Obama i SAD (2008-2016)

[BihYankee]

Haman je gotovo evo sa tikera od 8 sati po nasem cajtu ( u rajvosa) :
Barack Obama's march toward the Democratic presidential nomination picked up support from four more superdelegates Wednesday, pushing him ever closer to victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton — even as their primary marathon staggered on.

[BihYankee]

Evo nesto vise na istu temu taze prije sahatak( kod mene je oko 9 ujutro ,08.05.) :
She added two superdelegates herself in what has become the last big contest as their race winds toward a finish.

There are just 217 delegates to be chosen in the final six primaries, and neither candidate can win enough of them to claim final victory. Meanwhile, 265 additional delegates — the party elders and other "superdelegates" — have yet to be claimed, and their support will be the deciding factor.

Though Obama padded his delegate lead in Tuesday's primaries, most uncommitted superdelegates still want to remain on the sidelines. The Associated Press interviewed more than 70 undeclared superdelegates or their representatives Wednesday, and many said they don't want to get involved until the voting ends June 3.

However, the comments of some of the uncommitteds were anything but encouraging for Clinton.

"I'm just wondering about the viability of Clinton's campaign at this point," said Laurie Weahkee, an add-on delegate from New Mexico. "I really want to hear from her more about if she wants to stay in the race — if the reason remains very concrete."

Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Doyle said Clinton's pitch to superdelegates has been that she can win the popular vote, but that was undercut when Obama netted more than 200,000 popular votes in the Tuesday contests.

"The math just got very tough for her after last night," Doyle said. "I think most of us out of respect for her are content to wait a little longer. ... The absolute best way for this to end is for the candidates to end it, not the superdelegates. That's the ending we all dream about every night."

She picked up two in the wake of Tuesday's loss in North Carolina and narrow victory in Indiana. North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler had said he would support the winner of his district, and she won it handily. A spokeswoman for Texas labor leader Robert Martinez told the AP he is committed to Clinton, but it wasn't clear when he made the decision.

But she lost another supporter, Virginia state House member Jennifer McClellan. McClellan is one of at least nine superdelegates who have switched from Clinton to Obama since the Super Tuesday primaries on Feb. 5. There have been no public switches in the other direction.

"I think the time has come to support Senator Obama as the likely nominee," McClellan said in a conference call with reporters. "Given what happened last night, it's very unlikely we will have a different result, and it is time to come together as a party and prepare for victory against John McCain in November."

Obama also got the support of North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek, North Carolina Democratic National Committee member Jeanette Council and California DNC member Inola Henry.

Clinton met with undecided superdelegates at Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday. She said, "We talked a lot about Florida and Michigan," two states that she won but don't have any delegates to count toward her total because their early primaries violated party rules. "I continue to emphasize and stress that we cannot disenfranchise those voters."

Clinton said later that she would be sending a letter to Obama and Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean expressing her belief that seating the Florida and Michigan delegations is a civil rights and voting rights issue.

Obama was to make his pitch to the congressional fence sitters in meetings Thursday. He also planned to start traveling to swing states to signal that the general election has begun.

Superdelegates supporting Obama recently have given a number of reasons. They recognize he is the front-runner and want to end a divisive party fight. They were impressed with his handling of a crisis that confronted his campaign in the comments of his former pastor. They don't want to risk alienating black voters who are excited about Obama's chance to become the first black president. They simply think Obama would be a more attractive choice at the top of the ticket.

"I think that Senator Obama is going to be a tremendous boost for down-ballot races in North Carolina," Meek told the AP. "He's going to turn out segments of the electorate — particularly young people and African-Americans — who have historically low turnout levels. That will help candidates up and down the ballot."

Nancy Worley, Alabama's former secretary of state and the state Democratic Party's first vice chair, said she got calls Wednesday morning from Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine — both Obama supporters.

"It appears that the Obama supporters, just from my perspective, are working a little harder at getting commitments," she said. Clinton's campaign has mainly used letters and e-mails, with occasional calls from staffers, she said, while Obama has used more of a "personal touch" with direct phone calls.

Nonetheless, she said she still hasn't been convinced one way or another even though she said she would be reluctant to vote against the pledged delegate leader. That is almost certain to be Obama.

Arizona Democratic Chairman Don Bivens also appeared closer to backing Obama after receiving e-mails from both camps Wednesday.

"The Obama one was more fulsome and sort of laid out the mathematical facts," Bivens said. He said the Clinton e-mails were from multiple individuals sharing why they thought she was the best choice.

"I'm still uncommitted, but I do believe that yesterday's results put me at a decisional plateau." He said the rest of the contests' outcomes are more predictable. "I think that we're at a point where the track got shorter and you can see the finish line."

[jeza u ledja]

Clinton fights on!

[omar little]

Clinton met with undecided superdelegates at Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday. She said, "We talked a lot about Florida and Michigan," two states that she won but don't have any delegates to count toward her total because their early primaries violated party rules. "I continue to emphasize and stress that we cannot disenfranchise those voters."

...No other state, under the DNC's regulations, could hold a primary or caucus before Feb. 5. But last year, first Florida and then Michigan defiantly scheduled their 2008 primaries in January. This queue jumping not only undermined the special status of the four small states, but it also meant unfairly squeezing ahead of the throng of 22 states that had slated primaries and caucuses for Feb. 5.

The abuse was so flagrant that not only did the DNC play tough guy (stripping Michigan and Florida of all their convention delegates), but the party chairs in the four small front-of-the-pack states pressured the candidates into signing a pledge not to campaign in the two outlaw primaries. Mrs. Clinton left her name on the ballot. Obama and Edwards, in fact, even took their names off the Jan. 15 Michigan primary ballot in which Clinton beat "uncommitted" by a 55-to-40 percent margin. ...

