Hillary/Obama

[Glenn]

http://debates.news.yahoo.com/

Fun and innovative.

[Glenn]

Bush says Clinton will be Dem nominee

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
2 hours, 9 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush, breaking his rule not to talk about presidential politics, says he believes Hillary Rodham Clinton will defeat Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries.

Bush also predicts that Clinton will be defeated in the general election by the Republican nominee.

"I believe our candidate can beat her but it's going to be a tough race," the president said.

It has been difficult for Bush to remain silent about the 2008 president race, despite his promises not to be the "prognosticator in chief." He has been talking about the race and handicapping candidates during off-the-record chats with visitors to the White House.

He finally went public with his Clinton prediction in an interview for a book by journalist Bill Sammon.

"She's got a great national presence and this is becoming a national primary," Bush told Sammon. "And therefore the person with the national presence, who has got the ability to raise enough money to sustain an effort in a multiplicity of sites, has got a good chance to be nominated."

The White House did not challenge Sammon's account.

"Frankly, it's difficult to not talk about the '08 election a lot," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "There's a lot of interest in it and it does have consequence."

She denied the notion that Bush was talking up Clinton's prospects in order to energize the Republican base against her candidacy.

"The bottom line is, it really doesn't matter what the president thinks about who will win the Democratic primary," Perino said. "There's going to be a showdown at the OK Corral and they'll figure out whose going to be the nominee and from there the president will campaign vigorously for the Republican candidate.

On the Republican side, Bush has expressed surprise that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani remains the front-runner despite his liberal positions on social and cultural issues normally critical to the party base, according to The Washington Post. It ran a story about Bush's recent off-the-record chat with television news anchors and Sunday show hosts.

Bush said Giuliani's popularity was a sign of how important the terrorism issue is to Republican voters, the newspaper said. It said Bush cautioned against ruling out Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., saying he had managed to revive his campaign after an implosion earlier this year.

Okay, read that line that I put in bold type aloud and in your best GWB voice. Put some emphasis on "multiplicity".

How can you not think of Will Ferrell whilst doing so?

[WTFchris]

Bush telling us that money has a lot to do with politics is the first truth I've heard from him in a long time.

[Glenn]

Results of the Yahoo mash up.

And the Winner Is...
No spin after the first online debate; viewers pick their favorite.

By KEVIN SITES, MON SEP 24, 5:35 AM PDT

Every time a Presidential debate ends it seems the real contest begins, as candidates elbow their way to the nearest television camera to spin their own performance into a tale of triumph.

But in Yahoo's Democratic Candidate Mashup — the first "online only" debate — it was the viewers who made the call, just like they would in a real election.

And who did they decide mastered the mashup? By a 4% margin they picked Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who edged out New York Senator Hillary Clinton with 35% of the vote to her 31%.

Yahoo! News asked users who they would vote for after seeing the online debate. Only a fraction of those who watched debate footage voted — more than a million people watched debate clips, but only 15%, or about 160,000 people, voted. That's not so different from the low-turnout rates we usually see in actual elections.

Younger viewers may have helped put Obama over the top. Some 41% of his audience was under 35, compared to 36% of Clinton's audience.

In an interview with Yahoo! News after the results were announced, Obama said his "doing business differently" approach in politics resonates with young voters.

"That's always been the case in American history — change comes because younger people decide that they want to imagine a different country, and live up to the ideals that they've heard about, but don't always see practiced," he said. "So we're thrilled to have young voters involved; we think that they're going to be a major factor in this race."

Yahoo! analyst Paula McMahon says Internet familiarity was a likely factor. "Obama had the most votes," says McMahon, "so we're theorizing that possibly the younger audience might be a little more comfortable voting on the Internet. "

A request for an interview with Sen. Clinton was not answered.

In the forum, "The Election '08 Democratic Candidate Mashup," which was sponsored by Yahoo!, The Huffington Post and Slate, the candidates were not in the same state, let alone the same room. All were interviewed individually via satellite from the campaign trail.

Before the debate, Internet users set the stage by selecting, through an online vote, three topics to be discussed: Iraq, healthcare and education. Questions on each topic, plus a wildcard question posed by comedian Bill Maher, were presented to the candidates. Each viewer was then given the opportunity to build a personalized debate, selecting the issues and candidates to highlight — for example, comparing New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich on education or matching up Senator Joe Biden and Senator Chris Dodd on Iraq.

Maher's pointed questions were among the most watched of the entire debate. The surprising questions made some candidates laugh and others squirm. For Clinton, Maher focused on the war in Iraq, saying: "George Bush fooled you. Why should Americans vote for someone who can be fooled by George Bush?"

Clinton laughed loudly before recovering to say that "it was a little more complicated than that."

With logged-in users comprising about 40% of the overall debate audience, Yahoo! says it was able to gather some demographic data based on information voluntarily given when the account is created. This allowed for some interesting glimpses into potential voter behavior. For example, the number of viewings of former Senator John Edwards' health care reform clip suggest that he has struck a chord with women in Iowa. And Kucinich seems to have a following among women under 35 in Seattle.

Ultimately, however, the Obama versus Clinton matchup dominated the Democratic Mashup, just as it has on the campaign trail.

[Fool]

I'm one of the 85% that watched but failed to vote.

[Glenn]

I know it shouldn't be shocking that Yahoo uses that demographic info that it has on file to perform those analyses (and they are used in their marketing materials as well, no doubt).

I wonder, on average, how many years ago people filled that shit out?

[Tahoe]

Hill was on FoxNews yesterday. She did a pretty good job. I'm kinda developing a lil thing for her. Me and Hill on a beach watching the sun set...oh mamma.

[Fool]

Indeed, Yahoo is very 90s.

[Steviey99]

I want Obama to win, but I think Hillary is going to get it.

Although Howard Dean was way ahead of the field in 2004, so anything can happen.

[Glenn]

Hi Stevie.

Welcome, we've been waiting for you.