Learn it! Speak it! Live it!
Bring Christmas to a child in need!
An 'urgency': Sensing threats to institutions of society, church leaders make declaration 
Click to Print
Include Comments
Potomac primary results
Exit polling indicates that Barack Obama has won the Democratic primary in Virginia, his sixth straight victory over Hillary Clinton.
UPDATE (7:36 p.m.): GOP race in Virginia is too close to call.
UPDATE (7:42 p.m.): Maryland polls to remain open until 9:30 p.m. because of weather and traffic problems.
UPDATE (8:30 p.m.): John McCain has been projected the winner of the Republican primary in Virginia. Does this finish off Mike Huckabee?
UPDATE (9:30 p.m.): Maryland goes to Obama and McCain.
UPDATE (9:41 p.m.): Put D.C. in the Obama win column.
UPDATE (9:45 p.m.): McCain joins Obama in a sweep of the Potomac primary.
For up-to-date results and delegate counts, click here for an interactive map courtesy of the Associated Press.
Topic: Campaign 2008, WorldMagBlog
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
back to top25 Comments to “Potomac primary results”
Barack Obama won? Uh-oh.
Report comment to moderator
Obama appears to have taken Virginia 63% to 36%. Obama now has more delegates over all than Clinton (even though Clinton has more super-delegates)
McCain appears to have taken Virginia 48% to 43%. Has Hucklebee’s run tripped up?
Interestingly it looks like twice as many people voted in the Virginia Democratic primary than voted in the Republican primary. I thought Virginia was a Republican state.
Report comment to moderator
Virginia is traditionally Democratic in local races and the governorship trades parties every so often. (The current and most recently former governors are Democrats.)
It has tended to go for Republicans for president though.
Report comment to moderator
steveg post 3,
and this is a primary for the presidential nominee?
It is an open primary on both the Republican and Democratic sides.
But this just raises my puzzlement even more.
Report comment to moderator
Wow, with the Maryland polls just closed and an astounding zero percent of the precincts reporting, Maryland has been called for Obama and McCain.
Wait a minute, with 0% of the precincts reporting? Say what?
Report comment to moderator
A.B.C.
Anybody
But
Clinton
Report comment to moderator
lloyd post 6,
so you are supporting Obama?
Report comment to moderator
And now with 49% of the vote in DC reporting it would seem an Obama win 76%/24% and a McCain win 67%/17%. They haven’t called the race but the rreported results would seem definitive.
Report comment to moderator
This probably means the end of the road for Huckabee, although I would like him to stay in until the Texas primary. You know, this really is a stupid way to pick a presidential candidate. If Huckabee drops out now, Texas–with 137 delegates–will not even have a chance to choose among the various candidates, assuming that McCain will be the shoe-in on March 4. Several other states will be in the same boat.
Report comment to moderator
kyle a post 9,
as best as I can tell the Republican leaders established an early winner take all primary model which seems to be defining the outcome.
The Democrats are generally running a proportional delegate assignment, and that is making the race very difficult to conclude.
Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages.
Since Huckabee had no chance outside of a brokered convention anyway, I do think you are right: McCain is very close to being able to claim the 1191 or so delegates required to claim the nomination outright.
Report comment to moderator
I voted for Huckabee, but will vote for McCain in the general if he gets the nod.
But yes I like Oboma over Clinton.
Everyone that is or was in the race has better character than Clinton.
Report comment to moderator
Oddly enough, it was the Evvie/Bush/Rove wing of the GOP that designed the current primary system with lots of evvie-heavy states with winner-take-all awarding of delegates.
But as Evvies split their vote between Huckabee and Romney, their arch nemesis, McCain, collected the lion’s share of delegates. Thus, Evvies designed a GOP primary system intended to skewer moderates, and got skewered by their own machinations.
It seems like Huckabee wasn’t even helped by the endorsement of evangelical kingmaker Jim Dobson. Could Evvies be losing their death-grip on Beltway power? Oh no, Armageddon must be on its way.
Report comment to moderator
#6
Isn’t it ironic?