Kako iko, zdrave pameti, njoj moze vjerovati da se "brine" sa glasace meni nikad nece biti jasno. Sutila je k'o zalivena na pocetku, da se ne bi zamjerila guzonjama u stranci koji su odlucili ne brojati glasove, a sad ODJEDNOM kad joj trebaju glasovi izjavljuje ljigavostine, toliko providine, sebicne samo da se dokopa glasova...MA FUJ! I uopste mi nije jasno zasto misli da ce ako pobjedi dobiti glasove Obaminih glasaca na novembarskim izborima. Mozda jesam malo u afektu, ali mogli bi oni (demokrate) zbog nje glatko Bijelu Kucu izgubit'.

[omar little]

Eo @jeza stalno meCe Hilkine slike pa reko' da izbalansiram malo sa jeNom Husinom ...iz mladih dana, ziku ga molim te

[pitt]

malo zanimljivih razmisljanja iz danasnjeg WSJ

WONDER LAND
By DANIEL HENNINGER


Obama vs. McCain: Let's Get It On
May 8, 2008; Page A13
Barack Obama, the first "postracial candidate," is heading to the Democratic nomination almost entirely because of his near-universal support from black voters in the Democratic primaries. In both states Tuesday, his share of that vote was 90% or more. If one resets the black vote to the norm of earlier elections, Hillary Clinton is the nominee.

The idea that Obama was a postracial politician dates to his famous keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004. He set the postracial template himself in the speech's third sentence, describing his father born in a small Kenyan village, herding goats, etc. His mother was "born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas."


Wonder Land columnist Dan Henninger speaks to Paul Lin about what the voter demographics say about where the Democratic nomination is going. (May
Over the next three years, writers ratified this postracial definition of Obama's own design. From this idea, a Democratic star arose.

Hillary Clinton, who now resembles the robot's crawling hand in the final scenes of "The Terminator," can plausibly argue to the superdelegates that much of this is electoral bunk. In Indiana, her share of the white vote to his, men and women combined, was 60-40, a huge lead. In North Carolina, 61-37.

They won't buy it. Ever. The "first woman" running for president would have to be pulling 90% of her own piece of history, women, to compete with his achievement. Obama has locked up 90% of a constituency that Democrats not only must have to win in November, but that they've elevated to mythic status the past 40 years.

As well, the black vote came spontaneously to Sen. Obama, without him having to make an overt appeal for their vote, as she did with women.

The Democratic superdelegates are products of their party – nice liberals, nice people. To stiff Obama's black voters at this late hour, most of the superdelegates would have to be as hard and clinical about politics as the Clintons. They aren't.

Obama moves them and validates their commitment to the Democratic idea. Shelby Steele described the force even Hillary can't match in these pages last March1: Race lifts the Obama candidacy "to the level of allegory. . . . Because he is black, there is a sense that profound questions stand to be resolved in the unfolding of his political klix."


AP
The superdelegates are faced with choosing between the Clinton machine's brutal demographic math and thinking well of themselves. No contest.

Will the national electorate sing from the same hymnal as the superdelegates' offstage chorus? Who knows, but let's get on with finding out.

Barack Obama is going to run an aura campaign. As it has been from the start, it's going to be a speech candidacy, a rhetorical candidacy, a JFK candidacy, the promise of another Camelot.

Listen here to Barack describing what it's all about Monday in Indianapolis: "I believe that this election is bigger than me or John McCain or Hillary Clinton. It's bigger than the Democrats versus Republicans. It's about who we are as Americans." That's as big as it gets.

Will more than 50% of voters want a piece of this dream in November? Will the Rev. Wright specter be gone by then and the "bitter" remark forgiven? Sure. Why not?

By any measure, the country's mood is awful. Some of it is gas prices and some the mysterious mortgage and credit crisis (Barack knows how it happened: "We do need a government that stands up for families who are being tricked out of their homes by Wall Street predators").

Whenever Americans get glum near an election, it's a good bet that pitching their ideals at them will appeal, and thank heavens for that. FDR was an ideals candidate and so was Ronald shining-city-on-a-hill Reagan.

So long as the American mood sits in the dumpster, John McCain will have his hands full. The instinct of the McCain camp will be to compete for the unhappy white vote Hillary leaves behind with lurches toward Obama-like populism. That compulsion was already evident in the demagogic anti-Wall Street passages of his speech on the economy last month.

John McCain needs to find an Achilles heel in this opponent. It's there – not the Wright mess but Obama's dustup with Hillary Sunday on Iran, when he tagged her for "saber rattling" and "tough talk."

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, collector of centrifuges, makes Jeremiah Wright look like Little Bo Peep. Yet this Tuesday Barack Obama said he assumes the American people will see it is "not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies, like Roosevelt did, Kennedy did, and Truman did." In the here and now, a more apt name comes to mind: Jimmy Carter.

A grand Enemies Tour awaits President Obama – Iran's Ahmadinejad, Syria's Assad, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, North Korea's Kim Jong Il, an al Qaeda "diplomat" from Osama bin Laden, Sudan's Hassan al-Bashir, Zimbabwe's Mugabe, Burma's junta.

If John McCain can't talk the American people out of re-Carterizing themselves, what has he been preparing for all these years?

Write to [email protected]

[pitt]

i uncle Karl se oglasio

OPINION


It's Obama, Warts and All
By KARL ROVE
May 8, 2008; Page A15

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama each took a state Tuesday. But the result was a damaging loss for the woman who was once the overwhelming front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Here are some observations on the race:

- Mr. Obama is now the prohibitive favorite. Tuesday night, he took at least 94 delegates to Mrs. Clinton's 75 and leads the former First Lady by 176 delegates in the AP tabulation. He has 1,840 of the 2,025 delegates needed to win. Mr. Obama needs only 185 – or 38% – of the 486 klix delegates (217 to be elected in the six remaining contests, and 269 superdelegates yet to endorse a candidate). Mrs. Clinton needs 341, or 70% of those left to be awarded.


AP
Barack Obama arrives at a primary election night rally in North Carolina, May 6, 2008.
Mr. Obama understands this. On Tuesday night, he added a big dollop of general election themes and pre-emptive defenses against coming attacks to his stump speech.

