The delegate fight

Posted: Friday, March 28, 2008 9:36 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: 2008, Delegates

PENNSYLVANIA: 4/22 (158 delegates)
Obama has some catching up to do to match the Clinton campaign’s advantage in organization and support in Pennsylvania.

The Clinton office was confused by a volunteer’s behavior and after an Internet search determined he was an Obama volunteer. “‘I was just there to check things out,’ said Sam Glenzer, who oddly used his real name when signing in at the Clinton campaign office. Glenzer said he had nothing nefarious in mind.”

NORTH CAROLINA: 5/6 (115 delegates)
NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann notes an incredibly busy schedule for Bill Clinton. Today, he does a whopping seven-stop campaign blitz through western North Carolina, starting in Greensboro and working his way to liberal enclave Asheville. Along the way he'll stop in a series of towns of 40,000 or less, including Hickory. ("There are Democrats in Hickory?" jokes a local operative.) The schedule looks a lot like Clinton's daily event roster in Texas -- rapid-fire stops geared less at media markets than at the sheer volume of potential hands for the former president to shake. Any surprise that the campaign here is masterminded by Ace Smith, the engineer of Clinton's Texas win?

Asheville area superdelegate Carol Peterson will be in attendance at tomorrow's appearance by Bill Clinton. Peterson, a DNC member, has said she'll remain uncommitted through the primary.

Hillary Clinton's visit to the state gets local coverage here, here, and here.

Does Hillary Clinton know the difference between Eastern and Western Carolina BBQ? Enough that she knows it's one of the issues too controversial in the state to risk taking a side on. "I know a question not to answer," she laughed yesterday in response to the inquiry of which style she prefers. In the same interview with the Winston-Salem Journal, she denied that her husband's "other stuff" remark in Charlotte last week was "a negative comment about anyone." She also said that no one other than a president can claim experience with the kind of emergency invoked by her "3AM" ad, but that she's "been there for a lot of 3am phone calls with my husband."

PUERTO RICO: 6/1 (55 delegates)
Since the island's primary could become important, it's worth noting that Obama's chief supporter in the territory, Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila, was indicted “of soliciting thousands of dollars in improper contributions in exchange for favors and government contracts on the U.S. commonwealth island." Interestingly, Vila's chief lobbyist in DC is McCain strategist Charlie Black. Nothing like the small world of Washington.

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Comments

Wow! We are really pushing that indicted Puerto Rico Governor angle, huh? lol

P.S. Thanks for being here First Read, I've tried the rest and you are still the best! (MOST of the time - hee!) :)

Obama '08

Nashville_fan (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 9:50 AM)

Interestingly, Vila's chief lobbyist in DC is McCain strategist Charlie Black. Nothing like the small world of Washington.

And... Charlie Black works for Penn, Hillary's chief strategist.

Truly a small world

Vote Democratic (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 9:51 AM)

298 days left.

There are many huge reasons NOT to vote for McCain.

Supreme Court nominees.
The Economy.
100 years of war in Iraq
Invading Iran

Whoever the Democrats nominate, we have to back him/her 100% or we'll end up with four more years of Bush/Cheney/Hoover/McCain nonsense that this country cannot afford.

Look at the big picture, stop the madness and vote Democratic.

Vote Democratic (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 9:53 AM)

http://twocanpete.blogspot.com/
Hillary's status as a combat veteran will probably carry her thru PA but after that it should be smooth sailing for Obama sans any liberation theologists.

twocanpete (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 10:07 AM)

I find it funny that after being a member of his church and all the racist comments Obama's pastor has said, only now is he saying that he would have left his church if Wright would have not retired. Its all right there folks. Wake up and smell the coffee. Obama is only trying to cover his own behind now because of all the negative PR this has been getting. Don't you think you should have left this church when the comments were originally made? Hillary is right, you can choose who your pastor is. Obviously Obama must have agreed with this man's views until it became politically incorrect and a problem for his campaign. I will never vote for him and hopefully the people in PA and every where else wake up and do what needs to be done before its too late.

Hillary 08.....The ONLY TRUE CHANGE

Joe Doe (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 10:14 AM)

'...Elevating McCain on a pedestal and creating this sense of destiny appears to be part of what the campaign is hoping to create next week...'

I got an idea.....
Start saying John McCain is 'inevitable' !!
That'll REALLY WORK !!

(sorry you stupid Clinton zombies ;=D)

Sierra, SF (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 10:26 AM)

Right now this is the way it is.

Stop trying to sabotage Clinton and install Obama.

