Before tonight, Hillary Clinton’s chances of taking the Democratic nomination were slim to none. Well, Slim just left town, for two reasons.
The first is that while the superdelegates will decide the nomination, it’s very hard politically for them to go against the perceived will of the people. One measure of that is the allocation of pledged delegates, of which Obama just clinched a majority. The other measure is the popular vote. Clinton picked up about a quarter million net popular votes in Kentucky, but it looks like Obama is winning big in Oregon and may make up over 100,000 net popular votes there (as of this writing, the spread is Obama +60,000 with 45% of precincts reporting). To claim a majority of the popular vote, Clinton would need to win by very unlikely double-digit margins in the three remaining contests, or she’d need to count her margin in Michigan where Obama wasn’t even on the ballot.
The other reason is Obama’s total delegate count is very, very close to the 2025 that constitute an absolute majority of the delegates who would be seated under current DNC rules. If his current margin in Oregon holds up and he get a mere 40% of the delegates from the last three contests, he’ll only need 25 more superdelegates to join him to enter the convention with a majority. This means not only that he would win the nomination if the Florida and Michigan delegations aren’t seated, but also that he would almost certainly win a floor fight over whether or not to seat those delegations. Barring a mass defection of declared superdelegates, Hillary can’t win; all she can do is lose ugly, and I’m not sure what’s in that for her. I expect her to continue to campaign until the primaries are over, then cut a deal to endorse Obama gracefully at the convention.
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Dean:
Pretty good analysis. Just about three months too late is all.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..The Daily Toon
Oh, Dean called it for Obama weeks ago. I argued that Clinton had a shot if she could win big in WV, KY, and PR while keeping the vote close in OR, MT, and SD. She’s two for two so far in winning big, but she completely failed at keeping it close in Oregon, by far the biggest of the Obama-leaning late-voting states.
Will of the people? What will of the people? The Democratic Party is a private party. That’s to say, no one in the party leadership has any obligation to honor the will of the primary voters.
The primary process is not part of the Constitutional election process. Therefore, there is no obligation to "obey the will" of any people.
Superdelegates are free to ignore primary voters and there’s nothing those primary voters can do but whine.
I’d say leave the party but I firmly believer most Democrats vote party over, well, common sense.
And a Republican is far more likely to leave the party in disgust than a Democrat.
From a legal perspective, you’re absolutely right. I’m talking about a political perspective. Remember that most superdelegates are elected officials who risk losing the support of Democrats in their constituency if they’re perceived (rightly or wrongly) to be defying the will of Democratic primary voters. Democrats might not vote against them in the general election, but it adds to the risk of a challenge in the primaries next election from angry Obama supporters who blame them for helping to "steal" the nomination.
I live in King County, Washington, and I’m involved in the local Republican party. In 2004, there was an extremely close election for Governor, and the Republican candidate, Dino Rossi, lost in the official vote by less than the number of ballots known to be cast by fraudulent registrations in heavily Democratic precincts in King County. Rossi is running again this year, and I’m seeing first-hand exactly how powerful the stolen election narrative is. I imagine it’s even more powerful among the Democratic base, most of whom believe the 2000 Presidential election was stolen and many of whom believe the 2004 election was also stolen. How do you think they’d react if they perceive the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination to be stolen as well?
Never mind that the entire reason the superdelegates are part of the system is to permit the party establishment to veto the will of Democratic primary voters in marginal cases when they think the winner of the primaries isn’t the best nominee. If Democrats don’t think it’s legitimate for the superdelegates to determine the outcome of a close primary battle, they should change the rules to abolish the superdelegates.
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the way superdelegates vote kept confidential? If that’s so, how will a Democrat voter know whom to retaliate against?
Public pledges, Kevin, public pledges. People will start demanding them, and start assuming that a superdelegate who won’t make one has something to hide.
As soon as true inevitability hits — I’m not convinced it’s quite there yet — watch for an onslaught of superdelegate pledges.
So pledge publically for the "popular" candidate and vote privately for the one who’s actually electable and at least borderline competent.
Or have politicians suddenly turned honest while we weren’t looking?
But that probably won’t happen. And Hillary’s nearing the point where she’ll have to drop out or be seen as a spoiler working for McCain, and she can’t abide that (even if it’s true.)
bcostin’s last blog post..A sweet deal if you can get it.
