Barack Obama Elected President!

[DevotedToAMC]

Wales that is alright. Just keep posting in this thread so you can get into the SON Top 30

[Wales2004]

Here's where you and I disagree and will continue to do so: I don't believe in rewarding violation of the rules period. The people in FL and MI have a legitimate gripe but that gripe is with their state party officials and not with the national party. I don't believe that they should get 100% of the delegates when they violated the rule. A compromise to me means a portion could be seated as a gesture but not all.

You and I are different in that I would not feel disenfranchised by the party since they're not preventing me from voting in the general election. I'm not buying that people in both those states will vote Republican because of this but they're grown ups and can do as they please. I don't believe in shake downs.

[DevotedToAMC]

I meant disenfranchised in not counting their votes, not preventing them from doing it. They made their voices heard and deserve to be counted, despite if it is rewarding a broken rule. Some rules are meant to be broken, especially if it means to get two key states in an election. I can understand why MI and FL Democrats would be tempted to vote Republican and many are threatening to do it if their delegates and votes aren't counted. I understand their complaints.

How can they seat a portion? What about the rest? They would have an uproar since it would make it seem like the seated ones are more superior to them. I don't see that as wise and I am sure neither do Obama, Hillary, or the DNC. Distributing them equally is silly becuase then he would be ahead by the same amount...cutting them in half (she gets half, he gets half) is also silly for the same reasons as the portion argument. What other agreement is there besides seating them like they are now and also letting the ones in the "other" column go to her on virtue of the wins in both states?

[Roman]

This.

Her not getting squat, because she herself agreed to it.

[DevotedToAMC]

I am wondering if she agreed to it before or after it was revealed that someone on her campaign saw to it that MI and FL be stripped of delegates

[Roman]

Did someone on her campiagn forge her signature as well?

[DevotedToAMC]

No I am not saying that but someone connected to her campaign got them stripped of their delegates. If so, why strip two states that have always been in her favor? I don't get it

[Wales2004]

In all honesty, our debate, if you want to call it that, is based on assumption/speculation. Mine is that three won't be this mass anger vote and yours that there will. I can repeat this over and over but their issue is with their state party officials.

You can understand why they'd be tempted to vote Republican and I can't for any other reason than that the Republican candidate best represents their views. If the sole reason is because they feel disenfranchised by the Democrats because their party officials chose to violate the rules, and the solution is to send the Democrats a message then abstention makes better sense. But I still don't believe in shakedowns nor violation of the rules. There are no mitigating circumstances that call for these rules to be ignored as far as I'm concerned.

I don't know the process so I'm just using my brand of logic here. It seems to me that each state is apportioned a certain number of delegates and in turn that state would have some sort of selection process for those delegates. I don't know that either state had already selected their delegates but if they have then they can come up with a resolution as to how to seat whatever number they are given from the compromise. And so what if there is an uproar? They should have been enraged when their state party decided to violate the rules.

This is circuitous because you're saying over and over again to give HC what she wants because that's the only reasonable thing to do and nowhere in that scenario is there any room for compromise.

IMO, MI should definitely be split, whether all their delegates are seated or not, because his name wasn't on the ballot and that's the most fair thing to do for that state. The majority of whatever number of delegates they decide to seat in FL should go to her since she won and that should be done based on whatever method they use for apportioning delegates.

The crucial delegates in both states would be the SDs who are free to vote for whoever they want.

[Roman]

That is the argument. She should receive every single PD and SD, even though his name was not on the ballot, and then he should accept this mess and move on to be her VP.

I heard a lady on After Hours on MSNBC last night actually call this "Silly." I more than agree with her, but you can't say that to some people.

[Roman]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama edged closer to clinching the Democratic presidential nomination on Wednesday, but rival Hillary Clinton pushed on despite owing nearly $30 million in campaign debt.

A Reuters/Zogby poll showed Obama opening an 8-point national lead on Republican John McCain as the two looked ahead to a likely general election battle for the White House in November.

Obama handily won Oregon and Clinton easily won Kentucky on Tuesday in a split decision that gave Obama a majority of pledged delegates elected during their lengthy state-by-state nominating fight -- a milestone he hoped marked a turning point in their grueling battle.

"We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States," Obama told a rally in Iowa, site of his breakthrough victory in the first Democratic contest on Jan. 3.

The new Reuters/Zogby poll showed Americans growing more anxious about their economic prospects and the country's direction. The number of Americans who believe the country is on the right track fell from 23 percent to an abysmal 16 percent.

Obama, 46, sounded the theme of change that initially propelled him to the front of the Democratic race. He described the battle with McCain, 71, as "more of the same versus change. It is the past versus the future."

But Clinton gave no sign she was ready to step aside and clear the way for Obama to focus on McCain.

