Maybe Barbara Bush was right after all.
Category Archives: General
Obama and Florida
Hmm… this makes a really good point. Maybe it would be better for Obama to let the Florida primary results stand:
Suppose the results from the January primary are allowed to stand. This will net Clinton 37 pledged delegates, and therefore Obama’s pledged delegate lead will go from approximately 161 to 124. Now, even with this hit and a big loss in Pennsylvania, it seems unlikely that Senator Clinton can get within 100 pledged delegates of Obama (the popular vote, too, looks like a long shot for her). In this scenario I see almost no chance of Clinton getting the nomination.
But, what if there is a Florida revote in June? Clinton will probably win but only net, say, half as many delegates. But she will have won another big state, not to mention the last big contest heading into the convention. Is that talking point worth twenty delegates? I think it might be. Admittedly, it’s also unlikely that Clinton can win the nomination under this scenario, but it could be more likely. Clinton needs a game-changer, and a Florida re-vote in June might be the ticket. Again, I am not saying this is necessarily the case, but if I were Obama I might rather go into the convention with a 110 delegate lead and Florida a distant memory than with a 130 delegate lead and a slew of bad headlines.
Michigan’s Soviet primary is another story, where Clinton was the only named candidate on the ballot. “The results of those primaries were fair and should be honored,” Hillary Clinton said this morning. My god. She is beyond shameless.
On David Paterson
It often seems to be the case that when a successful but egomaniacal politician resigns from office, he’s replaced by a less dramatic, less flashy, more likable person who winds up winning public favor and getting things done. That’s what happened in New Jersey when Senate President Richard Codey took over from Jim McGreevey. By all accounts Codey was a well-liked acting governor for over a year.
It looks like that’s also going to be the case with David Paterson. Republicans seem willing to work with him in a way that they weren’t with Spitzer.
Why does this happen? Probably because in order to win the highest elective office, you need to be a bit of a dick. So you alienate people. Also, we don’t really like overly ambitious types. We’re more impressed by the person who doesn’t actually seem to want the job, who has power thrust upon him.
Not that Paterson is not ambitious. He’s a politician, after all, and he was the New York senate’s minority leader for four years. But he gave up the chance to become the majority leader, in the event Democrats took control of the senate, for the position of lieutenant governor, which doesn’t have much power or prestige.
Even if he only completes Spitzer’s term and never runs in his own right, Paterson will still be governor of New York longer than Gerald Ford held the presidency. He can do a lot of good in that time. As long as he doesn’t let himself get… steamrolled.