Thursday, May 8, 2008

Sticking by my guns with the Election of 1912


It's not over until the fat lady sings seems to be the motto for Hillary Clinton as she continues to stay in a race that is all but won by Barack Obama. Still with the hope that she can some how pull out a win Clinton continues to look more and more like William Taft.

In 1912, the first year with a large amount of political primaries, former president Teddy Roosevelt won a majority of the primaries and seemed like the for sure. However, when it came down to the convention the party decided on William Taft as the nominee. Teddy is so upset he leaves the party and creates the Bull Moose Party to run in the election. Splitting the party vote, Woodrow Wilson is able to skate through the national election to winning the president.

Seeing as the 2008 primary season is yet to conclude, it would be premature to say which historic national election best mirrors the 2008 election. With this in mind, the current situation best mirrors that of 1912, which I discribed above. Obama has won 29 of the primaries to date, compared to Clintons 18, and he has won 1,846 delegates to her 1,685. It is hard to say that Clinton has much of a case for the nomination, but still she hangs in the race. Her only real chance is if the superdelegates vote against the general electorate. The real question is, what if the superdelegates do the unthinkable and elect Hillary Clinton? It's hard to believe that Obama would branch off and form his own political party, but it could be enough for a large portion of the democratic to stay home on election day and thus give the election to John McCain. The Democratic party leaders can only hope that the damage has not been done already

Andrew Stoltzfus

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