Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Like many of us, Jim Henley reads blogs through a feed reader. Now, he’s working on customizing his reading experience by creating some “edited feeds” via Yahoo Pipes that eliminates recurring posts that he doesn’t like: Open-Thread-Free Eschaton, Outside the Beltway — Substantive (no caption contests or music videos), and Poliblogger Gringofied (no Latin American [...]
Kay Bailey Hutchison’s bizarre campaign to beat incumbent Texas Governor Rick Perry in the Republican primary has ended in embarrassing defeat. Gov. Rick Perry won a decisive victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Texas GOP primary for governor Tuesday night, bringing a bruising fight between two of the state’s most popular Republicans to [...]
I’ve been waiting to hand out recognition for correctly predicting the Electoral map until all states have been decided. Missouri still hasn’t been called, although it’s likely to fall into McCain’s camp. North Carolina has been called for Obama, who also picked up one elector in Nebraska, the first time either Maine or Nebraska has [...]
Time for the Monday OTB Caption ContestTM I’m baaaaaaccckk!…. Happy Bash Steel Day! Thanks to Dodd for providing a couple excellent contests over the last couple of weeks. REUTERS/Eloy Alonso (SPAIN) Winners will be announced Thursday PM
Newsweek has released a new poll and is excited by the huge change: “Glow Fading? The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by only 3 points. What a difference a few weeks can make.” This is quite amusing in that pretty much everyone agreed that the June 20th Newsweek poll was an [...]
John McCain has proposed a series of debates with Barack Obama in the format that he thinks best suits his skills as a candidate. Naturally, Obama has responded in kind. Taegan Goddard: According to NBC News, Sen. John McCain proposed a series of ten joint town hall meetings with Sen. Barack Obama beginning June 12 [...]
Barack Obama has ostensibly* passed the magic number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination. The media have declared him the winner. He’s declared himself the nominee. Hillary Clinton hasn’t acknowledged either reality, yet, but seems resigned to it. Obama Claims Victory Sen. Barack Obama achieved the 2,118 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination [...]
Hillary Clinton continues to provide ample evidence that she has no intention of going quietly into that good night. As Barack Obama turns to concentrate on his general election challenge, his rival Hillary Rodham Clinton is mounting a last ditch campaign to stay relevant in what is left of the Democratic presidential contest. The former [...]
AP’s Stephen Ohlemacher explains why Barack Obama, the young upstart, is going to be the Democratic Party nominee for president while Hillary Rodham Clinton, the hands-down favorite, is getting a set of steak knives. Unlike Hillary Rodham Clinton, rival Barack Obama planned for the long haul. Clinton hinged her whole campaign on an early knockout [...]
Today’s Democratic primaries in Kentucky and Oregon provide something akin to a rematch of the recent Indiana-North Carolina pairing. Hillary Clinton should easily win Kentucky, where Barack Obama hasn’t even bothered to campaign, and Obama should take Oregon. The Polls The latest RealClearPolitics average has Clinton up a whopping 29 points in Kentucky and Obama [...]
Jeralyn Merritt recounts a blogger call with Senator Hillary Clinton: She is staying in the race. She is ahead in the popular vote by 50,000 votes, counting Florida and Michigan which must be counted. She intends to continue to lead in the popular vote when June 3 comes around and everyone has voted. The number [...]
Chris Cillizza examines Hillary Clinton’s claims that her demonstrated ability to appeal to white, working class voters makes her the better candidate in the Fall. Examining the state-by-state races, he figures only 14 states will truly be competitive. A glance at these 14 states — and the polling to date in each — suggests that [...]
Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by a 2-to-1 margin (67-26) in West Virginia. Does this change anything? Probably not. One suspects Dick Cheney could have beaten Obama in this one. As impressive as Clinton’s string of victories in states dominated by white people with blue collars, there’s no evidence that her argument of “and therefore [...]
Hillary Clinton may take a hit to her personal finances in excess of $11 million, Bret Schulte reports for U.S. News. With rounds to fight running out, the self-described Rocky Balboa of politics will soon be forced to assess the damage sustained by the most expensive primary bout in history. Sen. Hillary Clinton doled out [...]
