RE: The Left Coaster: Dizzy From The Spin

The Good:

Obama does not hold an insurmountable lead to earn the Democratic nomination. Neither candidate can win enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination, so neither candidate can win without superdelegates. Neither candidate has enough pledged superdelegates to secure the nomination, so either candidate can still do that. That's the simple truth.

Well said.

The Bad:

A victory by superdelegates is not a coup. Such a framing is both factually wrong and deliberately inflammatory. It is more political spin attempting to frame Hillary Clinton's legitimate potential path to victory as illegitimate.

This is where I see a problem. The notion that pledge delegates carry a different political weight with democratic voters was not created with the Obama campaign. The fact that Obama supporters chose to focus on it after they held a strong lead in pledge delegates doesn't change how the split between pledge delegates and super delegates has long been interpreted. Having the super delegate vote break in the opposite direction of the pledge delegate vote will always bring up questions of legitimacy and mandate. Camp Obama may be spreading the message, but they hardly created it. "Coup" is "factually wrong and deliberately inflammatory" but the public's view of "legitimate" or "illegitimate" is more like a spectrum than a binary choice.

The Question: What effect should the pledge delegate count have on the vote of individual super delegates?

so regarding bill maher being a crank, i have to say i don't really agree. for instance, their argument that he is 3 of 3 on the crank scale seems errant to me.

1. i don't think he's a luddite. perhaps he once was more so, and i'm not saying he should get a job at a .com or something, but he certainly uses computers and understands them enough to use the words regarding them correctly. he posts blog entries at huffingtonpost, etc. so i think that is an unfair charge.

2. he doesn't support "radical" animal rights groups. he supports PETA. they are hardly the same thing as the animal liberation front. they promote vegetarianism and ending animal cruelty. so, i think that charge is also wrong.

3. his views on health aren't nearly as extreme as they paint them. it seems to me, based on his comments on the show, that he espouses a pretty "holistic" view of health. don't get scared by the word folks, all it means is "comprehensive". his argument is that the western idea of health care is too often to "treat the symptoms" (typically with meds) when much of the time, the best solution would be to simply modify ones diet. americans don't like the idea of modifying our diets, so pills sound pretty good. but they cause side effects, which then require another pill to treat, and so on. this isn't like wacky, magic healing crystals territory. it's an approach to health which many western doctors (like my own, whose medical degrees are from columbia) see as the most healthy and preventative. if a condition is terribly serious and medication or surgery is absolutely required, i suspect maher would come around to it, but he just doesn't think these are automatically the best treatment right out of the gate for every little thing.

so bill maher, it seems to me anyway, may sometimes sound extreme, but is really just trying to provide a counter balance to what most people ever see/hear about health (which is, on tv anyway, "do you suffer from... well try our new pill...") by suggesting that perhaps — gasp — if people ate better and laid off all the antibiotics (like the ones in their meat, soap, milk, etc), their immune systems might do better to fight common ailments, thus requiring less medication and leading to longer healthier lives.

it just doesn't sound all that loony to me.

Daniel:

Re: PETA & ALF

It is no secret that PETA is a co-conspirator of the ALF. Carla herself makes no bones about condoning ALF:

http://www.askcarla.com/answers.asp?QuestionandanswerID=282

The FBI has branded the ALF as a terrorist organization:

http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/jarboe021202.htm

I love animals, not PETA. PETA is a radical political organization which misappropriates donations and funds illegal activity by the ALF.

Does this mean Maher is a crank? No. He's a bit of a zionist, and doesn't research his charities, but I don't think he's a crank.

Better link:

http://www.animalscam.com/references/peta_rodney1.cfm

Donations to PETA were used to fund the legal defense of Rodney Coronado, poster boy of the ALF.

Therefore, it is perfectly fair to say that PETA members are directly supporting the ALF.

Don't like it? Don't complain to me- complain to the PETA board, and tell them to stop spending your donations this way.

Zaphod for President:

i must say, carla makes a pretty good case for ALF. heh. but mine main beef with them is that they are ineffective in trying to achieve their goals. last time i checked all they had done was destroy property. not kill people. so if they're terrorists, they're certainly pretty shitty at it.

speaking of, this is the bush admin's FBI that charged them as terrorists. imagine that! it must be true! and the fact that you cite a project of The Center for Consumer Freedom to back up your argument against PETA... shutter. it all leaves me thinking "with these guys on your side, how can you really think you're right?" unless of course you're a crazy right-wing nutjob, at which point, i wonder why you're reading one good move? it's all very confusing to me.