I did say some time ago that it was probably time for Hillary to concede, but, I can’t deny that it’s possible for her to win still. But it’s basically like a football game where the two minute warning has sounded, and Team Hillary needs two touchdowns and a field goal to win. It could happen, but…
I still don’t see why Hillary should concede, even if she values the Party strength more then her own political ambitions.Â
At this point, I think it would be foolish for the candidates not to compete through June 3 and finish out the primaries. That way, whatever happens, they can at least say the went through the whole process for everyone (well, everyone but FL and MI.)Â
Then, any primary competitiveness is just for Super-delegates, which doesn’t really drain any war chests. Obama can focus on McCain (as can Hillary, and at that point she should) while still leaving the question just a tiny bit open for the convention. Everyone will ‘know’ what the answer will be, but the slight possibility that something could happen will focus even more on the convention and keep the spotlight on the Democrats. Hillary might pull off the impossible, which would be good for her (and I happen to think really good for Democratic chances in the fall) and even if she doesn’t, her lack of a concession probably benefits the party. Of course that last bit requires a very gracious handling of a concession speech at the convention, but a that point that would be in her best interest, and I’m sure she will follow it.Â
Dave Justus’s last blog post..Obama’s economic vision
Hillary can’t get Michigan and Florida counted, which means that Obama can’t carry Florida (and probably not Michigan), which means that Obama can’t win.
In other words, the primary picked a candidate that can’t win. Which is what, you know, the superdelegates are supposed to prevent.
Phelps’s last blog post..Handing it to McCain
Do you honestly think all the Florida and Michigan Democrats are going to vote Republican over this? It’s really the fault of their state-level party offices that their primary votes didn’t count, and the majority of Florida and Michigan Democrats didn’t even vote in the primaries to begin with because they KNEW it wouldn’t count. The minority that DID vote, and still didn’t get counted, will be frustrated, but I doubt that frustrating will lead to them jumping ship from their party, and I don’t think that majority who didn’t vote to begin with will be much effected.
Honestly, I believe Obama has a much better chance in Florida and Michigan then either Gore or Kerry did, not because of his ability to carry the Democratic core, but because of his ability to win over the middle, which I think is very large in both of those states. Of course, this is also an area where McCain is really strong,
so we’ll see how that plays out.
I think that Hillary supporters in FL and MI will be more angry and less reconcilable with an Obama nomination than they would be if their delegates were counted. The result will be a few percent more staying home, voting for McCain, or voting for a third party candidate, which may make the difference in a close race. Obama can still win those states, but it’ll be harder for him than for Hillary.
I love how everyone talks about this as though it were some kind of happenstance. Obama didn’t do anything stupid like, oh, I dunno, remove his own name from the Michigan ballot for no good reason, oh no. By pure chance it just "happened" not to appear there. Or maybe he misunderstood the "don’t campaign in FL or MI" rule to mean "take your name off one of those two states’ ballots, but not the other."
Sorry, not buying it. In my book you don’t get to kill your parents and then demand sympathy because you are an orphan. If Obama’s blunder cost him The Popular Vote, oh well. He made the bed, let him lie in it.
Xrlq’s last blog post..A Modest Proposal
I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make, Xrlq. Sure, he didn’t put his name on the ballot. Where is he trying to get sympathy for that, or where is anybody trying to give him sympathy for that? Matters of sympathy are entirely beside the point.
On the whole, it may well work to his advantage that he was NOT on the ballot there, because it makes not seating the Michigan delegates seem like an even more credible move. I suppose your point is probably that it shouldn’t effect he likelihood of counting the Michigan results, but honestly, that’s at most icing on the cake. It’s not the reason Michigan isn’t getting counted.
Heru: I’m pretty sure Michigan won’t go Republican, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Florida did. Michigan already leans Democratic, and Republicans are unpopular here at the moment although McCain is liked. Still, the dire economic straits here will probably make it go Democrat no matter what. Probably. There may be some pissed off voters but I doubt if it’ll be enough to make a huge difference.
Florida’s a different matter. The state is pretty evenly split Democrat/Republican, and McCain is also liked there. Even 1 or 2% of angry voters switching sides might deliver Florida to him in November.
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