Presenting a thread in which you may all chew the fat about today’s presidential election action from South Carolina and Nevada. Republicans in South Carolina are holding an open primary (meaning any voter can participate in one primary or the other, regardless of their registration) to choose 24 delegates from the national total of 2380. It would normally be 47 delegates, but the state has been penalised for “allocating delegates outside of the Republican National Committee-approved timeframe”. The South Carolina Democratic open primary will be held next week, choosing 54 delegates from a national total of 4050. Forty-five of these are pledged to particular candidates; the remaining nine are unpledged “superdelegates” who attend the national convention as senior party office holders. In Nevada both parties will hold closed caucuses: closed means only voters registered with the party can participate, while caucuses means there is no secret ballot. The state’s Democrats get 33 pledged delegates along with eight superdelegates; the Republicans have 31 delegates determined by the caucuses plus three unpledged Republican National Committee members (the term superdelegates does not get used in relation to the Republicans, for some reason).
My only concern is not just tax cuts.
If i really wanted to antagonise KR id have backed Huckabee, i like Giuliani because he’s had executive experience something McCain’s never had, he’s been tested in times of crisis, he has a good track record of governance given NYC’s rapid recovery, he’s going to implement the largest Tax Cut in American History, he’s not going to run away from Iraq and keep the US on the offence against terror and he’s not a christian conservative.
good night!
gaga, pure barking, gaga
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Kirribilli Removals – well well if your knew your politics you’d know KR that McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts! So much for him supporting a reduction in tax!
Hcuk, for fcuk’s sake!
I put money on him! (Oh, and McCain too!) But only because they’re so crazy they elected that idiot Bush, twice! So maybe, at long odds, just maybe they couldn’t stomach any of the other androids,
Oh for fcuk’s sake, stop it, the laughter is killing me!
That’s MCCain’s pitch, not mine!
You just aren’t up to speed old son, so don’t tell me what I don’t know!
In the aftermath of his loss to Mr. Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries, Mr. McCain began emphasizing middle-class pocketbook issues. After having consistently voted for tax cuts in the 1980s, he was one of the few Republicans to oppose the administration’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. He said at the time that they benefited “the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans.”
…maybe you should actually read a bit more Glen, instead of telling us what we “don’t know”!
To quote Glen:
“McCain is a fiscal democrat never supported a tax cut in his life,”
Ahem, now sonny, don’t tell me what I don’t know, tell us what you don’t!
There is a sick, horrible part of me, a cancer if you will, that wants to see Huckabee get elected…just to see what would happen. Sure an Obama presidency would be good, maybe even great, but nowhere near as interesting.
This is the same part of me that hopes that they let creationism get taught where they want it to be taught, just to see what happens next. Fundamental areas of physics? MATH? It would be absolutely fascinating.
And don’t get started on the ideological wars that could be waged…it’s enough to make an atheist like me weep with beauty if we weren’t empty inside like old soup tins.
Holy hell, sorry KR for breaking your 4 post combol…another two or 3 in a row and you could have unlocked Glen’s secret level where fight against Robo Giuliani in the ruins of New York city – You’re a democrat? ‘Tax and spend, tax and spend!’
But Glen you still think the CGT tax cuts were a good thing for Australia, and that speaks for itself, I don’t even need to put a case.
Tax cuts are a stupid thing for the US economy to consider surely?
ni ni Glen I’m off to bed to laughing all the way over the guaranteed economic winner DONT TAX and SPEND LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW … oh wait ..
Hey Mac, no probs. I think Glen will have to go off for some ‘revision’ of his political history! he cracks me up! What sh!t is he trying to prove? Like we care!
As for Hcuk being POTUS, well it would make a great TV series, but the reality is way too scary to contemplate!
#762 – wuss, why not jump on, it’ll be a hell of a toboggan ride. 😀
Yeah, Hcuk could close down all science education, ban women from driving, enforce fundamentalist religious education, and er, maybe just change their name to the Christian Republic of America!
The south won after all! 😮
ASHINGTON, D.C. — Illinois Democrats close to Sen. Barack Obama are quietly passing the word that John Edwards would be named attorney general in an Obama administration.