The Left Coaster is correct to say that Obama can't win without some superdelegates. In that sense his lead is not insurmountable. Practically speaking, however, it is insurmountable, because there is no reason to think that the superedelegates would break for Hillary 3-1.

This next part is really horrible, though:

""the pledged delegates chosen directly by Democratic voters" have been allocated completely arbitrarily. They reflect nothing other than the eccentric rules of the Democratic nominating process. They do not represent the will of the people as well as does the popular vote."

The pledged delegates have not been allocated "completely arbitrarily". They've been allocated according to a process determined by Democratic party leaders and elected officials. But however they've been determined, the rules were known by all parties and implicitly accepted by them beforehand. It would seem strange that candidates, including HRC, would spend millions of dollars, develop complex strategies, and over a year of their lives to compete in a system where delegates are allocated "completely arbitrarily". This is one of the worst examples I've ever seen of someone's supporters trying to discredit an election solely because they've lost.

The popular vote is not something that exists in some heaven of pure form apart from the process. The popular vote resulted from the process just as the pledged delegates did. Obama was not able to get popular votes in Michigan. It was harder for Hillary, perhaps to get popular votes in caucus states, and Obama's caucus wins produced fewer popular votes (because they were fewer participants) than primary wins. Not only is the popular vote connected to the process, it's connected to the process in a subordinate way--it's an element which contributes to a decisive result (pledged delegates + superdelegates).

No democratic decision is possible at all in the absence of some process (those "eccentric rules"). The interminability of an open-ended debate about which criteria are the best ones for judging the legitimacy of a candidate is precisely why the process has to rule the day. Unfortunely, the end part of our process is an open-ended debate with the superdelegates, where some candidates feel they can gain an edge by undermining and attacking the legitimacy of the other part of the process.

If a superdelegate thinks the popular vote is a more important measure of electability, etc., then that's fine with me. But calling the process completely arbitrary has disaterous implications. It seems to confirm to me that Hillary, or at least some of her supporters, would rather have a hell of indecision, where HRC uses her clout to come out on top amid the moral chaos, than have an orderly and rule-govered process where candidates compete and voters participate in a system which is known and understood beforehand.

If the tables were turned, would Clinton supporters agree to having Obama as president based upon superdelegates who overturned the popular pledged/delegate vote?

I am wondering if this was a matter of which candidate would win the the general election, if the rules were such that Superdelegates would decide the general election, would Clinton supporters support John McCain winning the election via some sort of General Election superdelegates?

If the popular vote ends up being different from pledged delegates, I can understand there being a reason for confusion.

But if one Democratic candidate ends up with both the popular vote and more pledged delegates, I am confuzzled why anyone would feel that this vote should be ignored and that some superdelegates should decide for us.

Finally, I am dismayed to see some Clinton supporters referring to Obama supporters as "Obamabots" or cultists or whatever. If someone disagrees with you, why do you have to resort to childish name calling?

Re Short Answers. Whenever I am in some sort of a debate with a believer and they try the "God said" argument I ususally reply: "Well that sure saved a lot of thinking". With regard to JoAnn's comment about the term "Obamabots" I would reply that it is offensive but just as offensive as "Hillarybots" which I see much more frequently in various blogs, both right and left wing.

I would reply that it is offensive but just as offensive as "Hillarybots" which I see much more frequently in various blogs, both right and left wing.

Google search:

Obamabot 11,900 results

Hillarybot 1,210 results

And then there's this Gallup poll

28% = Clinton supporters who would vote for McCain over Obama.

19% = Obama supporters whow would vote for McCain over Clinton

RE: The Left Coaster: Dizzy From The Spin

I love how in a post about hating spin he delivers nothing but spin.

Obama does not hold an insurmountable lead to earn the Democratic nomination. Neither candidate can win enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination,

One of these things is not related to the other.

Barack Obama does have a nearly insurmountable lead In pledged Delegates and most likely the popular vote as well.

So the only "surmountable" tally he has is his super-delegate count.

But popular thinking is that super-delegates aren't prone to dividing the party in 2 and alienating Obama's voters. So the "surmountable" part is likely insurmountable in any real world scenario.

the turning of the pledged delegate count into the Holy Grail of this campaign.

Actually they have historically been the one and only grail of democratic primary. With the exception of 1984 when the defeat of Gary heart led to the Mondale wet blanket campaign that more or less gave Reagan his reputation as a uniter.

I could go on and on....