- Mrs. Clinton may battle until June and possibly until the convention in August. There's nothing Mr. Obama can or should do about it. After a long, bitter struggle, losing candidates often look for reasons to feel aggrieved. There is no reason to give her one. No pressure from Mr. Obama or party Chairman Howard Dean is better than pushing her out of the race.

- The Democrats' refusal to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations at their convention is an unresolved problem. If they insist on not seating these delegations, Democrats risk alienating voters in states with 44 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. And here Mr. Obama is at greater risk than Mrs. Clinton, especially in Florida. He trails John McCain badly in Sunshine State polls today, while Mrs. Clinton leads Mr. McCain there.

- The length of the Democratic contest has been – in some ways – a plus for the party. The AP estimates that more than 3.5 million new voters registered during the competitive primary season. And the hundreds of millions of dollars spent energizing Democratic turnout will leave organization and energy in place for November. Mr. Obama is a better candidate for having been battle tested. And Mr. McCain has to fight hard for attention. He's mentioned in less than 20% of the coverage in recent months, while Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are talked about in 60% to 70% of the coverage.

- The length of the Democratic contest has been – in some ways – a minus. It has revealed weaknesses in Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton came across as calculating, contrived, stiff and self-concerned. Mr. Obama is increasingly seen not as the Second Coming, but as a typical liberal Chicago pol with a thin record, little experience, an array of troubling relationships and, to top it off, elitist sensibilities. Nominating him will now test the thesis that only a Democrat running as a moderate can win the White House.

The primary has created a deep fissure in Democratic ranks: blue collar, less affluent, less educated voters versus the white wine crowd of academics and upscale professionals (along with blacks and young people). Mr. Obama runs behind Mrs. Clinton's numbers when matched against Mr. McCain in key industrial battleground states. Less than half of Mrs. Clinton's backers in Indiana and North Carolina say they would support Mr. Obama if he were the nominee. In the most recent Fox News poll, two-and-a-half times as many Democrats break for Mr. McCain (15%) as Republicans defect to Mrs. Clinton (6%) and nearly twice as many Democrats support Mr. McCain (22%) as Republicans back Mr. Obama (13%). These "McCainocrat" defections could hurt badly.

State and local Democrats are realizing the toxicity of their probable national ticket. Democrats running in special congressional races recently in Louisiana and Mississippi positioned themselves as pro-life, pro-gun social conservatives and disavowed Mr. Obama. The Louisiana Democrat won his race on Saturday and said he "has not endorsed any national politician." The Mississippi Democrat is facing a runoff on May 13 and specifically denied that Mr. Obama had endorsed his campaign. Not exactly profiles in unity.

- As much as Mr. Obama's cheerleaders in the media hate it, Rev. Jeremiah Wright remains a large general-election challenge for Mr. Obama. Not only did Mr. Obama admit on "Fox News Sunday" that Mr. Wright was a legitimate issue, voters agree. Mr. Obama's favorable ratings have dropped since Mr. Wright emerged as an issue. More than half of Mrs. Clinton's supporters say it is a meaningful reflection on Mr. Obama's character and judgment.

- This will be a very difficult year for Republicans. The economy's shaky state, an unpopular war, and the natural desire for partisan change after eight years of one party in the White House have helped tilt the balance to the Democrats.

Mr. Obama is significantly weaker today than he was three months ago, but Democrats have the upper hand in November. They're beatable. But it's nonsense to think this year is going to be a replay of George H.W. Bush versus Michael Dukakis or Richard Nixon versus George McGovern.

- Mr. McCain is very competitive. He is the best candidate Republicans could have picked in this environment. With the GOP brand low, his appeal to moderates and independents becomes even more crucial.

My analysis of individual state polls shows that today Mr. McCain would win 241 Electoral College votes to Mr. Obama's 217, with 80 votes in toss-up states where neither candidate has more than a 3% lead. Ironically, Mrs. Clinton now leads Mr. McCain with 251 electoral votes to his 203 with 84 in toss-up states. This is the first time she's led Mr. McCain since I began tracking state-by-state results in early March.

Mr. McCain is realistic enough to know he will fall behind Mr. Obama once the Democratic nomination is settled. He's steeled himself and his team for that moment. And he's comforted by a belief that there will be plenty of time to recapture the lead. Mr. McCain saw Gerald Ford come from 30 points down to lose narrowly to Jimmy Carter in 1976, and watched George H.W. Bush overcome a 17-point deficit in the summer to hammer Michael Dukakis in the fall of 1988.

- The battlegrounds will look familiar. It will be the industrial heartland from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, minus Indiana (Republican) and Illinois (Democrat); the western edge of the Midwest from Minnesota south to Missouri; Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada in the Rocky Mountains; Florida; and New Hampshire.

Mr. Obama will argue he puts Virginia and North Carolina into play (doubtful), and may make an attempt at winning one or two of Nebraska's electoral votes (it awards its electoral votes by congressional district). Mr. McCain will say he can put New Jersey and Delaware and part of Maine (it splits its vote like Nebraska) in play. But it's doubtful he'll win in Oregon or Washington State, although he believes he can.

- Almost everything we think we know right now will be revised and even overturned during the next six months. This has been a race in which conventional wisdom has often been proven wrong. The improbable or thought-to-be impossible has happened with regularity. It has created a boom market for punditry and opinion offering, and one of the grandest possible spectacles for political junkies in decades. Hold on to your hat. It's going to be one heck of a ride through Nov. 4.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

[walkabout]

pitte, dje si ti...nema te neshto...ovaj ti je prilog pravi...

Mrzili ili voljeli uncl Karl-a, ovo se mora procitati...jer ovdje se ima posla sa jednim vrhunskim analiticarem/kalkulatorom kojem (cini mi se) nema premca. Koliko je samo puta doprinio pobjedama Republikanaca, nekad je cak bio odlucujuci faktor prevage za pobjedu (znate za izraz single handedly).

Nije ga slucajno Bush jedne prilike izvukao iz njegove tamne kalkulatorske odaje iz prizemlja (nakon izbora 2004-te) i chuhno na pozornicu pred mikrofon (jadan Karl, sav se bijo izgubijo, ne znam jel dvije sastavio brez mucanja) kao znak priznanja.

