55% to 50%?

@1,
Thanks. fixed it.

That's my Hilly! You go, girl!

Can we finally just ignore the 18 to 29 year old voting block? They never seem to show up.

BTW, I am now behind Hillary Clinton, sorry Obama but I have to go with who seems to be winning even though she is a moderate republican.

josh u missed the latino vote on your post. it overwhelmengly went to hilaria. surprising since the culinary workers are overwhelming latino. it means that despite the senator obama endorsement the rank and file went with hilaria.

i think obama will take South Carolina.

And what about the Mormon vote?

@4--hasn't the young voting block actually turned out for other primaries this year? I could be wrong (my view could be clouded by my hope for increased young turn out), but it could just be that young Nevada voters aren't a major factor.

Cato, you're probably too young to know the difference, but Hillary is decidedly left of center. George Bush is a moderate conservative. Get your terminology straight.

And what about the fact that Ron Paul is in 2nd place?!?

So the pre-boomers are supporting HRC.

she also won clark county http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#NVDEM

@6: the youth vote showed up in Iowa and helped Obama a lot.

But in every other election since the dawn of time, they don't show up. If you can spend about 7 months organizing them one on one, like Obama did in Iowa, I guess they will show up.

@7 Only in the US of 2008 could she be considered left of center.

19-29s are low because we have to work to pay off these old fuck's social security.

Well, I hope she's enjoying the victory - because the way she and that husband of hers are doing it, she's quickly losing the support of a lot of Dems in the general, especially young ones. I've donated $200 to Obama and she won't get a penny from me unless she and Bill can act like adults and not treat other Democrats like they were Republicans. The methods of her victory may find her with a lot less youth and black support than she would have otherwise had if she hadn't pulled the tricks that she's pulled in this election cycle and if Bill weren't so obviously power hungry that he's out doing her dirty work for her. I loved Bill Clinton the president, I'm finding that I hate Bill Clinton, anything else.

Stop slogging from work Andy. More productivity, work, work, work.

Oh yeah, it's gonna take a whole lot more than the coalition she's building now come November. She may be in trouble - getting the votes in the primary may cost her what she needs in November. Look at the county map in Nevada and what do you see - Hillary wins the cities, Obama everything else. Cities haven't been enough to win the last 8 years (or 12 of the last 20), not sure what's going to be different now. Better start rooting for Huckabee, cause I don't think Hillary can beat any of the other Repubs. in the race.

Predicting those Nevada caucuses...always a gamble.

Buh-dum-bum.

Thanks ladies and germs, you've been a wonderful audience. I'll be here through 2009. If you haven't tried the veal, you must -- it's to die for. And don't forget to tip your waitress.

Hillary! I haven't been this excited since Kerry got the nomination. Wow, a completely lame candidate who, if elected, will keep the country in a tail spin...and a war monger to boot!

@18 -- Shut up, hippy! Why don't you go play some folk music and give me a break!

@14:
Yes, her supporters asked a court to decide if their rights were violated.
What a dirty trick. Asking for things in court about equal rights and voting. Obviously, no one should ever be allowed to go ask a judge what their rights are.

Oh and she said LBJ was necessary to pass the civil rights legislation. She actually suggested experience counts!
What a foul, dirty trick.

I for one congratulate the massive Dem turnout in a state that voted for Bush - and ALL the Dem candidates for President who snotted all the GOP candidates - including the pitiful numbers for the GOP landslide winner Mitt Romney.

Gonna be a Blue Tidal Wave across the nation - there are no Red States anymore.

and @12 is correct.

i suppose it was too much to expect a positive, substantive campaign that i think we could have gotten between obama and mccain. instead of voting for who we like, we can all look forward, yet again, to just voting against whomever the republican is.

fingers crossed that sc comes through for obama.

@16:
What? The proof she knows how to win is: she just won.

