Where’s the Outrage?

Taken as a general matter, since the current primary-heavy process of selecting nominees began in 1972, victorious Presidential nominees have not selected their nearest rival in contested nomination fights as the Vice Presidential nominee.

Only twice in contested nomination battles beginning with 1972 has the Vice Presidential nominee been the second place finisher in total primary votes. The Democratic ticket in 2004 and the Republican slate in 1980 are the two.

The 2008 Democratic race was the closest in vote totals, but the ideological fight for the Republican nomination in 1976 (Convention photo above) may have been the more intense struggle.

In 2008, Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York each won just over 48% of the popular vote in the primaries with Mr. Obama winning a few more votes than Mrs. Clinton. For Republicans, John McCain of Arizona took around 45% of the total with Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas each in the low 20’s.

In going with Joe Biden of Delaware, Senator Obama has made his call. Senator McCain will do the same next week.

Here is some history on this matter—

[Read more →]

Tags: Election 2008 by Texas Liberal
5 Comments »

Was Senator Hillary Clinton on the short list? Who cares? Look, Clinton lost. She lost. The race was hers to lose and she lost it for whatever reason. The one way for Senator Barack Obama to become the wimp that Maureen Dowd from the New York Times has been trying to paint him as for the last 18 months is to cave in and select Clinton.

I just don’t understand why (some) folks can’t see that Clinton as a Vice President would be a bad thing. If Obama ever wanted to actually run the White House, he wouldn’t be able to with her by his side. Everyone would be looking to the former president for advice. Obama would say X then everyone would run to Bill and ask if he believed X was right or would he do Y. Obama would automatically become a sub-president with Bill Clinton in the White House. This is a no-brainer.

Now, the important question: What percentage of Clinton supporters will vote for Senator John McCain or stay home? Ten percent? Five percent? I don’t think that we know this number, so only time will tell. Again, I would stress that the CNN poll showing that 27 percent of Clinton supporters will vote for McCain is garbage. Voters are terrible predictors of their own future behavior.

Tags: Election 2008 by ecthompson
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