May 20 2008
Hillary Builds Momentum
As far as the liberal and political elite are concerned Hillary Clinton’s race for the White House is over. Â But today will bring the people’s voice into the debate – the only voice that counts. Â According to Real Clear Politics Clinton is heading for another smashing upset in KY today. Â It seems the Democratic base is not rallying behind Obama quite yet!
The place to watch is Oregan, where Obama had a huge crowd show up in Portland.  If he only wins be a small margin after that kind of showing, it will be legitimate to ask who the voters in the Democratic party really support?  And if Clinton takes back the lead in the popular vote again she has a reason to go to Denver and fight Obama head on. Â
In fact, one look at the Gallup Daily Tracking numbers and an interesting phenomena is happening (one I predicted might happen). As Obama takes a large lead over Clinton (primarily because of the NY and CA liberal media markets are saturating those huge liberal population centers with the fate compli that Obama is the primary winner), he is not gaining any ground on McCain. Check out the two charts (click images for full size):
Â
So, what is going on here? Well it could be Democrat voters select McCain’s opponent no matter which candidate they support. That way the same number of voters would oppose McCain against ‘the democrat’. But that doesn’t seem to make sense with the numbers showing large defections to McCain if either Democrat candidate loses. I would expect to see a boost for Obama as he became the standard bearer. But it is not showing up. One cannot help but assume the electorate is just not as enamored with Obama as the liberal media seems to be.
Hillary might surprise a lot of people today.
[…] Blake Fleetwood wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAs far as far as the liberal and political elite are concerned Hillary Clinton’s race for the White House is over. But today will bring the people’s voice into the debate – the only voice that counts. According to Real Clear Politics … […]
[…] Hillary Builds Momentum:Â She might surprise a lot of people today. (The Strata-Sphere) […]
I read somewhere yesterday that the big rally began as a free concert…an easy way to get tons of people in and then snap those pictures…according to this link there definately was free entertainment…Hmmmmm
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/portlandevent
If you go by the polls Hill should take Ky by +25 and lose in Or by +12 depending on the poll.
Obama’s camp says he will likely have a majority of pledged delegates tonight to declare a milestone.
I follow a number of electoral projection sites that do models and none of them yet agree with each other but generally the states that Obama won include many he will almost assuredly lose in November.
I hate to say it but Hillary does have a strong electability argument that is going to cause all sorts of grief for the Dems yet.
Whippet, I’m amazed at how often you are willing to ignore common sense simply because it doesn’t fit your ideological beliefs. Do you really think that 75,000 people stood in line for several hours in order to see a free concert by a bunch of nobodies? I live in Portland. Trust me, people don’t stand around the water front park waiting to see if a free concert is going to break out. Obama’s speech was heavily advertise and the people that attended were there to see him. I understand that you don’t like him, but you look silly when you manufacture these kinds of ridiculous claims just because you cannot stand the thought that a large number of people do like him.
AJ, it is not the liberal media that determined Obama is the presumptive nominee, it is the math. EVERYONE agrees that it is virtually impossible for Clinton to make up Obama’s lead in the delegate and/or popular vote at this point in the game. Show me a credible analysis to the contrary. Clinton is simply using this opportunity to extract what she can from Obama and bow out gracefully. While publically she is claiming to fight on, notice that she isn’t going after Obama nearly as hard as she was prior to North Carolina and Indiana. As for the fact that some people are still voting for Clinton, keep in mind that McCain got only 73% of the vote in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and 77% in Indiana even though he is running uncontested!
As for the general election match up, it is only now starting. As the Democratic nominees have been beating each other up, McCain was not being scrutinized and generally got a free pass. Now that the attention is starting to focus on him, his problems are becoming readily apparent. Here is a short list of just the most recent problems:
1. Despite his considerable efforts to distance himself from Bush, Bush’s stupid appeasement comments last week once again associated McCain with Bush’s disastorous foreign policy. McCain is now on record as supporting Bush’s supposed refusal to talk with rogue states like Iran (Gee Mr. President, what about our negotiations with North Korea – the other remaining axis of evil) or terrorist (Gee Mr. President, what about the Sunni Awakening group, the ones that we recently agreed to pay and arm in exchange for their agreement to stop killing our soldiers). McCain did so despite his previous public statements expressing a willingness to negotiate with Hamas (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/15/exclusive-video-mccain-wa_n_102031.html) and approval of our negotiations with Syria (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-bergmann/mccain-was-in-favor-of-ta_b_102099.html). How many times is McFlip-Flop going to change his position on issues?
