I just couldn't do it.  

Literally.  

I had planned on voting after work, but following a 2 1/2 hour commute I found myself about 10 minutes short - the polls were closed by the time I got within shouting distance of my station.  

So yes, I agree that we could have used a little more time yesterday given the conditions.

I was watching the replay of McCain's speech last night and noticed recent election loser JeanneMarie (standing right behind McCain) needs glasses.  At least it appears that way. She had this funny thing going where her eyes would get all squinty while McCain was reading the teleprompter, then they'd pop wide open followed by a slow return to squint.

And why the hell does he need to be fed prepared remarks like that?  Forgetful perhaps?

Most of the people on that stage behind McCain looked as if they were struggling to stay awake. Jeannemarie was just the most noticable.

and falling over like that poor girl in the background at the Clinton rally.

They might all need some sleep, but it sure looks like something else.  WARNING: the following link contain Republican material and is unsuitable for most people.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=AHw...

Take a good look around the 6:30 mark to see the weird eye thing.

Well the 9th District made the practical choice in voting for Clinton a candidate of substance who is running on more than simply "faith" and "hope" that has been dedicated to Democratic causes since Obama was in diapers.  I have nothing against Obama, and believe him to be a terrific candidate and spokesman, but he is unseasoned and his lack of experience may very well be his undoing.  I guess if Boucher is to follow the Obama campaign's demand that superdelegates vote according to their constituency, then Rick will cast his vote for Hillary.  Although I supported Hillary throughout this process and voted for her yesterday, I am afraid that there may be a flaw in the conventional wisdom - and McCain, who will undoubtedly do well with independents may beat Obama if he can find a way to appease and bring along his conservative base.  No doubt I'll support Obama in the general election, I'm just afraid that between McCain's taking the independent vote and Obama's laid back style that does not lend itself to fighting back, we may just get "swift-boated" into another Republican presidency.

including the words "the" and "and."  

Just sayin'.........

But I'd add, "experience" in doing the wrong thing, voting the wrong way on some of the biggest issues of our time, not showing up to vote against telcom immunity (this week when she was in town), her never trying again on health care when Bill was pres., don't look all that good for her "seasoning."

And as for McCain.  When independents and moderate Republicans realize where he intends to take America (endless war, attacking more countries, and perpetuation of the devastating Bush agenda), they still won't support him.

That's what happens when there isn't a campaign down here. Everything stops at Roanoke.  Except for Bill Clinton coming to Va Tech this past weekend, there wasn't much presence for either candidate here.  The lopsided vote was probably mostly name recognition.  

There is a very small Obama group here in Bburg.  We did have someone for Obama greeting at my precinct. There were canvassers.

However, with the full-throttle campaign for the general, and when the voters get to know Obama, they will vote for him, even here. The 9th should not be written off.  It is ridiculously difficult to cover this district, though.

 

A few quick points based on my years living int he 9th-

- Kathy absolutely nails it.

- You'll also note that where the Obama presence actually was, the votes followed. Kathy mentioned that Blacksburg had a group for Obama (whom I saw parading the streets before VT smacked UVa for the 2nd time this season) and you'll note that Montgomery County was the only one in the 9th going for Obama.

- President Clinton was, and still is, very popular with Democrats there.

- The Wise County Democrats recently endorsed Hillary Clinton, and apparently did a fine job of organizing and getting out the vote for their choice amongst low turnout. Clinton won 82%-16% in that county.

- Clinton was also the only major candidate/surrogate to campaign in SWVA, coming to Blacksburg and speaking in front of a packed house at Virginia Tech.

Again, I'm an Obama supporter but I'm trying to be objective and actually analyze the vote.

The 9th CD had the lowest turnout of any Congressional District in the Commonwealth (about 13%), and Hillary's next-best district (the 6th) also had the 2nd lowest turnout (around 15%).  As Lowell noted earlier, statewide turnout was 21%.

I think that's one of the key differences between the results in the 9th and other districts.  Obama brought a lot of new primary voters to the polls in most parts of the state, but where he didn't bring in as many of those new primary voters, turnout was lower, and he didn't do as well.  Mike and Kathy's points illustrate pretty well, I think, why the remaining, smaller pool of more-traditional primary voters broke for Clinton as opposed to Obama.

Hillary Clinton voted for:

- A flag-burning amendment to the Constitution
- Invasion of Iraq
- Declaration that the Iranian National Guard is a terrorist organization (thus showing she hadn't learned her lesson after the Iraq vote)

Then when the 'hot coffee' mod came out for Grand Theft Auto, she was all over the media demanding that video games be censored by the federal government. I happen to own that game and enjoy it and Hillary Clinton can shove her Lieberman-style censorship right up her ass.

