Neither Obama nor Clinton has the necessary number of delegates. And Clinton has always said that her strategy is to win the popular vote, win the big and swing states, focus on electability, then make her case to the convention and the SDs. So far she has done all that. You may disagree with the strategy. But that’s what it is.

Any more divisiveness is coming from the Obama camp, so there is an easy solution to stop it. If they actually want to stop it.

I have read his book and concerning faith: either he’s not sincere in which case he’s pandering; or he is sincere in which case, I’ve had enough of 8 years of religion in government. I do not care for more.

NAFTA: see, that is a talking point AND a lie that’s been spread around (note: I’m not accusing YOU of lying. I’m saying you picked up a talking point that is a lie).

And finally (because we’re running around in circles here), it seems that ANY discussion on this is focused on why Clinton is bad or how horrible it will be if McCain gets elected.

How about making a case for Obama? With policy details that will show me he is truly progressive (UHC, LGBT rights, women’s rights, maintenance of SS rather privatization, etc…. on all these, he’s no liberal). Again, one can be exposed to different ideas without hiring conservatives as advisors, that is a big joke.

As for Paul’s stuff, why don’t go comment on his blog. He responds to commenters, fairly extensively. You can ask him directly.

It’s like Huckabee said, when it became mathematically impossible for him to win the nomination, “I’m not a man of mathematics. I’m a man of miracles.” He dropped out two weeks later.

The primary cycle in 1968 was completely different from today’s cycle. California, and other major states had yet to vote by June; today, we have two states and a territory, a total of 86 delegates from a pool of 4000. Obama has already one the majority of pledged delegates by the allocation process that each state goes through, and that is based on the will of the voters. It is a poor analogy.

On the economy, Obama is definitely more liberal than Clinton (case in point: the ludicrous gas tax). Do not tell me that that will make a real difference in people’s lives because it won’t, independent economists have come forward and said that it won’t, and it is a Republican economic position. As for his advisers, Obama has said on more than one occasion that he wants advisers who hold views that are different from his, that’s part of his message. As for Clinton, she supported NAFTA, which was an enormous economic blunder in my estimation, and although she has since retracted that support, it sheds light on the judgment she would show in the White House.

I object to the fact that Obama is “making faith a central part of his appeal.” Have you ever considered that Obama is genuinely a man of faith? I think it has little to nothing to do with his candidacy, but I think that the claim that it is pandering is farfetched at best. Bill Clinton is one of the most brilliant political minds in the past century, but Obama doesn’t think like that. Read his book. He writes far better than I do, and that alone deserves respect; nothing bothers me more than when a public figure who is perceived as intellectual has their own book ghostwritten.

As for Paul, I spent as much time as I had perusing his data, and he’s done a lot from exit polls, which are notoriously unreliable; it also does not instill much confidence in me that he doesn’t know the difference between “weighed” and “weighted.” Also, still no sign of these mysterious youth turnout numbers.

I realize I have just spent this post arguing exactly what I said I wouldn’t argue about. That is to your credit. What I really want to say, is that regardless of all of this, Obama is the likely nominee, and Clinton’s staying in the race, by many metrics, does nothing but hurt the party. He overcame a lot of the Democratic establishment, which until Iowa was solidly behind Hillary (an almost 100 superdelegate lead, coming mainly from DNC endorsements), and he now has at the very least the upper hand in this primary (Rasmussen Markets has her chances of winning at just over 8%). With 86 delegates left, I don’t think it’s premature.

And I think I get your metaphor even though I know nothing about baseball!

In addition, I don’t understand why Hillary is supposed to drop out because she is behind in the delegate count. That’s like saying that a baseball team should quit in the 8th inning if they are a few runs behind. pointed out

The Democratic base: Obama is not getting enough of the older vote, the working class vote and the women. As Lukasiak shows in his latest post, actually, Clinton is making dents into his base and he’s not cracking hers.

Paul’s next post will be on education levels and social classes differences. Even BTW, who supports Obama, is for the unity tickets precisely because he thinks that this would make up for Obama’s weaknesses with the Democratic base. Whether he’s right or wrong is another issue.

