Wednesday, March 05, 2008
A Closer Look at Hillary's Wins
Of course winning is better than losing, but there are no Democratic winner-take-all primaries (even though the national election is generally that) so the question is how many delegates did Hillary pick up in her big wins yesterday. It shouldn't be a tough question but apparently it is. According to ABC news, her big wins netted her a 6 delegate gain. (Other news outlets had it higher, some as high as a 21 delegate pick-up). The problem for Hillary was that she was pretty far behind by the start of yesterday. Then there are the super delegates, who can vote as they please because of their station in life. (Odd thing to have in the Democrat Party, in that it seems un-democratic to have delegates who don't have to vote as the people in their state do). And then there is Jonathan Alter at Newsweek, who seems all spoilsport for Hillary. He says she can't realistically catch Obama in pledged delegates (even if they re-do Michigan and Florida--more trouble for the 'count-every-vote' Democrats) and it would be a bad thing for the super delegates to go against the will of the people.
The question for us Republicans (and other non-Democrats) is whether a continued race is a good thing. Rush Limbaugh thinks it is a good thing for the two Democrats to trade body blows for as long as possible, and he urged Republicans in Ohio and Texas to cross the line and vote for Hillary, and quite a few (10%?) did.
Hugh Hewitt, on the other hand, was alarmed at this and compared the crossover to releasing the mummy from his tomb. I have to agree with Hugh, although I would use a different movie metaphor: When you have the vampire down, drive the stake in. I wonder too if it's a good thing to have the supportive press preoccupied with the Democrat race right into the Convention, held here in Denver in August? In any event, everyone said Hillary needed to win Texas and Ohio in order to go on, and she did. The race indeed goes on.
Labels: Democrat Primary Results
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:26 AM 
