Democratic Campaign Chatter 6-7-2008

Today at noon, at the National Building Museum, Senator Hillary Clinton will make her unity speech. A large crowd is expected to be there to hear what she has to say. It should be televised so check out CNN and MSNBC. We will post some reaction to the speech as well as the video, if we are able to locate it, later today. The advance word is she will suspend her campaign, a technicality that allows her to maintain her delegates. Look to see a more forceful endorsement of Senator Obama as well as a thank you to the 18 million voters who supporter her campaign. Also look for a a joint hands together and up in the air photo op of Clinton and Obama. Read more here.

--------------------

Polilico.com has a good read today entitled "Hillary Clinton's 5 mistakes". Some would argue there were more than five. Mistakes were made from the beginning, from the attempted aura of inevitability and misjudging Iowa. Mistakes continued by ignoring the caucus states and also the proportional allocation of delegates by states of both the total vote and the vote by congressional district.

The Obama campaign was razor sharp in this regard and by the time Clinton began to win states and delegates, she was too far behind to catch up. Another good read here by Chicago Tribune "The Swamp" entitled "8 days that sunk Hillary Clinton".

--------------------

Constitutional amendment introduced to abolish the Electoral College - Florida Senator Bill Nelson introduced this bill as he feels it is time that party machines are replaced with one person, one vote. He cited the recent controversial 2000 election in which Al Gore won the popular vote and George W. Bush won the electoral vote and the presidency. This argument is what the Clinton campaign has been making in this primary. Read more here.

By the way, we have added in the right hand margin of our Home Page a link to "Electoral Vote Predictor". This site follows the predicted electoral vote, day by day, by state all the way to the election in November. Make sure you check it often, for it changes as the race goes on.

--------------------

Here is a good read by the NYTimes entitled "Clinton Bloc Becomes the Prize for Election Day". The women voters who supported Clinton are discussed - will they support Obama or will some vote for McCain?