Posted on 05/10/2008 10:20:50 PM PDT by The_Republican
Barack Obama can fully accept Hillary Rodham Clinton’s terms on Michigan and Florida and still win a majority of pledged Democratic delegates on June 1, allowing him to lay claim to the nomination under the New York senator’s own rules.
A Politico analysis of the delegate numbers after Tuesday’s primaries in North Carolina and Indiana shows Obama can concede to Clinton’s position on Michigan and Florida and still claim victory — potentially forestalling the Democratic nightmare scenario of a floor fight at the Denver convention.
The Clinton campaign rejected the premise of Politico’s analysis, dismissing it as “artificial metrics” that “might make for interesting cocktail party conversation” but would give Obama no legitimate claim on the nomination.
But the numbers could add to Obama’s growing strategic advantage. Some background: The magic number of pledged delegates — excluding Florida and Michigan, which were stripped of their delegates for holding early, unsanctioned primaries — is 1,627 to have a definitive majority.
Obama will reach that threshold on May 20, after the Kentucky and Oregon primaries, and plans to declare victory.
The Democratic National Committee sets the clinching number at 2,025 pledged delegates and superdelegates, excluding Florida and Michigan. The rationale of the Obama camp is that hitting 1,627 means the candidate is a lock for the higher DNC number also, because superdelegates are unlikely to overturn voting results.
Many neutral Democratic strategists agree. “It’s not going to happen,” said Carter Eskew, the chief strategist for Al Gore’s 2000 campaign. “I don’t think anybody in Democratic circles, not aligned with either campaign, believes any different.”
Clinton’s campaign, however, has argued that Obama needs to clear yet another figure — 2,209 pledged delegates and superdelegates, a figure that includes the two rogue states. Clinton aides have said Obama won’t meet that target on May 20.
But using Clinton’s own numbers, there now seems a clear path for Obama to claim victory.
Clinton’s push for the full inclusion of Florida and Michigan brings the total pledged delegates to 3,566. That would mean the magic number for a majority would rise to 1,784.
A conservative assessment of Obama’s chances shows he would reach 1,785 pledged delegates on June 1, when polls close in the Puerto Rican primary.
This showing by Obama is possible even under extremely generous expectations for Clinton in the weeks ahead. Should she win about 70 percent of the delegates in West Virginia next week, a showing she has only accomplished in her husband’s native state of Arkansas, she would walk away with 19 additional delegates to Obama’s nine delegates.
A week later, should Clinton win 62 percent of the delegates in Kentucky, larger than her win in her home state of New York, she would walk away with 32 additional delegates while Obama would walk away with 19.
If Clinton managed a split in Oregon — a state Obama is heavily favored to win — he would still need only 35 percent of the delegates in Puerto Rico to clinch a lead in earned delegates.
The Clinton campaign insisted that even if Obama reaches 1,785, he’s not the nominee. “Declaring mission accomplished doesn’t make it so. The Democratic Party’s rules do not differentiate between the different types of delegates. Using artificial metrics . . . won’t change the fact that it takes 2,209 delegates to win the nomination," said deputy communications director Phil Singer.
An unassailable lead in pledged delegates, however, also would give Obama wide flexibility in negotiations over how to handle Michigan and Florida.
Obama’s campaign currently refuses to tie delegate allocation in Florida and Michigan to voting results in the two states because both candidates pledged not to campaign in either state. Obama was also not on the ballot in Michigan.
Clinton’s argues that to not recognize either contest would be equivalent to disenfranchising voters. Clinton’s aides also point out that Obama chose to remove himself from the Michigan ballot.
Howard Wolfson, one of Clinton’s two strategists, said Friday during a breakfast with reporters that the campaign would be willing to offer Obama all of the “uncommitted” votes from Michigan providing both states were seated in with delegate totals reflecting their votes.
Obama’s supporters had to vote “uncommitted” when they went to the polls in the Jan. 15 Michigan contest.
Both the Michigan and Florida Democratic parties have expressed a preference for Clinton’s stance — though the position has been opposed by Obama. The DNC and state parties have broadly indicated that they would accept any deal the two campaigns agreed on.
“If there was a proposal that both campaigns and the leadership of both states agreed upon, it's likely the [DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee] would accept that,” said a Democratic Party veteran who has not sided with either campaign.
Obama’s campaign has not agreed to Clinton’s terms, in part for fear it would shift the paradigm of the race and offer Clinton a way to narrow the gap in pledged delegates.
But the Politico analysis shows that if Obama gets all the “uncommitted” votes in Michigan, as Clinton’s team proposes, and Obama's rogue state delegates are bona fide supporters, he will still win a majority of pledged delegates.
This also means that any decision on the status of Florida and Michigan by the eagerly anticipated RBC session May 31 could largely be moot, in terms of shaping who wins the nomination.
You are a posting fiend!
They’re not counting the possibly soon-to-be-dead super delegates, who might change their minds.
I cannot help but think that if they would have decided two months ago to include Michigan and Florida the current count would be different.
I believe there is an element of ‘bandwagon voting’ that has occurred since it looked like Milhous was gonna win anyway.
EVERY vote must count! Then a recount! Then the courts! Then the delegates! Then the super delegates! Then start over!!
That’s true. If those primaries did count, Obama would not have had time to overcome Hillary’s lead. In State like Texas, he had long time to work on the lead and if not for Operation Chaos and Immigres, he would have shut the door on her then.
However, its also true that back then Obama was still a new kid on the block. Hillary’s brand name was a huge edge.
Also, Bill Klinton had not tried to deploy the RACE CARD yet. So in Michigan, his numbers would have been lot better. There was a poll that said that if their was a do-over in Michigan, it was tied at 43 each. Obama would probably lose the State due to Elitist/Bitter Gate. However, it won’t be net 300K votes that Hillary claims, after running against thin air.
Finally, Hillary has gotten unmeasureable help from Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Richard Mellon Scaife, Greata Van Susteran, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingrham. Nobody could have thought that the original Vast Right Wing Conspirators, would be doing EVERYTHING in their power to help Hillary Klinton. Strange bedfellows indeed.
As they say in sports, one bad call doesn’t determine the outcome of the game. In the end, it all evens out.
I have never, ever seen such spin as we have seen from Hillary’s flunkies and hanger-ons about the delegate count and the voting. They keep changing the criteria for judging who has the advantage.
At various times, Clinton and her yes men have said that the popular vote is most important, at other times, the total delegate count is what matters, at still other times, delegates won in primary states were more important than those won in caucus states, then delegates won in blue states or swing states counted for more than delegates won in states expected to vote Republican in November. Then we move on to various group of voters, such as the uneducated white voters, the black voters, older voters, etc. etc. Hillary and her apologists are spending too much time with Excel spreadsheets, and moving numbers around trying to find some way that Hillary should be winning, or that somehow is suppposed to persuade super delegates and the public that she is really winning.
It gets old after a while.
Did you misspell friend? LOL! Or just a bitter loser clinging to his personal insults?
Greata Van Susteran = lib
I just google this, it turns out there's no fixed number for the threshold to be the Dims party nominee. I thought that 2,000 something is fixed (the way 270 EC is), but it seems it depends on the numbers of elected officials in the various states at the day of election.
No. I just noticed the amount of posts you were making and it’s great you’re doing it.
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