You are all swiftboating your best candidate, your democratic base and your party.

You should have stayed out of it from the start and the people would have voted and their votes would have counted and we would have Hillary as our nominee.

Now you want to steal the nomination from her and give it to Obama

I will vote for McCain (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 10:27 AM)

To Joe Doe, the Wright controversy is a horse that's already been beaten to death. It hasn't affected Obama's numbers for the very simple reason that this is the Democratic primary, and most liberal democrats actually agree with many of the things Wright said (they may not be as angry but they see his point). It may very well hurt him in the general election, but this isn't it, and he's got the nomination wrapped up. Now that Obama has survived this, Hillary will never catch up, even if she ends up getting more superdelegates from now on, which is highly doubtful.

Ricahrd (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 10:32 AM)

Again the 3 a.m. fixation. And I suspect her statement that she was there for a lot of Bill's 3 a.m. phone calls is just more Clinton lying.

For starters, how many phone calls did Bill get at 3 a.m.?

Paul Miller, Woodbridge, VA (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 10:33 AM)

More Puerto Rico pr - excellent! Finally, journalists are closing in on noticing a seminal change that makes it all the more important for Hillary Clinton to not give up until all 50 states and territories
have had their say. It's a cliche, but a true one, that a lot can happen between now and mid-June.

The change is that PR, with 63 delegates including supers, recently changed from caucus to open primary. Why? Because PR officials watching the US mainland contests knew turnout would be huge and primaries accomodate more voters that do caucuses. Primaries favor Clinton. Moving the PR primary back 3 days so it's no longer the last contest also favors Clinton. It will also throw Montana and S. Dakota, both June 3, into the limelight in a way they were not expecting.

Also, Puerto Ricans are BIG on voting so their turnout should make the rest of us look lame by comparison.

If just 1 million of the 4 million Hispanic/Carib population show up for their exciting FIRST EVER primary, it's a slam dunk for Hillary Clinton, IMO. She should take not only the most delegates but, more importantly, the lionesse's share of the popular vote.

And don't forget the rather large Puerto Rican population in a state she won handily: NEW YORK. How many NY relatives are checking in with their island family members? No wonder Bill Richardson endorsed early. He knows what Puerto Rico is going to be a rout.

The media, who thinks PR doesn't matter because they don't get to vote in the general election (yet), is too fixated on the mainland contests coming up, and are using those polls as pressure for
Clinton to drop out. If Hillary Clinton can close the popular vote to almost nothing with 60% of
the PR results, I think Puerto Rico is going to be a huge headache for not only the superdelegates who are still wavering but for those who mistakenly announced (undemocratically) before giving all voters their say.

Why is Puerto Rico missing from the chart on the top of this page? It's June 1, just to help out the MSNBC webmaster.

Margaret, Columbus, Ohio (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 10:45 AM)

It is really notable for me that upon reading this blog entry the only response I had (other than to salivate at your talk of BBQ) is to sigh and say "I am really sick of Bill Clinton."

So there you go, I guess I reached my saturation point.

Obama 08

Lisa, New Britain, CT CT for Obama (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 10:54 AM)

Margaret,

Don't assume that PR will be a slam dunk for Hillary. I used to live there. Everyone either looks like Obama or has a relative that looks like Obama. It is a Caribbean island.

Lia (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 11:06 AM)

Amidst all this talk that the race between Hilary and Obama is still close and there is a possibility that the super delegates will over turn the decision of the voters I would like to toss my sports analogy into the mix. The state of the race reminds me of a twelve round championship prize fight between an older slugger and a younger boxer. It was expected that the older, more experienced slugger would knock out the young jabber early in the fight. But after the first four rounds the fight appeared rather even with the rounds being taken alternately. The slugger had connected with some hard overhand rights, but the boxer continued to jab, jab, jab. But then the slugger looked confused and tired, and astonishingly the boxer took rounds 5,6,7,8 and 9. As the fight entered the tenth round (Pennsylvania) all the fans, except for the staunchest of the older slugger’s, realized that the fight was over. Barring a knockout, the young boxer was on his way to victory. The only real suspense would occur during the time between the end of round twelve and the judges decision. Let’s hope we don’t go into August without a winner.

John Gordon, Indio, CA (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 11:10 AM)

The other thought I had on this article is that I don't think its a smart campaign tactic to bring up Bill Clinton and 3 a.m. phone calls as it just reminds people of other "stuff" that happened during those years.

Yuck.

