A Tuesday Reality Check
I'm aware that a lot of unequivicol Obama-backers who double as Hillary-haters don't really expect Sen. Clinton to step aside on Wednesday because they see her as a Machiavellian force devoid of shades of gray. While on the other hand, I see that Rhode Island and Vermont are most likely going to be a wash; Rhode Island shares many characteristics with Massachusetts and the demographics, along with the political history of Vermont has kept it in my Obama column since Iowa.
As many have noted, the battleground states are going to be Texas and Ohio. Quite likely, Senator Clinton is going to carry Ohio and she has a strong chance at narrowly winning the popular vote in Texas, but the caucus portion of the program could give her problems, especially if the field reports and exit polls for the primary are going against Obama.
I really can't see any way that Sen. Clinton could realistically be expected to step aside, if this scenario hold true. People will be going out to vote for her in a few hours and I feel that quite a few are probably extra motivated because of all the noise about the race coming to an end. It would not only be against any and all historical precedent for a candidate to withdraw a day after winning three out of four popular votes, but it would also be a disservice to the Democrats who take the trouble to vote.
Sure, mathematically it may be hard for Sen. Clinton to reach the delegate threshold for victory, but it's equally difficult for Obama. A narrow victory for her in both states would not be her ideal and it may not bode well for the future, but the flip side of that coin would be that Obama would've suffered narrow defeats.
Of course, if she only wins Ohio but loses the popular vote in Texas, I fully expect the party elders to start whispering more loudly in her ear and we may see movement from her next week, but nobody should really expect her step aside, if more people vote for her on Super Tuesday II than who vote for her opponent, no matter how small the margin. It's just never been done and it'd be an insult to every person in all four states, who decides to put a tick in her box.
As many have noted, the battleground states are going to be Texas and Ohio. Quite likely, Senator Clinton is going to carry Ohio and she has a strong chance at narrowly winning the popular vote in Texas, but the caucus portion of the program could give her problems, especially if the field reports and exit polls for the primary are going against Obama.
I really can't see any way that Sen. Clinton could realistically be expected to step aside, if this scenario hold true. People will be going out to vote for her in a few hours and I feel that quite a few are probably extra motivated because of all the noise about the race coming to an end. It would not only be against any and all historical precedent for a candidate to withdraw a day after winning three out of four popular votes, but it would also be a disservice to the Democrats who take the trouble to vote.
Sure, mathematically it may be hard for Sen. Clinton to reach the delegate threshold for victory, but it's equally difficult for Obama. A narrow victory for her in both states would not be her ideal and it may not bode well for the future, but the flip side of that coin would be that Obama would've suffered narrow defeats.
Of course, if she only wins Ohio but loses the popular vote in Texas, I fully expect the party elders to start whispering more loudly in her ear and we may see movement from her next week, but nobody should really expect her step aside, if more people vote for her on Super Tuesday II than who vote for her opponent, no matter how small the margin. It's just never been done and it'd be an insult to every person in all four states, who decides to put a tick in her box.
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Nice analysis. It seems to be pretty much universally acknowledged at this point that she doesn't have a very good chance of closing the delegate gap without a performance today that would make the NH polls look dead accurate. Having that said, I don't expect to see her drop out of the race tomorrow. If what the polls say are accurate this time around, I think we can expect, as you've observed, that superdelegates will start to tell her that it's time for her to start thinking about closing up shop, but I don't think it's very realistic to expect to see Obama earn the nomination based on tomorrow's results alone.
Then again, if the polls prove to be inaccurate and we see another better-than-expected Obama showing in Texas as a result of the caucus situation and maybe only a marginal win in Ohio for Clinton, then I think it's pretty much over and we might see her stand aside within a week or two. It would be very difficult for her to play up an small Ohio victory in the face of a Texas blowout, but I'm not expecting to see this necessarily.
March 4, 2008 6:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think all of the calls for her to get out has probably galvanized her base and early voting has occurred, but the caucus part of Texas is just
too hard to predict. Since Obama does better with caucuses and because it'd be real easy to quickly gather additional participants from the college campuses if they're needed, she may actually win the popular vote but come out a couple of delegates behind because of the caucuses.
(As I commented to another post, there's between 464 and 504 out of 796 Superdelegates who have not endorsed a candidate.)
It'd be real hard for her to continue if she loses the Texas popular vote, but I don't think the party elders or the uncommitted Superdelegates are going to rush into the void, if tomorrow is pretty evenly split on delegates and if she has more people voting for her in the actual primaries.
March 4, 2008 7:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we know by now that she's not throwing in the towel. A win in Ohio (sure looks like that, seeing these polls) and evidence of momentum in Texas gives her enough to claim "victory" over stopping Obama's momentum. She'll be setting her sights on PA. He'd have to do her in there, the last major primary state election, before he could claim she's through. He'd really need to blow her out then, too, to shut her up.
Don't forget, she wants to be seen as a "fighter." She'll be with us for awhile.
March 4, 2008 7:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's my question: is the continuing media coverage of the Democratic internal race the kind of publicity that is always good publicity? That is, does the headline hogging push McCain so far off the crawl that it amounts to free advertising for Dems in general?
March 4, 2008 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think that this would be the case if the discourse hadn't gotten so nasty. Kellyanne Conway was on CNN yesterday talking about how they're keeping careful notes of all this crap for fodder in the general.
March 4, 2008 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
As far as I'm concerned, both candidates have overstepped to some degree. Hillary's flings may have gotten more headlines recently, but it's kind of hard to keep up with what's real, what's just been imaging by Obama's online supporters, what's been manipulation by outside parties and Obama's has made mistakes of his own in the past.
My position is that for the most part, neither candidate is saying anything that hasn't already crossed the mind of the Republicans. It's not like the Republicans are sitting around without a clue as to what to say, so it's kind of like we're innoculating our candidate for the future by addressing them now.
Personally, I'd be much more worried, if the Dems were attacking each other on the fine points of policy. There are several issues that will probably get spun in a cerain manner, some of which will be accurate and if Hillary was hitting Obama about these things, then it could really hurt a lot more than a lot of harping on "experience" and "hope".
March 4, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've said something similar in comments to other threads; As long as the Dems are in the headlines, we're getting out our message. Every time that we have a debate and the Republicans don't, we're getting unanswered television time, where the candidates basically agree and we're not in any "quiet period", we're still spending primary dollars. Continuing the race looks like more of a win than a loss to me.
March 4, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both Cnn and Slate.com have little widgets that you can use to project delegate counts based upon all upcoming primaries. Even giving Hillary Texas, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania she still comes up 100 delegates short.
See if you can come up with a pro Hillary scenario.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/29/delegate.counter/index.html
http://www.slate.com/features/delegatecounter/
Good luck.
March 4, 2008 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Last I was aware, it was also pretty difficult for Obama to reach the required amount in pledged votes, if Hillary doesn't step aside. I say that as long as people are voting for her in significant numbers, it indicates that a large percentage of Democrats would like for her to stay in the race.
March 4, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink