Hillary’s Chances — And Her Choices
Previous Post — Wisconsin and Hawaii: Another Pair of Obama Blowouts
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Let’s recap, shall we? Ever since the breathtaking comeback by the candidate I often refer to as BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi†Obama) in Missouri, where he erased a 22-point Hillary Clinton lead in the final 40% or so of votes counted to win the popular vote, these have been Obama’s individual and overall primary and caucus margins (source for most: YouDecide08):
Louisiana Primary: 22%
Virginia Primary: 28%
Maryland Primary: 24%
DC Primary: 51%
Wisconsin Primary: 17%Nebraska Caucus: 35%
Washington Caucus: 35%
Maine Caucus: 19%
Hawaii Caucus: 52%Average Primary Victory Margin: 28.4%
([22+28+24+51+17]/5)Weighted-Average Primary Victory Margin (ignoring other Dem candidates): 24.6%
(Obama total primary votes - 2.021 million [62.3%]; Clinton total primary votes - 1.223 million [37.7%])Average Caucus Margin: 32.75%
([35+35+19+52]/4)
The nine primaries and caucuses above account for 69 electoral votes, or 13% of all Electoral College votes in the presidential election.
If this were any candidate other than Hillary Clinton, they’d be screaming “Stop the fight!”
Nevertheless ….. (hesitating) ….. (hesitating) ….. (oh, all right) ….. despite doing better than the polls predicted, and despite the accepted exit-poll wisdom, Obama should have won by more in Wisconsin last night, because a large percentage of the Dairy State’s population, including Greater Milwaukee, is within 100 miles of his Chicago home base. It seems almost comical to talk of losing by almost 17% as a hopeful sign, but I actually think Obama’s slimmer margin vs. other primaries in the past two weeks indicates that Hillary’s attacks in the past week have had at least some effect.
I still don’t think Mrs. Clinton will win either Texas or Ohio, but Obama’s victories may be “held” to single digits in each of those two states, which together have 54 general-election electoral votes. I still think it will be too little, too late for Mrs. Clinton, who may find that even she and her egocentric husband can’t withstand the pleas to withdraw that will surely start cascading down on them come March 5 at about 12:01 a.m. if Obama wins both big states.
Unless ….. (hesitating) ….. (hesitating) ….. (hoo boy, here goes) ….. the Clintons decide to play one or more of three very dangerous cards in the coming two weeks: Obama’s true racial makeup (hint: it’s not African-American, per Kenneth Lamb), his “composite”-reliant autobiography (with a healthy dash of Oprahypocrisy vs. another less-than-truthful author), and/or his father’s true life story (vs. the one Obama wrote up).
It will not be enough for Mrs. Clinton to rely on surrogates — even her husband — to play these cards for her. She’ll have to roll them out herself, maybe even at one of the remaining debates. If it works, she’s a ruthless genius. If it backfires, she may be seen to have played the ultimate in race cards, in which case she and her husband could be ruined in the Democratic Party for life.
It’s even conceivable that she could decide to play one or more of these cards after losing OH and TX in an attempt to sway superdelegates, and perhaps even to turn “pledged” delegates. Although that would redefine winning ugly, it’s not inconceivable.
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UPDATE 1: If Obama-Clinton were a general presidential election, Obama would be ahead in electoral votes (EVs) 193-161, if no credit is given to Clinton for MI and FL’s tainted 44 EVs. By running the table on March 4 (OH, TX, VT, and RI), he would “win” another 61 EVs, and, at 254, would be within 16 of gaining a majority of the Electoral College’s 538 EVs.
Even if Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is right about the unwillingness of his state’s white Democrats to pull the lever for a non-white candidate, Obama could achieve that mythical EV majority with a clearly likely win in NC (15 EVs) plus any one of eight remaining primary or caucus states. UPDATE 1A: This assumes that Obama would win all EVs in ME and NE, which can split their electoral votes. Based on his overall margins in those states, that’s a pretty safe assumption.
UPDATE 2: On Sunday, Andrew Walden at Pajamas Media wrote of how the Clintons “risk ’setting black America free from the Democrat Party.’”
UPDATE 3: Larry Kudlow channels 10 day-old BizzyBlog — “It’s Over.”
re: update 2, I have said in the past before the 2006 elections that the Dem Party was going to dump the black vote for the hispanic vote using illegals. If Obama doesn’t win, that outcome will become all but assured. Can you imagine the look of shock on their faces as they are figuratively escourted out of the Dem party?
Looking at this from the Dem party boss POV, Blacks have gotten everything they could get from the Dem party, they don’t have anything left to offer but more of the same empathetic whining over their past victimization. The poverty programs are getting too expensive to justify continual victimhood. The hispanics on the other hand are a new and larger minority block vote that could be pandered to in new and less expensive ways. IMO, since Obama dared to challenge the established pecking order of victim groups within the Dem party, his challenging the order by not having Hillary, a woman, win the nomination means they have become too high maintenance to pander to anymore. Remember that at the beginning of 2007 Hillary had all but sown up the Dem nomination and the primaries were merely a formality for her coronation. Obama spoiled the whole plan by not waiting his turn, and there must be consequences for that.
Here’s to hoping it will play out that way in November 2008.
Comment by dscott — February 20, 2008 @ 12:53 pm