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The End Game

OK, here’s my prediction.  Hillary will continue to campaign through the end (hopefully not going negative) allowing all votes to be cast with a sense of genuine participation.  Meanwhile the supers will pile on for Obama at a bit faster rate.  By the end of the month, when it comes time to sort out FL and MI he will have enough votes, delegates, states to split MI 50/50 – which I think all will agree is OK since he wasn’t on the ballot – and give her all of her votes/delegates in FL and still have no threat to his nomination.  This will give the folks in those two states a sense of having a voice and being counted while also addressing that particular argument of the Clinton campaign.  Those two states will be important in the general so must be addressed.  

This all hinges, however, on Hillary eventually coming around to face the inevitable. If she stays in a "post-reality" world and continues to go negative the supers might have to be more abrupt.  That wouldn't play out as well for the party so hopefully it can be avoided.  Let the healing begin!


Comments (5)

He could even agree to to give Hillary her MI delegates in exchange for him getting the uncommitted delegates, and still comfortably pull it off.

At which point does the math allow him to accept a 60/40 split in her favor?

Depends on how certain he wants to be. He could do it right now and still be pretty much guaranteed the pledged delegate lead, I believe.

At this stage, I think the Hillary campaign is no longer the real driving force for seating those delegations, but rather the state party bigshots.
They want to be "players," so they have to be at the big show in Denver.
If I recall rightly, it wasn't just the pledged (elected) delegates who were stripped of seating, but the superdelegates from Florida and Michigan as well.
To get their tickets back, they will cut whatever deal they have to -- especially now that the precise Obama-Clinton ratio is increasingly irrelevant.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, I think the supers are also unseated. From what I understood listening to MSNBC that assuming the general predictions for future contests (she wins WV, KY, he wins OR, etc.) They can seat both FL and MI, FL as is - not sure how they would split MI there - with him still getting the nomination. The Obama campaign prediction sheet that lists estimates of wins and delegates alloted is here:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/Obamas_projections.html
You can play with the numbers, I don't think there is any chance for her at all without a deluge of supers.

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