Being the almost presumptive nominee of the party must be a lonely place for Barack Obama. He has won the majority of pledged delegates (pre-Saturday showdown), and got not a lot of media mileage out of it. He has been the frontrunner ever since it became clear that the Clinton campaign didn't have a competent caucus strategy in late-February, and he still isn't officially the nominee. And now he is looking toward a weekend when the DNC will probably delay his ascendency by raising the number of delegates required for nomination. He probably will be nominated in the end, but will do so after having probably received fewer votes than his opponent, which- if everyone is being honest- is not a position of strength.
Being Hillary Clinton must be even harder. For over a year, she was touted as the inevitable nominee only to realize too late that her campaign had failed her. The "we'll-maybe-win-in-Iowa-and-definately- win-New-Hampshire-and-then-everything-wi ll-be-roses" strategy looks profoundly dumb in retrospect. She is left with cards that are not that great, even after having outperformed Obama down the stretch.
I am a dyed in the wool Clinton supporter, but the above is not snarky. I imagine that running for President is not an easy thing to do. I legitimately feel sorry for both Obama and Clinton: they have both inspired unprecendented levels of support and it is June and no one has won yet.
Obama will, to a 95% degree of liklihood, be the nominee in the end. I don't like it, and I am still deciding whether to vote for Obama or write in Clinton in November. But I respect Obama (if not all of his supporters). My potential protest vote has more to do with the process that got him here than him personally.
I do have some concerns about Obama and his campaign at this juncture. Before I experience the snarky comments that are inevitable from Obama's supporters, let me throw you a little bone. The below are big problems for Obama. Clinton's problem is larger: she probably lost.
Here are my thoughts:
The FL / MI Showdown
I have no idea what the Rules and Bylaws committee will ultimately decide. My own personal view is that doing what the Republicans did (1/2 vote) would probably be appropriate. I also believe that awarding Obama delegates from MI or splitting the delegates 50/50 is a silly enterprise- making up delegate allocations based not based on votes is undemocratic and flies in the face of the one person, one vote theory. Alas, that's another diary.
It sounds like it is equally unlikely that either candidate will truly get their way. Not seating the delegations at all (Obama) seems as unlikely as seating them fully based on their January primaries (Clinton). I have been reading for the past several days that some sort of Solomonic solution is in the works. I hope that it is something that we can all accept, even if not cheer about.
What does, for example, giving the FL/MI delegates each one-half of a vote do to the numbers?
Well, it would raise the number of delegates needed for nomination from 2025 to 2130.5. (link: http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/05/ fl-mi-by-numbers_21.html see scenario #4). At this moment, that would leave Obama 96 delegates away from the nomination, and Clinton 246. In other words, Clinton gets no real-world benefit, but does gain a few delegates on Obama.
Let's play with the math a little bit. Let's give Obama 25 delegates from PR (seems generous) and 16 from MT and SD (realistic). That puts him, under this scenario, 55 delegates away. Let's give Clinton 30 delegates from PR (low-balling) and 14 from Montana and SD. That puts her 202 delegates away. Would Obama win? Almost certainly.
(The above scenario does not give Obama Michigan's uncommitted delegates. I think that this idea is a miscarraige of justice and in no way a "fair" solution. But again, another diary. If the decision does go that way, then that would put Obama about 35, rather than 55, delegates away.)
But here's my question: I would have thought that the Obama people would have absolutely moved heaven and earth to get to 2025 before Saturday, so that he could be declared the presumptive nominee. It still may happen, but 45 superdelegates in two days exceeds anything that we have seen in the campaign. Being the presumptive nominee and then having it taken away from you by bar-raising by the Rules and Bylaws Committee would have been a really powerful argument to the American people and the non-establishment Democratic party: "see the hoops they're putting me through," etc. etc. It hasn't happened. Why not?
The Electoral Map
Gallup released an interesting set of numbers profiling a small but notable Clinton edge against McCain. (link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/107539/Hillar y-Clintons-SwingState-Advantage.aspx) This data indicates that Clinton performs better in the states that she won in the general than Obama does in his- where he and Clinton run roughly equally. Further, since Clinton won states that comprise roughly 60% of the national electorate, that parlays into a real world advantage, argues Gallup.
Poblano, who is an amateur analyst, apparently professional statistician, and Obama supporter who has gained a lot of notoriety in the blogosphere this primary season for his/her analysis, which was spot-on on Super Tuesday. After exhibiting data on his/her new website for months showing Obama with a general election advantage, in recent weeks, Clinton has demonstrated real strength and now exceeds Obama's win percentage by a healthy margin. (61.8% to 51.8%). If you haven't checked out Poblano's site, do. It's chock full of wonderful charts and graphs and delicious statistical analysis that I don't pretend to understand. (link: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ )
Just today, Survey USA released a poll showing Obama losing Michigan. It looks to me like the general consensus of polling and commentary that I have seen shows that Clinton has the potential of winning a lot of states that Obama doesn't. Arkansas, West Virginia, and Florida come to mind. Clinton even currently leads McCain in Kentucky and North Carolina. In other words, a coalition that almost certainly would win the White House.
Obama seems to win Colorado, head to another close election in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and maybe bring Virginia to the table. (I have read that those in the know think that an Obama win in Virginia is unlikely, though I am more interested in evidence through credible polling which indicates that he certainly has a good shot.) In other words, a tossup.
My question, and the one that I imagine makes the Obama people uneasy: seeing whereas no one has won yet, and the primaries have been basically a tie- does this not matter?
I think it probably won't in the end- but it certainly should, in my opinion. Since February, the media juggernaut has been preaching that the only "fair" outcome is an Obama nomination, which seems exceedingly likely.
The Popular Vote
So far, Clinton's claims of leading in the popular vote have been catcalled by Obama's supporters because the claims inevitably include Florida and Michigan. Those were not DNC-santioned contests, we are told, so we shouldn't count the votes of the millions of people who voted there, either. As of Saturday, the likely will be DNC-sanctioned contests, which almost guarantees Clinton a popular vote lead. That and a quarter will get Clinton a newspaper. But it's something to brag about and is a huge consolation prize, to be sure.
Running for President is hard work. These two have inspired beyond anyone's expectations. The end is near, apparently. I look forward to the DNC's decision and to Puerto Rico this weekend. We will learn a lot in the next 96 hours: how far away is Obama from the nomination? Will Clinton win by enough in Puerto Rico to earn bragging rights by winning the popular vote, even including caucus estimates? In the end, I hope that the right thing will happen.
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