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Sunday, April 27, 2008

This Week's Democratic Campaign Tidbits

Senator Hillary Clinton did what she had to do and won Pennsylvania by 10 points. However, in the all important delegate count she continues to trail Senator Barack Obama by 134 in total delegates 1726 - 1592. In Pennsylvania, Clinton won only ten more delegates than Obama, 83 - 73 with numbers still being crunched to determine the last 2 delegates. This is due to the democratic party convoluted two-step proportional method of awarding delegates.

As a result of the victory in PA, the Clinton campaign brought in a record haul of 10 million in the first day following the election. Her campaign was heavily in debt so this was much needed to both reassure supporters and to be able to compete in future primaries.

Interestingly, it was the Obama campaign who was saying just a short number of weeks ago, don't let the superdelegates determine the nominee. Today, the Obama campaign is engaged in a intense battle for the remaining 300+ superdelegates for they realize they can not reach the 2025 number to secure the democratic nomination without them.

The failure of the DNC to broker a re-vote in Florida (210 delegates) and Michigan (156 delegates) will forever leave a stain on the 2008 democratic party nomination process.

Clinton is now pressuring Obama for more debates after he refused to participate in a debate in North Carolina that had been scheduled for today with Katie Couric as the moderator. Clinton's latest jab is a call for Lincoln-Douglas style of debates with no moderators. The Obama campaign refuses saying they have participated in 21 debates to date and it is important now to talk directly to the voters in N.C. and Indiana. Here are the dueling letters from the campaigns.

Look for Clinton to try to make some points on a statement made by Obama pertaining to Senator McCain's proposal of a gasoline tax holiday. Obama basically called the proposal a scheme.

Coming up on Saturday is the democratic primary in Guam. Yes, I said Guam, one of two U.S. territories still to hold democratic primaries. Guam has 4 pledged delegates and my records show an additional 5 superdelegates, but that does not sound right. Puerto Rico (55 pledged delegates) will hold their primary on June 1st.

Indiana (72 delegates) continues to be pivotal for Clinton for is she loses Indiana and North Carolina (115 delegates) on May 6th, it could spell the end of her campaign.

Meanwhile, the foreign policy failures of the George W. Bush administration continue to receive the spotlight as members of the Taliban attempted to assasinate Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai during a military parade in Kabul.

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