It was once
Always
Backing
Clinton
*I used to sub “commies in my little pet names for the network acronyms*
Always
Backing
Commies
Nothing
But
Commies
Commie
Broadcast
System…and of course
Propaganda
By
Socialists
Report comment to moderator
*I used to sub “commies in my little pet names for the network acronyms*
Did that make you feel clever?
Report comment to moderator
Mr Meaner post 13,
but you do realize that it is the process established by the conservative wing of the Republican party which has now made McCain effectively the inevitable nominee.
Is there a reason that the conservative wing of the Republican party did not have a coherent plausible strategy?
I suggest that reading the various materials on the campaign is suggestive here, but I am curious at your take on what can only be described as a major strategic failure.
Your thoughts?
Report comment to moderator
I was sad to see my state choose McCain. The last few days before the primary yesterday, hubbie and I got about 30-40 people to get out and vote for Huckabee who normally wouldn’t vote in a primary. They had no idea how important it was. When I see how close the percentages were between McCain and Huck, I wonder how many more people just didn’t know….
Report comment to moderator
I think they just accept that McCain will get the nomination of the Repubs. Why fight it?
“Obama now has more delegates over all than Clinton (even though Clinton has more super-delegates)” — and therein lies the problem. What do you do if the “people” vote overwhelmingly for Obama and the only way you (Clinton) can succeed is via super-delagates? It doesn’t come across as “fair,” does it? Kinda reminds one of how the Dems just couldn’t handle the electoral college in 2000. What goes around…..
Report comment to moderator
njlawyer post 17,
but of course you are presuming an hypothetical which for the moment is more likely to occur n the Republican party than in the Democratic party.
If Huckabee does not withdraw, then I suggest it is reasonable evidence to suggest an attempt to reverse McCain’s electoral victories by the Republican leadership.
What is fasicnaitng is that a measureable number of Republicans consider that this path would be acceptable.
But it would not be acceptable if there were a virtual tie for the superdelegates to finalize the Democratic nominee?
What an interesting double standard.
For the record, even with super-delegates, Obama has more delegates than Clinton. As I noted, we need to watch how this plays out, but right now, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Obama can indeed acquire sufficient delegates before the convention.
Perhaps conservatives are praying for a Democratic confrontation to take their minds off the brewing Republican confrontation?
Report comment to moderator
Well I just did the math.
It would appear if from here on in, HIllary and Obama split the delegates evenly, Obama wins the nomination. There are 405 superdelegates out there who are hard to track so there still is some “slough” in this caluclation. But increasingly, it looks like it is Obama’s race to lose.
If Hilary were to claim all of the remaining superdelegates right now, it looks like Obama needs to win 2/3 of the remaining pledged delegates to win the nomination. Based on his performance so far, this is at least arguably possible.
Of course a similar, though slightly different numeric, argument can be made for Hillary.
Short answer, it would seem that the Democrats can resolve the nomination without major intervention by Democratic leadership.
Report comment to moderator
Musing, with my first sentence, I was advancing a reason as to why fewer Republicans voted in the primary. That’s all. I should have been more clear there.
Whichever party pulls a stunt to manipulate the will of the people via these delegates really runs the risk of bending people like me out of shape, and I consider myself the average voter. I don’t think Americans sit around doing all this math you and some others are doing. They are just looking for fundamental fairness. I submit that if either party tries some funny business, it will cause the people to really question how things are run. When it comes down to it, a party should only need ONE “delegate” — to break a tie. Other than that, the parties have taken away the people’s right to vote. That’s unAmerican. After all, it’s not about what the party bosses want, is it?
Report comment to moderator
njlawyer post 20,
I was referring to this part of yor quote:
““Obama now has more delegates over all than Clinton (even though Clinton has more super-delegates)” — and therein lies the problem. What do you do if the “people” vote overwhelmingly for Obama and the only way you (Clinton) can succeed is via super-delagates? It doesn’t come across as “fair,” does it? Kinda reminds one of how the Dems just couldn’t handle the electoral college in 2000. What goes around…..”
As I have noted, we see the beginnings of what could be a variation of this model by the Republicans. I noted that a number of conservative posters appeared to consider that it would be quite appropriate for the Republican leadership to override the Republican primary voters and deny McCain the nomination.