Also, as to the past and how to inw:
the Clinton duo accounts for 2 of the last 3 Democratic victories and you have to go way back to 1972 to find a nonClinton Democrat who won. That would be about 45 years worth of history. Since 1968 any Democrat who is principally known as a northern urban liberal has lost (Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry).

Is John Edwards just completely irrelavant now? Is he just focusing on Super (or whatever we're calling it now) Tuesday? Makes me sad.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#NVDEM

So elderly Democratic women went for Clinton, and the young and independent came out for Obama. I guess we want to go with the candidate that will have the support of no one but the people who would've voted Democratic anyway.

Well, Obama still has South Carolina looking good for him.

What? The proof she knows how to win is: she just won.

No, that's the proof that she can win a Democratic primary, which is a very different matter indeed. We've had candidates that knew how to win those about every four years or so, unPC.

Isn't 58 to 42% not so much "out in force" as "out in perfect proportion to the population at large?"

Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Clinton. Turn out the lights, folks.

@8, @29 FTW!

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I give up. THE DEMOCRATS DO NOT WANT TO WIN ELECTIONS. Almost every time, the election is decided by a bunch of old farts who vote for whichever guaranteed loser the party hacks tell them. And here we are again, voting for the next incarnation of Mondale.

You Clintonistas are voting in President Romney, and none of you seem to realize it or give a shit.

tsm@27:
Out of context quote.

I was responding to an argument that pointed out she "only" won in the big cities, with the argument being that that not how you win.

But: she won. So _that_ argument was wrong.

As for _your_ argument -- that winning a Democratic nomination process is not necessarily a good indication one can win a general election -- you are 100% right.

As I've said several times, we need someone who is going to win the independent swing voters in OH, Fla., Missouri and places like that.

Let's hope she's not a female version of John Kerry.

@31:

I agree entirely. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. The Democrats lose their nerve and become risk-averse. Ironically, this leads them to pick "safe" choices that are, in fact, losers. When the losers lose, this makes them more risk-averse the next time.

Obama is a spectacular candidate, the kind who could transform the party. Instead we go with a name we know and the chimera of "experience." try to tell me that isn't 95% of Clinton's "appeal." And we'll lose (I think, this time, to McCain).

And you know what? We should lose. As a party we have pasty convictions and a very unappealing blandness when it comes to choice of candidates. Why should people respect that? Because we're the "nice" ones? Screw that.

We broke that cycle exactly once in the last 32 years, and without Ross Perot and a recession it wouldn't have happened. So now we go back to that one moment of (rather dismal) glory. What a pitiful party.

As I've said several times, we need someone who is going to win the independent swing voters in OH, Fla., Missouri and places like that.

Yes, unPC, yes we do. And which candidate is winning with the independent voters in the Democratic primaries?

Which one was that again?

Will in Seattle@21

Hillary is seen in a different light from the other dems: She has been so negatively branded that she can't get the votes from the independents and crossover republicans in a general election, nor pick up the swing states as @32 mentioned. We're risking a loss for sure if McCain gets the nomination and 50-50 for the others if Hillary is the nominee rather than a Blue Tidal Wave.

Hillary voted for the bankrupcy reform bill that makes it harder for Americans to file for bankrupcy, Clinton voted to authorize Bush to use force against Iraq (and admitted that she did NOT read the intellegence that was available to her on Iraq). She has accepted money from Rupert Murdoch for this current run for the White House (Murdoch is not a known Democratic supporter by the way)

So yeah, she is a moderate Republican. And also the youth vote did not turn out in the last presidential election either.

I'm still waiting for a significant result from a large state. Nevada has barely a million registered voters, and a tenth of them go to the caucuses -- for both parties combined. You're trying to read "America" into something like 25,000 people.

As for the youth vote, it's high (or was in Iowa) compared to 2000 and 2004, but it's still embarrassingly small compared to the other age groups.

