The Chosen Obama Narrative
Gosh, I Love The Liberal Media
China's Gold Medals Found To Have High Lead Content
The Party of Unity For One America
How Obama Changed Change
Women At Center Stage
Obama Is He Ready to be President
And If Obama Loses?
Martha's Big Adventure - Happy Labor Day
This Historic Candidacy
Crying Wolf On The Economy While Ignoring Real Perils
Kvetching and Convening
Major Media Decide -- Vote Obama
Obama Still Stumbling In Polls
The Senator
Convention(al) Reflections
Farewell To An American Hero
Economy of Words
Farewell, Nato
Findings
Hillary Can't Fix What Her Party Broke
Let's Get Cracking On America's Infrastructure
Mccains Vs. Biden: Not All 'Foreign Policy Experience' Is Created Equal
The Obama Moment
Kennedy's 'Right' Is Wrong
Rolling With The Punches
State of Denial
Obama Camp Claims Its 'Ground Game' Will Beat Bush's of '04
The Perfect Stranger
For Voters, It's A Matter of Trust
Michelle Obama: Family-Values Feminist -- Or Phony?
Game Show Politics
Biden Selection May Help Mccain Make Obama The Issue
Barack
The Quadrennial Whine Is Wrong
The Better Hillary Does, The Worse For Obama
'RomneyCare' Should Keep Mitt Off McCain Ticket
Be Not Cool
Report From A Forgotten War (4th in a Series)
Avoiding A Lieberman Disaster
Quality of Leadership Counts
Art Or Pornography? A Fine Line Indeed
On Shooting Taggers: Why Conservatives And Liberals Differ
New Day, New World, New Democratic Party
Grateful For A Do-Nothing Congress
A Gathering of Clowns Acrobats and Con Men
Win Or Lose, Obama Pioneers Interactive Convention
Obama Nomination Reframes Racial Issues
Democrats Talkin' Like The GOP
McCain Can Win Only As A War President
Young Feminists Shed Label
The Real "Big Tent" Party
Bill Clinton Mending Fences
Michelle Bernard Looks for the Right McCain -- Interview
Losing Faith Voters
Blind Defense of Koran Abrogates Reality
We've Come A Long Way, Baby
The Devils In His Details
The Clintons' Exit



Michael Barone
An Unconventional 2008 Election Season
Michael Barone 5/19/2008
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What makes this presidential election different from all other presidential elections? And different from what we expected when the year began?

First, neither party's presumptive nominee was chosen by massive support from primary voters, as John Kerry was in 2004, George W. Bush in 2000 or Bill Clinton in 1992.

That may not seem obvious in the case of John McCain, who effectively clinched the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. But look at the numbers: In January, McCain won New Hampshire 37 percent to 32 percent, South Carolina 33 to 30 percent and Florida 36 to 31 percent. On Super Tuesday, he won more than 50 percent only in states that were essentially uncontested: Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. He won Missouri by only 33 percent to 32 percent and California by only 42 percent to 35 percent, but won big delegate margins because of Republicans' winner-take-all rules.

McCain's strategy from July 2007 was to count on the other Republican candidates' strategies to fail. That was risky. But it worked. Republicans have accepted his victory because they're temperamentally inclined to fall in line and because it became obvious that he was the candidate with the best chance to win
in the fall. But McCain was not really a consensus choice.

As for Barack Obama, at this writing he leads Hillary Clinton by 153 in "pledged delegates," those chosen in primaries and caucuses. But about 90 percent of this lead — between 130 and 140 delegates — came in caucuses, where the enthusiasm of his followers and the inexplicable failure of the Clinton campaign to mobilize hers gave him big victories.

We know from the nonbinding "beauty contest" primaries in Washington in February and in Nebraska on May 13 that Obama would have won much smaller margins in primaries in those states — and much smaller delegate margins, thanks to the Democrats' proportional representation rules.

Democratic super-delegates, given votes in the 1980s to counterbalance the enthusiasm of left-wing caucus-goers, have instead moved toward ratifying the results of the caucuses and the paper-thin delegate edge Obama won in primary states. They may have good reasons for doing so — fearing a Clinton loss in the general or a backlash from black voters if the first serious black candidate is rejected.

But Obama, like McCain, is not the consensus choice of a large majority of Democratic primary voters.

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Veteran McCain
By Frederick Deligne - Le Pelerin, France * Posted 02/15/2008
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