2. McCain continues to show is complete ignorace about the Middle East. Not only do we have his numerous instances of confusing Sunnis and Shites (how senile did McCain look in Iraq several weeks ago with Sen. Liebermann whispering in his ear that Iran does not support Al Qaeda because they are mortal enemies), but now we find out that McCain does not even know the actual leader of Iran (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/20/mccain-confronted-with-ne_n_102614.html). And he wants to be the Commander-in-Chief?
3. The wheels are coming off the Straight-Talk Express now that McCain has had to acknowledge the swarm of lobbiest running his campaign. Why would he take his greatest asset as a reformer and destroy it by hiring all of these lobbiest to run his campaign?
Obama is far from perfect, but McCain is deeply flawed. He is associated with one of the most unpopular president’s in history and cannot seem to break from him. He does not have strong support from his own party. His party is in shambles by the GOP’s own admission. He is too old – he would be the oldest president elected in history. He is a horrible speaker and regularly makes mistatments that make him look confused and stupid. I guess we will all have to wait until November to see who actually wins, but I wouldn’t be feeling so good about your horse.
Conman,
It was just an observation based on what others had been saying. I know lots of people who would stand for hours waiting for any type of free entertainment, but of course most would only put in the long hours for a big headliner.
Of course I know that most were there to get a glimpse of the savior…especially in Oregon.
And why am I not surprised you live in Portland?
When John Kerry spoke in Portland OR in 2004 he drew a crowd of something like 60,000. I don’t know if there was a free concert there when he spoke. But, also in 2004 there was one rally in Minnesota I think, where Kerry drew 80,000. Of course, he had a free Bruce Springsteen concert ahead of him.
About Obama’s rally:
———————————————
About that Huge Obama Rally? It’s a farse
May 20 at 9:09pm by Macranger
Just like Obama’s candidacy, it’s largely smoke and mirrors. Robert Knight at Newsbusters notes that the crowd actually showed up for something other than Obama.
“From CNN to the New York Times, the media hyped Barack Obama’s Portland, Oregon rally on Sunday, some comparing him to a rock star.
Unmentioned in national reporting was the fact that Obama was preceded by a rare, 45-minute free concert by actual rock stars The Decemberists. The Portland-based band has drawn rave reviews from Rolling Stone magazine, which gave their 2005 album Picaresque four and a half stars (out of five), and another four and a half stars for 2007’s The Crane Wife.
How many of the people showed up to hear Obama, and how many to hear the band?
Here’s how the local paper The Oregonian, which estimated the crowd at 72,000, reported the rally:
“Obama was the biggest star at Sunday’s gathering — though a popular Portland band, The Decemberists, provided the warmup act. With blue skies and temperatures in the 80s, many in the crowd said Waterfront Park was simply the place to be.â€
http://www.macsmind.com/wordpress/2008/05/20/about-that-huge-obama-rally-its-a-farse/
—————————————
So, it makes me wonder how big a crowd McCain could get on a single college campus if he offered free beer (evidently he knows where to get it). LOL.
Summary:
John Kerry + Bruce Springsteen = 80,000 crowd
Barack Obama + Decemberists – 72,000 crowd
The bigger the band, the bigger the crowd?
So, why is the media going around claiming that the Messiah performed a miracle?????
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTQzYTM4YTUxYTViYjY1MDUxMjk5NjQ4ZGQ1ZGI5MDc=
excerpt:
….the indie rock band the Decemberists played a free 45-minute concert. Now, I’m sure Obama would draw a big crowd either way, but wasn’t that worth mentioning in the coverage?
From Wikipedia: “Named both in reference to the Russian Decembrist Revolt (which may explain its use of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union as an introduction at many concerts)…” Lovely.
I wonder if they played, “Sixteen Military Wives.” The video depicts a bully named “Henry Stowecroft” (Kissinger and Brent?) representing the United States in a grade school model United Nations who declares war on Luxembourg. I kid you not when I tell you the video begins with the bully putting on a flag pin.
The lyrics:
Sixteen military wives
Thirty-two softly focused brightly colored eyes
Staring at the natural tan
of thirty-two gently clenching wrinkled little hands
Seventeen company men
Out of which only twelve will make it back again
Sergeant sends a letter to five
Military wives, whose tears drip down through ten little eyes
Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so!
And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da
Fifteen celebrity minds
Leading their fifteen sordid wretched checkered lives
Will they find the solution in time
Using their fifteen pristine moderate liberal minds?
Conman,
Just another little tidbit of information about that huge rally. There was a popular band there…who would have thunk!
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30042_About_That_Huge_Obama_Rally_in_Oregon…
Apparently Conman has been caught up in the Messiah cult with the rest of the clowns. Do they serve Guyana Grape Kool-Aid at these rallies? 😉
[…] was heading for trouble because he was losing moderated democrats who were flocking to Hillary (see here and here for examples). Â The indicator this would happen would be polls showing no bump for Obama […]