Pogledajte samo kako on iznosi procjene, podatke (koja preciznost) i predvidjanja - najezhio sam se od njegove hladnoce i tacnosti (kazem tacnosti mada nisam u situaciji da objektivno upotrijebim ovu rijec - vise se radi o mom ubjedjenju, njegovi dosadasnji rezultati mi daju za pravo).

i uncle Karl se oglasio

OPINION


It's Obama, Warts and All
By KARL ROVE
May 8, 2008; Page A15


My analysis of individual state polls shows that today Mr. McCain would win 241 Electoral College votes to Mr. Obama's 217, with 80 votes in toss-up states where neither candidate has more than a 3% lead. Ironically, Mrs. Clinton now leads Mr. McCain with 251 electoral votes to his 203 with 84 in toss-up states. This is the first time she's led Mr. McCain since I began tracking state-by-state results in early March.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

Ovaj dio sam izdvojio jer je to ono sto sam ja govorio od pocetka (fala ti Karl ako citas ove redove) - i sad mislim da Hillary ima bolje sanse protiv McCain-a nego Obama (i opet da ponovim - treba razlikovati ono sto zelis, ono sto treba i ono sto ce da bude)

[omar little]

Senator Barack Obama surged ahead of his rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the count of superdelegates on Friday, the first time since the outset of the race that Mrs. Clinton has lost the lead in one of her few remaining trump cards.

Mr. Obama racked up seven endorsements in the last 24 hours from superdelegates, the Democratic Party insiders who are granted autonomy to support whomever they wish at the convention in August. One, a New Jersey congressman, switched his allegiance away from Mrs. Clinton, allowing the Illinois senator to pull ahead of his opponent, according to the latest New York Times count.

The Times’s tally shows Mr. Obama with 266 superdelegates against 263 for Mrs. Clinton, based on telephone polls conducted with CBS News as well as public endorsements. A separate count by The Associated Press shows Mr. Obama running even with Mrs. Clinton. And a measure by ABC News showed the Illinois senator ahead as of this morning.
The superdelegate count was one of the few mathematical areas where Mrs. Clinton still maintained an advantage in the race. She trails her opponent in the popular vote and the total Democratic delegate count.

Superdelegates represent up to a fifth of the Democratic convention delegation, and have historically supported the front-runner at the convention. More than 250 superdelegates have yet to publicly announce their decisions.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama picked up the support of Representative Donald Payne of New Jersey, who told The Star-Ledger of Newark that he was switching away from Mrs. Clinton after thinking through “one of the most difficult decisions I have made.” Peter DeFazio, an Oregon congressman, also said he would back Mr. Obama.

The endorsements accelerated on Friday. Ed Espinoza, a Californian who is a member of the party’s national committee, pledged his support in the morning, along with John Gage, president of the largest union of federal employees, and Wilber Lee Jeffcoat, a party official from South Carolina. In the afternoon, the campaign sent out an additional round of endorsements from superdelegates in Hawaii and New Mexico.

Mr. Obama’s gains came as other senior members of his party appeared to be closing ranks around him. The Huffington Post reported that Representative Rahm Emanuel, the influential Democrat from Illinois, referred to Mr. Obama as the “presumptive nominee” at a discussion panel held by The New Yorker on Friday morning.

(A spokeswoman for Mr. Emanuel told the Politico that “all Rahm said was that Senator Obama was now the front-runner, which by and large means, because of the calendar, he is the presumptive nominee, at this point.”)

Meanwhile, the fate of another significant endorsement in the race may hang on the interpretation of a pronoun — for now, anyway.

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, John Edwards said he was “very likely” to endorse the candidate he voted for in the North Carolina primary on Tuesday. But, the anchors asked, which candidate was it?

In his demurral, Mr. Edwards may have slipped: “I just voted — I just voted for him on Tuesday,” he said. But given Mr. Edwards’s Southern accent, that pesky pronoun may have been plural, albeit in a shortened form: “I just voted for ’em on Tuesday.”

David Schuster, an MSNBC host, attempted to ferret out the truth. “So it was a him or a her that you voted for?” he asked, interrupting the former senator. Mr. Edwards then backpedaled, saying, “No, no,” and laughing.

[jeza u ledja]

Jeste culi Joe Liebermana sto se prosuo.

Naime, McCain je nedavno izjavio nesto tipa Hamas podrzava Obamu, pa eto ono ko samo da znate. (to jer je neki Hamasovac izjavio da bi volio da Huso pobjedi). Helem, Barack je na to odgovorio da ga to vrijedja i da McCain 'lost his bearings'. Onda je neko iz McCainove ekipe izjavio nesto tipa kako je to jeftin udarac zbog njegove starosti, a onda se kvisling Lieberman nasao da brani svog druga i rece ovo 'last time I checked his (McCain's) bearings were fine'.

Kako li je to Joe provjerio ostaje misterija.


Inace, ovo polako postaje generalna predsjednicka izborna kampanja:

VS.



Ovo su po meni dva najbolja kandidata iz dvije stranke ove izborne godine pa ce biti zanimljivo narednih 5 mjeseci.

[omar little]

Jesam ja danas. Nasmijah se dobro.

“I just want to report that this morning I personally checked John McCain's bearings. He has not lost any of them," said [Senator Joe Lieberman]. "They are all in really great shape."

[jeza u ledja]

Dobar clanak.



Already, Obama and McCain map fall strategies
Two sides say they would be open to holding unmoderated debates

By Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny
Published: May 11, 2008


Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are already drawing up strategies for taking each other on in the general election, focusing on the same groups — including independent voters and Latinos — and about a dozen states where they think the contest is likely to be decided this fall, campaign aides said.

In a sign of what could be an extremely unusual fall campaign, the two sides said Saturday that they would be open to holding joint forums or unmoderated debates across the country in front of voters through the summer. Mr. Obama, campaigning in Oregon, said that the proposal, floated by Mr. McCain’s advisers, was “a great idea.”