A series of public opinion polls show Barack Obama’s support dropping among Democrats, with Hillary Clinton the obvious beneficiary. While her numbers are static, or even dropping, she’s now ahead of him in several head-to-head polls nationally and has opened up a big lead in Indiana. The RealClearPolitics average still shows a 1.6 percent Obama [...]
There is a lot of chatter going on about the “facts” as regards to Hillary Clinton’s bid to come from behind to win the Democratic presidential nomination. The campaign’s The Fact Hub blog contends that “More People Have Voted For Hillary Than Any Other Candidate.” They arrive at this conclusion, which goes contrary to the [...]
Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary by ten points [actually, 8.6* or whatever**], continuing her string of large state victories and thereby keeping her dim hopes for the presidency alive. Unfortunately for Clinton, the press is treating this is a foregone conclusion, despite inconsistent polls and a hard fought six week battle. ABC’s Jennifer Parker: [...]
DNC chairman Howard Dean is tired of the democratic process and wants the superdelegates to decide who the Democratic nominee will be now. An increasingly firm Howard Dean told CNN again Thursday that he needs superdelegates to say who they’re for — and “I need them to say who they’re for starting now.” “We cannot [...]
Eric Kleefeld reports that, while Democratic candidates are beating their Republican counterparts by embarrassing margins at fund raising, the reverse is true at the national level. The Republican National Committee has announced that they have $31 million cash-on-hand at the end of March, money that can be used to assist John McCain as well as [...]
Sean Wilentz contends that, “If the system made sense, [Hillary] Clinton would be far ahead” rather than, well, losing. Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats in primary states choose their nominee on the basis of a convoluted system of proportional distribution of delegates that varies from state to state and that obtains in neither congressional nor [...]
The hopes of Democratic Party leaders to solve the delegate impasses in Florida and Michigan have been dashed, as technicalities have proven impossible to overcome. The AP reports that, “Facing strong opposition, Florida Democrats on Monday abandoned plans to hold a do-over presidential primary with a mail-in vote and threw the delegate dispute into the [...]
The Democratic National Committee is trying to work out a means for Florida and Michigan to stage delegate selection contests within the rules but there has thus far been no plan that’s acceptable to the states and both campaigns. Meanwhile, some supporters of Hillary Clinton are arguing that the DNC should simply seat the delegates [...]
Hillary Clinton won the Ohio and Texas primaries, revitalizing her campaign and ensuring that the race will continue, probably to the Democratic convention. It’s not clear as of this writing (6:01 Eastern) how many delegates she’s won and her path to a majority of delegates remains unclear. What It Means: The Spin Game The candidates’ [...]
There are primaries today in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Nobody outside of those states are paying attention to the last two. Hillary Clinton has staked the continuation of her campaign on doing well in Texas and Ohio and Barack Obama has obliged by saying she’s done if she doesn’t win both of them [...]
According to Zogby both the the Ohio and Texas Democratic primaries (in Texas a primary/caucus) are too close to call: UTICA, New York — The Democratic Party presidential primaries in Texas and Ohio remain too close to call between Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, with momentum sloshing back and forth, [...]
Matthew Shugart tallies up the popular vote totals from both parties’ primaries and notes that “Obama is closing in on a majority of the popular vote” while “McCain has yet to crack 40% of Republicans.” While I don’t think there’s any doubt that Obama is more popular among Democrats than McCain is among Republicans, there’s [...]
John McCain appears to be caught in the campaign finance system that he championed. The nation’s top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins [...]
Both parties had primaries in Wisconsin yesterday to go along with a Democratic caucus in Hawaii and a Republican primary in Washington state. The front-runners, Barack Obama and John McCain, won handily. So far as I can tell, the various controversies that have so fascinated the blogosphere the last few days had little to no [...]
Sean Wilentz and Julian Zelizer argue that the current system of primaries and caucuses is “A Rotten Way to Pick a President.” Something is seriously wrong with the way we pick our presidential candidates. But experts and pundits, caught up in the horse races, have been slow to point out the obvious — or have [...]
Last night’s sweeps by Barack Obama and John McCain of the so-called Potomac Primaries in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia were widely expected. Since public perceptions are mostly shaped by press coverage and the press uses their preconceptions as the baseline, not a lot has changed. Still, there has been some fallout. Republicans: [...]
With 0% of the precincts counted, OTB projects John McCain and Barack Obama as the winner of the Potomac Primaries held today in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia based on pre-election polls. Actual returns will be posted below with some frequency as they’re available. Despite my having filled out the paperwork to change [...]
