First thoughts: Now Obama's party?
Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:07 AM by Domenico Montanaro
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First Thoughts
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** Is it now Obama’s party? On Tuesday night, Clinton scored a 41-point win in West Virginia. Then, less than 24 hours later, more parts of the Democratic Party began coalescing around Obama. First came the endorsement from NARAL, which drew a furious response from Emily’s List and many of Clinton’s female congressional backers. Then Edwards -- in a move that took almost everyone by surprise -- endorsed Obama, which ended up burying the interviews Clinton had conducted with the network anchors the day after her West Virginia win. As NBC’s Andrea Mitchell said on TODAY, “Just when she was trying to get back on her feet, Hillary Clinton had the rug pulled out from under her.” What yesterday signaled, more than anything else, was that the Democratic Party is now becoming Barack Obama’s party, no matter what happened in West Virginia and might happen next week in Kentucky.
VIDEO: NBC Deputy Political Director Mark Murray and Chief Washington Correspondent Norah O'Donnell give their first read on the implications of John Edward's Obama endorsement.
***
Those 18 delegates: Edwards’ endorsement also did another thing: It undercuts Clinton’s Florida/Michigan argument. As we know by now, Obama will gain a majority of the pledged delegates after Tuesday’s contests in Kentucky and Oregon. But if you award Obama Edwards’ 18 pledged delegates -- who technically can vote for anyone at the convention, but whom you’d also expect to side with Obama -- then Obama, if he picks up about 50 delegates on Tuesday (less than half of the delegates up for grabs that night), he would obtain a majority of pledged delegates even if you include Florida and Michigan’s entire delegations. Here’s the math: 4,051 (the DNC convention voting total) minus 797 (superdelegates) equals 3,254 plus FL’s (185) and MI’s (128) delegates equals 3,567. Divide that by two (and round up), and here’s the number needed for a majority: 1,784. Obama currently has 1,599 pledged delegates. Add in those 18 Edwards delegates, add in our low estimate of 50 for him Tuesday and that gets you to 1,667. Now, add in the Clinton best-case scenarios in MI/FL, giving her the delegates with the voting as is, Obama would then reach a majority of the pledged delegates OVERALL. Assume a 105-67 split in FL and a 73-55 split in MI. That gives Obama a grand total of: 1,789.
*** “Stunned and deeply disappointed”: It’s also worth noting how personally Clinton and her supporters took the NARAL endorsement. “I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton,” said Ellen Malcolm of Emily’s List. “It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them.” Then some of Clinton’s most ardent female backers on Capitol Hill sent this letter to NARAL: “We are stunned and deeply disappointed… As members of Congress who are on the front lines every day fighting to protect a woman's right to choose, we know the importance of building larger coalitions, not dividing our friends. On the heels of Hillary's extraordinary victory in West Virginia last night, your action is counterproductive to Democratic unity.” By endorsing Obama, the signal that NARAL was sending was that not only is Obama looking like he’ll be the nominee, but also that gender doesn’t matter when it comes to abortion politics. Clinton’s supporters, it seems, disagreed. It’s also worth pointing out that not a single NARAL staffer resigned after the endorsement.
*** Bush's swipe at Obama: Per NBC’s John Yang, President Bush used his speech to the Israeli Knesset this morning to inject himself into the 2008 presidential race with a swipe at Obama's call for diplomatic engagement with Iran. First, Bush equated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Hamas, Hezbollah and Osama bin Laden. Then: "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what is is -- the false comfort of appeasement."
VIDEO: President Bush issues a stinging criticism of Barack Obama, suggesting that his plan to hold talks with Iran is the same as trying to appease the Nazis on the eve of World War II.***
2013, The McCain Odyssey: McCain gives a speech today in Columbus, OH, in which he’ll talk about what he hopes to achieve after his first term in office if he becomes president. “By January 2013,” he will say according to excerpts released by his campaign, “America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension.” Other things include: economic growth, Congress not sending him an appropriations bill containing earmarks, American well on its way to energy independence, and health care becoming more accessible to Americans. The McCain campaign also has a
Web video to go along with the speech. What’s interesting about all of this is that it emphasizes one term. Is this another signal that McCain might promise to serve just one term?
*** Just asking: Speaking of McCain, will news that Cindy McCain sold off at least $2 million she held in funds with investments in Sudan businesses end up spurring new requests to see her tax records?
*** Five big turning points: In today’s installment of our look at the big -- yet underappreciated -- turning points in the Obama-Clinton race, we take a look back at the very beginning of this contest. While in some eyes, the race began in earnest on January 20, 2007 -- the day Clinton announced her exploratory committee online (“So let the conversation begin”) -- Obama had actually unveiled his exploratory announcement four days earlier. “For the next several weeks, I am going to talk with people from around the country, listening and learning more about the challenges we face as a nation,” he said in a taped message on his Web site. “And on February 10th, at the end of these decisions and in my home state of Illinois, I'll share my plans with my friends, neighbors and fellow Americans.” While that moment might not have been a turning point, per se, since it happened at the very outset, it signaled that it would be Obama -- and not Clinton -- dictating the pace of the race. “It sort of forced their hand,” an Obama source tells First Read. “We did it on our own terms. It caught everyone by surprise.”
*** The numbers: Obama picked up 4.5 superdelegates delegates yesterday to one for Clinton. (Obama got Lena Taylor, Oklahoma's Mike Morgan, state senate pro tempore as well as 2.5 others overnight; Clinton picked up the endorsement of Tennessee DNC member Vicky Harwell, president of the Tennessee Federation of Democratic Women.) The counts: PLEDGED: Obama 1599 to 1447; SUPERDELEGATES: Obama 287.5 to 276.5; TOTAL: Obama 1,886.5 to 1,723.5. There are 233 superdelegates who remain undecided of the 797 total. Obama needs 139.5 to reach the magic number of 2,026; Clinton needs 302.5. Since last Tuesday, Obama has picked up 31 superdelegates to Clinton's 1.5.
*** On the trail: Clinton is in South Dakota, campaigning in Aberdeen and Rapid City; McCain speaks in Columbus, OH before heading to DC to raise money; and Obama is down in Illinois. Also, Bill Clinton stumps in Kentucky, hitting Louisville, Bardstown, and Elizabethtown.
Countdown to Kentucky and Oregon: 5 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 173 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 250 days
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