New Mexico finally finished counting the provisional ballots.
Hillary Clinton won the primary by 1709 votes.
Prof. Alan Abramowitz, the Alben W. Barkley professor of political science
at Emory University, has an interesting
posting
on Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball about The Enthusiasm Gap in this
election. (You can consider yourself a REAL political junkie if you know
who Alben W. Barkley is without asking Google. Here's a hint in the form
of an old joke. A man had two brothers. One became a sea captain and went out
to sea. The other became Vice President of the United States. Neither one
was ever heard from again).
Abramowitz cites a variety of data, from vote totals and fund raising to
crowd size and caucus results to polls to make the point that the
Democrats are far more energized than the Republicans this year. Energized
voters are more likely to vote and even work for the nominee later in the
year. While John McCain now has the nomination sewn up (especially after
Mitt Romney endorsed him yesterday), he still has a lot of work to do
getting Republicans excited about him.
That doesn't mean he can't do it, but he will have to work at it.
On the other end, if the Democratic nominee is ultimately chosen in some
smokeless room in Denver by a margin of 10 votes, a lot of the
Democratic enthusiasm will go up in smoke (well, er, in, uh, vapor).
Really Major League Baseball has two new teams: the Donkeys and the
Elephants. At the
congressional hearing
about whether baseball star
Roger Clemens used (illegal) steroids to enhance his performance, the
Democrats clearly believed Clemens' trainer, Brian McNamee, who testified
that he gave Clemens' steroids. The Republicans clearly believed Clemens'
testimony that he did not receive steroids.
Now even baseball has become partisan. Is nothing sacred?
What's next?
If at Thanksgiving President Bush pardons some turkey
maybe the Democrats will point this out as yet another misuse of the
power of the pardon. It is not hard to understand the appeal of candidates
like Barack Obama, who keeps saying he is "post partisan" and Sen. McCain,
who is thinking of changing his name to Maverick J. McCain.
Rasmussen's daily
tracking poll now shows Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton 49% to 37%.
This could be as a result of his winning eight primaries in a row, or it could be a statistical fluke.
Clinton is still polling well in Ohio and Texas, so don't take Rasmussen's poll too seriously just yet.
Here are the delegate totals from various news sources.
They differ because in most caucus states, no delegates to the national conventions have
been chosen yet, just delegates to the district, county, or state convention. Also, some
sources try to count the PLEOs (Part Leaders and Elected Officials) and unpledged delegates, who also get to vote
at the convention.
When different reporters call a PLEO and hear "Well, I like Hillary,
but Barack has his charms too" they may score it differently.
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