-
sponsorship
Slate minds seem to be thinking alike today. I hadn't read Mickey's crack of dawn post when I thought I had an inspiration for the deadlocked Democratic race: What if the superdelegates all lined up behind whoever won their state? Maybe that could deliver us a clear winner. I truly had no idea whether Obama or Clinton would fare better, so it struck me as the perfect disinterested proposition. Since over at Trailhead they're much closer to the numbers than I am (no, I'm not saying we're math-challenged here at XX, just that we're not doing number-crunching duty, and they are), I asked for their help. And the winner is ... well, so much for a simple clarifier. Clinton and Obama are almost dead even in superdelegates when they're apportioned this way: 289 for Clinton, 286 for Obama. Add that to their regular delegate totals, and you get: Obama at 1,737 and Clinton at 1,654. Now I'm hoping Trailhead will keep up the calculating and figure out what Clinton would have to do to win in this alternate reality—what states she'd have to win and by what margins.
-
sponsorship
Well, as Chris Matthews rather too harshly pointed out to Hillaryland's Lisa Caputo last night, it can't really be buyer's remorse, given that each state is a new group of buyers. (Still, ungallant to have someone on and then tell her that her metaphor is dumb.) This morning, there seemed to be some question about whether it's really the Democrats who are dithering; after Rush Limbaugh spent all week telling Texas Republicans to turn out for Hillary in their state's open primary, on the premise that she would be the weaker candidate in the fall, 9 percent of the Democratic vote did come from self-identified Republicans. Only as it turned out, they broke for Obama! I can't remember another primary in which it was so hard to tell the true crossovers from the aspiring process manipulators. Or when so many people in both parties were claiming they'd vote with the other party in the fall if their candidate did not prevail. So, this is still a happy day for El Rushbo—with Hillary pledging to go down shooting—and one mixed-up election. And given the—how do I say this?—previous lack of close personal friendship between Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, the very idea of him getting to broker this thing must make everything that's happened since 2000 seem almost worth it. (Unless, like those guys yelling, "Iron my shirts," he was joking at her expense.)
-
sponsorship
I'm also ready to close the deal already, one way or the other. That sentiment doesn't exactly seem to be sweeping the nation, though, at least not when each state gets its turn to vote. And those women: Wow, are they coming out in droves—59 percent of the vote in Ohio; 57 percent in Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island. If the men were that jazzed, Obama would probably have won by now. Since he hasn't, the superdelegates seem to me to be in an awkward position. If they break for Obama, they're cutting off the process the party designed before it plays out and right after Hillary proved her staying power. If they don't, then the party continues a long march toward a stalemate. What do you do when one person is winning and the other one can't catch up but the race is long and the guy in the lead is only a stride or two ahead? It's an oddly dissatisfying variation on the tortoise and the hare.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?