Obama is going to need a knock-out to win, considering Hillary's super-delegate advantage.

Forget the Super Delegates.. Hillary is ON the way Out Period, a Change is comming !!! Obama for President 08

ticonderoga: As I understand it, the lead that Obama now holds in delegates INCLUDES the counting of superdelegates who have already indicated a commitment. If he continues to win the contests he's expected to win, and then just tie Clinton in Ohio/Texas/Pennsylvania, he'll be in really good shape.

Just say NO to the Bush/Clinton dynasty - Ruining the country since 1989.

keyinside, you forget GWHBUSH was DCIA and then VP, so the "dynasty" is much longer.

The only part of Virginia that Clinton won was in Mike Huckabee territory where the ultra conservatives dominate. Her base in the Democratic party is basically down to those who vote simply because she is a woman, the uneducated and the closet democratic hawks.

I watched the MSNBC coverage of speeches last night.
They carried part of Hillary's and all of Barack's.
There is one little magic thing that I think is helping Barack enormously against Ms. Clinton. It's subliminal to us, AND yet actually reflects a principal difference between their mindsets. He uses the word "we" A LOT.
She is more stuck on the word "I".

The NY Times must be fuming that Obama just keeps on winning. Their top story had to do with the new Australian PM apologizing to aboriginies.

"I seek the presidency with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me."

Saved him from what?
Wasting away for what purpose?
More like his country, like it still does today, causes the unnecessary death and destruction--countless suffering and hardship and suffering...for what?

Regardless of position and polarization -- this whole "surge" of Obama reveals our society's hunger and craved thirst for vision and visionary leadership. Sooner or later, people get sick and tired of being scared and will assume the risk of the somewhat unknown than the same old, "established and experienced" drum beat that takes us to where we already are.

Hillary, as so many are in this process, is the tired model of leadership -- casting itself as the solution. What may be evolving is the excitement of shifting that focus to the actual answer being empowering leadership among the people who in truth -- are always the real answer for resolving what faces us.

In the end, "we" are the answer and this is where the power lies. As the Hopi people have long said -- "We are th eones we've been waiting for!"

I also watched MSNBC's coverage of the Potomac primaries. CNN is dull.

Great,

So the best we can hope for is Hillary light; Ombama is a candidate who would leave troops in Iraq to defend the U.S. "embassy" (Iraqi puppet gov't command and control center) and fight "terrorists," (anyone who opposes u.s. interests). We get a candidate who spouts platitudes, at one point threatened to bomb Pakistan, and who supports the death penalty.

In France (for example) this guy would probably be seen as a center right candidate.

Together we can? Yeah, we can vote Green (or some other progressive party), rather than for platitudes, "hope," and chimerical "change."

As distasteful as I find Hillary -- a cog in the American imperialist machine (who to her credit does speak about specific issues) -- Obama's "inspirational" talk is even more grating.

So here we are again, being asked to waste a vote on yet another non-progressive democrat.

At least a vote for the green party is a vote FOR a party that supports grassroots participation, non-violence, ecological balance -- and that wouldn't shy from impeachment when a president and his gov't commits war crimes.

slcohen-

You are absolutely right about the Green Party! www.GP.org

No plan from the Republicans, tax the middle/lower-class to subsidize the insurance industry from Hillary, probably vague platitudes of change from Obama. I think only Nader and McKinney have the phrase "single-payer" in their vocabularies.

Oreobama is Billary lite. His political career in Illinois was fostered and paid for by a slum lord and a liquified coal (more polluting than coal)producer in southern Illinois. He's second only to Billary in garnering money from the pharma and health industries. He won't pull out troops for at least 16 months and will leave thousands of troops to protect our illegally based, uninvited embassy complex (an excuse to intervene militarily whenever it is rightfully attacked).

He calls McCain a hero, as does our war-mongering media. Heroes don't strafe and bomb noncombatants as McPain did in Nam. Of course he was tortured, he's a war criminal. He's lucky he wasn't executed. Bottom line, we'll once again have to choose between the lesser of two weasels. And since Oreobama is as much white as black - the choice is once again between two white guys. I won't vote. I refuse to participate in my victimization.

Last words: Don't be surprised if Bush allows/orchestrates/fabricates a terroist incident/threat and invokes martial law before the election or inauguration
in order to continue his own reign of terror and forestall any criminal prosecution after he leaves office.

Remember, he has the power to convene and adjourn Congress whenever he chooses. See Article II, section 3 of the Constitution. "...he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper..." Don't think for a minute that this traitorous, usurpatious, bona fide son-of-a-bitch won't consider it.

It'll need to be more than tokenism or platitudes. He'll need to deliver the goods.

There is an online petition asking the DNC to choose the candidate with the most votes and delegates rather than take the chance that Washington Insiders will override the will of the voters with a secret "backroom deal".

Please sign the petition and pass it on to your friends.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Superdel/petition.html

riverman101 - Edi Amin was black.

