After Mississippi: Dem Delegates and the Electoral College ‘Argument’
The candidate I refer to as BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi†Obama) went back into wipeout mode last night, defeating the candidate I refer to as HR4C (Hillary Rodham Cackling Crying Complaining Clinton) 61-37%.
Ouch.
Updating this post from Monday, here’s the delegate situation:
So here’s where we are:
- Obama, after adjusting the estimate at Real Clear Politics to reflect his reported 98-95 delegate margin in Texas, is ahead 1612-1487.
- Assuming no more superdelegates (”superdels”) commit or switch to him, he would have to take 70% of the 586 primary election delegates still in play to win the nomination outright. Clinton would have to take an absurd 92%. Clinton’s ability to win without more superdels than she now has would end on April 22, the date of the Pennsylvania Primary. Obama’s would end two weeks later after the polls close in North Carolina and Indiana.
- If the two candidates split the remaining primary election delegates, Obama would have to get 36% of the remaining superdels to win outright, while Clinton will need 73% of them.
- I added a new estimate based on the superdel trend. Clinton’s 83-superdel lead going into Super Tuesday is now only 36. At the rate things are going, it appears that Obama will at least pull even with her in the superdel sweepstakes. If that’s the case, and he wins only 39% of the remaining primary delegates at stake, Obama would win the nomination. Based on how I see the delegates breaking in the remaining primaries, he would become the outright winner on May 20 after Oregon and Indiana are decided. Mrs. Clinton would have to win 66% of the remaining primary delegates to win outright. Barring an epic Obama meltdown, that’s not going to happen, as she hasn’t won 2/3 of the delegates in any state except Arkansas.
Fully aware of Hillary’s impossible situation and in desperate need of any kind of argument, the Clinton campaign has ginned up a contention that their candidate is the better alternative because she has “won” more Electoral College votes, as seen here:
There are at least four problems with Team Clinton’s suggestion:
- A mythical “electoral vote” victory in the Democratic primary means absolutely nothing in the general against John McCain. For example, Obama’s Mississippi win last night over Mrs. Clinton, impressive as it is, will be tough to duplicate in November against McCain, who has personal roots in the already GOP-dominated Magnolia State. You could argue that Mrs. Clinton might do better there in November. Though I can’t think of one at the moment, I’m sure there are states Mrs. Clinton has taken where you could credibly argue that Obama would be the better November candidate.
- Her 101,000 popular-vote “victory” in Texas was probably due to at least that many talk radio-inspired Republican crossovers voting for her. They’re not going to cross over again. Switch Texas’s EVs to Obama, who after all did win the overall delegate race in the Lone Star State, and she’s behind in EVs by 192-229.
- At least as I recall Clinton shill and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell telling it, she supposedly has “won” 260 or so EVs. I don’t see how he gets there, but looking at the chart, he must be considering limbo states Florida and Michigan to be “wins.” That’s horse manure.
- Most deliciously, Mrs. Clinton went on the record in 2000 calling for an end to the Electoral College when it worked against Al Gore in that presidential election. Trotting out an argument based on the Electoral College 7-1/2 years later is so, well, Clintonian.
Enough already. I’ll look at all of this again six blessed weeks from now — maybe sooner (ugh) if do-overs in FL or MI actually take place.
Her argument has fallen into the same fallacy as Rudy’s did, she claims she is going to win PA and other big states to come and therefore Obama should quit now and make nice by accepting the VP spot. Rudy thought he didn’t need to win any of the pre-Florida states and create momentum out of thin air. Obama isn’t buying the argument but I see some in the MSM and Dem party bosses are still clinging to it. Clinton is using an old manipulator’s trick in an attempt to fool people into valuing the two birds in the bush more than the bird in the hand. Two birds may be more than one, but one bird is more than none when you haven’t got them yet. LOL
Comment by dscott — March 12, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
Somebody’s in denial..
Can I call the Clinton campaign “quixotic” yet?
