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Edited on Sun Mar-23-08 06:10 AM by susankh4
Dear Family, Friends and Hillstars – I apologize. I just knew I couldn’t make this short. Here are some thoughts on the state of the primaries. Feel free to forward to anyone you think can benefit from it!
Executive Summary
BO has a lead of 51% of the popular vote and 53% of the pledged delegates so far with almost 20% of the delegates not yet voted on. The race is not over, the race is very close. She is doing this well in the face of unbelievable media bias. Neither candidate can win the nomination on pledged delegates alone. Hillary is the better person for the job and she is the better person to run in the general election. I personally am proud that Hillary is fighting for what she believes in and if the Democrats don’t have the stomach for a tough, sustained race, they don’t deserve to win the White House and probably won’t. The media hates her, so take everything they say with a grain of salt and even better yet, just turn the media OFF. If you’re tired of the race, move somewhere they haven’t voted yet and you’ll find it newly interesting!
The Narrative
Most of us, me included, have never been involved in a campaign before and certainly not during a primary. Of course, this election cycle started so much earlier than any before, and with such a close race between two talented candidates whose policies are pretty similar, it has the potential of lasting longer than it ever has and than any of us ever expected. On the one hand, people are sick of this, and on the other hand, it is pretty amazing and exciting. Among the public, this list, the media, there are many worries, concerns and expressions of this tedium and the stress of such a long period of uncertainty. People who have voted already feel things are dragging on. So, why doesn’t Hillary “do the right thing” and give up? She can’t win on elected delegates, she can’t win without Superdelegates, BO has more delegates and more popular vote, and the ongoing campaign is hurting the Democratic party. Right?
Wrong. Those aren’t facts, they are opinions. In fact they are an editorial position, one that might be articulated by media or people who support Barack Obama (kind of the same thing). And Democrats just LOVE opinions as much as Republicans love ideology. Democrats don’t know how to have and hold a position, in the face of adversity and reasonable sounding arguments. THAT is what worries me, is what wusses Dems can be, and how we let ourselves be led around by the media and talking heads who don’t actually accomplish much, except expressing thoughts and opinions. The facts (such as they are quantifiable, I’m using demconwatch.com, but the numbers vary depending on a variety of factors) are that
1) The race between HRC and BO is not actually over. Somewhere around 560 (that’s a low number) of the 3253 pledged delegates (those resulting from the state primaries and caucuses) remain undetermined. That’s 17% of the pledged delegates that have not yet been decided. That’s more than NY, NJ and IL combined. More than TX and OH combined. Many more than CA. If California’s primary hadn’t occurred yet, would you want the party to decide without our getting our voices heard?
2) The race is very close. BO has just over 51% of the popular vote so far and 53% of the delegates so far. With so many primaries not yet held, how can anyone say this race is over? Would *you* stop with 49% or 47% of the vote with 17% of the contests yet to take place? If you would, good, because I don’t want you for President of the United States. I could slice and dice stats including Superdelegates, but I don’t count Superdelegates as fact at this point. The reality is that even pledged Superdelegates can change their mind, and their numbers don’t include at large delegates that the states haven’t even yet assigned. I think Superdelegates are just a theory at this point (though it is a fact that HRC does have more pledged than BO).
3) It is true that HRC can not win the nomination on pledged delegates alone, even if she wins ALL of the remaining delegates from the upcoming primaries. However, using that to conclude that she should drop out is not a good argument. By that argument we would have no one left, because BO ALSO can not win the nomination on pledged delegates alone, even if HE wins all of the remaining delegates. Neither of them can win on pledged delegates alone. The fact is that the people voting in the Democratic primaries and caucuses are split, close to evenly. The race is not over and it is very close, those are the facts.
Someone asked me, why we should continue past the PA primary as “By then all the major states will have voted and the elected delegate count will be mostly complete.” (pop quiz: fact or opinion?) After PA, over 11% of the pledged delegates will remain undetermined. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure the *millions* of people that 11% represents would appreciate that. By that argument we should just have primaries in “the major states,” and let them decide and not bother with the other states. That’s actually almost HRC’s campaign’s argument for why she should get the nomination! I’m sorry, but as someone who grew up in the Midwest, with East Coast relatives for whom anything west of Philadelphia (which was pretty questionable) didn’t exist, I’m very sensitive to the coastal blinders many of my friends have. The people in the middle of the country are real people, with real lives and opinions, and that they don’t match up to California liberalism doesn’t make them invalid AT ALL. The biases of the press are regional and if you listen to the media a lot, you’ll internalize those biases and waste a lot of time arguing internally with them, regardless of whether they are factual, valid, or what you actually agree with.
