In plain English, there are not enough delegates at stake for Clinton to catch up; using fair tactics anyway. That explains why Team Clinton has been vociferous in its insistence that delegates from Michigan and Florida be seated, when in fact, there were no sanctioned contests in those states.
[Black Star News Editorial]
A reader in a letter published in today’s New York Times voices a widespread sentiment when she writes: “My message to the Clinton campaign is this: If your campaign meddles with the nomination process, and somehow manages to assign the delegates from Michigan and Florida to Hillary Rodham Clinton, I a lifelong Democrat, will vote for John McCain in the general election.”
The campaigning to elect the Democratic Party’s nominee in the presidential contest has reached the final laps.
Statistically, Senator Clinton cannot make up the distance created by Senator Barack Obama, following the Potomac Bloodbath, when he overwhelmingly won Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland on February 12.
Obama won by more than 30% points and by more than 50% points in D.C. What’s also significant is that in Virginia, he won more white voters than Clinton for the first time in a Southern State, demolishing Team Clinton’s attempts to pigeonhole him as “merely” a “race candidate” who appeals primarily to Blacks.
Obama has better crossover appeal than Clinton: He’s now winning up to 40% of white voters. Clinton, on the other hand, attracts about 18% of the Black vote, meaning she is actually more dependent on the “race” vote than Obama. Without the white vote to help her, there would be no contest. Obama would have already wrapped up the nomination on February 5th Super Tuesday.
Obama today leads Clinton by 138 pledged delegates: These are the delegates that candidates won at the caucuses or the primaries. They are untainted delegates. They were won based on one-person one-vote.
Clinton’s previous firewall of women voters was also breached by Obama’s candidacy. Clinton barely held on to women voters in Virginia, squeaking by 53% to 47%. Obama’s firewall of African American voters remained unassailable; he won 90% of the Black vote in Virginia, and 84% in Maryland.
The youth vote also remained solidly in Obama’s column; in the under age 30 category, in Virginia, he won 76% and in Maryland, 64%.
While Clinton has enjoyed leads reaching the double digits in polls of voters in Texas and Ohio –states she’s declared are “must wins”– these leads will shrink into single digits before the end of February. While all indications are that Wisconsin will be a close vote, Obama likely will prevail. Moreover, even a Clinton win would not net her more than 5 extra delegates.
This means that March 4th is do-or-die for Clinton. Yet, the math already is discouraging for Team Clinton.
There are 193 delegates at stake in Texas and there are 141 in Ohio, for a total of 334. Even if Clinton, in a very-best-case and highly unlikely scenario were to win 60% to 40% against Obama in both states, her net delegates gain over Obama would be about 29 in Ohio and about 39 in Texas, for a total of about 68.
This would leave Clinton trailing Obama by 70 delegates.
The next major prize would be Pennsylvania, on April 22, with 158 delegates at stake. Again, giving Clinton the very-best-case and highly unlikely scenario of 60% against 40% for Obama, she would net only about 32 more delegates than Obama.
This still leaves Clinton in the red by 38 delegates.
In plain English, there are not enough delegates at stake for Clinton to catch up; using fair tactics anyway.
That explains why Team Clinton has been vociferous in its insistence that delegates from Michigan and Florida be seated, when in fact, there were no sanctioned contests in those states.
Both states had defied the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and moved up their election dates. They were stripped of their right to seat delegates at the party’s Convention this summer. All the candidates, including Hillary Clinton, had agreed to these sanctions in advance.
The delegates must not be seated; unless there are makeup elections and both Clinton and Obama contest. Yet, given the timeframe, this option seems untenable.
Which brings us to the issue of super delegates, which is the Democratic Party’s version of the old Soviet-style Politburo. During the Soviet regime, the aged party bosses disappeared in the Kremlin for a few days, following the death of one of the country’s aged presidents. A few days later, they would emerge to announce who would be president of the Soviet Union. A handful of aged men got to determine who was to rule over millions of Soviet citizens.
Super delegates certainly don’t want to nullify the votes of the 20 million-plus American voters who would have exercised their right to determine the candidate for the highest office, by April 22.
To begin with, super delegates get to vote twice in the same election process, which is patently un-American. They vote during either the primary or the caucuses; then they get a second chance when they vote for the candidate of their preference a second time, at the Convention.
The candidate with the most pledged delegates on the night after the final primary must be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
Hillary Clinton’s attempts to sow confusion into the process must be denounced and rejected.
The only winner would be the Republican Party’s John McCain as the reader who sent the letter to the Times –and millions of voters who share that position—makes clear.
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