Lisa, New Britain, CT CT for Obama (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 11:13 AM)

WRIGHT IS FAR FROM OVER......
FOR SOME REASON THE MEDIA IS NOT PUSHING FOR MORE BECAUSE OF A SPEECH.OBAMA SAT THEIR WITH HIS YOUNG CHILDREN LISTENING TO THE RANTS OF A RACIST.THAT IS NOT THE PERSON TO RUN MY COUNTRY,FOR SOME REASON THE MORE PEOPLE BACKING OBAMA THE MORE CRIMINALS ARE BEING CAUGHT,THEN SENDING PEOPLE INTO SPY ON HILLARY'S CAMP...YEAH OBAMA IS THE SNAKE THAT MOST GROWN UPS SAY HE IS...REV.WRIGHT,REZKO,FARRAKHAN,GOV.ACEVEDO,AND HIS CHURCH IS EVEN UNDER INVESTIGATION.
THIRTY SOMETHING,WHITE WOMAN THAT WILL VOTE FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN A RACIST CRIMINAL....

SHARON,LARGO,FL (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 11:30 AM)

Clinton = Economy

Obama = Black America

McCain = AARP

Pam, NC (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 11:38 AM)

Vote Democratic, here's the reason for Dems to vote McCain:

Supreme Court nominees -->McCain's independent maverick
The Economy --> VP Romney will take care it
100 years of war in Iraq --> That's reality, look at the US bases in Germany, Japan, and Korea
Invading Iran --> Not going to happen.

Lisa, IND (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 11:40 AM)

Fight. Fighter. Saddle-up. That is the Clinton's idea of what is Presidential. What dignity is there in such behavior? Look at Queen Elizabeth. I for one would like to have a Commander In Cheif with a lot more class than the Clintons care to exhibit.

Delegate fight. They are so out of touch. They turn a lot of people off.

I want a calm, President, who is smart, capable, and refined.

Pulling for Obama '08

donna, pgh., pa. (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 11:49 AM)

OBAMA just pulled back ahead in Rasmussen

Geoff in Brooklyn (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 11:51 AM)

Sierra, the only thing inevitable about John McCain is that if he becomes President he will bombbombbombIran. And he will dip into your wallet and take your family members' lives to do it. He will make the Cheney/Bush/Halliburton oil-grabbing foray into Iraq look like childs-play. And he won't find bin-laden either.

Margaret, Columbus, Ohio (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 12:01 PM)

If Obama is the nominess the Republicans will bloody him in the general election. They will run Rev. Wrights's sermons over and over and over until people just want Obama to go away. Remember the Swift Boats and Kerry. They turned a war hero's record into trash. Hillary's been there and through this. She can take it - Obama can't. Now Obama's church is building Wright a new home - 1.6 million dollars. Reported by Fox News. We will never hear the end of Wright and that will be the emphasis of a general election, not the issues. Betsy, H.

Betsy Heimbuch, Jamestown, NY (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 12:05 PM)

Lia, point taken. But does it matter what people look like, or does it matter that the Clintons have done more for Hispanics than Bush/McCain or Obama?

Margaret, Columbus, Ohio (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 12:05 PM)

Alright people its time to get over Wright's comments. When I look around the world and I compare what has been done to African-Americans to what has been done to other groups like the Basques, Catholics in Northern Ireland, Albanians, Palestinians etc., I am shocked at how patriotic, peaceful & well adapted the African-American community... if this were Europe or the Middle East... we would be seeing insurgencies & terrorism.

Yeah, Wright's comments are incindiery and perhaps exaggerated... but they reflect the conflicted history of the African-American and when you compare it to the lashing out in other parts of the world its really not that big a deal - and this is not something that will change by burying our heads in the sand and refusing to talk about it.

Stop being victims and approach this with reason, common sense & a drop of humanism.

Juan, Santa Rosa, CA (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 12:15 PM)

A thought on Obama and his pastor.

It seems everyone in this world has a right to choose what they expose themselves to. If we only choose to expose ourselves to what we believe in, would we ever evolve? I believe a wise man/woman must expose himself/herself to views he/she doesn't believe in in order to truly understand the world and form his/her own view. I believe that people who claim otherwise are not being honest with themselves. Great leaders cannot be great leaders unless they expose themself to other points of view they don't agree with. Just because you're exposed to different points of views doesn't mean you're incapable of forming your own. The path to war is only exposing yourself to what you believe in. The path to piece is exposing yourself to what others believe. Bush is a great example of limited exposure.

Tim - Seattle (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 12:35 PM)

NO MORE DRAMA! VOTE OBAMA!

Tom (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 12:44 PM)

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