Posted on 03/29/2008 5:15:18 PM PDT by jdm
On March 4, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to news reports, won three out of the four state primaries held that day -- Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas. Barack Obama won only Vermont, a victory dismissed as insignificant by much of the media because of its size and small number of delegates.
On the other hand, some media, in writing about Clinton's victories in Ohio and Texas, said it reaffirmed her ability to win the big states -- states the Democratic Party must carry in the fall if it is to win the general election. By inference, they suggested she is more electable against the Republicans, pointing out that Clinton won the two huge states of New York and California.
The media usually mention Clinton also won Florida and Michigan, even though Democratic Party rules say those states don't count because they moved their primaries up, in open defiance of the national party's mandate that these states not hold their primaries prior to Super Tuesday.
All of this suggests Clinton's "big state" strategy is working. It has led some writers to promote her as the "front-runner" in the race for the Democratic nomination. This, despite the fact that after 41 primaries and caucuses held across the Untied States, Obama leads in the popular vote, number of states won and the number of pledged delegates won.
Nevertheless, Clinton argues that if she wins the next "big state" primary, Pennsylvania, on April 22, she is entitled to the Democratic nomination. She believes a win in Pennsylvania will convince most of the unpledged super delegates to commit to her, giving her an unbeatable lead in the overall delegate count. If she's able to persuade the party to redo Michigan and Florida, there's no doubt -- at least in the minds of her supporters -- that Clinton will become the Democratic nominee.
She might be right; however, there is a hitch. A redo in Michigan and Florida appears unlikely. More important, did Clinton actually win Texas?
Texas has an interesting "two-step" process used to select its Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination. Two-thirds of the delegates are chosen by a primary election similar to the system in most other states. However, the second step for Texas voters is to return to the polls at 6 on Election Day and vote in caucuses to select the other one third of the delegates by voting for delegates to the county conventions pledged to one or the other presidential candidate. This method (caucus) is used to select the additional one-third national delegates. It's confusing, but that's the way it works in Texas.
Clinton won the Texas primary popular vote, 51 percent to 48 percent, over Obama. As a result, under proportional representational rules, she won 65 delegates. Obama won 61 delegates. Here is where the "two-step" comes in. Obama won the Texas caucuses by a substantial margin and actually might end up winning more national delegates in Texas than Clinton!
We won't know until today, when the Texas county conventions are convened. Nevertheless, very few members of the media have bothered to go back and correct this record. Most seem perfectly satisfied with their original stories and headlines of March 4.
Richard Hatcher is former mayor of Gary. The opinion expressed in this column is the writer's and not necessarily that of The Times.
“She might be right; however, there is a hitch.”
My eyes were blurry — I read that slightly differently the first time.
I thought it said “bitch” the first time as well.
Clinton is in shock that the Democratic party and the media has already called it for Obama.
Well, she won the popular vote, so she has the ‘will of the people.’
However, the caucuses were racially biased against her - because the blacks voted against Cankles because she’s white.
So, because of hateful racism that Rev. Wright and most every other ‘black preacher’ would be proud of - the will of the people was overridden.
How democratic. Only from a dimorat does this seem appropriate. No wonder Mrs. Obama is so proud.
bmfl.
Payback is a *itch for the race party!!
Somewhere along the line you would think that the dolts on the left would be able to figure out the simple act of counting.
Just kidding!
But, but, but...that would mean blacks are racist. And we all know that isn't true because liberal-socialist-communist-treasonous-Democrats have been telling us for 40+ years that only whites are racist.
I'm so confused ;-)
Don’t buy The Times of NW Indiana. They underpay, steal story ideas and lie about contracts for freelance writers.
Another answer....It depends upon the meaning of “win.”
When the white liberals were eagerly telling blacks that whites were racist and it was okay to hate them, the unwritten understanding is that that didn’t apply to THEM. They were the good whites who would help the blacks out against the bad whites (e.g., anyone not a flaming liberal). Now the blacks are showing their ungratefulness for all the “Help” they’ve gotten from the white liberals all these years. How dare they?!!
The Internet countdown is on.
ROTFL! Love it!
I’m sure there will be government bailout soon. ;-(
Obama way ahead in the popular vote (except if you count Florida and Michigan, and the next 10 races where she will make up the gap)-Check
Obama can’t get to the magic number of 2024 either before the convention (even if he wins all of the remaining primaries) and can’t win without the super delegates but Clinton is the one who is hopelessly behind and cant win without super delegates-Check
The Super delegates should vote how their state voted (unless their state voted for Clinton)-Check
Obama was born a muslim, prayed to Mecca as a kid, snorted cocaine, and is a member of a church that is really the Christian wing of the Nation of islum but is more electable than Clinton-Check
Obama stands to lose 7 out of the last 10 contests and hasn’t won a major state- his numbers among white voters and especially white male Reagan democrats are in free fall but Clinton should step aside and hand him the nomination-Check
All this from the Democratic Party. It should be renamed the Orwellian Party.
Thanks to the rules which apply to only the Democrat Party in Texas, Obama will have won Texas, unless something weird happened at the conventions today.
The party awards more delegates to the victors of districts within the state based on Democrat voter results in the past.
To make the story short, the districts which were predominantly black get more delegates than more racially diverse districts.
Thus, Obama did not win the popular vote in Texas, but he did win more delegates. Ths MSM may have touched on this, but it’s not widely known.
No... Operation Chaos...RUSH the vote did the 'Texas hold em.'
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