Barack Obama Elected President!

[Wales2004]

Thanks for keeping it simple. I think I got it the first time but was thrown off by something. 'Sorry.

I thought the information about crossover voting came from exit polls and I didn't place too much stock in that.

[Jess]

Here is the Analysis from Gallup. It says what we all know:

The data suggest that the continuing and sometimes fractious Democratic nomination fight could have a negative impact for the Democratic Party in next November's election. A not insignificant percentage of both Obama and Clinton supporters currently say they would vote for McCain if he ends up running against the candidate they do not support.

Clinton supporters appear to be somewhat more reactive than Obama supporters. Twenty-eight percent of the former indicate that if Clinton is not the nominee -- and Obama is -- they would support McCain. That compares to 19% of Obama supporters who would support McCain if Obama is not the nominee -- and Clinton is.

It is unknown how many Democrats would actually carry through and vote for a Republican next fall if their preferred candidate does not become the Democratic nominee. The Democratic campaign is in the heat of battle at the moment, but by November, there will have been several months of attempts to build party unity around the eventual nominee -- and a focus on reasons why the Republican nominee needs to be defeated.

Additionally, some threat of deserting the party always takes place as party nomination battles are waged, and this threat can dissipate. For example, in answer to a recent Gallup question, 11% of Republicans said they would vote for the Democratic candidate or a third-party candidate next fall if McCain does not choose a vice president who is considerably more conservative than he is. (And another 9% said they just wouldn't vote.) These results suggest that it may be normal for some voters to claim early on in the process -- perhaps out of frustration -- that they will desert their party if certain things do not happen to their liking. And it may be equally likely that they fall back into line by the time of the general election. It is worth noting that in Gallup's historical final pre-election polls from 1992 to 2004, 10% or less of Republicans and Democrats typically vote for the other party's presidential candidate.

Still, when almost 3 out of 10 Clinton supporters say they would vote for McCain over Obama, it suggests that divisions are running deep within the Democratic Party. If the fight for the party's nomination were to continue until the Denver convention in late August, the Democratic Party could suffer some damage as it tries to regroup for the November general election.H

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It seems like McCain would lose support too. I think a lot of it is hurt feelings. As far as Hillary on the ticket, I hope Obama picks someone he can work with. If he doesn't trust Hillary, he certainly should not select her for vice president. If he does trust her, it might make a decent ticket. I do think that Hillary ought to quit now. She can't win and it's time to start re-building the party.

[Roman]

Also, 30% of voters means 30% of the people POLLED. That is not in the millions. At most, polls take the opinions of between 500-1,000 voters. We don't know age, color, or race. So yes, Jess, it seems like BS to me as well.

And then, for something else.....

(BTW, AMC......I don't put much stock in Survey USA, or these other polls. I post that just to prove that one can find any poll to say anything):

Polls: Less-educated whites hurt Obama

By The Associated Press – 6 days ago

According to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll in April, the certain Republican presidential nominee John McCain would get more votes than Hillary Rodham Clinton from white voters who have not finished college, 43 percent to 30 percent. Barack Obama would do even worse than Clinton, trailing McCain with this group 44 percent to 22 percent. McCain has a 23-percentage point lead against Clinton among whites who have graduated college, but just an eight-point margin over Obama with that group.

[Roman]

Thank you for posting this. This should put this mess to rest.

[DevotedToAMC]

I think the nomination will be decided in mid to late June....but it cannot wait until the convention in Denver

[Roman]

So as VP, we have:

Bill Richardson

Evan Baye

Wesley Clark

Chris Dodd

Anymore?

[Wales2004]

If they want her and will not accept another vp then oh well. If the people that don't want her outnumber them then that's that.

I am not talking about policies. I'm talking about hope, change and progress.

[DevotedToAMC]

I forgot Evan Bayh...he would be good as well. I am trying to think of a Democrat governor that would be good (besides Richardson).

[DevotedToAMC]

But her policies also have hope, change, and progress in them as I already described

[Roman]

I know what you meant, bud.

You want a complete change from the old school politics of the past, and you, like myself and others, feel that BO represents that.

