My old college neighbor Jay was in town. A little over 24 hours ago Amy and I met him for dinner. I think it had been between 10 and 11 years since the last time I saw him. It was good to briefly catch up. :-)
|
New polls have Missouri weakening from being a “Weak McCain” state to being a “Leaning McCain” state… meaning McCain is ahead by less than 5% based on the last five polls in the state. This puts the state in play as a potential swing state and improves Obama’s “best case” scenario. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261
The final four delegates for Montana and South Dakota are now determined. Clinton got three of them, Obama got one. That brings the final results to Clinton 16, Obama 15. I had expected Clinton 14, Obama 17 based on the polls. So Clinton out-performed expectations one final time. Of course, it didn’t matter. In today’s update Obama also picks up one more superdelegate (a bit late there dude). Total for today, Clinton 3, Obama 2. I expect at this point CNN will get less aggressive about making sure their totals are up to date and correct as additional superdelegates endorse, and as some existing delegates start shifting to Obama. When they do give updates, if they give updates, I will continue to post them. There are still quite a few delegates unaccounted for on both the Republican and Democratic sides. I hope they continue to track until everything is fully settled, and strive to have numbers as we approach the convention that approximate the actual final roll call vote, but I’m not sure they will bother. Oh well. Oh yeah… I was still at work when I got my CNN Breaking News alert on my phone about Clinton’s plans to officially suspend her campaign this weekend…. So I didn’t post anything at the time. Not much new to comment other than thank goodness. As much fun as it would be to watch her stretch this out, it is better this way. Now we’ll see just how she does it and if she manages to actually undo any of the damage she has been doing lately. McCain challenged Obama to one on one town halls again yesterday. He first suggested the idea a couple of weeks ago. It the time Obama said it sounded interesting. Yesterday his campaign basically said we’ll think about it in a few weeks. Obama should not just accept McCain’s proposal as is without any modifications, but they SHOULD do the town hall thing together. Maybe not ten, but more than one too. This would be awesome. I hope the two campaigns can work it out.
As we all know, the main news since the last update is that Obama passed the magic number to clinch the nomination, absent major catastrophe between now and the convention. But there were actual primary results too. 27 of the 31 delegates from Montana and South Dakota have now been determined. So far Obama has gotten 14 of them and Clinton has gotten 13 of them. With 4 delegates left to be determined. In the mean time though Obama also got 59… that is FIFTY NINE… superdelegate endorsements yesterday. And Clinton lost 7 superdelegates to Obama. Obama also got 7 Edwards delegates who switched over. Net for the day: Obama up 80, Clinton up 6, Edwards down 7. Obama only needed 42 delegates to win, so there we go. New stats: Delegate count is: Obama 2156, Clinton 1923, Edwards 6 In percent terms that is: Obama 52.8%, Clinton 47.1%, Edwards 0.1% 2118 delegates were needed to win. There are 149 delegates yet to be determined. I just want to take this opportunity to say that the 149 superdelegates who have not yet declared are a bunch of spineless cowards. They all know who they liked, and they have all known for a long time. I’ve heard all the reasons for waiting, but they are all bullshit. All of these people should have declared long ago. In any case, with Obama past the magic number, if Clinton really wanted to continue to dispute this, she would need to A) Keep fighting to try to get full representation for Florida and Michigan, and reverse the allocation the rules committee gave to Michigan and B) Start convincing a LOT of superdelegates who have declared for Obama to change their minds. There is no way either of those two things would be successful to a large enough degree to change the results though. So if she does go on, there is no possible positive result, just mischief.
Anyway, it was time for an Amy Netflix movie, but Amy’s Netflix movie was a sequel to a movie I hadn’t seen, so it was disqualified. And then she watched it on her own before movie night, so it was doubly disqualified. Any way, that meant we went with the second choice, which was Brandy’s Netflix movie, which was Sin City. What can I say. It was odd. It was disturbing. But it was strangely compelling. I am mystified to say that I think I actually liked it. It had my attention the entire movie. In part because I felt like I had to pay close attention to understand what the hell was going on… and even then I’m not sure I actually did ever really understand. But it pulled me in and kept me. And did I mention it was odd? It was done in a very highly-stylized comic book sort of look. Which just added to the effect. This movie wouldn’t have worked at all if it was done “normally” I think. But matching the style of the comic book… sorry… graphic novel it is based on worked very well for it I think. Anyway, I didn’t expect to be really interested in this or like this at all, but I did. Weird. But I liked it in a curious can’t stop looking at the bizarre thing you almost stepped on in the sidewalk sort of way, not in the way you get when there was a really compelling story that resonates emotionally. Just watched Obama’s speech. Watched most of McCain’s earlier. He’s going to wipe the floor with McCain. Just sayin’. She does realize that if she makes a nuisance of herself at this point the only two possible results are weakening Obama for the general election (perhaps making him lose) and destroying her own future in the Senate and the Democratic party, right? She realizes it, right? It won’t set her up for 2012 or anything. It just won’t. |
||