Bill Clinton was extremely popular internationaly, and still is.

Nough said?

Obama's challenge:

1- He has to get the Dim nomination.

2- He has to survive a good sound swift boating, and the encoded racism that has worked so well for Republicans in the past.

3- He has to beat the McCain ticket, McCain/Huakabee? McCain/Liebeman? regardless of #2

4- If he gets this far, and is elected president he has to begin to live up to the expectations of his supporters. It would be amazing if he could live up to just 10% of what his supporters say he can do.

5- If he manages all this, he then needs to avoid the assassins bullet that is awaiting any real agent of change.

If he manages all that it will indeed be a miracle. I may consider supporting his second term. Heck I may even drag my atheist ass to church an thank the good lord for our salvation! Na.

We may not all like it, but if there is an election in November, Hillary Clinton will be our next president. The reasons to believe and understand that are far to numerous to write here and it would be a total waste of time anyway to post it. Read Riverman's posts if you have nothing else to do.

Consider the ramifications between a cancelled election versus a cancelled opposition. The former is recognized, instantly, by the whole world. The latter is a fool me once, fool me a million times scenario.

I keep saying it. They will not cancel this next election. Bank on it.

They'd risk waking up the American people to the fact that their democracy is gone. Its already gone, but most people don't realize it yet. Canceling the election would be an obvious slap in the face to Americans that would really risk waking them up to the fact.

Does anyone really think that the powerful who control this country really care whether its a Bush puppet or a Hillary puppet or an Obama puppet in the White House? They've already won the election when those are the only choices. So of course there'll be an election.

Now, if Nader had a lead in the polls a week before the election, then it might be canceled. But they certainly won't do it just to keep the Bush puppet from going back to his ranch.

Does anyone notice how fact free political coverage is these days?

When I clicked on this link, the one question I had when I started reading the article was 'what were the numbers?' The headline told me Obama had one. But being a recovering political junkie, I wanted to know the numbers in each state and also how the delegates came out in each state.

I finally found the first buried deep in the article. The second is never answered. And the second is important because the way the Dems rig their game, the delegates won from a state are not exactly proportional to the primary vote in the state.

But what really struck me was just how hard I had to work to pull even a few facts from an article that full of the now-normal horse-race, momentum junk that passes for political coverage these days.

Well, I guess the good news is now people know what 'super-delegates' are. Back when I was trying to explain that this was one way the Dem party was rigged to make sure that someone like Kucinich could never win, no one seemed to know what I was talking about.

The bad news is that they've become this mythical bad guy with apparently super-human powers. Oh well, the education process continues.

To start with, the super-delegates are not all automatically going to Hillary. When there are two establishment candidates like Obama and Hillary in the race, they split between them. They are basically elected Dem party officials, so whenever you hear a sitting Governor or Senator or former President or the like endorsing a candidate, then that's a super-delegate telling you who they currently support. Also, they are not firmly pledged. They can change their minds at any time. So, just because one was supporting Hillary back when Hillary looked like the sure winnner, that doesn't mean they have to vote for her at the convention.

The one thing that's certain about party hacks and professional politicians is that they will support a winner. Supporting a loser risks pissing off the next President. And for a party hack or professional pol, they won't risk that. So the super-delegates that support Hillary will only do so for as long as they can believe she can win this thing. As soon as its obvious Obama has won, they'll all switch and support Obama (and pretend like they were doing so all along).

The Democratic convention watch website (http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html) has the current super-delegates going 242 to Hillary and 160 to Obama. That's a 82 vote edge out of 4000 total delegates at the convention. There's also 800 total super-delegates, so there's about 400 undecideds based on these numbers. That's not a super-human force that's going to make Hillary president. Its the split you'd expect between two establishment candidates. A slight edge towards Hillary as the party-hack favorite, but that's all.

Now, if Kucinich was making a charge to challenge the Dem party power structure, he would be facing a 750-50 sort of split here. That's the purpose of these. They are to make sure the Dem party power structure is not challenged. They really don't matter much when its two establishment, pro-corporate Dems jousting for the nomination.

Dennis is out of the presidential race, but he still needs your support.

"Before the Nevada primary, [Presidential candidate] Dennis [Kucinich] was visited by representatives of Nancy Pelosi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — AIPAC. They told Dennis that if he would drop his campaigns to impeach Cheney and Bush, they would guarantee his re-election to the House of Representatives. Kucinich threw them out of his office."

http://endinjusticenow.blogspot.com/2008/02/before-nevada-primary-dennis-kucinich.html

"Dennis now faces the toughest election campaign of his entire tenure in congress, with huge amounts of money being spent to turn his constituents against him due to 'his neglect of his district while he ran for president.' This man the mainstream media say is not relevant, poses such a threat to the powers that be that they are hellbent to destroy him, and remove that troublemaker from congress."

Support Dennis. Support Cindy Sheehan.

