Keystone State
By itself, as a primary voting state, Pennsylvania is not the last minute of a tied basketball game.
The main reason is simple: either Obama or Clinton has a good chance of winning Pennsylvania this fall. So Pennsylvania is not the keystone to deciding who should be the nominee. It is only as important as its number of delegates may be relevant to determining who wins the most delegates; it is not more important than that.
Maybe the Clintons will go so negative against Obama that they harm his chances in Pennsylvania this fall. But so far I see little evidence that even her supporters' most offensive racial innuendo has permanently damaged Obama in the states that have voted. Nor is it clear that if Clinton presents herself as an attacker against Obama that she will be able to bolster, or even maintain her chances in Pennsylvania this fall. There is a cost to attack that is paid by the attacker.
Of course, Obama also could engage in mutally assured destruction, and launch negative campaign tactics against Clinton that could hurt her this fall in Pennsylvania, if she won the nomination. I don't see him doing that. It's not his nature and it doesn't come easily to his campaign. Some think he should be able to go negative more easily, but it truly is part of his broad appeal that he is not innately gifted with the instinct to attack.
IHowever, in any case, a negative campaign against Obama in Pennsylvania would not suffice for the Clintons to win the nomination for Hillary. They would have to win most of the remaining states to show a true shift of momentum, and they would have to win virtually all by large margins in order to overcome Obama's lead in elected delegates. I make this claim because it seems to me beyond plausibility that the superdelegates would take the nomination away from Obama if he has the most elected delegates, the most primary and caucus victories, and either more or about the same number of actual votes.
The conclusion then is that Obama needs to fight on, needs to fight to win, and if he wins most of the remaining states and roughly divides the delegates, then the superdelegates need to confirm his nomination, and promptly.
So no matter what ingenious arguments are made by Ickes (never to be underestimated) and the rest of the Clinton team, the ultimate test is not spin, but votes, and everywhere, as opposed only to Pennsylvania.
Reed, your analysis is correct, in my opinion. In fact, by my calculation Clinton needs to win the remaining primaries by an average of 60% to 40% just to tie Obama in elected delegates. That can only happen if she can find a way to put him in such an overwhelmingly negative light that he is virtually forced to withdraw.
Attacking his pastor seems to be the latest effort at doing this. But, if you think about this at all it is ludicrous. His pastor is not a campaign advisor - he is a religious advisor. And, while I certainly don't buy all that he seems to believe, as a religious advisor, I can hardly fault Obama for that. Far more serious, but getting almost no press is McCain playing up to really extreme religious "advisors", including those who contend that Christians must militarily defeat Islam, and those who speak of Catholics with utter contempt. That is the real story when it comes to religious advisors.
Obama will be the Democratic Candidate for president this year, so let's start the discussion about who he should pick for a Vice President.
March 13, 2008 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good thought. On his short list should almost certainly be a woman -- qualified needless to say -- who will help heal the huge chasm that has been created by the ill-will vis a vis Clinton supporters, esp. women. First off the bat, that woman should not be Clinton. No need to go into the reasons why, since we all know what they are.
More importantly, who the woman, or women, should be on Obama's short list. My personal favorite it Kathleen Sebelius, two-time governor of Kansas, a red state, daughter of an ex-governor of Ohio, a battleground state, and early supporter of Obama.
I have heard Gov. Claire McCaskell (sp?) mentioned, but I know less about her.
Jim Webb, worthy choice as he may be is a no-no. I don't think you can win with two senators on the ticket, plus he is another guy. Webb can be his SecDef.
March 17, 2008 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Um... elected delegates aren't the end of the story. There is the popular vote, for example and there are millions there still to be counted. I know, anyone who wants a premature end to the election will come up with numerous reasons tro discount that, especially reasons that cite how hard it is for a lot of people to participate in caucuses, without thinking there's a problem that caucuses favor Obama.
March 14, 2008 1:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ugh... that was wrought with typos. My point was that the popular vote should matter. A lot of states held caucuses, which is a form of voting that discourages participation and is thus unrepresentative. Any argument that Clinton can't win is predicated only on the pledged delegate count. That's weak because she can win the pledged delegate count if things go her way, however unlikely. She can win the popular vote and that's not unlikely at all. Finally, the rules leave the end result up to superdelegates who will have a lot of thinking to do if one wins the popular vote and the other wins the pledged delegates.
