A Second Hand Conjecture

Obama the Confident:

Barack Obama’s campaign, riding a wave of 10 straight victories in the contest for the Democratic nomination after wins in Wisconsin and Hawaii, today urged Hillary Clinton to bow to the inevitable and accept defeat.

Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, dismissed her camp’s hopes of making a comeback when the power states of Texas and Ohio hold their primaries on March 4, and said Clinton would be unable to bridge a widening gap in delegates.

“This is a wide, wide lead right now,” Plouffe said in a conference call with reporters. “The Clinton campaign keeps saying the race is essentially tied. That’s just lunacy.”

The argument from the Obama camp appears designed to paint Clinton as a nuisance candidate — much like Mike Huckabee who has continued to fight for the Republican nomination even though it is mathematically impossible for him to catch up to John McCain’s lead in delegates.

Shaun Mullen writing at The Moderate Voice takes a look at the delegate race and agrees that Clinton is unlikely to prevail as eventual candidate, but finds Plouffe’s comments to be mere … Plouffery:

I’ve been killing a goodly number of brain cells lately trying to figure out how Hillary Clinton can keep from driving off the electoral cliff, but I keep shooting blanks.

For one thing, the mathematical deck is now stacked against her. She needs to win the Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4 by huge margins, but that looks increasingly unlikely, while a big win in Pennsylvania on April 22, where she doesn’t even have a full delegate slate, would be too little too late.

With voting over in all but 14 states, Barack Obama leads Clinton 1,336-1,251 in delegates, according to The Associated Press’s count, with 2,025 needed to secure the nomination.

[...]

So what’s a cooked goose to do?

Certainly not concede, as Obama’s campaign manager suggested in an atypically silly remark. What Clinton is left with is stealing and attacking.

Stealing as in trying to manipulate the superdelegate count and get delegates seated who are pledged to her from Florida and Michigan. Because of the longtime connections that she and Bill Clinton have to the party establishment, she would seem to have the inside track on this.

Atypically silly or not, I think it’s indicative of how much Obamamentum the campaign has right now. I think Mullen’s right as rain about Hillary needing the superdelegates to pull this thing out, as well as at least some of Obama’s pledged delegates and/or getting the Michigan and Florida contingent seated. While the race isn’t anywhere near final, I do believe it’s Obama’s to lose.

Even so, advising your opponent to just quit at this stage is a bit much.

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Steven Taylor takes a look at Paul Kane’s conclusion that it is now mathematically impossible for either Obama or Clinton to win the nomination with pledged delegates, and notes that a super-delegate decided nominee represents an enormous political problem for the Democrats:

The party that has a legitimate gripe about the 2000 election and the fact that Al Gore won the popular vote cannot find themselves in a situation in which the nominee with less popularly-selected delegates is given the nomination by delegates who were not elected via the primary/caucus process.
(PoliBlog)

Not only is this a problem of political perception and party unity, it could conceivably jeopardize the unification of the two candidates on a single ticket. The candidate perceptions themselves of whether or not they’ve been swindled out of the top slot on the ticket could be significant. Given the nature of this race, it has become almost imperative that the loser is named the vice presidential nominee. But when we are dealing with two candidates who no longer seem particularly fond of each other to begin with, trouble may lie ahead by adding the dimension of a potential backroom convention deal.

Supplementally, Dr. Taylor also adds:

Also, at the end of the day, the DNC may very much come to regret taking the Michigan and Florida delegates out of the pool.
(PoliBlog)

Further evidence that the politics of exclusion always ends up punishing you in democracy.

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I’m disappointed with the emerging results in the GOP primaries too (the Nightmare Ticket is near), but I’m actually starting to worry about Mr. Hewitt: “McCain can’t be considered a frontrunner by any conventional standard.” Except in polls, wins, and delegates of course.

H/T: Cadillac Tight

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McCain may be the front runner, but it is still anyone’s game going into next Tuesday. And the race can be just as muddled after next Tuesday, if there’s not a clear front runner.

And yes, it’s my contention that at this time, there isn’t a clear front runner. Just look at the numbers:

McCain – 93
Romney – 59
Huckabee – 40

I know some will look at that and think McCain has a tremendous lead on Romney. Except that the goal is 1191 delegates to get the Republican nomination. So, as a percentage of goal the candidates are currently at:

McCain – 7.8%
Romney – 5.0%
Huckabee – 3.4%

Now, between Super Tuesday puts 1102 delegates in play (including 21 for Maine this Friday.) I doubt that any candidate is going to sweep 22 states.

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