Andrew, thanks for pointing that out. I’ve been making the same point about the (oft-overlooked) votes.

But the lesson isn’t that votes count, but that (repeat after me) institutions matter!

(Through 19 Feb contests, McCain still had not broken 40% of the cumulative GOP primary vote, even with Romney out. Obama was edging close to 50% of votes cast thus far in the Dems’ primaries.)

Come on. If Obama—or Huckabee—had lost the races that Hillary has but had won California, NY, Massachusetts, NH, and other states as well, then they would be taken seriously.

In terms of what Obama has over Hilary, I think the most important thing is that he’s more charismatic and a better orator. Sometimes politics is simple.

He [abb1] is very very very rarely offensive, and he represents many points of view often silenced by the liberal mainstream as much as by conservatives. Shame!

I agree 100% with this, BTW.

Interesting that 35%-or-so pluralities got McCain the nomination, but Clinton is unlikely to be the nominee despite having enjoyed consistently higher levels of support than this from her own party. Votes count, eh?

That isn’t to say that Obama didn’t go into the race with many supporters, or that he hasn’t attracted more Democrats along the way. Obama has campaigned very well indeed, and has at least matched the Clinton ground game.

He’s also been phenomenally successful in playing the “super-delegates shouldn’t decide the outcome” at precisely the right moment. I don’t recall anyone making this argument before, or even immediately after, Super Tuesday. But once Obama began to pick up momentum in the two weeks after February 4th, propogating the notion that the leader in pledged delegates should be the nominee by acclamation was a master-stroke. BTW, had the Clinton campaign made a similar argument, I genuinely believe it wouldn’t have gained the same traction.

The Clinton campaign has been successfully painted as being more conniving than its opponent’s, so there’ll be no rescue from Michigan and Florida. I’m inclined to believe that 10% is about the right odds for a Clinton nomination, relying on a catastrophic slip-up by Obama himself that makes him unviable as a candidate. The odds against are very long, of course.

Last time I checked Obama and Clinton had an aggregate total of over a million primary votes between them, while McCain and Huckleberry had less than half as many votes between them. So I’m guessing that a large Republican crossover vote went to Obama because the Republicans believe they have reason to conclude that Clinton would be the stronger candidate. Rove’s not just preparing to play this election, he’s been playing it for quite some time.

As Letterman says, he looks like the guy who has to be reminded to close his robe.

Certainly the right-wing noise machine is cranking up attacks against Obama, but the real question is will it stick? and will it turn people against Obama and towards McCain?

Finally, McCain is old, and doesn’t look to be in the best of health (seriously! I see him on TV and think he has one of the waxiest complexions I’ve seen), which has to work against him.

The Obama campaign and its allies are outspending us two to one in paid media and have sent more staff into the March 4 states. In fact, when all is totaled, Senator Obama and his allies have outspent Senator Clinton by a margin of $18.4 million to $9.2 million on advertising in the four states that are voting next Tuesday.

Senator Obama has campaigned hard in these states. He has spent time meeting editorial boards, courting endorsers, holding rallies, and – of course – making speeches.

If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there’s a problem.
If nothing else, these idiots have redefined the art of goalpost-shifting. Way to go, political geniuses!

The game is played for the undecided, not the base.