Delegate Mirth ( the end has come! )

[River]

At this point, the only thing I'd call inevitable is an election.

[Faramond]

I've now put every remaining state into the spreadsheet ( very easy to make ) and come up with a delegate projection based on my guesses, which are guided by past contests and polls where available.

The results in VA and MD were a little better for Obama than I had projected last time, but not so much better that it really changes the delegate picture, unless these victories give him the momentum to win Texas or Ohio.

If there is an Obama wave of support that makes the upcoming voters behave differently than similar voters did on Super Tuesday, then it's all over. Obama will open up at least a 200 delegate lead, and I think in such a case most of the remaining superdelegates will break Obama's way, not to mention defections of previously committed to Hillary delegates.

However, if Clinton can hold her own, then she will trail by about 100 pledged delegates once all the states save for MI and FL are counted. Holding her own means winning Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas by at least 15 points each. She does lead by around 15 points current polls in Ohio and Pennsylvania, for what that might be worth. She also needs to score nearly a draw to Obama in Kentucky, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and not lose North Carolina too badly.

So it looks like a 100 pledged delegate deficit is the best Hillary Clinton can do right now. Would that be enough for her to have a shot? I think it would. I think any mass exodus of superdelegates would be forestalled by big wins in Texas and Ohio. I think it would count greatly in Hillary's favor that she won just about every big state except for Illinois. I think she could claim that Obama wouldn't have any sort of delegate lead if Michigan and Florida had counted. She might even have a lead in the national popular vote total at this point, and use that to gain superdelegates.

And then there is Puerto Rico, which I've not included in this analysis yet. The island has 55 delegates, and they vote after the last state votes. But what I've read is that regardless of the vote the party leadership there just assigns all the 55 delegates to one candidate or the other. This seems very strange to me, and I have my doubts about it happening this time around, but if it did happen one candidate or the other would get a huge prize.

[solicitr]

Just in:

Mitt Romney has endorsed McCain. If as is likely he releases his delegates to him, that comes very close to clinching the GOP nomination.

[vison]

Rats.

I'm gonna hate this election.

In a way.

In another way, I'm gonna enjoy it a lot.

About the only blood sport left.


If you don't count boxing and I do.

One of these days I'm going to start a thread: "Should boxing be banned?"

After the election, though.

[Faramond]

Obama has taken a lead in a poll of Texas voters.

http://americanresearchgroup.com/

If this holds up it's very likely all over. Her only hope would be to sway a bunch of superdelegates to her side, and have delegates from Michigan and Florida seated. I don't think the Democratic party will let either of those things happen.

edit:

Three other current polls have Clinton up in Texas, though, including by double digits in one.

[Dave_LF]

Faramond, I think the poll you linked to is over all Texas voters as opposed to Democrats who are likely to vote in the primary, hence the difference.

[axordil]

TX polling is going to be very hard to interpret because of the weighting factor I talked about earlier. If HRC or Obama pulls a lot of support from places that are lightly weighted, it won't do them as much good as simply winning in areas that are heavily weighted. The popular vote and the delegate count could be extremely disjointed in TX.

[solicitr]

Harold Ickes, a top Hillary Clinton adviser, on Saturday boldly predicted his candidate would lock down the nomination before the August convention by definitively winning over party insiders and officials known as superdelegates, claiming the number of state elections won by rival Barack Obama would be “irrelevant” to their decision.

[River]

If that happens I will personally drive my shitty car down to Denver and throw rotten vegetables at the convention center. Or maybe just rotten words. But such circumvention of the people's choice WILL make me mad. It should be to the elected delegates to make this decision, not the party insiders. If Hillary OR Obama wins on superdelegates, I would not consider it legit.

[Túrin Turambar]

Polls in Texas are very fluid at the moment, and with the unusual delegate system there's no telling how it will work out. Even without the delegates, winning the state, especially with a decent margin, would be a boon to either candidate.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Harold Ickes, a top Hillary Clinton adviser, on Saturday boldly predicted his candidate would lock down the nomination before the August convention by definitively winning over party insiders and officials known as superdelegates, claiming the number of state elections won by rival Barack Obama would be “irrelevant” to their decision.

I saw that too. I think that Ickes must have gone to the same school as Huckabee, with the same major.

In addition to being a top Clinton adviser, Ickes is also a top official of the DNC. He was, in fact, one of those responsible for putting in place the rules that resulted in Florida and Michigan being stripped of his delegates. Nonetheless, he has now spoken out in favor of seating those delegates at the convention.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/200802 ... LU1O0.html

[Faramond]

According to the article Ickles explains that he's wearing a different hat now then when he voted for those delegates to be stripped. Is his current hat cutting off the circulation to his brain?

This whole nomination process is getting rather gruesome.

You know, it's going to seem weird having a general election without either Obama OR Clinton. They are both such larger than life figures now. But of course, one of them always had to go. There can be only one.

[Primula Baggins]

I hope (blindly, yeah) that no candidate is so selfish as to choose to win by manipulation, against the majority. And even if a particular candidate might choose such a stupid course, I hope the party will not.

I do still think there is reason to believe it won't come up. There's reason for Clinton's people to play up this possibility, in hopes that some people at least will vote for her to keep the popular and superdelegate votes from diverging and save the party from chaos. But if Obama's momentum continues, there may be another solution to the problem.

