Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Obama Wins Nomination
It finally happened. On 2008 June 3 9:00 pm EDT, the South Dakota polls closed, allowing Barack Obama to acquire enough delegates to go over the 2118 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination. It went almost down to the wire, through 50 of the 51 states (except Montana, which closes in an hour), the District of Columbia, and several overseas territories. The hypermedia has been hyping up the knock-down drag-out donnybrook between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but I expect the Democrats now to unite behind Obama. Further, I expect Obama to be our next President, because 9 out of 13 Lichtman Keys are down (false), meaning the challenging party (the Democrats) will win; only 6 need to be down to defeat the incumbent party.
I expect Obama to be our nation's fourth Crisis President, in the tradition of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. He will have to deal with several major problems, with the worst one being the world's running out of cheap oil, something that he has not talked about as yet. I wish him the best of luck in dealing with these problems. He is also the first African-American to win a party's nomination (and I predict the Presidency), but I note that he is also the 44th white person to win it - he is both, and by rearing is Hawaiian and Indonesian as well - truly a cosmopolitan candidate. This is also the furthest in the nominating process that a woman (Hillary Clinton) has gotten before losing.
As a side note, I have performed an exit poll analysis on the South Dakota race and determined that Hillary Clinton will win it 53-44%. This could be wrong - these exit polls have made major errors before. But if this is correct, it is a surprise. It will put a Clinton state in an area surrounded by Obama states. Obama got enough delegates to win the nomination with it, but he must be the first Presidential candidate in history to win the nomination by losing a primary.
NOTE: 10:53 pm EDT. I have now heard that Barack Obama has won Montana. The exit polls show the eventual margin to be 55-38%. South Dakota gave him only one more vote than needed to clinch the nomination. Montana put him about 14 votes over. The Democratic Primary map is now complete, and it looks weird. The Clinton states are a gerrymander, or maybe a hillarimander. The Obama states are a doughnut, with South Dakota its hole. What's with South Dakota, anyway? Obama also won a slithery snake of states in the Southeast, from Louisiana to Delaware. What this map seems to show was that Clinton was strong in what I call the "hillbilly states" - Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They were billy states because Bill won them in the 1990s. They are hilly states because Hillary won them in this year's primaries. These states could be weak for Obama, and he needs to supply some energy getting out the vote in these states. But in the end the result will be the same, because of the Keys: President Obama.
I expect Obama to be our nation's fourth Crisis President, in the tradition of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. He will have to deal with several major problems, with the worst one being the world's running out of cheap oil, something that he has not talked about as yet. I wish him the best of luck in dealing with these problems. He is also the first African-American to win a party's nomination (and I predict the Presidency), but I note that he is also the 44th white person to win it - he is both, and by rearing is Hawaiian and Indonesian as well - truly a cosmopolitan candidate. This is also the furthest in the nominating process that a woman (Hillary Clinton) has gotten before losing.
As a side note, I have performed an exit poll analysis on the South Dakota race and determined that Hillary Clinton will win it 53-44%. This could be wrong - these exit polls have made major errors before. But if this is correct, it is a surprise. It will put a Clinton state in an area surrounded by Obama states. Obama got enough delegates to win the nomination with it, but he must be the first Presidential candidate in history to win the nomination by losing a primary.
NOTE: 10:53 pm EDT. I have now heard that Barack Obama has won Montana. The exit polls show the eventual margin to be 55-38%. South Dakota gave him only one more vote than needed to clinch the nomination. Montana put him about 14 votes over. The Democratic Primary map is now complete, and it looks weird. The Clinton states are a gerrymander, or maybe a hillarimander. The Obama states are a doughnut, with South Dakota its hole. What's with South Dakota, anyway? Obama also won a slithery snake of states in the Southeast, from Louisiana to Delaware. What this map seems to show was that Clinton was strong in what I call the "hillbilly states" - Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They were billy states because Bill won them in the 1990s. They are hilly states because Hillary won them in this year's primaries. These states could be weak for Obama, and he needs to supply some energy getting out the vote in these states. But in the end the result will be the same, because of the Keys: President Obama.