Report comment to moderator
“Did that make you feel clever?”
Hey Steve!
Hmmmm…
You know…
It did!
It really, really did!
Anything else?
“but you do realize that it is the process established by the conservative wing of the Republican party which has now made McCain effectively the inevitable nominee.”
Musing,
The problem is that most conservative politicians are never heard. Most of us only hear and see who the media decides to mention. You have to go out of your way to hear a conservative politician mentioned as having done anything, until one gets in trouble.
How many people had ever heard of Duncan Hunter, before this election?
He has been in congress since Reagan was in office. He has spotless conservative principles, and record.
He speaks well. He’s from a state that would be good for the party to put in to play.
He is second to none in the congress on military matters, and in areas of foreign intelligence.
It’s not good for “the cause” to let a principled, competent conservative man like this get much exposure.
He was BY FAR the most conservative candidate in the race. But by the time the debates had started, all of these liberals that we ended up having to choose from, had already been paraded around the MSM.
Duncan Hunter was treated like a plant at the early debates, while the MSM let Giuiani, McCain, and Romney have all the time.
Enter Shuckster;
He plotted, and corn-poned his way into the media spotlight. When they took a look at his record, the MSM thought “yay, another liberal republican, let’s give him a little”, and they did. And we are where we are.
Conservatives are either going to have to accept being re-defined, or we’re going to have to work on a long-term plan, that may include weeding out liberals from the party. (Unfortunately that may have to be by abstention on election day)
In smart-people land, they do that “weeding out” during the primaries. And they also do it by putting up conservative challengers against liberal republican incumbents in congress.
But…that’s in smart-people land.
Report comment to moderator
Mr Meaner post 22,
well looking at your comment:
“The problem is that most conservative politicians are never heard.”
I have a number of thoughts. Among them, don’t worry about anyone stealing your good ideas, if they are any good you will have to cram them down people’s throats.
But more critically, at this point what you term the MSM has significant conservate participation (Buckley comes to mind, along wiht George Will).
So there is another possiblity: maybe conservatism doesn’t really resonate with the American voting public. Perhaps classic conservatism is not what they want to support.
Is there a reason why this model is not valid?
Your statement:
“Conservatives are either going to have to accept being re-defined, or we’re going to have to work on a long-term plan,”
I suggest is unequivocally true.
I find your sttement here:
“that may include weeding out liberals from the party.”
more troubling in the context of democracy.
It would not be unreasonable to start one’s own party perhaps, and I believe that some conservatives have. But to argue that you have the right (as opposed to the opportunity) to take over the Republican party would seem more troubling.
It also shrinks your tent, and based on my earlier comment in this post, it looks like this approach ends up making the Republican party irrelevant.
Report comment to moderator
“But to argue that you have the right (as opposed to the opportunity) to take over the Republican”
Actually, that was the point I was trying unsuccessfully to make. Conservatives should take advantage of the opportunity they have during the primary season to choose actual conservatives, rather than wait to see who the media tells them “has a chance”.
Basically, I’m saying that republican voters are either, 1) too uninformed about the candidate’s positions, and too lazy to investigate.
or
2) They really are becoming more liberal.
I hope it’s the former…education and self-discipline can cure that problem.
If it’s the latter, then I think your suggestion of starting another party becomes the only option.
BTW
Musing,
It has been a joy discussing some of these deeper topics that we’ve occasionlly been able to, without the screeching harpies jumping in to sling mud.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there is just too much strife, and false accusations being thrown around here.
I’m going to look for a Christian site that encourages the exchange of ideas.
If I find one, I’ll e-mail you, and maybe you can drop by.
Thanks for all of the stimulating conversations we’ve had.
Cheers,
Scott
Report comment to moderator
Mr Meaner,
I would urge not to leave. You contribute much here and provide a key voice of reason on many issues (even though I often don’t agree with you).
Only if those with unique ideas leave the field will these ideas die. They live so long as we fight for them.
Report comment to moderator
back to topJoin The Conversation
You need to be a registered user of WORLDonTheWeb.com to "join the conversation."
If you are not a member yet, what are you waiting for? Register / Login Now!