Is the long race driving the party apart? Ask the thousands and thousands of people in upcoming primary states who are flocking to see the candidates. In Cincinnati, I couldn’t believe the genuine excitement over seeing Hillary in person, the crowds were truly electric, it shocked me. They’ve been saying this a long time in the media, but the FACT is that states *continue* to have record breaking turnout in their Democratic primaries and caucuses. I think the people who are tired of this are the media (and I don’t blame them, I’m tired of the media, too) and people in states who have had their turn. If people think ANY of this race has been nasty, unfair, or negative, you obviously do not remember the last two general elections; this is a tea party in comparison. If the candidates and the party can’t weather this, then we won’t weather the general election.
Enough of the stats. The fact is that this nomination is about a candidate for the president of the United States. Our nominee has possibly a greater than 50/50 chance of getting the nomination. That is an opinion, my opinion based on the following:
1) Upcoming races generally favor her, they are primaries not caucuses with demographics of regular people
2) She is more electable. Before TX and OH, the media mantra was that the polls show BO in a better position to beat McCain than HRC. Guess what? That’s not currently true (funny the media isn’t beating that drum anymore). Polls are just stupid this far in advance anyway.
3) BO is more vulnerable. As an American, as someone who grew up in a mixed neighborhood and schools, and who has lived in the diversity of Silicon Valley for 20 years, I thought what I heard of BO’s race speech was brilliant and wonderful. But guess what? It won’t erase video of his minister saying “God Damn America” being played over and over and over in nationally aired ads run by 527s and PACs supporting McCain. That and video of BO saying the reason he didn’t hold any hearings of his subcommittee on Afghanistan was that he was “too busy running for President.” (there’s a damning video put together on that on youtube). The Clinton campaign won’t go that far, but hold onto your hats for the general.
4) Hillary is the only Democratic presidential candidate who has faced Republican attacks and come out the winner. Republicans spent more than $60 million trying to defeat her in the 2000 Senate race and they failed. They tried again in 2006, yet she won re-election by an even greater margin. She already IS a winner against fierce opposition, even in Republican districts. Barack lost his first congressional race to a Republican. He won his election to the Senate after the strong, well-funded Republican his campaign talks about him running against, dropped out in *May* of that year over a sex scandal and the Republicans didn’t even have a candidate for him to run against until *August* before the election. He ran the entire summer unopposed and won against an unpopular, weak Republican in the actual election.
Why should she give up, why should she stop? This is not a school board race, where I’ll step aside this year for you and I’ll take it next year. She believes that she has the best leadership to offer this country at an unbelievably difficult time, to clean up the mess of the previous 8 years, and the unforeseen challenges to come. It is clear to me that the most knowledgeable candidate capable of dealing with the hugely complex economic, military and diplomatic mess the Bush administration will leave behind is Hillary. It’s not because she’s a woman, nor despite her being a woman. She’s just the very best that we have. She’s certainly not perfect, she’s just the best.
With such a close race, I think she is enough the better candidate that I personally want to continue to fight for her nomination. It’s not at all that I think BO is bad. I think he’s great. But I don’t think he is prepared, and certainly not as prepared as she, to step into this role. I worked in Silicon Valley tech for 20 years. I’ve seen the difference between startups and established companies, between taking a company to the next level and a turnaround. I’ve seen the difference between brilliance and execution and the effect of one without the other. I personally think we are incredibly lucky because we have brilliance and execution in our candidate, and we *will* have brilliance and execution in BO in 8 years. But today, she is ready and he is not.
Don’t let the media tell you what to think or how to feel. If you personally are tired of the race, take a media vacation and listen to your own thoughts and beliefs. Woman up and take a stand. And better yet, GO to Pennsylvania (or KY or IN or OR or NC) and see what people not on the coasts really think and how they feel and just how major or minor they think their lives and opinions are. If you listen and don’t try to argue, you might even learn a few things.
-- Amy
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DON'T GIVE UP! JUST TAKE A MEDIA BREAK, AND WAIT IT OUT!! (AND MAKE A FEW CALLS FOR HILLARY EACH DAY.)
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