Clinton wins in Nevada! That was the story (and headline) for all of the major media outlets yesterday. They made it sound like Barack Obama really took a beating, and left the state with his tail between his legs. Of course, that's not really what happened at all.
If all you care about is the "beauty contest" part of the Nevada caucuses (the number of caucus members that turned out for each candidate), then I guess you could say that Hillary Clinton won. She did have slightly more. But is that really the important thing that came out of the Nevada caucuses? No.
The only thing that matters is who won the most delegates to the national convention -- and that was a tie. Both Clinton and Obama won 14 delegates in Nevada yesterday. With Clinton being 24 points ahead in the polls there a month ago, I think the fact that he was able to split the delegates evenly made it a very good night for Obama.
While the major media outlets would have us believe that Clinton is doing better than Obama in the primaries, the number of delegates each has won in the primaries and caucuses show something different. Obama actually leads Clinton in the number of primary and caucus delegates by 38 to 36. Edwards has 18.
There was a big loser in Nevada though -- John Edwards. The polls showed him nearly equal to the other two in Nevada, but he was unable to win a single delegate as a result of the caucus. That is a devastating result for him. This makes South Carolina a very important primary for Edwards next week. He was born there and if he doesn't at least make a respectable showing, this could quickly become a two-person race.
It is only after adding in the super-delegates, that Clinton shows a lead in the delegate count. And most of these super-delegates picked their candidate weeks ago, before any primary or caucus had been held (and at that time, it looked like Clinton would easily win).
Counting both super-delegates and pledged (primary and caucus) delegates, there have still only been 386 delegates out of 4,049 total delegates that are in the camp of any candidate. There is still a long way to go and anything can happen. Here is how those 386 delegates stack up:
Clinton.......210
Obama.......123
Edwards.......52
Kucinich.......1
Gravel.......0
It was a REAL loss for Edwards.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that it was much of a loss for John Edwards, because Edwards is now probably becoming the biggest beneficiary of the former-Hillary-supporters vote. Such as myself and just about everyone else from my cafe.
ReplyDeleteI've long been skeptical about Obama and yes, it is the experience issue-- I just haven't thought that he has the background for that kind of office.
I liked Hillary for most of last year.
But none of us will ever be casting a vote for Hillary now. If Hillary is on the Democrats' ticket in November, then we're writing in "Albert Gore, Jr." in the Presidential election field.
I'm sorry, but what the Hillary campaign-- and yes, even Bill Clinton himself with his arrogant "kid" and "fairy-tale" comments-- was race-baiting. The worst comments were probably the references to drug-pushing and Muslim enemy-sympathizer, straight out of the Rove playbook.
But what did it for us, is the way the Hillary campaign went so far as to try to suppress voters in the 3 states thus far. There was a concerted attempt to block college students in Iowa. Then obstruction against Obama voters in New Hampshire-- that is an insult to our democracy!
Then suing to close down caucus sites in Las Vegas that were leaning toward Obama. Deliberate misdirection of voters to the wrong addresses in the Obama-leaning precincts. Oh, and shutting down the caucus sites over half an hour early in the sites leaning toward Obama, an egregious and fraudulent assault on the integrity of our democracy unlike any we've seen in this sordid affair!
The Democrats are supposed to be about bringing this country's diverse people together, and especially about enfranchising voters throughout the nation.
The Clintons are trying to do the opposite, and they must suffer for it. You can count all of us now as former Hillary Clinton supporters who will work actively against her. The main beneficiary thus far appears to be John Edwards, and this process will only be picking up steam.