Saturday, March 8, 2008

Clinton's Slash and Burn Path to Nomination

Liberal Jonathan Chait laments what it would take for Clinton to wrest the nomination from Obama:

She isn't going to win at the polls. Barack Obama has a lead of 144 pledged delegates. That may not sound like a lot in a 4,000-delegate race, but it is. Clinton's Ohio win reduced that total by only nine. She would need 15 more Ohios to pull even with Obama. ... Clinton's path to the nomination, then, involves the following steps: kneecap an eloquent, inspiring, reform-minded young leader who happens to be the first serious African American presidential candidate (meanwhile cementing her own reputation for Nixonian ruthlessness) and then win a contested convention by persuading party elites to override the results at the polls. The plan may also involve trying to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, after having explicitly agreed that the results would not count toward delegate totals. Oh, and her campaign has periodically hinted that some of Obama's elected delegates might break off and support her. I don't think she'd be in a position to defeat Hitler's dog in November, let alone a popular war hero.

You can go down graceful or go down ugly; Clinton is doing the latter. Either way, the math says she is going down. It will be Machiavellianism not a miracle that will upset the math equations now.

Intrade shows a 25% chance of Clinton nomination and 75% chance of Obama nomination. The chance of the Republican winning in November is rated at 38%. It means that the most likely next President is ... Barack Obama.

UPDATE: Obama wins Wyoming and gets 7 delegates to Clintons's 5, a gain of two.

UPDATE II: Map of Texas primary shows that Obama won big in Travis and other Democrat areas: "In Texas, Obama is the Democrat, winning in the places Democrats normally win, like big cities, and Clinton is the Republican, winning in the countryside (but also in some smaller cities like El Paso). However, nationally, it is the opposite. Clinton has won all the big Democratic states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, while Obama triumphed in Republican states like Idaho, Utah, Kansas, and Alabama."

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