Let's say it's November 4. Hillary is running against McCain. Who are all you 18-29 year old Obama supporters going to vote for? I like Obama and will vote for him in our moot point Washington caucus but there's no way in hell I will sit at home sucking my thumb on election day just because Hillary wasn't my first choice. Sometimes you have to go for the lesser of two evils, like it or not. The alternative is to stay home or vote for a spoiler like Nader, and then sit back and watch the GOP ruin this country for the next four years. Fuck you if you make that choice.

Hey now @19. I'm a folksinger for Hillary. Go on Hillary! Get it girl!

Hilldawg!

Haven't you people learned? Arguing with people on slog is like arguing with the mentally retarded.

Right on, RainMan. As we've seen, the 18-29ers can't be bothered to vote anyway, so fuck 'em. All they're good for is whining.

@39:

I'm not the issue. I'm a Democrat; I vote that way every time. I voted for Kerry, for Gore. Hell, I campaigned for Dukakis.

The issue is people like my parents, pretty solid Republican types who called me to say how much they liked Obama. My mother actually cried today because she knows Obama's toast.

How many people like that does Hillary capture? Set aside the "you go girl" talk, which is embarassing -- is anyone actually excited about Hillary herself (as opposed to the idea of a woman or a Democrat winning)? Was anyone actually excited about John Kerry? We keep nominating our "safe" choices and hoping not to lose. You cannot win by not losing; you have to act out of conviction. And yet -- here we go again.

Perhaps McCain will croak or retire by 2012, and his VP will be an embarassment. Otherwise, there's always 2016.

tsm, winning IA in a primary with lots of independent voters does not show what will happen in a general.
He didn't win in Nevada or even NH where lots of independents cross over.
In the general election, the right wing smear machine will spend megabucks on TV ads with scary terrorists and drug users and morph it into Obama's face and talk about many true things (how he said pot helped him as a teenager, his lack of experience, his pastor's buddies and heros, his statement that he really does have foreign policy experience because his contacts with foreigners mean he better understands how foreigners in Asia and Africa think about the USA, and how he first spoke out against the war in 2002 then said in 2004 he didn't know how he'd've voted had he been in the senate), and likely a bunch of untrue things, too.
Winning primaries without such swiftboating doesn't tell us squat about electability in a general election after the swiftboating.

Your argumetn boils down to this: "I" voters in the middle of OH and FL and MO are now immune to swiftboating attacks. So much so that the northern urban liberal candidate will win this time, the one who appeals to college grads and ultra high income Democrats, and Bhuddists (see CNN exit poll link Josh gave). This will change the trend of the last 4-50 years when the most liberal, the most urban, the most high-brow candidate lost, lost, lost, lost, and lost. (Humprey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry).

That really is a roll of the dice.

45-50 years.

unPC @ 45: just as a point of history, Humphrey was not the most liberal in his race, nor were Mondale, Dukakis, Gore or Kerry. Each of them were lackluster, middle of the road safe choice candidates.

For you Obama fans who seriously think that any white Southerner will ever vote for a black man for President, I can only say, well, you obviously haven't spent very much time in the South.

The reality is when Democrats loose with a center of the road candidate we respond by finding someone even more conservative and "safe". Us Democrats are scared of the core of our liberalism. We do not embrase our liberalism; we run from it. It is true what the GOP loves to accuse us of: This is not the party of Roosevelt. And it isn't, we are scared of liberalism and our grandparents Democratic Party wasn't scared of liberalism.

@45 do you REALLY think that hillary is any less susceptible to those same ugly attacks?? even with an entirely clean general election campaign, 50% of the country will automatically vote against her. the clintons are the democrats' bush family.

and just b/c their machine withstood alot of crap when they were IN office doesn't mean hillary will be able to TRYING to get BACK in.

Throw a dead cat anywhere and you hit an independent voter who's leaning between Obama and McCain, and if you take away Obama and offer them Hillary... guess what happens?

Repeat after me: Independent voters elect the president, not the Party Faithful, who always vote the same way. So you have to strategize accordingly.

Hillary might make a great president, but her negatives are just too damned high to win. I hope I'm wrong, but...