"I'm going to keep making our case until we have a nominee -- whoever she may be," Clinton said, promising supporters in Kentucky that she would keep fighting until the Democratic voting ends on June 3.

Clinton still must grapple with a growing campaign debt of $29.5 million, including $10 million she put into the campaign from her own pocket, according to her Federal Election Commission report. She raised raised $21 million in April.

Obama raised $30.7 million during the month, his FEC report showed, with $46.6 million in the bank and debts of $2 million.

OBAMA MOVES CLOSER

After Tuesday's votes, Obama is about 65 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to win the nomination at the Democratic convention in August. A delegate count by MSNBC gives him 1,960 delegates to Clinton's 1,783. He had 1,655 pledged delegates, with 1,627 representing a majority.

Obama hopes the pledged-delegate milestone pushes more undecided superdelegates -- party officials who can back any candidate -- his way. Obama contends those superdelegates, who have been breaking his way heavily in recent weeks, should support him because he won the most delegates in state voting.

Clinton says they should reconsider because she would be a stronger opponent for McCain, an Arizona senator. Her victories in big states like Pennsylvania and Ohio gave her a broader base of support than Obama, she said.

She hopes her drubbings of Obama in states like Kentucky, where she won by 35 points, will give superdelegates pause.

The new Reuters/Zogby poll showed Clinton running even with McCain nationally at 43 percent each.

"Neither Senator Obama or I will have reached that magic number when the voting ends June 3," Clinton said of the number of delegates needed to win the nomination. "So our party will have a tough choice to make."

Obama aides said he could reach the magic number with a wave of superdelegate endorsements in the next two weeks. Three more contests remain -- Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3 -- with a combined 86 delegates at stake.

Each candidate picked up one superdelegate endorsement early on Wednesday.

Both candidates head on Wednesday to Florida, a major battleground in November. Clinton is still fighting for the seating of delegates from Michigan and Florida, where she won contests that were not recognized by the national party. Their seating would narrow Obama's lead in the race.

Exit polls on Tuesday showed Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, had problems with white working-class voters in Kentucky as he has in some other states. Clinton won more than 70 percent of white voters, and three-quarters of those who did not finish college.

About 20 percent said race played a factor in their vote -- similar to the percentage last week in West Virginia, where Clinton trounced Obama.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Andy Sullivan and Ellen Wulfhorst)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters

[Southofnowhere]

What are the Super D's waiting for?

There being WAY to nice to Hillary if you ask me?

If Obama was in Hillary's place they would have shoved him out the door a LONGTIME ago and Hillary and company would not be talking about all votes must be counted!

[Wales2004]

She can't receive all of the delegates in MI because a portion are not pledged. With or without FL and MI it still comes down to the SDs. He needs about 70 delegates to reach the 2026.

The GOP penalized MI and FL for the same reasons by stripping them of half their delegates. Besides the other things mentioned, there are people that did not vote because they were told that their vote would not count so this whole thing is beyond ridiculous.

[Roman]

But, unfortunately, some feel she should benifit from the same voters she herself helped "surpress".

I think the Obama camp has a game plan in mind.

Isn't it also funny how the only "fair" solution benifits her completely, and screws him?

[Wales2004]

The DNC is in a really bad position on this because on the one hand they do need to offer a solution but on the other hand they cannot overlook it and proceed as if nothing happened because there were very legitimate reasons to keep more than the four designated states from early primaries. Rewarding FL and MI will make it okay for other states to do the same thing down the road.

I don't even see it as a clear issue of disenfranchising the voters because they knew upfront that their votes would not count and some chose not to vote for this reason. The best solution would have been a re-vote at the states' expense since their officials including the governors, created this problem. There is no way a re-vote should be held in any election using private funding so the fact that HC had supporters willing to pay for it is a non-issue.

As to the question of why Obama removed his name from the MI ballot and not the FL one, there is apparently a statute in FL that states that a candidate's name must be on the primary ballot in order to appear on the general election ballot. That, of course, does not negate the fact that people voted for him but it explains why he and other candidates who might have, did not remove their names.

Another thing about the FL primary is that the driving force for the high voter turnout appears to be a property tax amendment and not glee over the primaries.

I believe their total number of delegates should be cut in half as a penalty which should dissuade other states from violating the rules and also is fair to the states that abide by the rules. The gesture should be to those voters who did not vote because they knew their votes would not count as opposed to the ones who knew and voted anyway since to me they went along with the stupidity of their state when they had the option not to.

[Roman]

That's some of the ways I see it. Obama should come out of both states with a proportion of the delegates. For him to come out with absolutely nothing smacks of BS and anyone who says that doesn't know the meaning of the word fair....

IMO.