Tomorrow, voters in Virginia, Maryland, and DC will vote in what are collectively being dubbed the “Potomac Primary” or “Beltway Primary” or, for the less creative, the “Mid-Atlantic Primaries.” At any rate, all indications are that front-runners John McCain and Barack Obama will win all three contests easily. Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin report that, [...]
Chris Bowers argues that the media narrative of the Democratic nominee race is flawed because it currently counts superdelegates. The short version of why? Because they can change their minds at any time. Super delegates have always made up, or changed, their minds en masse to endorse the candidate with the most popular support from [...]
Yesterday, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee won some contests the media weren’t covering. Sen. Barack Obama swept the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington state Saturday night, slicing into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s slender delegate lead in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Illinois senator also won caucuses in the [...]
The collapse of Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidency brings the inevitable question: What went wrong? Michael Luo gives a pretty good explanation. If Mr. Romney’s campaign were condensed to one of his trademark PowerPoint presentations, it would have had all the bullet points foretelling success: a multimillionaire candidate willing to relinquish his fortune to [...]
As I write this, a bit after 6 am, we don’t know the results of all the Super Tuesday states. What we do know if that Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee did much better than expected but that Hillary Clinton and John McCain strengthened their perception as frontrunners by winning California and New York, the [...]
After months of states racing to move their primary up to February 5th, the first day allowed for states not named “Iowa” or “New Hampshire,” Super Tuesday — or Super Duper Tuesday or Super-Duper-Mega-Jumbo Tuesday or whatever nickname one wants to call it — is finally upon us. While this has indeed been “long primary [...]
The polls show John McCain and Hillary Clinton running through tomorrow’s Super Tuesday primaries and consolidating their frontrunner status. The notable exception is California, where both are seeing longstanding leads slip away. CNN’s Paul Steinhauser notes, though, that the national polls give Clinton much more cause for concern. Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton is losing ground [...]
Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is reporting that it has raised $32 million in the month of January alone. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised $32 million in the single month of January, matching his best three-month period last year, aides said Thursday. The money positions Obama for the sweeping Feb. 5 primary contests, when 22 [...]
John Edwards has been out of the presidential contest for weeks but he’s now about to make it official. Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters’ sympathies but never diverted his [...]
The victories of John McCain and Hillary Clinton in Florida last night presage what will happen in next week’s Super Duper Tuesday contests and have significantly reshaped the race. Polls and Predictions Compared to Final Results The polls finally got one right, correctly predicting the winners and the order of finish of all challengers with [...]
Mark Halperin: “SOURCES: Giuliani expected to endorse McCain, as early as Wednesday — in Los Angeles or Simi Valley.” Various others have speculated on this endorsement this evening, including Bill Bennett. ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Rick Klein have independent confirmation: Rudy Giuliani will board a plane to California on Wednesday morning, as planned. But, [...]
Hardly any of the vote is in yet but, thus far, it’s tracking the pre-election polls nicely: Democrats: Clinton 25,116 58% 0 Obama 9,072 21% 0 Edwards 7,151 17% 0 Kucinich 411 1% 0 Republicans: McCain 12,180 29% 0 Romney 11,874 28% 0 Giuliani 7,625 18% 0 Huckabee 7,470 18% 0 Thompson 1,465 4% 0 [...]
While Barack Obama handily won South Carolina and seems to be a sunny, fresh alternative to Hillary Clinton, he’s got an uphill climb to the nomination, Christopher Cooper and Amy Chozick explain in the WSJ. Mr. Obama heads into the 22-state showdown as the underdog. The Illinois senator trails Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York [...]
As Chris Lawrence posted last night, Barack Obama handily won the South Carolina Democratic primary and native son John Edwards came in third. The results, with a record turnout, were stunning: Obama has long been projected to win, of course, but the RealClearPolitics average of the recent polls had it much closer: 38.4 to 26.8 [...]
Jonathan Garthwaite passes on word that, “Fox News is reporting that Fred Thompson has told Fox he will not be participating in Thursday’s debate and may make an announcement about his candidacy soon.” WaPo’s Michael D. Shear, on a story buried on page A08, asks, “Will Thompson Roll the Closing Credits?” As the men competing [...]