48 -- the dems aren't banking on winning any southern states in the general anyhow. even edwards wouldn't win his home state in a general. missouri is about as south as we can expect to be viable... regardless of the candidate.

Obama's going to win S.C., so it will be up in the air, about even, except that BO's win will have been more recent giving him what they call mo. Which is an abbreviation for "momentum", that being the thing that Obama will have going into Super Tuesday. HRC is the favorite, but BO has the mo.

Nail biter. That's what it is.

One of the funny things that the MSM still doesn't grok is that ACTUALLY Obama got 13 delegates and Clinton got 12 delegates from Nevada's caucus vote.

YES.

Sen Obama won. He continues to lead in delegates from primary and caucus states.

In fact, Sen Obama won. Because only delegates count.

Just like Pretzeldent Bush was awarded (not won) more Electoral College votes, even though he lost the popular vote by any measure.

Meanwhile, in SC with very early returns in, McCain and Huckabee are wiping the floor with Romney.

I missed all the fun today- was at the TacomaDome Monster Jam. Garve Digger was all about his so called "experience" while Maximum Destruction tried to position himself as an agent of change. Oldsters carried it for Grave Digger. Captain USA tried to play against the NHRA lobbyists and got his ass handed to him.

(1)Will in Seattle is right that the 3:1 Dem turnout in NV says great things but wrong that Obama's NV delegate count matters more than HRC's % totals. Nobody cared in IA that Clinton got 15/16 as many delegates as Obama nor that she got more delegates than Edwards. People rightly look at % as a sign of momentum.

(2) Edwards is done.

(3) Wow is Clinton popular w/ hipanic voters.

(4) Can we finally agree that union endorsements don't mean shit? Looks like tons of cullinary workers broke ranks to support Clinton.

Sorry 'bout the typos. Posting from my phone (Inga's driving.)

@55: Romney didn't even campaign there. He was in Nevada.

Hill is still proving awesome. And now the crazies cant blame polling machines, lol.

I predict Mike Huckabee, but its still too close to call.

Don't count out Romney. He has deep pockets. and he looks presidential. And you all know it.

that said....GO HILLARY!

@47:

Perhaps I can explain my thoughts better. Group A includes Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry. Group B includes Carter and Clinton. Group A lost, lost, lost, lost, lost and lost, while B won, lost, won and won. Group A were basically urban, liberal, northern types (in the eyes of the voters, esp. after all the attacks) (note on Gore: he was redefined as a richy rich raised in a DC hotel/prep school etc.). Group B was not so liberal, northern and urban.

Thesis:
Group B got more votes of moderates voters in those moderate states that us Slog readers wouldn't want to live in, and that's why they won.

Group A didn't.

Now in this context, is Obama in A or B? Is Hillary ?

Obama once swiftboated IMHO is going to appear extremely urban and northern and liberal -- like a Dukakis.

His "I get independent voters" aura will IMHO go "poof".

I think Hillary is Group B not A.

She is certainly not so liberal on that war vote (the one we in Seatle all disagree with). This helps her among the scared of terrorists moderate voters of OH and FL and MO.

Also her name be Clinton and she was in the White House, and she is the heir to 8 years of peace and prosperity under Clinton. And, knows how to fight back.

Yes, they will paint her in Group A and maybe underneath it all she's more like A but she and Bill have a track record of overcoming that framing of themselves and going on to win real elections. They know how to argue their case and overcome those attacks and win.

@50:
Yes, Hillary and any Democratic candidate will be attacked. Hillary has lots of fight and has helped win several elections since being attacked in this way. I am counting Bill's comeback back in Arkansas, the pres. elections he won, and her victories in NY including her 2d win with 60%.

That means she got lots of moderates and independents as anyone who wins must do.

Obama: we just don't know if his aura will hold at all, after being attacked in that way.

To boil it down: Obama -- an unknown quantity after swiftboating attacks; could go poof.

Clinton more of a known quantity; a brand name; record of winning despite attacks. So the better bet to win is Clinton.