Even before Mr. Obama fully wraps up the Democratic presidential nomination, he and Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, are starting to assemble teams in the key battlegrounds, develop negative advertising and engage each other in earnest on the issues and a combustible mix of other topics, including age and patriotism.

Mr. McCain, of Arizona, will spend the next week delivering a series of speeches on global warming, evidence of his intention to battle Mr. Obama for independent voters, a group the two men have laid claim to. Those voters tend to recoil from hard-edged partisan politics, and presumably would be receptive to the kind of bipartisan forum that Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama seemed open to on Saturday.

Clearly concerned that questions about such things as his association with his former pastor had damaged his standing with independents, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, is likely to embark on a summertime tour intended to highlight the life story that was once central to his appeal. Preliminary plans include a stop in Hawaii, his birthplace, and a major address there at Punchbowl Cemetery, where his maternal grandfather, who fought in World War II, is buried.

Mr. Obama’s campaign is firing up voter-registration efforts and sending troops to Ohio and Pennsylvania, states that he lost in the primaries but that his aides said he must win to capture the White House. Mr. McCain’s advisers said they had tracked Mr. Obama’s struggles with blue-collar voters there and would open campaign headquarters in both states in early June.

Beyond that, aides to the two men said Latino voters would be central to victory in a swath of Western states now viewed as prime battlefields, including Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.

These decisions by Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama to look ahead to the fall reflect their conclusion that it is only a matter of time before Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York steps away from the fight for the Democratic nomination.

Mr. McCain is looking first to states where President Bush narrowly lost in 2004 and where Mr. Obama lost primaries, starting with New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Mr. Obama is looking to states where he won caucuses and primaries — including some, like Virginia, that have been solidly Republican in recent presidential elections — as well as others where he has organizations in place.

And the two sides have produced television advertisements that will be rolled out as soon as the Democratic contest is officially resolved. These advertisements are directed less at promoting themselves than at undercutting their opponents.

The Republican National Committee is planning a $19.5 million advertising campaign to portray Mr. Obama, 46, as out of touch with the country and too inexperienced to be commander in chief, seeking to put him on the defensive before he can use his financial advantage against Mr. McCain, 71, party officials said.

“In 1984, Ronald Reagan said, ‘I’m not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience,’ ” said Frank Donatelli, the deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee. “Well, we are going to exploit Obama’s youth and inexperience.”

On the Democratic side, Mr. Obama’s aides this week put finishing touches on advertisements intended to tether Mr. McCain to Mr. Bush and chip away at his image as a maverick, an identity that the aides said they found remained strong with voters.

“By November, every voter will know that McCain is offering a third Bush term,” said Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe.

Advisers to Mr. Obama said their research suggested that Mr. McCain, notwithstanding his high profile in American politics for more than a decade, was not well known to many voters. In particular, Mr. Obama’s aides said they would highlight Mr. McCain’s opposition to abortion rights to try to stem the flow of disaffected women who backed Mrs. Clinton in the primaries and whom Mr. McCain’s aides said they would aggressively court.

The strategies reflect a lesson from the 2004 presidential campaign, when top aides to Mr. Bush, some of whom are working for Mr. McCain today, began a well-financed television campaign to define and undercut Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, the moment he became his party’s nominee.

Mr. Obama’s advisers said they were mindful that he had not yet won the nomination and that six contests remained. Still, they said it was crucial to begin engaging Mr. McCain as soon possible.

Independent voters have been critical in presidential elections as the country has become polarized along party lines. What makes this election different is the extent to which Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have turned to independent voters for support throughout their careers.

Historically, independent voters have responded to specific issues and concerns, in particular an emphasis on government reform and an aversion to overly bitter partisan wrangling. Accordingly, Mr. McCain’s advisers said they would present him as a senator who frequently stepped across the aisle, while portraying Mr. Obama as a down-the-line Democratic voter who is ideologically out of touch with much of the country.

“We believe America is still a slightly right-of-center country, and that is what McCain is,” said Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain. “If you look at Obama’s base and his record, he is a pretty conventional liberal.”

Mr. Obama’s advisers, meanwhile, intend to present Mr. McCain as a product of Washington who moved closer to the Bush administration to win the Republican nomination.

The two men also have sought to build their candidacies around images of reform, unconstrained by traditional political molds. The rivals are openly discussing staging forums across the country to speak directly to voters, an idea that is by any measure unconventional for a general election campaign.

Asked about the idea on Saturday, Mr. Obama told reporters in Oregon, “If I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that’s something that I’m going to welcome.”

Hispanic voters could find themselves drawing more attention from presidential candidates than ever before. Their votes could prove critical in determining whether Democrats capture states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico and whether Republicans have any chance of being competitive in California.

Mr. McCain’s identification with legislation that would have permitted some illegal immigrants to attain citizenship, a position he moved away from in the primaries but never renounced, gives him an opportunity to compete for those voters, who except for Cubans in Florida appear to have largely settled into the Democratic camp in recent years.

Mr. Obama also supported measures that would have allowed immigrants to attain citizenship but struggled to win over Hispanic voters in his primary fight, signaling a potential problem for him in the fall campaign. Mr. Obama’s aides said the endorsement by Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, one of the nation’s most prominent Hispanic leaders, could prove more critical in the general election than in the primary.

Both sides say the states clearly in play now include Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Republicans said they hoped to put New Jersey and possibly California into play; Democrats said African-Americans could make Mr. Obama competitive in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Mr. Obama’s advisers said they had a strong chance of taking Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia away from the Republican column.

Mr. Obama has a clear financial advantage. By March 31, Mr. McCain had raised about $80 million and reported about $11 million in cash on hand. Mr. Obama had raised three times as much — about $240 million — and had more than four times as much in the bank.

But the Republican National Committee, which is permitted to spend money on Mr. McCain’s behalf, has raised $31 million, compared with just $6 million by the Democratic National Committee. And Republican officials said they were not concerned about being outspent between now and the conventions.

Mr. Obama’s advisers said that as a result of the five-month series of primaries and caucuses, he had a nearly national campaign apparatus in place and had identified and registered thousands of new voters. That said, they acknowledged that they were at a disadvantage in two important states — Florida and Michigan — because those states had early primaries in defiance of the Democratic National Committee, and the candidates agreed not to campaign there.

