March 9, 2008
THE UNDEAD VS. THE DEAD MAN WALKING:
The Iron Lady: The Clinton campaign returns from the dead, again. (Ryan Lizza, March 17, 2008, The New Yorker)
Later that night, at Clinton’s victory party in Columbus (she won the Ohio primary with fifty-four per cent of the vote), Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the campaign and an unflaggingly high-spirited supporter of both Clintons, indulged in an impromptu we-told-you-so session. He taunted reporters for their eagerness to write off Clinton’s prospects. “We came back in New Hampshire, Nevada, Super Tuesday,” he said. “And we’re doing it again tonight.” After a long string of defeats for the Clinton forces, this was her moment of triumph. Just after MSNBC put a winning check mark next to Clinton’s picture, projecting her victory in Ohio, a young female volunteer did a joyous dance with friends. “Hell yeah, baby!” she shouted. “Eat it, Barack! This is a woman’s world!”McAuliffe’s agitated recap of the campaign left out some unignorable facts. He ignored that Super Tuesday, on February 5th, had widely been considered a draw. (Obama won thirteen states, Clinton won nine, and Obama emerged with a lead of more than a dozen delegates.) Nor did he mention that before March 4th Obama had won eleven straight contests—twelve counting Vermont, which he had won a few hours earlier. (Clinton was also about to win in Texas, by a margin of 51–47.) But all of these results had presented the Clinton campaign with an arithmetical dilemma. In the remaining dozen primary contests, which include the March 8th Wyoming caucus and stretch to the South Dakota primary, on June 3rd, Clinton needs to win by huge margins in order to overcome the more than hundred-delegate lead that Obama still enjoyed after March 4th. By that calculation, Clinton could reach the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination only by appealing to the so-called superdelegates—elected and Party officials who aren’t bound by actual voting in the primaries and caucuses. Would it be acceptable, I asked McAuliffe, for the superdelegates to overturn the results of the popular vote?
“You keep trying to contend the nomination is over tonight!” McAuliffe replied loudly and happily, pointing and waving his arms. “I’m telling you we have twelve states to go. Don’t tell me about the popular vote. You call me in June and then talk to me about it. We don’t know where we’re going to be. We have a lot of states. I don’t want you disenfranchising all these great states coming up. . . . Why don’t you like these people?”
The next day, a Clinton adviser was more candid about what lies ahead. “Inside the campaign, people are not idiots,” she told me. “Everyone can do the math. It isn’t like the Obama campaign has some special abacus. We can do these calculations, too. Everyone recognizes how steep this hill is. But you gotta keep your game face on.”
Ms Clinton can, over the rest of the campaign, demonstrate that she, not Senator Obama, is the popular choice of her party and that he can't possibly win the general election. She just can't win the nomination unless the super-delegates decide to shaft party activists and black folk and switch from him to her. Could Karl Rove have drawn it up any better? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 9, 2008 11:50 AM
Clinton is going to get the nomination. She'll bring the pledged delegate gap to below 100 (partly by seating MI and FL), win the popular vote, and get the SDs to then give her the majority (based on her performance in battleground states, especially after February.) In the meantime, she will drive Obama's negatives by constant attack.
Clinton's campaign is comprised of hardened operatives, Obama's are a bunch of kumbaya-singing effete academics who are in over their heads (see the deer-in-the-headlight look of the campaign this week.) Even though Obama probably won more delegates this week (or was even, at worst), the media narrative is Clinton's comeback. The NYT and Post are running full-press with the Clinton narrative, that the superdelegates should exercise their own judgment, that FL and MI should have re-dos (which benefits Clinton, by giving her more delegates and allowing her to take lead in popular vote), and that Obama is a cipher (even though the last charge is true for both Mr. Empty Suit and Mrs. Empty Pant-Suit).
Posted by: sam at March 9, 2008 2:57 PMIf I was a betting man, my money would be placed on the theory that Howard Dean is an android that karl Rove built in the basement of the White House around 2003.
Posted by: mike m at March 9, 2008 5:14 PMBefore the next election cycle the Democratic "party" will splinter into at least two groups. This will demonstrate that it never really was a party in the political sense but rather a coalition of special interest groups. The far left will care not a whit for their viability or ability to actually elect candidates. They are destroyers not builders.
Posted by: Tygurr at March 9, 2008 8:00 PMSuper-delegates aren't going to vote against the black guy.
Posted by: oj at March 9, 2008 8:57 PMOJ, if they have to vote in front of the cameras, I would agree. If they do it in the basement, in secret, all bets are off. Remember, many of the old-line blacks don't really like Obama.
Posted by: ratbert at March 9, 2008 10:53 PMI hope Hillary gets nomination and it spells the end of the Democratic party as we know it. Like Tygurr said, there could be 2 parties out the dust that settles. Then next election we find a way to split the Republicans in two and starting having meaningful political debate in this country.
Posted by: A Running Commentary at March 10, 2008 12:02 PMIt funny how now Florida and Michigan is concern the people's vote wont count, Did they think about that before they changed
the date of the Primary. If the people of both states had concerns about the date change did they speak up? now for Hilary
and her supporters now so concern about letting the people voices be heard, is that only when it benefit her. She was not that
concern about it before. You can also say that she does not keep her word if it helps her personally Is that someone we want
in the White House? To me its business as usual, Bending the rules to fit their agenda. Sounds just like the current administration
to me. For the other Political conversations going on out there on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News sometime you have to let the chips fall
where they lay. When you break the rules you have to pay the price. You don't right a wrong we are not dealing with children that
Don't know better. That committee from both States made a conscious decision to go against the Democratic National Committee
rules, Which they have that right however they don't have the right to cry foul using the peoples right to vote. That's also goes
for the Candidates. If we allow them to participate, what's the point of any committee establishing rules for us to follow. Rules are
Rules. If they expect us to follow their rules they have but in place, then they should follow them. No exception,
WHEN YOU KNOW BETTER, YOU DO BETTER.
Why should Howard Dean get to decide whose votes count and not the state parties?
Posted by: oj at March 10, 2008 5:58 PM