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Why Hillary Should Stay in the Race

For the past several weeks there have been calls for Sen. Clinton to withdraw from the race. The frequency of such posts and comments have recently increased in the lull between primaries, but few of them say anything new and Sen. Clinton is unlikely to withdraw anytime soon.

Among the reasons for her to stay in are some which are similar to the ones, I touched upon in a pre-Ohio/Texas post; She's still winning primaries. She's still raising money and people are still voting for her. What makes this time a little different is that she came out ahead on the most recent primary day and she's predicted to win the next, so why should she drop out? It'd be unprecedented and it'd be bad for the party.

A quick sampling of the Pennsylvania papers reveals the following quote in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat;

"One of the reasons it seems important to us is it's the first time in modern political times that Pennsylvania gets to participate when it's still an open question," said Gwen Torges, assistant political science professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
The result of this contested primary has been a marked increase in voter registrations and people changing their registration to the Democratic Party.

Anecdotally, the Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice reports;

Since the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries, 1,690 voters from Luzerne County have switched their party registration to Democrat, and 205 switched to Republican, county Director of Elections Leonard Piazza said.

Last week, 22,153 voters across the state switched to Democrat, and 1,054 switched to Republican. During the previous week, 8,674 switched to Democrat, and 978 switched to Republican.

The Associated Press is reporting that both campaigns have volunteers canvassing for potential registrants and contacting people who have been identified as probable to switch parties, or who may be willing to declare an affiliation. They're both operating phone banks and an Obama supporter, Russell Simmons, founder of Def-Jam has an orchestrated effort with hopes of registering 15-20,000 additional voters before the Monday deadline.

It has also been reported that some county officials believe that the campaigns could be holding back on some of their more recent registration forms, so that they can turn them all in at one time. Therefore, the full results from this push for new Democratic voters will not be known until the registration period ends.

Every voter who is registered will be added to the mailing and contact lists, so once the party has a nominee, the ranks of those who may be receptive to party literature and who may be willing to contribute will be larger than they were just a few months ago.

So, never mind that Hillary's still winning primaries and it'd be nothing but hubris for someone to expect her or any other candidate to withdraw immediately following a victory, especially with them polling significantly ahead in the next contest and with the next two polling at a statistical tie. There's a myriad of other reasons that Sen. Clinton is likely to continue, but helping grow the party should be applauded by people from both camps.

The rolls of the Democratic Party are increasing with every race. States are getting a voice who haven't been asked in the modern era and their electorate is excited about the prospect. There's no reason why this couldn't go until June and because Obama mentioned Sen. McCain noticably more than the one time that he mentioned Sen Clinton at a recent appearance in West Virginia, it's a little hard to make the argument that he's somehow distracted.

All around, I see nothing but positive benefits, no matter which candidate you support. The party's ranks are swelling; People are motivated and we're getting at least two more debates, which are essentially uninterrupted commercials for our platform. Therefore, I see no legitimate reason or any valid arguments for the Democrats to join Sen. McCain on page three of the nation's newspapers.
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Addendum: Before someone mentions fundraising, I should point out that Obama has $30m to use in the remaining primaries. Right now, he's running an introductory television ad in PA and an encouragement to register as a Democrat and to vote. At last report, Hillary is running no TV ads in the state.


Comments (10)

Whoops! I forgot to add the link for the West Virginia article.

I along with Bill Richardson and a coming swell of superdelegates disagree. I applaud the enthusiasm of Hillary supporters, but she's simply lost and now it's time to unite behind Barack Obama because this silliness is starting to hurt the party and give John McCain an advantage that he really shouldn't have. Denver is having trouble meeting its fundraising goals for the Democratic convention which is a direct result of this folly.

Frank Rich: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/opinion/23rich.html

Donna Brazille, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore and just about every pundit are not just spouting off when they say this thing has to wrap up or it will hurt the Democrats. It's hurting the Democrats: Hillary is hurting the Democrats.

The November election is probably going to come down to those who oppose the war and who want to rollback the Bush tax policy voting one way, with everyone else voting the other. This will be true, no matter which candidate is fielded by the Democrats.

Thus far, I'd say that both candidates have made mistakes and both have strengths and weakenesses for November. Obama looks to be the likely nominee and it is becoming increasingly unlikely that the Superdelegates are going to override the voters, if one candidate has a higher popular vote and more pledged delegates.

Letting people vote is not damaging to the party and instead of trying to persuade Sen. Clinton to do something that no one has ever done, perhaps the Obama supporters should focus more on winning the remaining states. After all, even if she were to drop out, her name will still be on the ballots and all that will really happen is that fewer people will register and go to the polls because they'll think the nominee is known.

I mean, it's not like Hillary dropping out is going to convince large numbers of people to show up and vote for Obama, if they weren't leaning that way to start.

