Losing At Winning
Charlie Cook calls the situation Hillary Clinton is in political purgatory. She can't win, she can't break even and she pretty much can't quit the game.
The good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she’s winning a lot of battles. The bad news is that the war is pretty much lost. Sure, she won Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary by a strong 9 points in the face of being outspent on television ads by Barack Obama 2-to-1. She also won Ohio, Rhode Island, and at least the primary part of the bizarre “Texas two-step” primary-and-caucus combination on March 4. But today, she is 133 delegates behind Obama, 1,728 to 1,595, according to NBC News. At this point last week, she trailed by 136 delegates. Since then Clinton has scored a net gain of 10 delegates in Pennsylvania, according to NBC, but has lost a few more superdelegates, so she has made little headway.
If this contest were still at the point where momentum, symbolism, and reading tea leaves mattered, Clinton would be in pretty good shape. Everything she has needed to happen is happening now. Obama is getting tougher press coverage and critical examination. He’s also getting rattled a bit, and he didn’t perform well in the recent debate in Philadelphia. Clinton is winning in big, important places, but it’s happening about three months too late.
Cook writes that Clinton simply cannot quit while she is winning in the big states. But it is just about over for her - the win in Pennsylvania only netted her about 10 delegates after you subtract the superdelegates who jumped over to Obama. But if you think she's in a bad way right now, just wait until the fallout she will suffer if Obama gets the nomination then fails to win in the general election. She'll be blamed for that, even though the real fault is the bizarre nominating process the Democrats have in place.
By Neo, Thursday, 24 April , 2008 @ 11:55 am
Obama has more pledged delegates, but the differences end there.
By Woodsprite, Thursday, 24 April , 2008 @ 2:35 pm
It all comes down to how you define a win. In her mind, is it more important for her or her party to have a chance at winning the presidency? If she loses the primary, but causes enough damage that Obama loses the real race, then she will claim that she wouldn’t have lost. If she harps on that and keeps herself in the public eye, she then has set herself up for nomination in 2012.
By Mockinbird, Friday, 25 April , 2008 @ 2:54 pm
Attention! All crypto-commies to the gator pond!