This is 'dedication to Democratic causes?' Bullshit. None of these are even things that she passionately believes in. We all know perfectly well that she has no great devotion to the protection of the flag. Hillary Clinton is dedicated to whatever political position looks convenient at the moment - and she could not care in the least who she shits on in the process. Whether it's our First Amendment rights or the decision to go to war, Hillary Clinton doesn't give a rat's ass about freedom or lives. She will turn on you and stab you in the back the very second that it becomes convenient to do so.

Fredericksburg area.  

I've worked inside, at the pollbooks, in my precinct for a number of years.  The voters, my neighbors, are a mix of middleclass voters who've voted solidly conservative Republican and speak unflatteringly of Democrats and liberals.  Yesterday, I witnessed these same church-attending, pro-life, Iraq supporting Republican neighbors come in and say they are voting in the Democrat primary "this time."  Some literally winked at me, some said they were "having to vote on the Democratic ballot this time because of the liberal candidates", and some openly said that they couldn't allow a Muslim to be elected President.  

Encouragingly, the black voters came out in great numbers too and voted; and it was heartwarming and reassuring to see both young and old first-time black voters at the polls.

But back to the obvious Republican "crossover" for the wrong reasons -- to influence who the nominee will be. This outcome here in my neck of the woods is the reality that, I'm afraid, that the media, the Democrats, and Obama supporters have not considered seriously enough. I've looked at other precincts in this area (especially those I've also worked in) that would never have gone Democrat (where even Edd Houck got defeated); and yesterday's results were simply not believable.  Bottom line:  A good number of Republicans came out to influence the selection of the November nominee.  That's the privilege that open primaries (can vote in either primary) affords both parties.  

And he won it big.  There may have been some psychos voting "against the Muslim."  But the vast majority of Republicans voted for Obama because they would rather have somebody they may be able to vote for against McCain than somebody the dislike as well.

And I really think you're savvy enough to know that.  What you've said is just what you'd like to think.  I'd like to think that too.  

In my area of Virginia, in November, these Republicans will be asking me for a Republican ballot.  

Out of the 8% of Republicans that voted in the Dem primary, they went to Obama nearly 4-1.  I talked to some Republivan friends and they said one of two things: "Well, I want to see more of this Obama guy before I decide, but I know I'd never vote for Hillary", or "I can't vote against Hillary Clinton at least once.  Hell, maybe twice if Democrats are dumb enough!"

Bill C did two events in 9th, and Barack's event got cancelled because of the fires (as did one of Hillary's).  While she probably would have won the CD anyhow, the margin was exaggerated because people out there, according to one significant Virginia Democrat, like politicians to pay attention to them.

Roanoke is not in the 9th.

Various Clinton people were on TV this morning spinning away.  Texas, Ohio, and then Pennsylvania.  That's all they talk about.

Last night on TV, Howard Fineman was saying that in terms of pledged delegates (not supers), Obama will come out ahead of Clinton - it is really just a matter of how much.   After all of the primaries, it could be anywhere between 30 and 200.   If it is closer to 30, then Clinton's strategy is likely to be to try and twist arms of superdelegates, but if it is more like 200, then they have a much harder sell.  Howard was saying that 30 would be a stretch though - lots of things would need to go Clinton's way, and that hasn't happened in a while.

According to FleetAdmiralJ's excellent charts, Obama is currently ahead by 131 pledged delegates.

Our best hope for avoiding the spectacle of Clinton twisting arms of superdelegates is to make the gap as large as we can by the time all of the primaries are over and done with.

They're not pledged and will likely NOT go against whoever wins the majority of pledged delegates.  I would just focus on pledged delegates and leave it at that.

Remember, the superdelegates were put in place by the Demodcratic parties in the wake of the 1972 and 1976 when the elected class of party officials thought their input and interests as incumbents and as the infrastructure of the party were not being looked out for.

So the Superdelegates were created to serve as a firewall to save the Democrats as needed from a popular but clear trainwreck candidate as George McGovern or the quaint candidacy of Jimmy Carter.

I have always thought there was an expectation that Superdelegates should be ready to vote against "the bubble popularity" if they thought the leading candidate was a lower in November.

That expectation is what the Clinton's still cling to...and if they take Ohio and PA, then I expect they will start to make the same type of argument to the superdelegates that Romney and Huckabee were making about McCain-the "I am winning the primaries in the states we have to win in November, so you need to come with me" type of thing.

That wasn't my point.  My point was that the supedelegates shouldn't be counted in the same way as pledged delegates, because superdelegates are free to vote for whoever they want and because it is HIGHLY unlikely they will vote to override the majority of the people.  As in, zero likelihood of that happening.  Which means, again, that it's the PLEDGED delegates that matter, not the superdelegates.

