Vote '08

The latest AP Democratic delegate count as of Monday (yes, you need to start paying attention to this):

Obama: 1108

Clinton: 1136

(needed to win: 2025)

Voters handed Barack Obama a victory & gave Mike Huckabee a reason to smile over the weekend. After the jump, we’ll take a look at the numbers & see where the candidates stand going into tomorrow’s Crabcake primaries in Virginia, Washington DC, & Maryland.

Plus, if you haven’t heard the Mike Huckabee fried squirrel story yet that’s making the rounds, you’ll hear the candidate explain it all..

& Vote08 digresses about the sometimes-testy relationship between past Presidents & squirrels!

Weekend Primary & Caucus results:

Democrats:

Washington Caucus: Obama 57, Clinton 31

Louisiana Primary: Obama 57, Clinton 36

Nebraska Caucus: Obama 68, Clinton 32

Virgin Islands Caucus: Obama 90, Clinton 10

Maine Caucus: Obama 59, Clinton 40

A rough weekend for Hillary Clinton. In fact, this morning comes news that her campaign manager, who also was her former Chief of Staff in the White House while First Lady, is stepping down. This ‘reshuffling’ was apparently in the works right before New Hampshire, but Clinton’s victory there put that shakeup off. As you can see at the top, Obama is now neck & neck with Clinton in the delegate count, & you should keep a close eye on that number with each passing primary — if this helps, just pretend it’s the best reality tv show ever, & in many ways Vote08 thinks it actually is.

For literally years, Clinton had planned to have the nomination all wrapped up at this point in the campaign, so her strategies in these states were planned at the last minute. Every delegate now counts. A candidate has to do better than 15% in any contest to win them; this is why the Clinton campaign is kicking itself that it didn’t try just a bit harder in the Virgin Islands this weekend.

Even though each of these states’ delegates are relatively insignificant, Obama still averaged a ~25% victory in all (not including the Virgin Islands). If he couples those wins with projected wins on Tuesday for the “Crabcake primaries” (Virginia, Washington DC & Maryland), he’ll “win” the news cycle for the week, & his momentum will force many voters to give him another look.

& on top of that, ABC News writes, “for the cherry on top, [Obama] won a Grammy award Sunday, beating former president Bill Clinton and others for “best spoken word album,” for the audio version of his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”

Republicans:

Washington Caucuses: McCain 26, Huckabee 24, Paul 21. Huckabee is challenging these results, by the way. Details here. Also, congratulations Ron Paul for hitting double digits. But this may not be enough to save his campaign. Read here to find out why.

Louisiana Primary: Huckabee 43, McCain 42. Huckabee’s southern strategy continues to work - although that’s a tight victory.

Kansas Caucus: Huckabee 60, McCain 24. Huge mistake for McCain not to campaign harder here.

Mike Huckabee continues to prove he & his supporters are a force to be reckoned with. Despite his claims that he has faith he can still win this thing, Huckabee would have to win 75% of all delegates in the remaining primaries, & unless he can start winning like Obama in the Virgin Islands (90%), that won’t happen. He has every interest to stay in the race, though. He will be able to go to the convention with a considerable amount of leverage. & even though Tim Russert pressed him on the Vice Presidential question yesterday, he smartly declined to take the bait. Saying “yes” would send a signal to primary voters he’s not all that serious about winning votes to be president.

Huckabee is all that serious about eating squirrels, though. In case you missed it yesterday, go here to listen to what the candidate has to say about frying a squirrel in a popcorn popper during his college days. [& here's a link to a recipe for "Redneck Squirrel Fry"]

Now, there is a certain segment of his constituency who will - pardon the pun - eat this kind of stuff up. [& we mean "eating up stories about eating fried squirrel," not necessarily literally eating squirrel]. But it’s bound to provoke a different reaction from voters who have never fathomed the idea that a squirrel is more lunch than pesky yard rodent. It’ll be interesting to watch the effects this “water cooler” story will have.

You may not realize it, but squirrels & U.S. presidents have enjoyed a long ‘love/hate/eat’ history together.

• Dr. Creed Haskisn, the supposed father of “Brunswick stew” (which if you go for authenticity does include squirrel) served it to Andrew Jackson at a campaign rally. Jackson liked it so much he later served squirrel to all foreign visitors to the White House.
• Theodore Roosevelt was a naturalist & once caught several flying squirrels inside a home while on vacation as president.
• (from Time magazine, April 11th, 1955): “Three squirrels that had been digging at the President’s putting green had been trapped by White House groundkeepers and set free in more primeval areas. Although Oregon’s Democratic Senator Richard Neuberger had cried out against such inhumanity to defenseless beasts, no one had forced the President to make a public statement on the issue. After he had answered questions on world affairs for nearly half an hour at his news conference last week, a reporter got around to: “Mr. President, how about the squirrels?” Ike twisted an ear lobe, grinned, broke into a chuckle and said: “Well, I will tell you, I think first you ought to interview the squirrels and find out if anybody is unhappy. I don’t see any reason of producing another pressure group until we find out they are really unhappy, with a freedom I would personally dearly love.”

• Lyndon Johnson was not a fan of squirrels. His dog Him was killed in July 1966 when he was hit by a car while chasing a squirrel on the White House lawn.
• Vote08 doesn’t have a Nixon squirrel story, but we did find this (inexplicable) picture on the internet (click on it to make it bigger)
• Unlike his predecessors who tried to get rid of them, Ronald Reagan, much to the outrage of serious gardeners, famously took an opposite approach. He went so far as to feed the squirrels acorns that he kept in his desk drawer after collecting them on weekends at Camp David. On warm, sunny days, White House Groundskeeper Irvin Williams recalled, the squirrels would gather outside the Oval Office and wait expectantly for the presidential largess, perhaps an earlier case of compassionate conservatism. ”One afternoon I counted 20 squirrels,” Mr. Williams said. ”They’d look right in the door.”
• The first President Bush, scrapping the Reagan policy, not only put a stop to such handouts but also sent his dog Millie to chase them. The squirrels, he said proudly, ”were history.” The Clinton administration pets continued the chase.
• ...as have the Bush II dogs, Barney and Spot. But in another sign of a softening of attitudes, the White House this past holiday season featured a papier-mâché squirrel among the first-family pets on display as part of its ”All Creatures Great and Small” decorating theme. The squirrel, the first lady’s office said, was a tribute to those that had been ”both pets and pests” to White House families for the past two centuries.

Will squirrels continue to make headlines throughout the 2008 presidential campaign?

…..maybe!! Stay tuned! & click here to learn more about the only (known) squirrel to be running for president this year.

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