Zhan Wang in San Francisco; politics

[anhinga_drafts]

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/06/san-francisco-sculpt.html (via Andrew Sullivan)

In the Asian Art Museum in SF till May 25 (see links at the end of the post)

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Obama finally leads in the superdelegates as well (although he still trails about 15 votes among the DNC/DPL bureaucracy):

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/02/superdelegate-history-tracker.html

Comments

Obama leads in the superdelegates

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

I told ya :-)
CNN decided to illustrate the story with this picture:



Hillary who?

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

You told me, yes :-) Let's hope more of them do it before the WV ## are in -- the polls there look ugly..

the polls there look ugly

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

Look, it's over. She can't win the nomination without bringing the party down. Besides, the polls for NC and IN didn't look terribly promising either.

Re: the polls there look ugly

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

> She can't win the nomination without bringing the party down

You think this would stop her ;-) "The question is how one deals with sociopaths like them".

> didn't look terribly promising either

But not like this:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/wv/west_virginia_democratic_primary-637.html

Re: the polls there look ugly

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

1. Even if she wins big in WV, it's not going to put her ahead - or even close.
2. NC and IN turned out better for Obama than the polls predicted. It is enough for WV to turn out better than the polls predicted - this will already send a message to Hillary. Even the actual 25-30% loss will be a moral win for Obama at this point.

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

> Even the actual 25-30% loss will be a moral win for Obama at this point.

hmmm-khmmm.. I don't quite see it this way..

Clinton's landslide would not matter much delegate-wise, but for a moral win he should come within 10%, for a moral draw -- within 20%..

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

I suppose arguing about what's sufficient for a moral win is pretty silly, but I still think that doing noticeably better than the polls would be sufficient. Read the news - everybody is saying now that she should just stop. She cannot win. She is out of money, superdelegates are running away from her, and she has a pretty darn big hole in votes to cover. And even factory workers in WV can count.

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

The question is, what kind of numbers would temporary stop or considerably slow the superdelegate conversions to Obama. That's the only real meaning of "moral" here..

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

That's the only real meaning of "moral" here - love this!!
Look, I was all "wait-and-see" about this race for months. And now my answer to your question is - no numbers would do it. None. Short of 80-20, no numbers will do it. The train has left the station.

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

Oh, they won't do this, but they would create enough anxiety..

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

I am sure superdelegates read the news and are familiar with the WV polls. And yet they are switching to Obama as we speak. This means that they are confident enough, otherwise they would've waited till WV is over.
You can be anxious or not - your choice. But, barring a tornado hitting Obama or him being exposed as a child molester, the result of the nomination is clear. So I prefer to sit back and relax.

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

In any case, my humble prediction is that he'll get more delta in supers in the coming 2 days (compared to the current +3.5), than in the subsequent week..

People who are ready to switch will switch before WV..

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

That's probably true. As long as they don't switch back, that's OK.
My guess is, however, that Hillary's delta will not increase after WV either: her supporters want to boost WV by switching now.

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

I should record here that my humble prediction was wrong, although there was some WV fall-out.

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It turns out Oregon has an unusual system for elections:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/19/124239/061/359/518313

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

my humble prediction was wrong - if pessimistic predictions turn out to be wrong, that's just fine with me :-)

Wow, the Oregon system is so similar the Secure Election Protocol that we studied in Cryptography!

how one deals with sociopaths like them

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rowan_tree_/]

Shhh! He is right, but you don't say this out loud.
Obama needs to send the Clintons on a mission. Maybe a UN post in Europe? Or in Africa? Or greenifying Alaska? Or - better yet - a mission to Mars? Hillary can be the first woman on Jupiter. Yeah, that will do it.

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

:-)