235,120+ Total

Those numbers obviously do not include exact numbers for many caucus states that Obama won. Estimates of those states put Obama ahead.

But seriously, it doesn't matter, just like it doesn't matter in the general election.

I will be supporting the President for re-nomination in 2012, of course.

Warner probably. Unless Obama turns things around within the next 3 years or so.

Unless Obama completely tanks, I would vote for him. If he did fail, I would vote for Warner.

Obama 69,498,952

Uh, what?

POTUS

There isn't going to be a Democratic Primary.......but Obama ( normal)

Voting closes on Friday, 9-12 PM East Coast US time. I decided to make it a little longer than I had planned, due to the large amount of voters. From there, we will proceed over th weekend through the National Conventions for both the Republican and Democratic Primaries. I'll explain more come Wednesday.

As I have said previously, the voting will end on Friday. At that point, I will open up the conventions. There, we will be a delegation vote, each of which will last two days, eliminating the previous canidate with the least number of votes, until one of the canidates achieves a two-thirds majority. Once Canidates have been determined, there will be a Vice-Presidential nomination, but we'll get to that later. For now, keep voting. And Thank You for expressing interest.

Yeah. I thought the political climate under Bush was gorey. If we need someone who will keep EVERYONE from being crazy, he's our man. Then again, everyone could be going NUTS.

Translation: Clinton won the popular vote if you ignore large amounts of Obama's vote total. *shocked*

Owned

Regardless, it was close enough that he should have picked Clinton for vice President. Particularly for a guy who was supposedly running on reconciliation and unity and a new kind of politics- he just had to let the bitterness of the campaign lock her out of the ticket. That was one of my major disappointments with him, though I was pretty mute about it at the time because I didn't want to damage his chances of winning the general.

Well considering that she got the Secretary of State position, I say no hard feelings.

Do you have a link to this? The news reports I remember claimed that she was not even considered for VP. McCain even made an ad about it. In fact, it would have been better if it had seemed like an agonizing decision, but that is not how it was reported. Further, the announcement was sent out at 3am, which seemed to some like a juvenile jab about the primaries.


True, no one is contesting his right to pick Biden. But Tsongas and Brown were never that much threats to Clinton. A better comparison would be Ford/Reagan in '76.


Actually, most pundits were expecting him to pick Kaine, Bayh, or Biden, so there was no overwhelming pressure or even particular pressure for him to pick Clinton. Clinton was trading at like 10 in Intrade. Had he picked her, it would have look magnanimous, not weak. His position of strength was indisputable at that point. By not picking her he looked like a sore winner. It would have been another thing, again, if Biden had been a spectacular VP, but mostly he has distinguished himself for his trademark 'gaffes'. He has lower favorables than historical VPs. It's not clear what he added to the ticket. All the talk about him being dropped in 2012 speaks for itself.


Well, we might have been spared Palin, for one ;). Also, there is the matter that Clinton's profile as SoS was very low until a Politico article about a month ago that claimed she was being pushed aside in the administration. The article was later picked up widely in the MSM. I have no idea whether it was a real story or whether the media is just making things up (as the administration claims), but it certainly feeds into a continuing tension. We'll see what happens as things move forward.

Alright, we have got our canidates, and voting is done. Onto the convention!