Comment by Burt — March 12, 2008 @ 6:12 pm
What a relief that I found your site! I was trying to do this math on my own and kept getting lost. You did leave out one frightening contingency, however unlikely: No superdel loyalty whatsoever. I know, I know, they both have a few of them in their pocket pretty secure, but assuming we can’t speculate exactly how many, and that the number of secure superdels is roughly equal, we can subtract the number of superdels from both of them and figure out how many total superdels either candidate truly needs to secure a majority (assuming they split the remaining primary delegates 50/50). Here’s what I came up with (feel free to check my work, I’m prone to error):
Obama Clinton
Pledged primary del 1401 1240
Split of remaining primary del 293 293
—– ——
Total primary delegates 1694 1533
================
Superdels needed for majority 331 492
================
% of total superdels for win 42% 62%
If you divide the estimated superdels by the total they need, you end up with Obama at 63% to what he needs, and Clinton about halfway to what she needs. Not quite as devastating as your numbers, but I’m basing my numbers on a pretty devastating and unlikely situation (no matter how much she’s counting on it.) Plus math is just fun.
Speaking of Clinton’s continued self-destruction of her credibility, did anyone else get really disenchanted (I went from leaning to fallen over) when she started up her “Obama is all talk, he can give a great speech but can he run the country, don’t be seduced” campaign? It’s a decent enough argument, I suppose, but I wonder if she realized she was xeroxing an argument she had heard 16 years ago, when they were hurled at her husband.
Comment by Anthony Watson — March 12, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
well that looks like the wrong side of my dinner. Let’s try that again…
Obama Clinton
Pledged primary del 1401 1240
Split of remaining primary del 293 293
– - – – - -
Total primary delegates 1694 1533
=== ===
Superdels needed for majority 331 492
=== ===
% of total superdels for win 42% 62%
Comment by Anthony Watson — March 12, 2008 @ 9:33 pm
I’ll just give up now. Hope it makes sense despite my attempts at fancy airs.
No wait. I see now. Okay, if this doesn’t work, I promise to leave the formating to the pros.
+++++++++++++++++++++Obama|||||||Clinton
Pledged primary dels___________1401|||||||1240
Split of remaining primary del______293|||||||293
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
Total primary delegates_________1694|||||||1533
=================================
Superdels needed for majority_____331|||||||492
=================================
% of total superdels for win______42%|||||||62%
Comment by Anthony Watson — March 12, 2008 @ 9:43 pm
#3-4-5, you did fine.
The absurdity of all of this is that even the PLEDGED primary delegates can change their minds, and the Clinton campaign has telegraphed its intention to go there if it has to:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8583.html
The article gives the impression that Obama hasn’t done so, but if she starts going after his, he’ll start going after hers. Total, chaos.
Comment by TBlumer — March 12, 2008 @ 10:02 pm
I’m not sure how much it costs to switch a pledged delegate, but if I were Obama (or his campaign manager) I’d spend the money and favors on getting the pledged delegates back rather than take hers. If she did anything right, it would be to cover her tracks stealing a few of his and catching him in the act of stealing hers, and use that bad press as leverage to corral in the rest of his pledges.
Plus, if he plays counter-dirty rather than stooping to her sociopathic tactics, he’ll probably save enough pledges to win and persuade a few of hers to his side.
Comment by Anthony Watson — March 12, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
Now here’s an inconvenient fact: “None of them seem to have caught on that the officials who okayed the early primaries knowing that would nullify the votes are super-delegates whose votes will count anyway, even if they fixed it so the ordinary party members in their states will lose their votes.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/a_modest_proposal_1.html
What a Machievellian masterpiece of political manuvering! If these super delegates are pledged to Clinton, this would be quid pro quo. Even if Hillary had lost both Michigan and Florida and not counted them, she would have the super delegates to get the nomination. Now that it turned out she won the states she basically had them banked just in case. Talk about a slick triangulating manipulative move!
Comment by dscott — March 13, 2008 @ 11:06 am
The Obama in surmountable attempts with clean victory records that swallows each and every Clinton wins are enough to vividly spell him out as the projected winner of US Democratic Primary Election.
Comment by James Opito — March 14, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
#9, wow, my translation indicates that you think Obama is in good shape — I think.
Comment by TBlumer — March 14, 2008 @ 9:41 pm