“Organizationally, we have now built very powerful organizations in every state but Michigan and Florida,” Mr. Plouffe said. “That is one huge silver lining to how long this nomination fight has gone on.”

Republicans will seek to portray Mr. Obama as out of touch with many voters on issues like abortion and gay rights. Some of Mr. McCain’s advisers said they also thought that Mr. Obama had displayed a number of vulnerabilities as a candidate that they would seek to exploit: they argued that he was prone to becoming irritated when tired or pressed on tough questions, that he had trouble connecting with voters in smaller settings and that he had run a campaign light on substance.

In the eyes of the Obama campaign, Mr. McCain’s chief weaknesses include continuing to embrace the Iraq war, his support for extending the administration’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans (he once opposed the idea) and his suggestion that the economy had made “great progress” in the last eight years.

Mr. Obama has said he has no intention of making age — Mr. McCain is 25 years older — an overt issue in the general election campaign. Yet in recent weeks, the Obama campaign has made a point of showing their candidate in settings, on the basketball court, as well as surrounded by his young family, that could be seen as telegraphing the message without explicitly raising the issue.


Elektorska mapa.

[pitt]

The Democrats

Almost there

May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition


Barack Obama deserves the nomination. It is not yet clear whether he deserves the presidency

IN CARTOONS there is often a moment when a hapless character, having galloped over a cliff, is still unaware of the fact and hangs suspended in the air, legs pumping wildly, until realisation dawns, gravity intervenes and downfall ensues. Hillary Clinton's campaign looks a bit like that this week. After her heavy loss in North Carolina and her barely perceptible victory in Indiana, a state she needed to carry triumphantly, Mrs Clinton's campaign is surely close to its end.

As The Economist went to press, Mrs Clinton was publicly still promising to keep on fighting right the way to the Denver convention. That remains her right. But it is hard to see what she, her party or her country can gain from the struggle.


This is largely to do with mathematics. After this week's two primaries, Barack Obama now leads by 166 elected delegates, and counting in the declared “superdelegate” party bigwigs only reduces his lead to 152. A mere six states are still in play. Mrs Clinton would stand a good chance in the first two, West Virginia and Kentucky. But thanks to the Democrats' proportional system, all the states will divide their delegates fairly closely. Mrs Clinton thus needs to win around 70% of the remaining superdelegates—a tall order when she will be behind in the popular vote. Even if she manages to get the hitherto disqualified primaries in Florida and Michigan counted (which, as it stands, would be unfair because nobody campaigned in one and Mr Obama was not on the ballot in the other), then she will come up short in terms of delegates and almost certainly in the popular vote count as well.

If Mrs Clinton bows out in the next week or so, her reputation as a tough fighter—one who has definitively forged a personality separate from her husband's—will have been enhanced. The only justification for her struggling on (assuming the money is there for her to do so) and probably plunging her party into legal warfare, would be the idea that her opponent is somehow unworthy of the nomination—in particular that Mr Obama is bound to lose in November, or that he is bound to be a poor president.



The arugula challenge
Neither charge stands up. This newspaper has hardly embraced Obamamania: we would still like to know more about what the young senator stands for; we have been appalled by some of the anti-capitalist rhetoric he (like Mrs Clinton) has spouted on the campaign trail; we worry about his strategy for leaving Iraq. But Mr Obama has plainly jumped over most of the hurdles the primary season has laid in front of him.

True, Mrs Clinton seems more popular among white working- and middle-class Americans. That puts Mr Obama at something of a disadvantage against John McCain, the Republican nominee. But arguments about Mr Obama's allure to white voters boil down rather too often to a coded argument about race: would America elect a black man? The United States still has big problems with race (see article), but its effect in the general election may be exaggerated.

Mr Obama's main problem with white voters may have more to do with class than race. To the white working man and woman, he has been seen too often as an aloof elitist, who can't drink whisky, displays a suspicious familiarity with the price of an arugula salad and memorably bowled a deplorable 37 in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Toffishness doomed John Kerry; but with Mr Obama, a child of a single mother who sometimes used food stamps, that picture is surely reversible.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama attracts other voters in a way Mrs Clinton never has. For every white bigot who switches sides because of Mr Obama's skin colour, there is likely to be a white independent—especially a young one—running to support him. The data show that young people, both black and white, prefer Mr Obama. Against Mrs Clinton, Mr McCain might have swept up all the independents; with Mr Obama he will have to split them. Mr Obama has raised money from close to 1.5m individuals, far more than anybody else ever has. That will stand him and his party in good stead come November. Each of those donors will be working hard to make sure that their investment is not wasted: an army of footsoldiers to fight the Republicans.



Tested to the point of destruction
The other point of the primary system is to see what somebody is like under pressure, and to measure their presidential character. Mrs Clinton, for instance, has stood out, thus far at least, by her refusal to quit; Mr McCain by his refusal to compromise on either Iraq or free trade. Mr Obama is a less feisty sort, but he has exhibited enormous grace under pressure. In the past few weeks he has had to cope not just with a fresh set of outpourings from his turbulent former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, now mercifully disowned, but also with Mrs Clinton throwing the kitchen sink—and a lot of sharp cutlery—at him. Mr Obama's refusal to follow her (and Mr McCain) in supporting an idiotic summer suspension of the petrol tax, crude economic populism at its worst, was especially notable.

There is one final reason why Mr Obama is almost there. More than any other candidate this year, he has articulated an idea of a nobler America. That is partly because of who he is. When Mr Obama's parents married, in 1960, a union such as theirs, between a white woman and a black man, was illegal in over half of America's states. Now their son stands at the threshold of the White House. But it also has a lot to do with what he says and how he comports himself. Despite considerable provocation, he has never wavered from his commitment to bipartisanship—nor from the idea of America once again engaging with the world. There are severe problems with the details, on which Mr McCain will hopefully push him even further than Mrs Clinton has, but the upside of an Obama presidency remains greater than that of any other candidate.