That's the thesis. Hope it is more clear. Have at it!

Stang @44: If you are old enough to have campaigned for Dukakis I doubt if you fall into the 18-29 demographic. Incidentally, I also campaigned for Dukakis, working out of Cambridge, Mass--the most liberal (and opinionated) zip code in America. But maybe I shouldn't throw stones at the young adults of today. In my day college students were all goofy over Ronald Reagan. If the 18-29 year olds of today are inspired by Obama that's a remarkable improvement. I just hope they show up at the ballot box in November even if he isn't on the ticket.

I am also disappointed that the Dems tend to nominate the "safe" choice instead of the one who can deliver the most productive change. And as I said, I also like Obama. But my point is that I will not sit out the election if Hillary is our nominee simply because she wasn't my first choice in the primary/caucus season.

Getting Democrats to agree on anything, as these and any other political Slog threads demonstrate, is like herding cats. I was a delegate four years ago at the King County Democratic convention and it took 45 minutes just to get through the preamble of our 20 page platform statement because of the constant nitpicking over microscopic details. Unlike the Republicans, we think, we fact check, we ask questions. We are too intelligent to just march in lock step. It is our greatest strength but also our greatest weakness.

The problem is the Democratic Party and progressives don't know what to do with each other. Like it or not, the Democratic Party is the only avenue we have to make any difference politically--a third party just isn't going to happen any time soon. But the party establishment is somehow embarrassed by us and just wishes we would shut up and stop scaring away the independents by being too liberal.

There was a whole thread some time ago about Obama as the first post-60's candidate. That's one reason of many why I like him. No one will ask about his Vietnam record since he was too young at the time. Karl Rove and the Swift Boaters (sounds like a Nazi band) will attack him just like they will any other Democrat, but if he survives he could possibly break the red state/blue state culture war that the country has been waging for the last 40 years. With Hillary we can just expect more of the same. And maybe the voters will throw a collective temper tantrum and install a Republican Congress in 2010 like they did with her husband in 1994. I really wonder how much she will actually be able to get done as president. But if she's the nominee I will vote for her simply because she is a thousand times better than anyone in the GOP.

As a transplant from Nevada, northern Nevada no less--where Obama was leading almost all precincts by quite a bit--I believe the youth vote turnout percentage is a bit misleading. First, we have to realize that this is Nevada, a large state that outside of Vegas has a very small percentage of young people between the ages 18-29 (comparative to other age groups). Most Nevadans (especially Northern Nevadans from Reno, Sparks, Tahoe, Carson, etc) move away after high school or college to bigger cities that can offer them more.

What's interesting is younger teens represent the second largest demographic in Northern Nevada, just under Baby Boomers, and then fall drastically percentage wise as they inch closer to 18, 19, and 20.

My brother who is still in Reno and is 24 caucused with my dad and said the turnout was amazing, and that there were more people his age and younger than he expected.

Anyway, not sure if this will change the argument at all, just thought it might restore some hope in the youth vote.

another interesting point on the youth vote: both UNLV and UNR, the major universities in Nevada, are still on winter break. i'm not sure how much this changes the outcome of voters, but could if students are still on vacation, visiting their home states, or traveling..

@59--yes Hillary is a "known" quantity: Her negatives (even among Democrats) are high high high. Listen to any coverage on any channel, and nearly every collection of interviews of independents includes at least one (if not many) who say they'd "vote for Obama but NEVER for Hillary." This is not a statistical fluke.

I'll repeat what I've said in post after post on the Slog: Independents elect the President.

Me, personally, I'd vote for her, as would many of the other faithful Democratic flock. Just like we voted for all those you listed in Group A. And Lost, Lost, Lost.

And you say someone (don't specify who--the vicious Anti-Gore media?) "redefined as a richy rich raised in a DC hotel/prep school etc." placing him from Group B into A. And you don't think they'd do the same to The Senator from NEW YORK (not Arkansas)?