As for the conservatives and religious nuts, Obama has consistently made clear appeals in their direction on issues such as abortion or gay rights. He also did so by making faith a central part of his appeal (that got him into trouble with the whole Rev. Wright mess, but that’s a different story… although I hope he’s ready for more of that from the Republicans).

It is indeed interesting that Clinton actually has a more liberal platform than Obama now. But Obama has very centrist economic views (his advisors come out of the Chicago school, so, that’s not really a surprise). As for the liberal rankings, they tend to be meaningless… heck, Joe “turncoat” Lieberman gets high rankings by pro-choice groups.

On the polls regarding the general election either nationally or by state, again TalkLeft posts practically every day on that. (although if you’re in high school, I guess I should not be encouraging you to spend time roaming the blogs and take time away from your studies!).

And as for RFK: yes, exactly, by June of 68, RFK was way behind in the primary against Humphrey before the California vote.

Which is why it is premature to declare a winner at this point. Heck I sure hope a lot happens with McCain between now and November (nothing bad for his health, mind you, just one of his apparently common angry lash outs at people).

It does not exempt me from examining the points Krugman makes, and I did just that in the above post. In fact it is from the points that he makes that I can tell he is biased. The RFK analogy is ridiculous, leaving out the MSM fodder about assassination. RFK’s campaign was barely underway in June of ‘68, and there were still major primaries to be held (read: PR does not constitute a major primary). Okay, I get that people are angry over the primary. In fact, that’s what I’ve been saying all along, but I don’t think that it’s Obama or Clinton’s fault; I think it’s the result of a long primary in which both sides have aggressively criticized the other, fairly or otherwise.

As for health care and social security, I believe single payer to be the best way… but I think it’s politically unfeasible. For analysis of policy, I usually shy away from pundits and turn to non-partisan groups, like LCV, which scores Obama higher than Clinton on environmental issues. It is very difficult to make the case that Clinton is more liberal than Obama, and I’m ready for that discussion, but I think it’s outside the scope of this argument.

I don’t know where you’re getting his problems with the core democratic base; in my opinion it will be far easier for him to win them than to win “conservatives and religious nuts.”

I have taken a stats class, and math is by far my strongest subject. I didn’t mean that I didn’t understand the graphs; I do. I mean that the graphs have nothing to do with youth turnout.

Also, I just saw that you posted about me on Corrente; as much as I’m flattered, I hope you don’t think that I work for Axelrod, or that I’m a troll. After all, I’m still in high school. As for talking points, all of what we are saying are “talking points.” Discussing them is the only way to get to the truth. Don’t insult me by saying that I am regurgitating information. I am doing you the same courtesy.

Krugman is not a Clinton surrogate and the fact that any statement that is not entirely pro-Obama or anti-Clinton = surrogate is ridiculous. I will not waste my time on that kind of Stalinist thinking. And even if… that does not exempt from examining the points he is making (and actually, Obama might well better read them).

And a while back, he did some comparative work on the policies both Clinton and Obama were putting out (on health care for instance or social security). And on both these topics, Obama is closer to the Republican position than Clinton is…

Yes, I have looked at Obama’s positions (when he has them, which is not always and that’s a problem in itself) and that’s based on that that I make all my voting decisions. The vile tactics his campaign has used, the attitude of the media and the so-called progressive blogosphere were just icing on the cake.

And Obama does not have an Appalachia problem. He’s got problems with the entire core democratic base. But, hey, if he can win without it, good for him. But that means he’ll do that by appealing to conservatives and religious nuts. No thanks (new young voters won’t be enough).

The blog TalkLeft is divided on the Unity ticket, BTD is all for it but I don’t think Jeralyn is for it, or she’s pretty tepid about it. At this point, I don’t think it matters all that much anyway.

As for Paul’s posts, sorry Josh, do your own homework. That’s what data analysis is about. Take a stats class, it’s useful for a lot of stuff, beyond electoral maths.