In any event, a close Democratic primary, waged under the current rules, should go to the convention. Whether it's close in delegates or in voters shoudln't matter... if it's close the current rules favor a superdelegate debate when the voting is finished.
March 14, 2008 1:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
While there's certainly a debate to be had over the flaws of caucuses, all candidates were playing by the same rules on the same playing field. If Hillary couldn't generate the support/response necessary to win caucuses, it's not the caucuses' fault and it's not because the rules favor Obama or any of the other candidates.
Will she concede Nevada to Obama because it used caucuses?
March 14, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Destor23,
While you have a point about caucuses being less democratic than primaries, the fact remains that they're part of the process in many states, and both campaigns knew and planned for this. Suggestions to improve the process are of course welcome, but the time to change such things is before the process starts, not when it's 80% over.
And, frankly, the national cumulative popular vote is a poor proxy for overall voter sentiment for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is that caucus turnout is far lower than primary turnout, so counting popular vote seriously underweights states with caucuses relative to those with primaries. In some caucus states, initial voter preferences aren't even recorded; we only know how many delegates to the next stage of the process each candidate won; those states are virtually invisible in a process counting popular vote. So the total popular vote is a seriously flawed measure.
Counting delegates tries to addresses this by using population as a large (but far from the only) factor in determining how many delegates each state (and territory) gets, so the states get roughly proportional representation whether they have millions of primary voters or just a few thousand caucusers. In the current process, Delegate totals are a better metric than summing vote totals in indicating voter sentiment.
March 14, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want Obama to use PA as an opportunity to improve his economic message for Joe Lunchbucket, who with very good reason is worried about putting food on the table as the economy goes south. I don't think he has done a good job of connecting with working-class voters about how he'd help them if elected. For that matter I don't think Hillary has done that great a job either; a lot of her working-class votes have come out of residual loyalty to Bill. McCain will be very vulnerable on the economy but only if we have a powerful message. PA is the perfect laboratory in which to refine it.
March 14, 2008 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I checked hundt's bio and no where does it say he is a major bundler for obama:
Reed Hundt
Employer: Intel Group/Blackstone Group
State: MD
Status for 2008: Bundler for Barack Obama, raised at least $50,000.00
http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/bundler.cfm?Bundler=13031
Seems like maybe that should be mentioned on top of every hundt post for clarity.
March 14, 2008 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reed has often noted that he is an Obama supporter.
March 14, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Hillary is toast.
March 14, 2008 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think Obama can close the deal.
March 14, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Reed has often noted that he is an Obama supporter.
Posted by Ayotunde"
carville was often mentioned to be a Hillary supporter but tpm didn't think that was enough.
March 14, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not an employee of Blackstone or Intel. I am on the board of various companies. I do not speak here for anyone but myself. I support Obama. So does everyone in my family, and son Nate is a field organizer for him, now off to North Carolina.
March 14, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'm not an employee of Blackstone or Intel. I am on the board of various companies. I do not speak here for anyone but myself. I support Obama. So does everyone in my family, and son Nate is a field organizer for him, now off to North Carolina.
Posted by Reed Hundt"
So you agree. You should put a giant disclaimer on anything you type in. Or else some might take for an honest disinterested writer.
March 14, 2008 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hadenough: Right, so your argument is that because Hundt's son is a field organizer for Obama, Hundt must put a disclaimer on anything he writes supporting Obama?
Come on.
He is a declared Obama supporter and so is his son. The fact that Hundt agrees with is son does not corrupt his political views , it does not give him some "special interest" to push.
And so what if he does raise money or give money to Obama (though you seemed to have tagged the wrong name) He is an opinion writer. He can give to whoever he wants - that is, by the way, an extension of the same free speech he exercises in this column.
March 15, 2008 3:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Reed-
you say "the ultimate test is not spin, but votes, and everywhere, as opposed only to Pennsylvania."
but how can you take out spin when that's what the media makes its money on? This past week I began to consider the possiblity that Hillary might actually steal this thing. How can we be so sure Obama will prevail when 2000 and 2004 proved that the worst-case scenario can and does often come true?
March 15, 2008 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that it's time, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, for Obama to start at least a partial channeling of John Edwards -- of course with the Obama brand of optimism and inclusiveness.
March 16, 2008 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink