For the record. The worst possible result for the Dems.
Category: The Dish
The Saudi Arabia Of Food
Martin Walker writes:
The United States may have been a significant part of the problem—with its annual $6 billion in subsidies to produce ethanol from corn. But the United States is also almost certain to be part of the solution because it is to food what Saudi Arabia is to oil: the swing producer that can most easily and swiftly increase the world’s food supply.
How Clinton Can Win
Clinton’s $$$
War Crimes
Megan argues that they are inevitable:
…when you choose war, you choose war crimes–and that this is true regardless of why you are choosing the war. You may be going to war for reasons that even the staunchest of libertarians would support, like defending your territory from violent attack. Just the same, if the war grinds on for any length of time, you will get people violating the Geneva Conventions, doing obscene things to enemy soldiers (dead and alive), and launching attacks that would horrify the population if they were watching a third party do them. By the time you’re a year or so into it, the public and the soldiers are reacting to the last attack and the mountain of dead, not to who started it. Dresden would have been unthinkable in 1939; by the time it happened, anything was justifiable if it saved Allied soldiers.[…]
The point is, these things are part of the cost of war, not of the cost of "wars started by the Bush administration" or "wars with bad motives" or "wars we don’t like".
I’m sorry but this is preposterous, uninformed, ahistorical. The United States has managed to go to war for two centuries without the president authorizing and monitoring the torture of prisoners. The Bush administration’s legalization of torture and withdrawal from Geneva is unique in American history. Yes, wars will lead to individuals committing war crimes in the heat of battle. Yes, it carries a horrifying logic. But an advance, pre-meditated decision by the president to engage in war crimes is new and unprecedented. Bush really is uniquely awful as a president in this respect: an indefensible war criminal, who has permanently stained the country he represents and betrayed the soldiers who expect decency and lawfulness in their commander-in-chief.
Ron Paul In Pennsylvania
Hats off to the rEVOLution: Ron Paul will come out of his home state with around 127,000 votes, giving him around 974,000 votes total for the caucuses and primaries that have wrapped thus far. He’ll undoubtedly hit one million for the whole primary season: More than Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, or John Edwards.
Pennsylvania Reax
Marc:
If Obama keeps his pledged delegate lead to around 150, Clinton needs to win 70% of them on May 6 — and if not, 80% of them after May 6.
That’s more than next to impossible.
Obama supporters are already starting to spin to the effect that tonight changes nothing, that Hillary remains a huge underdog and she’s likely to pick up very few delegates tonight. All entirely true, which is why the damage done here to Obama is so needless. Obama supporters have to be crying on the inside.
She wins by 9.4% — a number Clinton supporters round up to call it a double-digit win, and Obama supporters round down for the opposite reason. Clinton’s victory was decisive and impressive, but the margin fits nicely into that middle ground. It’s big enough to give Clinton a boost, but not big enough to change the overall dynamics of the race. It’s big enough to keep the campaign going for quite a while, but not big enough to compel uncommitted superdelegates to get off the fence.
Regardless, Hillary’s vanity campaign will continue on, trailing in delegates, trailing in the popular vote, trailing in enthusiasm and money, but not lacking in the firm resolve that only Hillary can save us all from our selves.
She will pick up an estimated 200K popular votes, cutting Obama’s overall popular vote lead to 500K.
If Hillary Clinton had fallen short of expectations, she’d be out of it. If she had exceeded expectations, there’s a real chance that things would shift in her favor.
Instead, she exactly matched expectations, and now the good people of Guam are about to get 24/7 political ads. Welcome to American presidential politics, Guam. Don’t worry, it will be over soon.
The Reality Of Oil
Peter Kiernan sorts through energy independence myths.
From Ohio To Pennsylvania
Obama’s spin:
Significant improvements over Ohio, especially among white men and seniors overall.
With voters over 60 in OH, Clinton won 69%, Obama got 28%. In PA, Obama earned 41% of the vote among voters over 60, and Clinton won 59%. The gap among seniors was cut by more than half, from 41 to 19.
Among white men, in Ohio, Obama got 39%, in PA, 46%. Clinton was at 58% in OH and dropped to 53% in PA. The gap narrowed from 19% to 7%.
The NYT vs The Clintons
It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind with they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.
