Hello everybody. You may remember my highly-controversial diary from back on February 6th. In it, I predicted that Obama would go on an outstanding 11 contest winning streak that month, gain a huge lead in the pledged delegates, then deliver the knock-out punches on March 4th by overcoming Clinton’s 20 point leads in Texas and Ohio.
Turns out that didn’t happen. Clinton still won Ohio handily (although Obama did cut into her lead) and eked out a narrow victory in Texas. A few more points for Obama in the Lone Star State and who knows? I might have been a seer!
Of course, one idea from my original post remains true: We’re talking when Clinton drops out, not if.
Even with Clinton's big night, the delegate count remains unchanged. By the preliminary counts, she gained one delegate. Last night decided one-third of the remaining delegates in play, and Clinton (at best) saw Obama's lead drop from 161 to 160. Texas and Ohio were Clinton's biggest and best two states remaining, too. They were her Georgia and South Carolina. Clinton is fast running out of states.
This thing is not going to the convention. I say that not as an Obama supporter, but at someone who can do math. Obama racked up his delegate lead not by just winning states, but winning them big. When Obama wins a state, he racks up a big victory. When Clinton wins a state, she wins narrowly. In this proportional delegate system, there is a big difference between winning a state by 4 points and winning it by 35. Here is an excellent analysis of what Clinton is up against. Even if she wins every future district in every future contest by 25%, she'll still be 50 delegates shy of Obama.
As for the Super Delegates, they are the Party Leaders/Elected Officials that get votes at the convention in August. Most of them are of the opinion that they should vote for the leader in the delegates, aka the people's choice. In fact, that is exactly what has happened at every convention since they were created. The Super Delegates have always ratified the winner of the delegate race up to that point (even in ’84). These people are elected officials that can't afford to tick off their constituents over something so trivial as the nominee. Not many Super Delegates are going to sacrifice their political lives so that Clinton can be the nominee. Only one of them is actually wed to Hillary Clinton.
Furthermore, as the pledged delegate leader, Obama will control all the committees at the DNC. He (and his supporters) will vote on how and if to seat Florida and Michigan. If Obama has a pledged delegate lead going into the convention, Florida and Michigan won't matter. Obama will either seat a delegation from the two states that doesn't change the outcome or he won't seat them at all.
So the campaign keeps going. I have yet to see anybody, even Clinton's supporters and advisers, give a real scenario in which she can become the nominee. Mike Lux at Open Left had aninteresting postlast night:
So I'm having lunch with an old friend from the Clinton administration today, a veteran of the '92 and '96 campaigns and top-notch political operative, a true-blue Hillary loyalist who has maxed out to her campaign, took time off to go to Iowa for the last two weeks, helped out in the Potomac primary, etc. She is feeling guilty about not being in Ohio or Texas for these last few days, bemoaning the way the campaign has gone, talking emotionally about what a great President that Hillary would be.
At some point, I gently ask the question that has been on my mind for awhile: even if you get good news tonight, is there any scenario you see for a Hillary nomination that doesn't involve a really, really ugly endgame? You know, a nasty credentials fight, high-pressure arm-twisting and unseemly deal-cutting with superdelegates, continued trashing of Obama on every imaginable topic?
There was silence across the table. She said, "No, I can't think of any other way at this point."
There’s no way around it. Clinton would have to win all the remaining states by 70-30 margins. She would have to win over many more Super Delegates than Obama by convincing them to go against the pledged delegate leader. She would have to come up with new rationales to continue now that she only has a few states remaining that are favorable to her.
At some point, the Clinton campaign is going to have to look at the facts and realize that they cannot win this contest, barring a huge Obama scandal in which it's revealed he has a secret family of neo-Nazis living in Idaho. (They can't say that he's fathered a black child. It's been done.) Howard Fineman last night said that one top Clinton adviser described the mood as "grim determination." He said that they know the math doesn't add up for them, but they're going to continue anyway if Clinton wins both Texas and Ohio.
At least the Democrats are going to get a lot of free media in the next six weeks. While John McCain has no competition, Obama will continue to hold giant rallies, have debates, and build party infrastructure for November. Clinton is Obama's trainer, you could say, toughening him up for the general election.
Upcoming, we have Wyoming on Saturday the 8th and Mississippi next Tuesday, the 11th. Obama is heavily favored to win both of those and will easily wipe out any gains Clinton made last night.
Then there is nothing until Pennsylvania on April 22nd. After that we have: North Carolina and Indiana on May 6th, West Virginia on the 13th, and Kentucky and Oregon on the 20th. Obama is the clear favorite in North Carolina, Indiana, and Oregon. West Virginia and Kentucky are unknown. Pennsylvania is anybody's game.
Last night didn't change the final outcome, it just made the campaign longer. A couple more points in Texas and this thing would have been over. Instead, the groundhog saw his shadow and we get six more week of campaigning.