Mac, watch this:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=147187&title=david-frum
…it’s a crack up, Stewart has David Frum (one of Rudy’s minders) and he gently pulls him apart.
Classic
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davidoff
now, wait to see what Hillary is offering!
The bidding war is on.
South Carolina polls are open.
Some good background music while we for the results.
http://www.myspace.com/bergevinbrothersmusic
To endorse Hillary you need to include not only the value of the endorsement, but also the value of human dignity, though like all things I am sure it can be bought.
I can’t wait till the results come in, I’m more excited about American results than I was by Australian ones, though I may misremember it as being diluted by time.
Here is a link to the news concerning the Obama/Edwards info on the attorney general position.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/760953,novak27web.article
I’m fascinated by how much flack John McCain is getting for opposing the Bush tax-cuts, McCain talks a lot about balancing the budget and cutting spending (of course this is always a lot easier said than done). This is the problem with the tax cuts of both Reagan and Bush, neither were able to offset government spending to put the budget in neutral, and yet McCain gets hammered for doing something your average voter can understand – trying to keep their budget in the black (if your can’t cut spending, you can’t finance tax-cuts), something anyone with a household budget can understand.
Debt is a big problem in the US, the sub-prime crisis in the US just the latest manifestation. While big-bang tax-cuts might play to the GOP base, the Democrats will be able to play on the economic fears of pushing the budget even further in debt in an environment where the cost of debt is starting to become more worrysome. The Democrats will be able to paint the Republicans as fiscally irreponsbile for tax-cuts that will help only a small % of people, the Democrats can talk about the spiralling debt, and talk about them being the last administration to balance a budget, something Mr. Deficit Cheney didn’t think was very important. The Dems can even indulge in a little populist nationalism about the debt, talking about how it weakens America’s position in the world, which most of the voters will buy.
Here’s a graph of the public debt in America, and the Bush proflicacy certainly hasn’t helped with tax cuts and more pork-barrelling making the chasm even larger. Even Paul Kelly is talking about US having to face reality about this issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_Public_debt_per_GDP_1791-2006.svg
773 Reading the Columbia newspapers gives the distinct impression that it is economic issues front and centre in the minds of voters more than racial issues. I think that with the Clinton campaign again following the maxim that ‘it is the economy stupid’ will do Clinton no harm when the votes are finally counted from 7.00 pm SC time. Why the press and pollsters have focussed almost exclusively on race in times of extreme economic hardship for South Carolina will probably never be explained but the result could be one they aren’t expecting as we observed in New Hampshire.
First exit polls. No votes yet, just demographics and issues.
1. About half the voting electorate was black.
2. Half the voters said the economy was the most important issue in the race. About one quarter picked health care. And only one in five said it was the war in Iraq, underscoring the extent to which the once-dominant issue has faded in the face of financial concerns.
3.Roughly half the voters said former President Clinton’s campaigning for his wife was very important to their choice.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g-mb4b3T9hE_91fQD51y46cNreKQD8UDQVV83
More polls from the Votemaster on the US election. Another Republican retires.
http://www.electoral-vote.com
KR loved the Frum interview. Who needs writers huh.
There’s some irony in the fact that the Iraq war, (and one should perhaps include the massive and mostly wasteful “homeland security” and the entire ‘war on terror’ that goes with it), has dropped from the top of the list of voter’s concerns.
Irony in that they now see their own economy as the issue, and yet, one could reasonably argue that the two are very much connected.
It takes a while for them to feel it, but you can’t fight expensive wars while the population just goes shopping and not expect services to decline and your government to get deeper and deeper in debt.
Men go mad in hordes, but regain their senses one by one, as the man said.
CNN CALLS SC FOR OBAMA!!!
Latest exit polls. Still no overall numbers but this looks very good for Obama. It looks like that “block” vote Adam was talking about has delivered.
African-Americans: Obama 81%, Clinton 17%, Edwards 1%
African-American women: Obama 82%, Clinton 17%, Edwards 0%
Whites: Edwards 39%, Clinton 36%, Obama 24%
Edwards winning white men, Clinton white women
http://thepage.time.com/
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Jasmine
Oh yes, it was classic Stewart. (He is the smiling assassin if ever there was one!)
