Daily Kos

Before you pull that lever PA voters.....

Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 11:52:44 PM PDT

A look at the road ahead for each candidate......

Obama’s path to the Whitehouse:
His strategy is simple, since he’s so far ahead;
Keep winning, keep inspiring, and keep bringing new young people into the movement for change.
His rejection of "politics as usual" has been a winning message, that’s inspired over a million individual donors to contribute to his campaign. The average donation to Obama is $96.  That’s many small voices he’ll be accountable to.  Not special interests who can write big checks.  

Hillary's path to the Whitehouse:

Let’s take a look at the "Best case" scenario for Hillary.  
She is trailing in the Polls in North Carolina and Indiana, but for argument sake, let’s give her victories of 10% in every remaining race.   (NOTE: THIS VERY UNLIKELY)   Here’s what that looks like:


(This graph is from CNN.com)
Notice anything?   She’s still behind by 82 pledged delegates.  She would need to thus take 2/3 of the remaining 311 super delegates to win the nomination.   She won’t get that since many "Super Delegates" have already stated they won’t overturn the "will of the people" as expressed in these elections.    So what is her plan?
Her campaign is now moving the goal posts yet again stating now that it takes 2,200 delegates instead of 2,025 to win.  Why?  Because that is the number of a simple majority if Florida and Michigan are counted.

FL and MI, you’ll remember, broke the Democratic nation committee’s rules and moved there election ahead of everyone else in an attempt to become more important than the other states.   Both Hillary and Barack agreed not to campaign in those states and Barack's name was not even on the Ballot in Michigan.

Hillary intends to take this election all the way up to the convention then have the "Credentials committee" overturn the original DNC decision to strip FL and MI of their delegates. All the compromises that have been put forth (Such as proportioning delegates 50% on the national popular vote and 50% based on the invalidated state election results) have been rejected by the Clinton campaign since they would still leave her short. So she needs a change in the rules of the game at the 11th hour to win.. She needs FL & MI seated "as-is" with no compromises.  As if nothing was wrong with those elections.

This 11th hour rule change will occur on August 25th AT THE CONVENTION leaving just September, October, and few days in November to campaign against John McCain. Just 70 days or so to reunite the party.

What will be the scene at the convention?  Throng's of Energized, passionate, youthful Obama supporters, their candidate having won the pledge delegates, ready to see him collect his victory.  The first African American to win such a race.  Imagine them being told at the last minute "Sorry, a couple of folks on credentials committee say Clinton won, so tough break.  We decided to change the rules."  The outrage will be severe and justified.   With just 2 months to repair all that damage.    Hillary may be polling only slight behind Obama in national polls right now, but if a "credentials committee" steals this election for her...  we all loose to another 4 years of Bush policies.

Let’s just move on to John McCain...  

After all, Hillary stated emphatically in the debate "Yes, Yes, Yes" Obama can win..    

Thanks for your consideration.
Mike

PS:
If this is too analytical for you, here's a lighter take on all this-

Tags: Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, 2008 elections, president, primaries, delegates (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

View Comments | 17 comments