New York Times: Clinton win in PA changes nothing

April 23rd, 2008 | email this | digg it

Leave your comment Posted by Scott Tribe

SO, I’m about to blogpost something this morning about the US Democratic presidential race in PA last night. (against the wishes of my fellow blogger Jamie. C’mon Jamie, lighten up! We can’t always talk about Canadian politics, and it is a significant event )

Clinton got the win in Pennsylvania most expected her to get, but her ~~9.4%~~ ~~8.6%~~ 9.4% margin of victory netted her anywhere from +7 to +12 delegates, it appears - statistically insignificant into digging into Obama’s lead. Chuck Todd was on MSNBC last night saying Clinton now has to win 80-90% of the remaining races to catch Obama’s lead in pledged delegates - and that will not happen.

Of course, Clinton’s surrogates and supporters; both down there and up here, are crowing over this and attempting to spin this as some great victory, but one of her major endorsers - the New York Times - is not impressed and is more realistic:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday..Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

Not quite a call for her to concede, but pretty close, if you read between the lines.

North Carolina and Indiana are next. North Carolina has been a strong supporter of Obama from past polls, and if those polls are correct - he will win there by a good margin, probably wiping out the meagre gains Clinton had last night. That brings us to Indiana, a state that Clinton has led in, but some recent polls show Obama has overtaken her. I would submit that if Obama wins both NC and Indiana, whose combined delegates up for grabs equals what was at stake in PA last night, the party leaders and/or supers will probably start to endorse Obama for the nomination and try to prevent this from going to the Convention floor if Clinton still refuses to concede.

8 Responded To This Post

14676. Tom Robinson said on April 23, 2008 at 10:08 am

Hillary is going to win convention and therfore Macain is going to win the Presidency.

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14677. Scott Tribe said on April 23, 2008 at 10:24 am

Ok.. and explain how. She IS going to win 80-90% of the delegates? YOu’re being delusional.

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14678. Lord Kitchener's Own said on April 23, 2008 at 11:54 am

There is CLEARLY only one way for Clinton to win the nomination at this point, and that is the Super Delegates. There is ZERO chance she can catch up in the delegate count now, and what, a 1% chance she can overtake him in the popular vote? NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Her ONLY chance is for the Super Delegates to say “Well, Obama has more delegates, and Obama got more votes, but you know what, we’re gonna give it to Clinton”. What realistic chance is there that this would happen? That party big wigs would say “Sure, he’s winning. Sure, he’s received more votes. We’re just not going to give it to him though. ‘Cause.” (picture Super Delegate sticking out their tongue).

It’s just not going to happen.

I thought it was fascinating last night that CNN showed 3 different popular vote calculations: with just primary states, with primary states AND caucus states, and with primary states, caucus states, AND FLORIDA. Obama is winning ALL THREE, and as you point out, short of winning around 90% of the remaining races, Hillary can’t do a thing about it.

She’s got two EXCEEDINGLY remote shots. One, the single greatest collapse of a political candidate in the history of the universe (which I think will require AT LEAST the use of the words “dead” and “hooker”), or, for the party big wigs to decide that they’re going to take the nomination away from an African American candidate who has both more votes, and the support of more delegates.

I think the deceased prostitute is more likely.

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14690. James Bow said on April 23, 2008 at 9:06 pm

You know, a part of me hopes that this goes all the way to Puerto Rico. It would be just so cool to have this state that doesn’t get a vote in the presidential election finally casting votes that matter in the presidential race. It would be just so cool to see Obama and Clinton campaigning in America’s soon-to-be 51st state.

The Democrats managed to register an additional 300,000 voters in Pennsylvania, so I’m thinking the real winner yesterday was democracy.

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14691. Danielle Takacs said on April 23, 2008 at 9:11 pm

I think people are simply giving too much credit to the superdelegates to make a sensible choice. In the end they are party insiders and nothing in the rules prevents them from over-ruling the grassroots.

As I said last night in my own after thoughts, superdelegates could come up with all sorts of justifcations for handing Clinton the nomination: (NOTE: these are NOT my reasons, I’m just saying what they could come up with as possible rationales): Obama can’t beat McCain (in fact polls right now she her doing better on a state by state basis then Obama - see the front page of http://www.mydd.com/), Obama can’t win working class voters the Democrats need to win, Obama can’t win states Democrats need to win (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio), voters in all the earlier states would have voted differently (i.e., for Hillary Clinton) if they knew more about Obama and so on. All these arguments are dubious on some levels but they could be used to justify thwarting the popular will to give Hillary the nomination.

I’ve not picked sides in this race but the New York Times notwithstanding there is narrative now of “why couldn’t Obama seal the deal” and why couldn’t he win in Pennsylvania when he campaign very hard and spent way more money. Whether Obama likes are not he will be asked these questions and forced to justify why he thinks he wouldn’t end up like Dukakis in 1988.

I still think Obama has easily the best chance to win, but I think there are enough reasons still there not to count Hillary Clinton out. I know you support Obama Scott and want him to win but that doesn’t mean the superdelegates will give it to him just because it seems like the right thing to do (he is after all against someone who’s links to the party establishment are much stronger than his).

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14693. Scott Tribe said on April 23, 2008 at 9:22 pm

Danielle:

Mydd.com is a well known Hillary Clinton shill site.. more so then Kos is a supporter of Obama. I take everything I see from that site with a large grain of salt as Clinton propaganda.

I also don’t buy the “Obama can’t seal the deal” argument. Why? a) Hillary Clinton is definitely a strong candidate, and she has her own demographic that like her, and b) people seem to be forgetting that the last Democratic President in the Oval Office - that being Hillary’s husband, took until June to win his nomination formally.

That stuff is just a bunch of Hillary propaganda spin coming from that side.

I do not believe that the supers will thwart the majority of the elected/pledged delegates. They risk open civil war at the Convention if they do… and I think the leaders of the Dems like Dean and Reid and Pelosi know that.. and won’t let it get that far.

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14714. ted said on April 24, 2008 at 10:48 pm

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/04/23/by_jonathan_weisman_barack_oba.html

Washington Post reported that Obama would bring up Clinton scandals. “Scorched earth” by both sides.

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14724. Ted said on April 25, 2008 at 10:58 pm

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Hamas_Endorses_Obama/2008/04/17/88754.html

Obama now has the endorsement of Hamas. This fits in nicely with Calypso Louis Farrakhan.

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