Whowever wins the Democratic nomination will become the president. Bush
has made the repugs so unpopular they simply cannot win. I thinks
McCain knows quite well that he cannot win. So his strategy now is to
be so right wing as to move the "middle" further to the right, and to
give Hillary room to move further to the right without blurring the
distinction between the dims and the repugs. If the Repugs were serious
about winning, McCain would have to find ways of proclaiming himself to
be a peacemaker.

You seem to think, that you are the only one here who understood the Super Delegates ~CoMark~. I do believe you assume too much sometimes. Hope you are correct about the election not being cancelled, but I wouldn't bank or bet on it either way.

You say that would wake us up. It sure would, but it's not a good deal to be awakened, and find the house is afire. If the depression hits, Bush may very well declare martial law, cancel the election and take over.

braithwa842 February 13th, 2008 7:48 pm "Whowever wins the Democratic nomination will become the president. Bush has made the repugs so unpopular they simply cannot win."

This statement is a complete fantasy! The American electorate is completely fickle, and public opinion can be swung around by the corporate media in a matter of weeks. Enter the swift boaters "John McCain the straight shooting War Hero vs. Barack Husein Obama, the liiiberrraaal(liberal is said dripping with contempt) son of a Muslim".

Riverman101, what are you smoking? Or are you expecting Obama to legalize that stuff along with the other miracles he is expected to preform?

braithwa842 February 13th, 2008 7:39 pm
Thanks for the link. I am going to contribute to help Dennis Kucinich keep his seat and us his much needed voice. He is one of the very few principled politicians in the Congress. He is the only presidential candidate (x now) talking about the need to take on the bloated defense budget. Obama wants to increase military spending and add 100,000 more troops. Hillary won't cut defense. Dennis is the real McCoy.

The others are stool pigeons.

http://endinjusticenow.blogspot.com/2008/02/before-nevada-primary-dennis-kucinich.html

Has anyone listened to Michele Obama speak? Wow, I thought, now her I could believe in. But Barack still comes off like a huckster to my ears.

Oh well, the spin goes on.

I think perhaps this election stuff is just another distraction from what is really happening behind the curtain.

Where is David Icke when you need him: http://educate-yourself.org/cn/laurencegardnershapeshifter.shtml

Nope RIVERMAN, I do hate to burst your bubble, but Hillary will win Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylania. The two will go to the convention, neither will have enough votes, but Hillary will have gained the lead and she'll get the super D votes and will be the Demo nominee. She will beat McCain in the General. Sorry, __ but but that's life and politics. Take a break River and sober up for the end.

Democratic battle heats up
By Kuumba Chi Nia

The 2008 Presidential race is heating up and boils down to the Democratic campaigns race for the White House. Senator McCain virtually has the Republican nomination in the bag. The Democratic race shows a close race but Senator Obama mounted eight back to back victories and now leads in the delegate race with 1,223 delegates to Clintons 1,998 delegates. This race is very contention.
Obama recently sucked up Clinton in Maryland, Virginia, and The District of Columbia. Obama maintains a dominator in outspending Clinton with $1.4 million and Clinton $210,000. Obama began pouncing Clinton by running media ads early. Clinton was hit in the money built-having to come out her own pocket $5million.
In D.C. Obama had 75 percent votes in the nation's capital and took the majority in Virginia.
Senator Clinton is looking to take Texas and Ohio. They both are running ads in Ohio and red state. Clinton knows that Ohio delegates represent a significant number and could easily close the gap and even surpass Obama. Clinton has to think hard and clear and make one the most prudent moves of her campaign, because Ohio Presidential Poll shows Obama at 61.9 percent and Clinton at 38.1 percent.
Ohio has 141 Democratic delegates and Texas has 193. The "super delegates" are not counted in the delegate count, but will prove to be a devastating blow if Obama could get 72 of those delegates clinching Ohio. On the other hand if he gets less than that he is in trouble of losing the lead. Ohio represents a worker class state, a rust belt state that supports reforms for subsidies in agricultural, financial and other industrial industries.
Texas holds another set of delegates with 193, not enumerating the super delegates. March 4 is the primary in Ohio and Obama and Clinton are beefing up their presents. The heat is on in Democratic presidential race. Texas is an energy based state with high tech industries and competitive media. The demographic outlook is African descent and Latino descent or Native Americans. Clinton formerly secured the Latino vote, but Obama brings out new voters and has gained much young Latino and Hispanic, Puerto Rican support.
A date is not set yet for the visits from Obama or Clinton, buy Ohio marks a pivotal point in the primaries. Clinton remains hopeful in looking toward picking up a victory in Pennsylvania. The second half of the race kicks off with Obama needing 802 delegates to clinch the democratic nomination and Clinton needs 827 delegates.

My Money is with Kem Patrick's analysis as far as the outcome of the coming election goes. But hey, what the heck do I know?

At this point it's all in the hands of the caring folks at Diebold. Who knows perhaps some random programmer is a closet Obama supporter, or even one of them there Repbuglican converts I hear tell of.

Is Riverman a bookie?