[DevotedToAMC]

Sure Obama is fresh in the current game of politics but his policies and Hillary's are pretty much mirrored with each other. They just have different tactics of getting to results

[Wales2004]

I'm talking about an X factor which she doesn't possess for me. She's not a unifying force. She's divisive. She's politically savvy and she knows very well how divisive what she said is even if she can point to AP as the source of her information. I don't see any hope, change or progress in statements like that.

She can be as tenacious as she wants but I find her methods repulsive. Her disregard for her party's rules is disturbing and the fact that she changes the rules and criteria constantly is very dishonest. She's not complementary to Obama in any way.

We just disagree.

[DevotedToAMC]

She will help deliver a win for Obama on the ticket...she attracts working class people (obviously), Asians, Hispanics, seniors, and is doing well among Independents and younger people

[DevotedToAMC]

Here is an article that was written at the politics forum where I post. It is from the guide of that forum:

After PA, Obama Should Beg Clinton to Be His Running Mate

Like it or not, Barack Obama should beseech Hillary Clinton to be his vice presidential running mate, because he can barely close the deal with Democrats without her on his team. And let's be honest: without stronger party support for his candidacy, many Democrats would question his nomination's legitimacy.

However, Hillary now has no realistic possibility of heading the Democratic ticket, as her Pennsylvania "win" was too small, too diminished from the 20-point edge she held six weeks ago in the Keystone state. It was simply too little, too late by any objective measure.

(And her fundraising lags far behind his campaign coffers. See the most current fundraising statistics for Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton .)

Hillary is the working-class ying to Barack's college-educated yang, and the two halves make one whole Democratic party in 2008. And it's looking increasingly like neither can make to the White House without the other. As my About.com Conservatives counterpart correctly observes, "McCain is making in-roads in turf normally claimed by Democrats."

That, of course, is due to two factors in Pennsylvania:

Obama's wrong-headed remarks that working class folks resort to religion and guns as paranoid medicine to bitterly soothe their economic woes; and

Using every divisive political tactic and trick in the playbook, Hill and Bill have triangulated, aggravated and separated enough blue-collar workers, senior citizens and older white women from Obama's message to ensure that he can't politically survive without them.

Clinton: Bullying and Whining to Diminished Victory

Reminiscent of Karl Rove's campaign strategies, the Clinton's bully behavior in Pennsylvania has again been been replete with fear-mongering, whining, smear-tactic robocalls, trash-talking, and and their trademark self-pity. The New York Times observes today in The Low Road to Victory :

"It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

"If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race...

"Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead."

Obama: Offending His Way to Wider Loss

While Pennsylvania is the perfect storm of conditions for Clinton victory, Barack Obama made matters far worse for his cause by uttering behind closed doors to wealthy supporters in sophisticated San Francisco:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them...

" And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

These callous remarks are a permanent problem for the Obama campaign. His words convey an essential lack of empathy for white working-class woes, as well as a shallow understanding of the role of religion in the personal lives of the faithful.

In short, Barack Obama, a brilliant, coolly sophisticated, Ivy-League educated, urban-raised black man, has little in common with the white, blue-collar Americans who live in small town America. He knows. They know it. And John McCain knows it.

Hillary Clinton as vice presidential running mate is the obvious antidote to this, Barack Obama's most glaring and painful electoral weakness. And it's becoming clear that it may be his only victorious pathway to the White House.

Obama Arguments Against VP Clinton: Deal with It!

I can just hear the Obama team arguments against Sen. Clinton as Vice President: She's too divisive. She takes too much money from too many lobbyists. She's too controlling and pushy. Then there's the Bill baggage: scene-stealing, whiny, and far too uncontrollable.

To which I respectfully respond to Sen Obama and staff: Deal with it. And get over yourself. You're not perfect either. And in Pennsylvania, we finally realized that alone, you, too, aren't the whole package.

After the revealing and important debacle of the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, Barack Obama should beg Hillary Clinton to be his vice presidential running mate.

For the sake of the Democratic party. For the sake of the country.

If partnering with Hillary Clinton involves eating some crow coupled with humble pie, so be it. All the better character-building preparation for being President of the United States.

(Photo taken in 2007: Wim McNamee/Getty Images)

[Roman]

Anyway.......

Back to Obama vs McCain.

Who do you think JM will pick as his VP?