I’ve got the Frum and Pearle book on the “End of Evil”, and it’s gothic, rabid, and so insane that it makes you realise how disconnected from any reality these neocons actually are.
He came across as all that, and Stewart pulled back the curtain so we could see it.
Superb.
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Diogenes
That’s looking good Dio, and I don’t care about doing my fifty bucks, I’m just glad to see Obama get a win.
So now he’ll be the ‘black’ candidate, huh?
On my calculations, if those exits are accurate it’s roughly:
Obama 49%
Clinton 28%
Edward 22%
But that 24% white vote for Obama vs the 81% black vote will be a huge talking point.
CBS and NBC also call for Obama. Margin tipped at between 20 and 30% which is an old-fashioned stomping. Looks like Bill and the negative tactics by Hillary haven’t played well. It’s game on again!
Convincing win for Obama, but the expectations game will limit the bounce from his win, coupled with the fact this is looking to be a “demographic win” with limited cross-over appeal.
Too early to say, but 5 Feb primary day could still see both Clinton and Obama picking up enough delegates each for there still to be no run away nominee. Will be interesting to follow.
Obama campaign talk about Edwards as A-G is a bit risky – it’s a long bow to start talking about cabinet appointments when you haven’t got the nomination let alone the general election won…
In any event, I think Edwards is having a bet each way and will hope to feature as a possible running mate for Clinton or Obama – especially if it’s close and his delegates are needed to seal the deal. First one to offer him VP, may get his delegates…
That should be a dream team, Obama/Edwards VP, pretty hard to beat!
Compared to an even better dream team of McCain/Powell or Giuliani/McCain beat that.
BF, while on the surface it would appear to be a ‘dream team’, I would be nervous with such a ticket as the economy becomes a bigger and bigger issue over there. It would be easy for the Republican nominee (especially if they nominate someone with more experience) to paint these two one-term Senators as too young and inexperienced to deal with the risks the economy faces.
The difficulty for Obama in picking a running mate (if he’s nominated, and that’s a big IF), would be balancing his inexperience with someone who has experience without making him look less presidential. This happened to Dukakis with his running mate Lloyd Bentson in 1988.
Undecideds broke for Obama all right! Big win, and enough whites in the mix to keep his ‘cross-over’ story going.
McCain gets the Florida Governor to stump for him, and no one is even expecting to hear Giuliani’s name again after next week.
It’s McCain/Romney and Clinton/Obama, and that folks is the battleground we are looking at.
So does Obama or Clinton have a better chance against McCain. Well, if you believe ‘experienced’ people’s opinions it’s Clinton, but if you look at the polls its Obama. Both lose to McCain in those polls, but Obama by less.
Stay tuned, as they say.
Go Obama! And if they are really going to play that ridiculous breakdown game, the only reason Clinton finished ahead of Obama in white voters was white women – they split white men.
Now to watch the spin.
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John Ryan
The problem for the Rep’s on the economy is that they are easily seen as being the problem and not the solution. If the economy tanks, (nah, re-phrase that, as the economy tanks) they are in the dificult position of trying to dodge responsibility for it and at the same time offering ‘more of the same’ to fix it.
Democrats can eat them on this issue.
KR, I disagree.
Obama’s cross over was poor – he came third behind Edwards and Clinton with white voters.
This is what they had feared and is something of a double-edged sword in his South Carolina victory.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/25/politics/main3754078.shtml
The test will be 5 Feb, even though I’m still not convinced either candidate can run away with a victory then.
Romney is favoured by the Republican establishment (including the Bush family) over McCain. Why? Romney is in line with Bush priorities, ie. tax cuts and tax cuts. Romney is like Bush in that they pay lip service to social conservatives to form a tax cutting coalition, but then they don’t really spend that much political capital on social conservative issues.
They fear a McCain nomination because he doesn’t value tax cuts as much as them. And they also fear a Huckabee nomination because he actually believes in the bible’s nutty side (gay hate, abortion, creationism etc) and would spend political capital on that rather than cutting taxes and govt programmes.
Jeb Bush is the ex-governor of FL.
