Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Clinton Evens Things Out Tonight
Sen. Hillary Clinton scored a big 10-point win in Pennsylvania tonight. Her statewide victory in the Keystone State is bigger than that margin indicates. If you remove Philadelphia's vote from the total, Clinton crushed Sen. Barack Obama in every other region of the state, winning all but a handful of counties. The bigger story tonight, however, is the fact that Clinton has wiped out the popular vote lead Obama has held to date, even though she's still more than a hundred votes behind him in the all-important delegate count. In fact, Clinton will take a small lead in the popular vote after all the votes are counted tonight when you include every primary and caucus to date, including Michigan and Florida. That's going to make it a tougher sale for Democratic leaders to convince Clinton she should get out of the race so the party can rally behind Obama. It also puts intense focus on Indiana's primary just two weeks from tonight. An Obama win in Indiana could prove to be a knockout punch, assuming he also wins the North Carolina primary on that same day as expected. Unless Obama can pull off a big win in northwest Indiana, however, I'm inclined to think Indiana's Democratic primary voters are more likely to follow the lead of Ohio and Pennsylvania Democrats in choosing Clinton. Clinton's huge margins in the old industrial towns and rural counties of Pennsylvania tonight probably doesn't bode well for Obama here in Indiana.
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7 comments:
Obama is still in the lead in the popular vote as well. The Michigan numbers you have give him 0 votes even though there were nearly 300,000 uncommitted votes. Only the Clinton spin can get everyone counting votes in an election with no other names on the ballot!!!
Hillary picked up a net of 9 delegates.....after all of that work and money.....and she is bankrupt....even with the alleged 2.5 million dollars that came in last night, that does not erase the huge debt of unpaid bills that she has.....North Carolina will get those 9 delegates back plus more and then there is.....Indiana.
Why would you count unsanctioned events in Michigan and Florida? Might as well start counting all of the high school straw polls out there too.
Why would you not count Philadelphia?
Bottom line, Clinton cut into about 8% of the delegate gap she faces.
That's very interesting. I didn't realize she came back on the popular vote - thanks for publishing that information.
I have to say that I think Michigan and Florida do have to be counted - somehow those two states will be seated at the convention. Party unity will be the mantra by then and since talk of a re-do in those two states seems to have evaporated, the original votes will indeed matter.
It's a pip of a year, that's for sure.
I, too, would have thought Hillary would get more Hoosier votes, but the last poll I saw had Obama in the lead here. It seems Hillary always does better than the polls show in the states she ends up winning. The pattern has been Hillary with a big lead that narrows to nearly nothing, and then the vote tally is more for her than the last poll indicated.
I'm glad the democrats don't have the 'winner take all' formula that the republicans use. Much more of a participatory sport this way.
Art, it's unlikely Obama will win Indiana. As far as the delegate count, you don't understand that this is about momentum and ability to win. If Obama is on a losing streak through the end of the campaign season it will be very possibly that Hillary will be seen as the better candidate. Plus Obama has lately shown an ability to commit huge gaffes.
Even Clinton supporters admit that the chances of her winning the nomination are very slim. She cannot catch up in pledged delegates; no one is even suggesting counting the Michigan votes, since Obama wasn't on the ballot, so she has very little chance of catching up in the popular vote; and Obama continues to pick up more super delegates every day. Indiana voters who are still making up their minds about Obama vs. Clinton need to understand that a vote for Clinton will not give her the nomination, but it will make it more difficult for Obama to win in November. If you want a Democrat in the White House, then cast your ballot for Obama, the more than likely nominee, and put an end to this primary, which is going on too long and which is dividing our party.
"including caucus states"??? Exactly how can anyone purport to include a caucus state in any so-called "popular vote" measure? Pretending that there is a meaningful popular vote count automatically disenfranchises all caucus state voters. It's funny that all the Clinton campaign would talk about in January and early February was how important it was to win the most delegates...
WOLFSON (1/9/08): "I guess one other thing I'd add is that, as you know, this is a race for delegates. And we currently enjoy a lead in delegates, thanks to the great -- some of the great super delegates that we have on this call and around the country."
McAuliffe (1/9/08): "And at the end of the day it's getting a basket of delegates."
Wolfson (1/25/08): "And we have said since Iowa that this is a race for delegates. It's a race that we are ahead in. We have more delegates than Senator Obama."
Wolfson (2/6/08): "WOLFSON: And overall, we have a significant lead among delegates, overall, which, obviously, at the end of the day is what is going to positively determine which Democrat is our party's nominee."
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