For all these reasons, Mr Obama in our view now deserves the Democratic nomination. It is surely not worth Mrs Clinton dragging this to the convention. It is time for her, at a moment of her choosing, to concede gracefully and throw the considerable weight of the Clintons behind their party's best hope.

[hik--meta]

On Election Day in Kokomo, Indiana, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

kad ovo vec sada rade iznad mason-dixon linije, kako li ce se tek na jesen angazovati ovi moji juznjaci.

[DobroJutroKolumbo]

On Election Day in Kokomo, Indiana, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

kad ovo vec sada rade iznad mason-dixon linije, kako li ce se tek na jesen angazovati ovi moji juznjaci.

Samo nam reci koji su tvoji , crnci sa plakatima ili bijelci rasisti??? Ako su ovi drugi jadno je to , sto ih zoves svojima!

[hik--meta]

On Election Day in Kokomo, Indiana, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

kad ovo vec sada rade iznad mason-dixon linije, kako li ce se tek na jesen angazovati ovi moji juznjaci.

Samo nam reci koji su tvoji , crnci sa plakatima ili bijelci rasisti??? Ako su ovi drugi jadno je to , sto ih zoves svojima!

moji su bijelci, sta mogu, jer zivim medju njima u 99% bijelom kraju, pa me valjda i oni smatraju njihovom.
a od tih 99 posto, skoro svi su rasisti. malo sam ih "normalnih" srela, mada je atlanta lafo napredna sredina u poredjenju sa ruralnim dijelovima juga.

slicno kao sto su kod nas u Bosni vecina ljudi nacionalisti...u principu ista dijagnoza.
a bolest se i ovdje prenosi s koljena na koljeno.

[jeza u ledja]

IN CARTOONS there is often a moment when a hapless character, having galloped over a cliff, is still unaware of the fact and hangs suspended in the air, legs pumping wildly, until realisation dawns, gravity intervenes and downfall ensues. Hillary Clinton's campaign looks a bit like that this week. .

ahaha sto me nasmija

[pitt]

brit sense of humor

[jeza u ledja]

we have been appalled by some of the anti-capitalist rhetoric he (like Mrs Clinton) has spouted on the campaign trail; .

Tipicno za The Economist.

[pitt]

Presidential politics

The big remaining question

May 8th 2008 | INDIANAPOLIS AND RALEIGH
From The Economist print edition



He is closer to the Democratic nomination. But how will Barack Obama's colour affect his chances in November?

Get article background

THE day before the Indiana primary, Hillary Clinton spoke in a fire station. Behind her was a fire engine. On it stood beefy firemen, framed by the Stars and Stripes. The crowd was thus reminded that Mrs Clinton is tough but caring. She did not quite promise to pluck each voter from a burning building, but she left the distinct impression that she might.

Mrs Clinton is pummelling home the message that she is a fighter who never gives up. She says so endlessly and offers subtle visual cues, such as the chap in boxing gloves standing behind her during her “celebration” speech on polling night. But even the most dogged fighters are sometimes outclassed. Barack Obama flattened her by 56% to 42% in the North Carolina primary on May 6th, and held her to a narrow two-point victory in Indiana, a state that she should have won easily. Mrs Clinton has not quite been knocked out, but she is kneeling on the canvas and groping for her mouth-guard.


Mr Obama now leads the race for the Democratic nomination by some 150 delegates. The last six contests will yield only 217 more. Since these will be allocated proportionally, Mrs Clinton cannot plausibly catch him. To win, she needs to do two things.

First she must persuade the Democratic Party to reinstate delegates from Florida and Michigan, states which were disqualified for holding their primaries too early. That is unlikely. Second, she must persuade a fat majority of unelected superdelegates to overturn the will of Democratic primary voters. Unless some gargantuan scandal suddenly engulfs Mr Obama, which seems improbable, they cannot do this without enraging most rank-and-file Democrats and nearly all blacks. That would be foolish, to put it mildly.

Pressure is mounting on Mrs Clinton to pull out. She has little money left and even less hope of victory. She could doubtless win West Virginia next week and Kentucky the week after. Both states are full of downscale whites, who typically favour her over Mr Obama. But what then?

The undecided superdelegates could end the race now, if enough of them decide to throw their weight behind Mr Obama. Some of these party bigwigs are genuinely unsure which candidate they prefer. Some are waiting to hear what voters in their home state think. Some want to make sure they back the winner. Both camps are frantically courting them.

The Clintonites remain outwardly resolute. In a conference call with reporters on May 7th, Mrs Clinton's aides said they were happy with her win in Indiana. They insisted that there has been no discussion of quitting. Mrs Clinton has lent her campaign $6.4m in the past month, and is now dipping into the hefty pool of assets she holds jointly with her husband. Her aides no longer talk about winning the popular vote; instead they are banking on the race still being “very close” after the final primaries on June 3rd.

If Mrs Clinton soldiers on, many Democrats are hoping that she will soften her attacks on the party's likely nominee. Who knows? He might even pick her as his running-mate. Meanwhile, Mr Obama has plenty of other things to worry about.



He is on the verge of proving that a black man can win the Democratic nomination. But winning the presidency is a different matter. The national electorate is whiter and more conservative than the Democratic one. And there is no precedent for what Mr Obama is attempting: no major party has ever offered voters a black presidential nominee. So it is anyone's guess what might happen. But one thing is sure: race will matter.

Mr Obama presents himself as admirably post-racial. Many voters see him that way, but some do not. Some 90% of blacks voted for him in Indiana and North Carolina. His margin of victory among blacks has increased from about 60 points in the early primaries to more than 80 in later ones, notes Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics.com, a political website. This colossal gap can hardly be attributed to the policy differences between the two candidates, which are small.

In Indiana this week, 29% of blacks told exit pollsters that the candidate's race was important to them. The true figure may be even higher, however. “It matters. He gives our children hope. He's a role model,” said Estelle Brantley, a black teacher, as she waited for Mr Obama to appear in Indianapolis. She and her friends then burst into a chorus of “Give the people what they want”, an uplifting song by the O'Jays.

