Wednesday, March 5, 2008

John McCain Stands At The Top. (Finally) I'll See You All In Pennsylvania

McCain Wraps Up The Nomination

Senator John McCain locked up the Republican nomination for president Tuesday night with wins in all four contests: Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont. All by very large margins, which put him over the top of the 1191 delegate thresh hold. Now McCain can rest and relax for a little bit while he watches the Democrats destroy themselves.

McCain's smallest victory over former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee was 51%-38% in Texas. He was dominant in every state and because of all of this we were not surprised to see Huckabee bow out gracefully last night.

"The apostle Paul wrote that, I fought the good fight; I've finished the race; and I've kept the faith. And I believe tonight that one of the things that we will be able to say is not only that we fought the good fight and finished the race; we'd like to have finished it first, but we stayed in until the race was over."


Huckabee gave a strong conservative speech; similar to the one Mitt Romney gave at CPAC last month when he bowed out of the race. Huckabee is setting himself up for a run later, 2012, or a TV gig. He was by far the most interesting candidate, the funniest and the easiest to listen to.


"Pennsylvania Is The New Iowa"

Those words coming from Clinton spokesman Doug Hattaway. Senator Hillary Clinton had a great evening last night; she won Ohio (and it wasn't that close) Rhode Island where she was expected to roll and Texas by 4 points. These victories for Clinton make the campaign a whole new ballgame. Clinton praised the people of Ohio and America in her victory speech.

"Ohio has written a new chapter in the history of this campaign, and we're just getting started. More and more people have joined this campaign, and millions of Americans haven't spoken yet. In states like Pennsylvania and so many others, people are watching this historic campaign, and they want their turn to help make history. They want their voices to count, and they should. They should be heard. So, please, join us in this campaign."


The Clinton Camp is now looking forward to the upcoming contests in Wyoming, Mississippi, and most importantly Pennsylvania (The Keystone State, home of WaWa, Cheesesteaks, and the Roethlisberger... yea its a fat state, er Commonwealth) They are saying that this is now a horse of a different color. As of right now it is still unclear how many delegates behind Clinton still is but we do know she is at least a little bit closer to catching Obama. One thing that still has yet to be decided is the caucus in Texas, which, as of this moment with 36% of precincts reporting Obama holds a slight edge over Clinton 52%-48%. At the end of the day Obama could still win the most delegates in Texas because of the two-step system.

Senator Obama gave another very nice speech in San Antonio, he thanked the people of Vermont who voted overwhelmingly for him (60%-38%) and he talked right at some of the tactics the Clinton Campaign and some conservatives had used in the recent weeks.

"If I am the nominee of this party, I will not allow us to be distracted by the same politics that seeks to divide us with false charges and meaningless labels. In this campaign, we will not stand for the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon. San Antonio, I owe what I am to this country, this country that I love. And I will never forget it."


The Obama camp is playing the math game with the media, and themselves. They are quick to point out that Clinton would need to win something like 62% of the rest of the delegates in the last 12 states in order to catch Obama in the delegate lead. I think it is safe to say that neither candidate will receive that much of the vote in any race. So what will it come down to?

SUPERDELEGATES. I thought these dudes were going to be out of the picture but Obama just could not close the door on Clinton. Now it appears this campaign will go on until at least April 22nd, when PA votes but I would not be surprised if crazy things happen and Michigan and Florida vote AGAIN and we are all waiting around on June 3rd to see who Puerto Rico picks.

If you are a Democrat there are some things that should concern you:

1. The longer this lasts; the better it is for the Republicans.
2. Longevity leads to likeliness that a divide in the party is created.
3. Superdelegates are the spurn of society, if it takes Superdelegates to decide the nomination at the Democratic Convention in Denver in late August, we could see the craziest scene in politics since the '72 DNC convention floor.... Which interestingly enough is when the idea of Superdelegates was created, but it wasn't used until the mid-80s.

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