Will of the people?

Take out Michigan (which did not have Obama on the ballot) and Hillary has still had more votes cast for her in the primaries than Obama.

So yes, the Super Delegates should go with the "will of the people".

Source

Even counting FL, Obama leads

Interesting tally today on First Read, noting that even counting the votes of Florida and Michigan, Barack Obama is leading Clinton in popular votes. And even with Clinton's (hypothetical) net Florida advantage of 38 pledged delegates, Obama would still be ahead of Clinton in delegates. Here's the overall vote:

                   Total Vote        %
Obama          9,373,334       50%
Clinton          8,674,779       46%
Others           726,095          4%

With Florida
                   Total Vote         %
Obama          9,942,375        49%
Clinton          9,531,987        46%
Others           984,236          4%

With Florida and Michigan
                    Total Vote         %
Obama          9,942,375         47%
Clinton          9,860,138         47%
Others          1,249,922          6%

here.

We are going to win NY, NJ, CA and MA no matter who wins the primary.

Someone made an interesting point - Clinton has done best in states that have a strong Democratic machine to get out and work for her.

Jim Hunt (former NC governor) was a big driving force behind the concept of super delegates.  

I cannot remember whether i heard this on CNN or MSNBC (I scan things across different stations), but one of Hillary's campaign people was asserting that super delegates deserve their right to vote just like everyone else.  But they get to vote twice: At caucuses or primaries and then as a super delegate.  And the super delegate vote is worth many, many times what my vote is worth.

No matter who wins, afterward, we need to revisit this nasty provision to shore up insiders.  Even the GOP doesn't do this?  And we can ourselves a Democratic Party.

No matter who wins, afterward, we need to revisit this nasty provision to shore up insiders.

Agreed. The 'superdelegates' were an over-reaction to the results of the 1972 reforms that opened up the party.  The reform that makes the most sense to me is to keep elected officials as SDs and drop the DNC members.  

But that's now what we have here by any stretch of the imagination. Obama is a candidate with just as much institutional support among leading Democrats as Hillary Clinton has.

It's not like some kind of Lyndon LaRouche sitation where Obama could remotely be portrayed as a crackpot disaster.  If Dennis Kuchinich had somehow gotten a lead in pledged delegates then I could see Clinton hoping for the super delegates to step in at the convention. But Barack Obama is a mainstream candidate.

The idea that the super delegates will decide to all rally around the big loser is a pipe dream.  Obama is going to be the nominee and no convention tactics can change that now.    

But the candidates shouldn't ignore them.  At the same time there is really something excessive going on.  For example, one superdelegate was revealing that Bill Clinton, Chelsea, Madelyn Albright and others had called to arm-twist on behalf of Clinton.  If there is constant pressuring of these individuals it could backfire.

To be fair, the Obama campaign has had Janet Napolitano and others lobbying the superdelegates as well.  It's not just the Clinton side.

Superdelegates should be broken out since they're not pledged and can switch at any time. There is a blog I found where they're actually tracking individual superdelegate pledges, which is helpful information. Other than that, the press would do the public a big favor by breaking out pledged and unpledged delegates whenever they bring up the topic.

That's exactly the clip.  The internet is a wondrous thing.

(which I was supposed to be boycotting, but took a look anyway), all the talking heads from Olbermann to Maddow to Matthews to Buchanan were coming up with advice for Hillary (what she should do to win). What's up with that?

It wasn't a whole lot better on CNN.

PS, regardless of current polls, I think Obama will ultimately take OH and possibly even TX.  He should contest everything.  

is spewing all of Hillary's talking points.  Why is NPR trying to hard to get Hillary more votes?  And the "reporter" is none other than FOX's Maura Liaisan.

If your sole concern is 2008, yep...Huckabee's showing yesterday puts him in the Loser column.

But Huckabee quit playing for 2008 sometime ago-he is now in the opening stages of his 2012/2016 campaign, and I suggest that so far it is going very well.

Short of winning the nomination, Huckabee is exactly where he wants to be.  He has risen from bottom tier to one of the last few standing, and by staying in the primaries he can continue to build his position as The Voice of Evangelical/Social Conservatives.  

He doesn't really care of McCain wins in 2008-in fact, I suspect he hopes McCain loses so there is no incumbent GOP pres to battle in 2012.

I think yesterday went about as well for Huckabee as he could reasonably expect.

win the Republican nomination for president.  He has never shown any ability to appeal beyond his base of evangelicals, and unless he can do that, he's going nowhere fast.