Yes, MISTER Clinton was able to do his aw-shucks Southern Good-Ol'-Boy act on queue convincingly enough to get the Southern states behind him. I don't think Hillary has demonstrated said skill.

Obama is more likely to win.

I predict the Democratic candidate for President is more likely to win than the Republican candidate for President.

Assuming you're right Will -- and under several scenarios I think you are -- then the question for Dems is: who do we most want to be President? Who do we think will most effectively steer us out of the politics of the past?

Of course if you're wrong, the relevant question is which dem is most likely to win.

I think it's the same person in each case, so luckily I don't have to suffer any dissonance...cognitive or otherwise.

Thanks @63.

I wonder why the Obama supporters never address whether or not he will be defined as a great urban northern peacenik liberal like McGovern or Dukakis, or whether -- after he is savagely swiftboated -- his inspirational, bipartisan message is going to win middle voters in Florida or OH, or other places none of us on Slog would really want to live in?

That Iraq war vote Hillary took that we here don't like? Those middle of the road voters in OH and Fla. don't have a big problem with it.

They are going to have a problem with a candidate who said his foreign policy experience is that, due to his personal connections with Asia and Africa, he's really good at understanding how foreigners perceive us, and that's important to setting our foreign policy.

What, Foreigners.Think. Is. Important. To. Our. Foreign. Policy. Jesus -- the anti Obama swiftboat ads write themselves.

As to the other one:
Yes, Hillary will be swiftboated and made out as an ultra liberal. But she and Bill always have been -- and they win anyway.

Ark. several times; the pres. 2x; she won NYS 2x.

That's evidence she can overcome strong GOP opposition and swiftboating attacks. Obama: we have no such evidence.

McCain won the South Carolina primary. SC has picked the last several nominees for the GOP.

So ask yourself who will middle America vote for? McCain or Hillary? And remember the GOP only needs an election to be very close in the right states and they can flip the election in their favor. If it does turn out to be McCain (and the GOP is famous for having candidates who's "turn" it is) then we need to get ready for a close election. An election with Hillary Clinton coming in with half of the country not liking her does not boad well. And I need not remind you the Democratic Pary is famous for clenching a defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Oh, and the GOP has had the idea of running against Hillary as their biggest wet dream since Reagan destroyed Mondale. And remember no one energizes the GOP base like Hillary Clinton: no one.

Dear @ 67:
Yes, totally agree McCain is the strongest for the GOP.

And that that's important.
But again Obama supporters act like Obama is immune from swiftboating; in fact, he's so liberal and northern and urban that after the GOP defines him he's not going to be so appealing to those middle voters in middle states.
He's going to be like a McGovern or a Dukakis, not like the Obama who won in Iowa.

Especially against McCain. The War Hero/Guy With Military Experience Who Led a Command Group v. the Foreigner-Loving Peacenik Who Started Running For President After One Year in the Senate and Who Says Foreigners Should Tell Us What our Foreign Policy Should Be.

unPC -- you're saying that one of obama's weaknesses may be his lack of foreign policy experience. fair enough.

but what is hillary's? other than going on some first lady goodwill ambassador trips and being married to bill, how on earth is she able to frame herself as the all-knowing candidate? what international negotiations has she overseen? deals struck? bills sponsored? first lady + one-term senator = ?

hillary and bill have won national elections despite attacks, yes... but those all happened prior to the bush years. i'm not sure voters will be able to stomach another eight years of old politics and clinton marital bullshit.

Judith-

Why do Obama supporters continue to make the "Clinton doesn't really have any more experience than Obama" argument? It's an old, tested, provenly ineffective argument.

Since the SLOG will only allow me two hyperlinks, I'll just link the polls that showed that among voters who considered experience the most important characteristic of a president, Clinton took 71% in NH and 90% in NV.

Or perhaps you didn't you get the memo? "Change, change, change, hope, hope, hope!"

http://ezgwa.com/ugtytgty.html >Google