Among whites the picture is more complex. In North Carolina 12% of whites said the candidate' s race mattered to them. Strikingly, of these, fully a third backed Mr Obama. As in other states, older white Democrats strongly preferred Mrs Clinton while younger ones plumped for Mr Obama. That augurs well for the future—the younger generation clearly have no insurmountable prejudice against a black candidate, and will doubtless teach their children, too, to be tolerant. This is a longstanding trend. In 1937 the notion of a black president was so far-fetched that Gallup did not ask people how they felt about it. By the mid-1960s a slim majority of Americans said they might vote for one. Last year only 5% admitted that they would never vote for a black.

People sometimes lie to pollsters, however. And even those who would not rule out voting for a black may have reservations. In Wake Forest, North Carolina, Steve Rehmar, a struggling white businessman, says that either Mrs Clinton or John McCain could govern, but that Mr Obama scares him. Mr Rehmar says he found pictures on the internet of Mr Obama failing to put his hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance. He also mentions Jeremiah Wright, Mr Obama's former pastor.

It is doubtless unfair to judge Mr Obama by the company he keeps. Like any politician, he has to snuggle up to all sorts. But since Mr Obama has such a short record in public life, voters have little to go on but their perception of his personality. And that is inevitably influenced by footage of his spiritual mentor hollering damnation on America and speculating that the government is trying to wipe out blacks with AIDS. Rev Wright reminds many whites of everything they find alarming about black America. Mr Obama is plainly neither unpatriotic nor a conspiracy theorist, and has denounced his former pastor's outbursts vigorously. But some voters remain unconvinced.

To beat Mr McCain in November, Mr Obama must persuade Americans that youth and intelligence trump age and experience. He must convince them that Mr McCain represents a third term for George Bush. And he must persuade wavering whites that he is genuinely post-racial.

This will not be easy, because in many ways black and white Americans see the world differently. (So, for that matter, do Asians and Hispanics.) To take one example: most blacks favour racial preferences for minorities in such things as university admissions. Most whites do not. Mr Obama artfully fudges the issue. He concedes that his own daughters probably should not qualify, and hints that perhaps universities should look more at economic disadvantage and less at race. But he does not commit himself to changing anything.

The key to Mr Obama's cross-racial appeal is not what he will do but who he is. Recently he has referred often to his white grandfather, who fought in the second world war, and to his white mother, who for a while scraped by on food stamps. And during his televised speeches, he makes sure to put white ladies of a certain age where the camera can see them. His visual message, which he could never articulate so bluntly, is that although he is black, he is not threatening.

[pitt]

we have been appalled by some of the anti-capitalist rhetoric he (like Mrs Clinton) has spouted on the campaign trail; .

Tipicno za The Economist.

pa sta ocekujes. Ali ljudi su u pravu....to i Obama zna (i njegovi ekonomski savjetnici).....a i Hillary (zato je podrzavala free trade kad je trebalo)......samo je problem priznati nesto sto nije popularno kod sirokih narodnih masa koji bas i ne razumiju o cemu se tu prica. Do njih samo dopire job loss....nista vise.

[jeza u ledja]

we have been appalled by some of the anti-capitalist rhetoric he (like Mrs Clinton) has spouted on the campaign trail; .

Tipicno za The Economist.

pa sta ocekujes. Ali ljudi su u pravu....to i Obama zna (i njegovi ekonomski savjetnici).....a i Hillary (zato je podrzavala free trade kad je trebalo)......samo je problem priznati nesto sto nije popularno kod sirokih narodnih masa koji bas i ne razumiju o cemu se tu prica. Do njih samo dopire job loss....nista vise.

Pa zar je 'anti-capitalist rhetoric' popularna kod sirokih narodnih masa? Ako je protiv NAFTAe, ispasce da je na kraju komunista.
Economist je dobar magazin, ali suvise desno za moj ukus, pogotovo kad je u pitanju ekonomija.

[pitt]

pa nije sad da kazu da je komunista, ali free trade je jedno od nacela pure capitalism jer jaca konkurenciju medju firmama a to odgovara potrosacu. Naravno da ima trade off jer se neki poslovi gube u nekim regijama ali to ne znaci da se radna snaga ne moze preusmjeriti na nesto drugo. Pogledaj samo sranja za ethanol ovdje gdje farmeri imaju incijativu od vlade da gaje kukuruz za ethanol sto nije optimalno (haman se vise energije potrosi u procesu nego se dobije). To utice na cijenu kukuruza koji se koristi i za druge stvari (ishranu stoke) sto utice na cijene i mesnih artikala.......umjesto da se uvozi iz Brazila gdje se dobija puno lakse od secerne trske. Ali farm loby ne da......

[jeza u ledja]

Ne mozes ti imati 'free trade' sa zemljom koja kontrolise svoju ekonomiju (Kina) ili sa zemljom koja nema jaku regulativu o zastiti okolisa ili zastiti radnika (Meksiko).

[jeza u ledja]

Nego, sta mislite koga bi Obama trebao izabrati za VP?

Ja sam cuo nekih milion prijedloga, naravno najcesci je da izabere Hilku, ali velika vecina analiticara tvrdi da se to nece desiti. Jutros gledam neku anketu, 75% Hilkinih glasaca bi odgovarao 'shared ticket' (e sad ne znam je li misle ona kao VP ili sta), dok je na to potvrdno odgovorilo samo 45% Obaminih glasaca. Mnogi kazu ma ne bi ona to ni htjela, s konja na magarca, ali ja sam uvjeren da bi ona poletila na tu poziciju, da bi mu Bill poslije mogao za vratom sjediti.

Najbolja opcija bi bio neko ko nju podrzava. Jos kad bi taj neko bio iz velike swing state drzave to bi bilo extra. Ted Strickland, guverner Ohia ili Ed Rendell guverer Pennsylvanie bi bili najbolje rjesenje. Osiguras PA ili OH (mozda bolje Ohio jer je on prosli put bio 'crven') i pola posla za izbore je zavrseno.