...well be right.  But a man's got to dream, or else what does he have? ;-)

Huckabee didn't win, but McCain didn't sweep Virginia either.  Virginia still demonstrates that the Republican base has not coalesced around McCain.  He didn't win every congressional district.  And he lost Lynchburg by a substantial margin.  Huckabee's performance here demonstrates, to me anyway, that conservatives and the Christian Coalition folks are still not willing to just recognize McCain as the winner.  That divide demonstrated at CPAC manifested itself again last night.

McCain is in a tough spot.  If he doesn't pander, then how will he excite and unify the base?  If he does pander, then how will he hope to capture independent voters?  As someone who professes to be a "Maverick", I think that hurts him.  I don't understand why he ran for the Republican nomination anyway.  He must know his problems with the Republican base.  He must have known he would have to change his position to satiate some of these folks.  He can't really be the independent he claims to be when clearly he can change positions without regret to satisfy constituencies in the Republican Party.  He must of just thought this would work like any other Republican nomination process where they would just hand him the nomination because it was his turn and he had waited so patiently through 8 years of Bush.  And on top of all that, he is running in a year when the Democratic base is hyper-energized.  

All I have to say is: it sucks to be him.

McCain won all of the metropolitan areas like Northern Va, but failed to make a dent in the Valley, Southwest or Southside. There is an obvious disconnect between McCain voters and the evangelicals/more conservative base.

Winners: The Obama Campaign brought their successful grassroots campaign strategy to VA. Obama volunteers, many who have never worked in a campaign before, called, canvassed, organized in localities across Virginia. This approach offers a very nimble and "quick to respond' way of working the campaign. Clinton's organization is like a slow moving barge and top heavy (and drains the cash quickly).

Obama's biggest challenge will be transitioning his primary campaign from the 'quick brigade' to a solid and strong presidential organization.  Fortunately, he has tapped the support and talents of many, many seasoned Dems.

Loser: Northern Virginia's weather impacted voters.

When I asked an election official about extending the voting hours she said 'unfortunately it would mean a statewide extension of poll hours". So apparently everything was fine in the rest of the state.

Had Obama's grassroots made it to the 9th, you can bet he would have swept all Virginia CDs.

We need to start a new bullet list and send it to Hillary:

"50 ways to say 'its over'"

I think given some of the horrendous posts over the last couple of weeks plus the bet it is clear that NLS was a big loser last night.

At beth El, I saw a family( Mom Dad and 5year old)

Mom and Dad were Hillary voters, the 5 year old said "she was going to vote for Bama"

Time to tell Clinton
game and set

match is almost over

re Boucher:  Endorsing the likely nominee and statewide big winner takes some of the sting out of his district going the other way.  

As for 'what happened': All of the western/southwestern rural counties went strongly for Clinton.  A simple explanation leaps to mind.  Anyone with a more complex and pleasant explanation is welcome to put it forward here.  The results in the western counties don't augur well for our chance to go blue in a presidential election for the first time since LBJ in 1964.  It could still happen, but I predict Warner will lead the ticket in the fighting 9th and similar areas.

re the lack of a decision to keep polls open:  I feel for northern Virginia voters, but it's far from a "no-brainer" decision to extend polling hours during an election day.
I wondered yesterday evening what the relevant laws and regs are.  I assume that if the Board of Elections (I'm pretty sure it's the VBE's, not the governor's call) had decided to keep the polls open an extra hour for NoVa, the hours would have had to apply everywhere in the state.  Much/most of the state was not experiencing conditions that kept people from reaching the polls in time.  Election workers already have a loooong day...  That's not a decisive argument against extending voting hours, but it's something to weigh.  

that "leaps to mind?"  Maybe I'm not reading this right, but I don't see what explanation you're talking about.  Thanks.

See here for an analysis of Virginia being fully "in play" this November.

Obama is the nomineee....if its Hill then no chance in HELL.

When considering the turnout on the Republican side here in Va you can toss out any logic that the lower turnout means that that will translate into a lower turnout in November. I know personally dozens of independents who did not cast a vote who lean Republican but stayed away due to the weather and the fact that there was a confidence that McCain would seal the deal. There is nothing right now to get all excited about on the Republican side, NOW, but once the Democrats nominate a candidate things will get rolling again to be sure. Look for this General to have higher overall turnouts than elections past by far.
It will truly be a generational contest and turnout on both sides should be the highest any of us can remember.
There is alot of excitement with Obama that is well deserved but one has to question the vitality of such a level to last all the way to November. Its easy when Hillary Clinton is the target or the dragon that needs to be slayed but when it comes to McCain fact is many Democrats, and I stress, over 50 actually have always seem to like John McCain. He will not be the kind of dragon or nemesis to them as may have been someone like Newt had he chosen to run or a Huckabee.