Wow, I can't tell you how pleased I am to hear that the Clinton campaign has joined Obama in focusing on voter registration!

If they're going to take all the energy they've poured into praising John McCain, and instead use it to sign up new . . .

Wait -- wait a sec, did I get that wrong? Oh, sorry. I see. The deal is that Hillary spends her time praising John McCain's strength and experience as CiC in order to motivate *us* to do the voter registration drives? Huh. Somehow this isn't sounding as much like a positive party-building process as I thought when I first read your post.

Snark aside, I think a continued campaign *could* be good for the party, if the Clintons approached it in the spirit you've laid out here. And I think it's just possible that they might do that -- because, to be frank, I think it's possible that they're starting to think about winding this down in a dignified way.

You're right that it would be odd to withdraw right now. But I don't think most of us have fully grasped the consequences of not having FL and MI revotes. It means there is no longer any June victory scenario for HRC -- only a very improbable August 28th victory scenario. And since the Clinton team worked so hard to front-load the process in order to give the Dem nominee an early start, they of all people realize that the party isn't, in practice, going to wait for September to start the general election campaign.

So sure, let's play this thing out in a positive and dignified way. And let's register some voters.

Magister wrote:
"After all, even if she were to drop out, her name will still be on the ballots and all that will really happen is that fewer people will register and go to the polls because they'll think the nominee is known."

If Hillary drops out, then Obama is the last candidate standing and it's not really up to the voters to "think the nominee is known". The nominee would be known.

I understand what your saying about voter registration and what not, but that could also be done by Hillary and Bill Clinton getting out and campaigning for the presumptive nominee.

You also fail to mention the millions of dollars that will be spent in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and North Carolina that could be focused on John McCain. You also fail to mention the 6 weeks between now and the NC and Ind. primaries in early May. That is time and money you can't get back to get the full force of the Democratic Party geared up against McCain.

So please take off your rose colored glasses and look at the damage that HRC is causing the Dems in the general election. By not conceding the fact that the only way she becomes the nominee is to TAKE it away from Obama she is only hurting the rest of us.

If Hillary were to drop out, Obama would become the "likely nominee", but historically, I believe the media has generally held-off calling someone the "presumed nominee" until they've gathered enough delegates. No one from either party will become "the nominee" until toward the end of their party's conventions, after the delegates have formally cast their votes and the results have been tallied.

Nonetheless, if Hillary were to do anything, I'd expect her to suspend her campaign, so that she can keep her delegates for the platform. Under the rules, if she (or either candidate) were to completely quit, they'd keep their proportional delegates, but would lose those that were awarded statewide. Suspending a campaign would allow the candidate to keep both and there's nothing to prevent someone from voting for a suspended or dropped-out candidate, plus they could in theory, continue to win races.

According to the NYTimes, Obama has $31.5m for the primaries and $7.3m for the general election. Hillary is a little murkier because she has some debt, but at the time of the report, she had $11.5m for the primaries and $21.5m for the general election. John McCain has spent more than he's been allowed for the primaries because he went for matching funds, so he's precluded from spendingg any more at this stage and the party can't spend any money on his behalf until after the convention.

Everyone says that Obama does better, when he actually campaigns in a state and February he raised more funds than any other candidate in history. Most of his funds are being earmarked for the primaries, but there's nothing to prevent people from marking their donations for the general and because he's at a terrific advantage concerning money, I wouldn't be surprised, if his campaign isn't telling people that they have enough to finish the remaining contests.

PS) Speaking as a Democrat, it'd be super embarrassing if Hillary were to suspend her campaign or quit, yet still continue to win another primary or two. It wouldn't quite reach the level of losing to a deceased candidate, but it'd be a hard bump for the fall.

I say let the people vote and not only do I see no harm coming from the process, but as I noted in my original post, I also see benefits for the party.

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Wolf...So please take off your rose colored glasses and look at the damage that HRC is causing the Dems in the general election.

Do you mean as opposed to the damage the Obama campaign has already done to the Dems for the GE? And your last statement drips with the same arrogance that the Obama supporters brought to these political boards over the past 2+ months and it's probably time to quit kidding yourself. Does Obama have 2025 delegates? If the answer is no, and it is, Obama has nothing to "take away". You need to get over your entitlement mentality.

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Post the looming and inevitable Hill 'n Bill flame-out, I hope Obama continues to "contest" the remaining primary states as the dem nominee and kicks off his national campaign while he's at it.

His campaign prolly already has some of the ground games established and it would rev up the voters in those states.

I agree. If he's going to be the nominee, let him campaign in Montana, South Dakota, Kentucky, Indiana and other states. Several of them have never been visited by someone actively campaigning and you could see how the Dems in Idaho got "fired-up, ready to go".

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