21 May 2008

After Kentucky and Oregon

This one, at least, turned out pretty much as expected; a huge win in Kentucky, a rather smaller margin of defeat in Oregon, and a net gain (taking both states into account) of about 150,000 popular votes.

The race looks much like it did before, including the surreal pro-nouncements echoing through the MSM and the blogosphere that the candidate clearly best-placed to win in November should give up the race, despite being essentially tied in the popular vote and behind by only a small margin in the party's Byzantine delegate-selection process. Sheer indignation still greets any suggestion that Florida and Michigan, which will be critical in November, should not be ignored. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Clinton continues to be the clear favorite of the kind of blue-collar and rural voters who dominate in the swing states of the rust belt and Appalachia, and thus far better positioned to hold those states against McCain (in Kentucky exit polls, more of Clinton's voters said they would vote for McCain than for Obama if the latter were the Democratic nominee). Obama advocates mumble about "redrawing the map", presumably meaning that the likely loss of those states' (and Florida's) scores of electoral votes would be offset by winning.....what? Colorado? Alabama? Idaho? Come on.

The calls for Clinton to quit are bizarre; Huckabee faced no such pressure earlier this year when he was the last Republican still standing against McCain, nor did Kennedy in 1980, though both of those candidates were much further behind their parties' front-runners than Clinton is now. The fixation on delegates over the popular vote is also curious coming from the party still indignant that Gore's clear popular-vote win in 2000 was neutralized by the Electoral College.

Nevertheless, there's probably nothing that can be done now. The MSM, the blogosphere, and a good part of the party establishment have fixed the course of their chosen narrative, which would now be more difficult to change than the course of the Titanic. The iceberg of November lies dead ahead. For lifeboats, at least, we should have a robust number of new Democrats in the House and Senate. Let's hope there are enough.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Rita said...

All my liberal friends are happy. & am happy about some of the results on a more local district level.

22 May, 2008 09:06  
Blogger Life As I Know It Now said...

You are not alone in this assessment. I keep trying to tell my friends, progressives and liberals, this but they don't want to hear it. Maybe it's just as well. The economy is going to suck for a long time to come and McBush III and his party should suffer for it.

22 May, 2008 11:10  

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