By Sue Webb
Residents here in the tiny state of Rhode Island are somewhat surprised that they could help determine the Democratic presidential nominee, with 21 delegates at stake here on Tuesday. Turnout is expected to be extremely heavy. It's been considered a Clinton stronghold as she has long-standing political connections here and has the backing of most, though not all, of the state's Democratic officialdom in this very Democratic, heavily blue collar, somewhat insular state - seems like lots of people you meet have lived here all their life, and not ventured too far away. She is still ahead in the polls by 8-10 points, but the race has been tightening. One Latino leader said last week the state's Latino communities (about 6 percent of eligible voters) are divided. Clinton and her family have campaigned heavily here, which indicates she is concerned about the race. Hillary was here last week, drawing a crowd of about 2,000, substantial for this little state, similar to the numbers drawn by Michelle Obama a couple weeks ago. This week Bill was here, and then Chelsea. But today Obama drew at least 10,000 to a rally organized in just a couple of days, with at least 5,000 jammed inside and another 5,000 outside under umbrellas in the rain. One blog commenter said it tied for the largest rally ever in RI (don't know what the largest was...). On the evening news, a local NBC reporter said he'd "never seen anything like it before.
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Showing posts with label rhode island. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rhode island. Show all posts
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Definitive Blog on Primary Election
by John Wojcik
This post considers only the narrow issue of who is going to get the Democratic nomination. It does not pretend to be balanced. It is, however, absolutely certain, scientific, factual and free of any wishful or subjective thinking whatsoever!
Wisconsin was Hillary Clinton’s Waterloo, no ifs ands or buts about it.
Barack Obama is the frontrunner, unequivocally.
He is only ONE MORE VICTORY AWAY from clinching the deal.
A victory in EITHER Ohio or Texas will more likely than not force Clinton out of the race.
A victory in both will absolutely force her out.
These conclusions are supported by the following facts:
Obama is on an incredible winning streak, as we know – ten to nothing since Super Tuesday. All of the victories were huge blow outs.
The Wisconsin victory by 17 points was actually his poorest showing since Super Tuesday. With poor showings like that, who needs strong ones?
He’s gone from a narrow pledged delegate lead and overall delegate deficit on Feb. 6 to what is unarguably an insurmountable 150 plus pledged delegate lead.
If you factor in the superdelegates, he’s still ahead by 80.
All signs point to the superdelegate gap closing perhaps as early as the end of next week. By March 4 he is likely to gain 25 or more superdelegates. (This is a reasonable, conservative estimate.)
We can expect that Clinton will pick up almost no super delegates between now and March 4 and that some of the ones she now has may also switch to Obama.
The only thing that could propel Clinton to the nomination is if Obama makes a bunch of mistakes or some huge mistake that makes him unelectable. While this is theoretically possible it is scientifically unlikely.
A sustained negative campaign by Clinton is a possibility but will not amount to a winning strategy for Clinton. Clinton cannot damage Obama to the extent that she would have to without damaging herself politically, in the Senate and for the future. She is not suicidal.
[Subscribe to the People's Weekly World]
This post considers only the narrow issue of who is going to get the Democratic nomination. It does not pretend to be balanced. It is, however, absolutely certain, scientific, factual and free of any wishful or subjective thinking whatsoever!
Wisconsin was Hillary Clinton’s Waterloo, no ifs ands or buts about it.
Barack Obama is the frontrunner, unequivocally.
He is only ONE MORE VICTORY AWAY from clinching the deal.
A victory in EITHER Ohio or Texas will more likely than not force Clinton out of the race.
A victory in both will absolutely force her out.
These conclusions are supported by the following facts:
Obama is on an incredible winning streak, as we know – ten to nothing since Super Tuesday. All of the victories were huge blow outs.
The Wisconsin victory by 17 points was actually his poorest showing since Super Tuesday. With poor showings like that, who needs strong ones?
He’s gone from a narrow pledged delegate lead and overall delegate deficit on Feb. 6 to what is unarguably an insurmountable 150 plus pledged delegate lead.
If you factor in the superdelegates, he’s still ahead by 80.
All signs point to the superdelegate gap closing perhaps as early as the end of next week. By March 4 he is likely to gain 25 or more superdelegates. (This is a reasonable, conservative estimate.)
We can expect that Clinton will pick up almost no super delegates between now and March 4 and that some of the ones she now has may also switch to Obama.
The only thing that could propel Clinton to the nomination is if Obama makes a bunch of mistakes or some huge mistake that makes him unelectable. While this is theoretically possible it is scientifically unlikely.
A sustained negative campaign by Clinton is a possibility but will not amount to a winning strategy for Clinton. Clinton cannot damage Obama to the extent that she would have to without damaging herself politically, in the Senate and for the future. She is not suicidal.
[Subscribe to the People's Weekly World]
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