Clinton's 'Comeback kid' narrative ignores basic math

Posted: March 05, 2008, 10:37 AM by Shane Dingman

World, U.S. Politics

Yesterday politopundits everywhere (many of dubious vintage) predicted some sort of tie between U.S. Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. In the end, Clinton pulled off a narrow win in Texas, slightly less narrow in Ohio and Rhode Island and Obama won uber-liberal Vermont.

What does that leave the candidates with? Let's go with CNN:

Needed to Win = 2,025

Candidate Pledged Superdelegates Total

Obama 1257 194 1451

Clinton 1127 238 1365

That's a difference of 130 pledged delegates. Among the super delegates, who can change their vote at any time, the number is murkier, so let's leave it aside at the moment. Yesterday TNR pointed out what Hillary needed to do to erase her deficit, and it looked bad.

611 pledged delegates remain to be fought over in nine future votes (there are 12 actual states or territories remaining, with some multi-state votes on the docket).

The biggest prizes? The April 22 poll in Pennsylvania with 158 pledged delegates on the line. Then Indiana (72) and North Carolina (115) on May 6.

These two are splitting the vote in most of their contests, which means in a contest like Ohio where Clinton won, and is making great hay of the victory, she had a mere net gain of 16 pledged delegates. In Texas, the split primary/caucus means her net gain could be in the single digits.

And yet look at how this "swing" is covered at the LA Times:

Nor could they have projected more dramatically different auras. Hillary Clinton -- having proved that, like her husband, she seems to perform best when she's on the ropes -- beamed in Ohio as she celebrated her impressive victory in that state's primary.

The popular vote, meanwhile favours Obama, slightly:

Popular Vote: Obama — 12,946,615 Clinton — 12,363,897
Popular Vote (counting Florida): Obama — 13,522,829 Clinton — 13,234,883

At the NYTimes blog The Caucus, even though that paper's editorial board endorsed Clinton, had a more subdued take Tuesday:

For Mrs. Clinton, the contest now “is not so much against Mr. Obama as it is against a Democratic Party establishment that had once been ready to coalesce behind her but has been drifting toward Mr. Obama.”

Mr. Obama, the winner in Vermont, also appeared via satellite on “Today.” He criticized Mrs. Clinton for “cherry-picking” the states that she felt were most important to win throughout the campaign, and pointed to the fact that he’s won more states overall. His rival “barely dented” his lead in the delegate count last night, he said.

So why is Clinton, as well as some members of the media, so confident? Well, as ABC'S Jake Tapper points out:

In talking points circulated late last night, the Clinton campaign acknowledges that it can never overtake Obama with pledged delegates, and asserts that it intends to overtake him with the support of superdelegates.

"We plan on gaining pledged delegates and closing the Obama camp’s lead by the end of the nominating process," the Clinton memo says. "When it comes to pledged delegates, we’ll be competitive."

At Time Magazine's Swampland blog Ana Maria Cox called the spin before it really began this morning:

10:58 PM Tomorrow's HRC spin, tonight: "He didn't close tonight and that means he can't close. We can pull this out." Tomorrow's Obama spin, tonight: "They did little to close the delegate count, and that's what this is about."

This same narrative is repeated at the Chicago Tribune, On Daily Kos (who puts the Texas delegate split even tighter than Ohio's), At Mother Jones, at the Huffington Post, at the National Journal's Hotline, at Newsweek, at Slate. Really, all over the place as you can see on RealClear Politics morning summary.

But The Atlantic Monthly's Marc Ambinder's thoughts really ought to be the last word on Tuesday night... that for Hillary these victories are wonderful for her and her campaign staff, but they are too little, too late:

It is a sad irony or perhaps cosmic justice: just as Hillary Clinton succeeded in reforming her coalition -- older voters, working class women, self-identified Democrats, Latinos, the less affluent, the less educated -- just as she's succeeded in raising doubts about the presumptive Democratic nominee, the claws that are the Democratic rules tightened, perhaps inescapably -- in that she cannot escape from them. Forget about momentum. Or press coverage. Or arguments. Or moral claims to this or that. Forget about the external things that all of us in the media normally cover.

As the calendar progress, the reality is that the rules have become the controlling legal authority. When folks say "this ain't over for a while," they don't have a predicate. Perhaps the scrutiny on Obama will increase and that he will crash and that 30% of his superdelegates will crash and that 30% of his pledged delegates will defect and that 60% of the remaining superdelegates delegates will go her way. That could happen, but it is still not that likely to happen.