After West Virginia
A few things for Clinton supporters to keep in mind after West Virginia.
- 7% of the populace voted for John Edwards, so even among her much-touted support from less-educated blue collar workers contains enough people who dislike both an african american and a woman as President so much that they'll vote for a guy who dropped out of the race months ago, just because he's male and white."
- She previously needed 70+% of the vote in every remaining state to take the lead in elected delegates. Although 67% of the votes is close, West Virginia was her best chance and she couldn't even meet that threshold. How is she going to meet the same standard in more Obama friendly states that remain?
- With the WV results factored in, Clinton now needs to win over 80% of all remaining votes. If you include FL and MI with the same delegate breakdown I have been using all along, she needs more than 71% of all remaining votes. She's simply not going to get that. And after making such a big fuss about how not seating FL and MI is disenfranchising those voters, it's kind of hard to swallow the idea that her entire chances rest on the superdelegates reversing the elected delegate totals, thus "disenfranchising" a whole lot more voters than just MI and FL.
She can't win, mathematically, without a major event in the Obama campaign, and if such an event were to happen, she'd be the obvious choice even if she does drop out now.
So why stay in it?
Liam.
posted by Liam at 5/14/2008 10:26:00 AM
4 Comments:
So why stay in?
Well, I can't presume to understand Clinton or put myself in her shoes. But perhaps the devil's advocate might give the following reasons she might stay in:
-- Hey, a chance is a chance, so why not stay in for the duration?
-- And why not hope for a major event in the Obama campaign?
-- She owes it to her voters?
Hmmm, they all seem lame to me. Tonight on CBS Clinton said there will be a clear winner of delegates by May 31, but hey there's always those super delegates.
Katie Couric asked bluntly about the white working class remarks. Clinton's response was basically that it was taken out of context (my words, I think she cited some article or somthing).
The photo of Edwards and Obama has the feel of a future VP nominee relationship. Perhaps it's because I wanted Edwards as the nominee, but I think the duo, whether it's just an endorsement or in fact a running mate relationship in the future, makes a strong impression.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:47:00 PM
Unfortunately, I think it's simpler than that: After nearly a year of being the presumptive nominee (before the primaries actually started), she simply can't conceive of anyone, certainly not some relative newcomer to the national Democratic political scene, beating her. She's Hillary Clinton, damnit, how can people not see that this job should be hers?
From my side, as I've said before, I don't believe her chances are any worse if she bows out now, and might actually be marginally better. She could still keep her core group of insiders digging for that damaging story that all but disqualifies Obama, and should it come up she becomes the logical backup plan, rather than the reluctant "I guess, but really, after her behavior, I hate to do it" candidate.
I'm just so tired of the schizophrenic message from the Clinton campaign. "We really must seat FL and MI, because every vote deserves to be counted, every voter deserves to be heard" sounds really great, until you hear the other side of her mouth saying "Well, the super delegates' job is to pick the stronger nominee and the stronger potential President". How can you have it both ways? Either the votes and voters matter supremely or they don't matter at all, but you can't be all high and mighty about the sanctity of the vote when it suits you and then dismiss that vote in the next breath. Unless, apparently, you're Hillary Rodham Clinton.
As to Edwards as the VP nominee, I still think if he has a place in an Obama administration it'll be as Attorney General.
Someone on TV today made a really great point as to why he wouldn't be a great VP partner for Obama: He's not enough of an attack dog. They have a pretty common message, that's true, but one of the complaints about Obama is that he hasn't managed to "close the deal", and I think the big reason for that is that he continues to run a positive campaign. He is doing amazingly well for someone who hasn't particularly "gone negative", but it's hard to administer the coup de grace without it.
Obama needs someone who can go out and be the pit bull to his uniter, and after the Kerry/Edwards candidacy of four years ago, that's pretty clearly NOT John Edwards.
Liam.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 10:25:00 PM
NPR had a news item this evening pointing out that winning the nomination is not necessarily the only reason for her to stay in the race. There are other goals she may have that depend on back-room deals at the convention: assistance in repaying her campaign debt, promise of a cabinet or even Supreme Court position, or even the running mate spot. (Frankly I think she'd be a terrible running mate for Obama but Guiliani disagrees.) Nobody has committed to any of these things of course, nor even admitted to the press that they are a possibility, but then they wouldn't, would they? And in order to fight for any of these things she needs to keep the power that she has from her delegates.
And as I said in the other blog entry, Obama also can't get the nomination without superdelegates. It's just as mathematically impossible for Obama to clinch the nomination solely with committed delegates as it is for Clinton. Your calculations about what Clinton needs to do to obtain a simple majority of committed delegates are immaterial; even if she did obtain that, the superdelegates must make their own decisions.
Your response in the other post seemed to be basically that if the superdelegates throw it to Clinton "against" the committed delegate balance it wouldn't be easily swallowed by the party at large -- but anything can happen.
The very fact that neither candidate was able to obtain the required majority of committed delegates to clinch the nomination points out to me that the Democratic party is deeply divided over who would make a better president, and that without the "wiser heads" of the superdelegates, neither candidate is really measurably stronger than the other.
Just to hammer the point home, in response to the last paragraph of your last comment: Obama can't win either, mathematically, unless Hillary drops out. So why should he stay in it either?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:22:00 PM
Wow, Ross, I never saw your comment come in, which is odd, because I'm supposed to have to moderate them.
I agree that there are other reasons for her to stay in the race, and actually, given the extent to which she seems to have started "playing nice", most likely those are what's at play here, instead of any real belief that she can win.
I think Obama needs a VP candidate LIKE Clinton, but I think she herself would not be suited to the position. As I said above, personally, I think Obama needs a VP who can be the "bad cop" to his "good cop".
But your point is a good one about who can win, except... I am one of those in the camp that says this long divide is hurting the Democratic Party, giving the McCain camp lots of breathing room and fodder for the general election.
And I think it's fairly clear that the super delegates seem to be breaking in Obama's favor in the last few months, he's taken a lead in endorsements from super delegates for the first time just recently and has been slowly pulling away.
There simply doesn't seem to be anything out there to convince the supers that it would be anything but politically bad for the party to reverse the decision of the elected delegates. And unless Clinton can pull off unprecedented wins in both states today, Obama will have won more than 50% of the elected delegates as of tomorrow morning.
My frustration with Clinton is that she's clearly in it for herself. Her position on who should be counted or what's important changes from day to day and even paragraph to paragraph in the same speech (talking at one minute about how we must count FL and MI because the opinions of ALL the voters count in the US and then talking about how she believes she's the stronger candidate and the superdelegates should pick her).
The reason she should get out, in my opinion, is that her chances of winning are slim and not worth the damage she continues to do to the party. Obama does not have the same issue. Obama can win mathematically if Hillary does not drop out.
According to CNN, as of today, Obama has 1613 pledged and 305 super delegates. Clinton has 1442 pledged and 277 super delegates.
That means 1918 for Obama (107 away from a mathematical clinch with 188 pledged delegates still out there) and 1719 for Clinton (306 away).
Yes, it's unlikely that Obama can win the kinds of margins he'd need to take 107 of 188, but it's not nearly as impossible as for Clinton to win 306 of 188.
Yes, that does include the super delegates already in each camp, but frankly, I don't seem much chance of more than one or two of them flipping sides at this point, unless either candidate does something extremely stupid before the convention, and if that happens, it really doesn't matter if the other is still in the race or not.
Ah well, it's really up to Clinton, as long as she wants to keep spending the money, she has the right to keep running. I just don't have to respect her decision to do so.
Liam.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 1:49:00 PM
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