SC and MS are the only states in which the majority of the Democrat primary electorate is black. That’s all you need to know to explain Obama’s win in SC. This “win” will do him more harm than good. He needed to position himself as a mainstream candidate, but thanks to the Clintons’ shrewd campaigning he is now Jesse Jackson Lite. Of the states voting on 5 Feb, current polls have Obama leading only in IL (his home state) and GA (another big black vote). Clinton is leading everywhere else, including southern states like AL and TN. It’s looking overwhelmingly likely that it will be a McCain-Clinton contest.
Adam, yes Obama is now “Jesse Jackson lite”. Interesting that just a few months ago he was not considered “black” enough and he was struggling to attract African-American support who were right behind Clinton.
He’s gone from a white man’s black to a black man’s black.
Not saying this is “right”, but it’s the perception now and as we all know “there’s no such thing as reality just perceptions…”
There’s Bill again, telling them it’s the economy stupid. (I noticed the young women standing behing him titterred when he talked of being married to Hillary! LOL)
They’re going to bash the Republicans with this club all the way to November.
#791 – He came third among whites due to low support from white women, who supported HRC. He split white males. Therefore HRC should be marginalized as the candidate of old white women?
This is the logic people are currently using, just like the deplorable attempts by some to use Jesse Jackson to marginalize a candidate who has not run on race.
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John Ryan
except that isn’t true of Iowa, and whatever else may be said about them, they ain’t black!
Percieved black or actual black! They ain’t black, and they voted for him.
There’s more happening here than race, despite Hill-Billy’s attempt to slur it that way.
Interesting, from the NYTImes:
More on the Exit Polls Mr. Obama repeated his pattern of doing better with affluent white voters with higher educations, according to the exit polls. He also did best among whites for whom the war in Iraq was the most important issue.
KR, I think that after 5 Feb we will all get a clearer picture on whether Iowa was the exception or the rule.
I do think however that Hillary going negative on Obama has backfired to an extent in this SC race. She should have learnt from her win in NH that it works against you. Just like Obama and Edwards got the slap their campaigns so richly deserved after their anti-women attacks in NH.
Obama still hasn’t been tested by the media, the Democratic left, or the Republican right. We just don’t know much about him. I don’t dislike him, nor do I get excited about him because I just don’t know much about his positions or what he would do. He’s a great orator, but that doesn’t mean you can do things. What has he done in the US Senate? He says he brings people together, but there’s no evidence of that. How on earth will he being elected President get an Orrin Hatch and a Ted Kennedy together??
He’s just a blank canvas anti-Hillary dems are painting on… You have to be someone, not just not be someone. (if that makes sense).
I’m not sure it can work in the long run. I just hope it doesn’t backfire if he gets the nomination.
ok, old, white, uneducated women then?
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John Ryan
yes, Woozy Tuesday will show us the ‘big’ picture, and I think part of that picture is that HRC has ‘experience’ (and some of it pretty awful lets not forget!) and a lot of baggage to offer the Democrats. Obama’s great plus, as you so rightly note, is that he doesn’t have such a muddied canvas.
If you ask about ‘experience’, and the Clinton’s are banging this theme pretty hard, you just have to point to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and ask what good their near century of collective experience brought to Washington (OK, I used some of that ‘hyperbole’, maybe it wasn’t 100 years, but not that far off! LOL).
They re-elected GWBush coz he had ‘experience’ of being President! (Look how that’s turned out! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!)
Look, I think Hillary Clinton is a VERY able politician, but just listen to those Democrats who will vote for McCain if she’s nominated. Likewise Independents, they’ll flock to McCain over revulsion at HRC.
Obama’s track record is of a very smart operator, skilled in dealing with people, and able to attract all sorts of people of any colour. His values are liberal Democrat socially and he’s not a foreign policy wimp, despite saying that he’d actually talk to the ‘enemy’ (That’s pure Kissinger for gawd’s sake!).
It’s a complex issue, but the Clinton tag-team act lifts the lid on some very deep emotional responses in America, things maybe best left covered, and the more you see Bill, getting out there and doing Hillary’s dirty work, the more I think the Democrats are at serious risk of losing in November.