[Cerin]

I think there's some inconsistency here, with people saying 'stick by the rules' regarding Florida and Michigan, but wanting to forgo the rules as far as the super delegates are concerned. There is no rule that requires super delegates to ratify the primary/caucus results (particularly in the case of a very close race). Yet Obama and supporters appear to be trying to bully people into accepting that that is the only way in which the super delegates may cast their votes. People say, regarding Florida and Michigan, that everyone knew the rules going in. Well, everyone also knew the rules governing superdelegates going in, and the rule is that they are free to vote as they think best. Perhaps that is undemocratic, but everyone participating accepted those rules going in.

It may not be all that clear who the choice of the people is, when you consider the number of Obama victories through caucuses (which have a relatively miniscule number of voters participating) and the difficulty in determining who has actually received the most votes. Considering these ambiguities, I think there is no strong ethical case to made, that in the case of a very close count in regular delegates, the super delegates must fall in line with that result.

Everyone has said that if the regular delegate result becomes very clear and unambiguous, there will be no question that the majority of superdelegates will back that candidate. But in the hypothetical case of a close race, where various factors make it difficult to truly assess who has won the most support, it is unreasonable to insist that the super delegates must act in a way the rules do not prescribe. That's essentially preemptively sabotaging the convention by declaring you will find all but a certain outcome unacceptable.

If the Obama campaign is going agitate for upholding the rules in the one case, then they should be defending the rules in the other case with equal vigor (rather than trying to undermine them and establish new ones).

I wish everyone would just back off, because this has the makings of a real disaster -- not because of what may happen, but because of all this preemptive manipulation and positioning over certain potential outcomes. I think we may well forfeit the coming election before the real campaign even begins, if people don't put the collective good before their personal zealotries.

Of course, I have the luxury of saying that, because I speak as one who has no clear idea of which of the two remaining candidates would make the better nominee or the better president, and no particular desire to see one triumph over the other (having fervently wished that someone other than one of these two would end up as the nominee). In fact, I'm sure to feel a certain dread whatever the outcome (unless the convention ends up throwing both Obama and Clinton over for Edwards or Gore, ha ha).

[Túrin Turambar]

I think there's some inconsistency here, with people saying 'stick by the rules' regarding Florida and Michigan, but wanting to forgo the rules as far as the super delegates are concerned.

I see your point, but I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the superdelegates should be forced to vote one way or the other. Some people think they should be abolished, but I think Obama supporters are simply pointing out the damage that would be done to party unity should Barack Obama win a majority of votes and delegates and then lose the nomination to Hillary Clinton on superdelegates. The reverse would be similarly damaging, but is looking a lot less likely.

As it stands, the position of the Democratic Party now is looking a lot more precocious than anyone expected six months ago. Then, the Republican Party was struggling to find an electable candidate and was looking certain to face a brokered convention. Now John McCain is more or less locked in and still fairly popular, while the Democratic race is looking to run to the convention. A 1948-style result in the general election isn’t entirely out of the question.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Lord M, six months ago, the polls were showing Guiliani the clear leader on the GOP side, and Clinton the clear leader on the Demo side, with Guiliani leading in head to head polls against her. Now McCain is the presumptive GOP nominee, Obama is the Demo frontrunner, and head to head polls show Obama defeating McCain. So I would say that the Demos position is stronger now than it was than.

Of course, six months from now things will be completely different again, anyway.

[axordil]

It may not be all that clear who the choice of the people is, when you consider the number of Obama victories through caucuses (which have a relatively miniscule number of voters participating) and the difficulty in determining who has actually received the most votes. Considering these ambiguities, I think there is no strong ethical case to made, that in the case of a very close count in regular delegates, the super delegates must fall in line with that result.

Depends on what you mean by "close". 5 is close. 500 is not. It's the in-between that gets sticky. Personally, I think anything over 200 is pretty clear.

I strongly object to the characterization of caucuses as somehow inferior vehicles for selecting candidates, by the way, especially the sort of well-attended caucuses we've seen this year. I've seen a lot of primaries in my time where the participation rate is below 20%, because the candidate was more or less already decided. Are those somehow a better indicator of how people actually feel?

Beyond that I agree with L_M. I don't think anyone should be forced to vote one way or another...but I also think there are clear repercussions for being perceived as contradicting the voted results. I also support the notion of FL and MI each doing a make-up caucus--they certainly couldn't say their votes didn't matter THIS time around.

[Cerin]

I see your point, but I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the superdelegates should be forced to vote one way or the other.

On the contrary, I think that is exactly what the Obama campaign is trying to engineer -- that is, to create a climate in which the super delegates are perceived to be acting improperly if they don't ratify the delegate leader, no matter how small the margin.

Some people think they should be abolished

Personally, I would like to see them abolished if they are only to serve as an echo of the national delegate race even in close contests. I'd like to see them abolished regardless, if people are intent on using them to make accusations of unfairness, cheating and 'smoke-filled rooms'.

[Primula Baggins]

As I think Ax said upthread, the superdelegates are so numerous exactly because they were intended to give the party powerful a voice in choosing the nominee if it was clear the popular vote was going the "wrong" way. They are definitely an aspect of the "smoke-filled room." The question is whether it's still politically possible for them to be used that way: whether the party poo-bahs will conclude that it would be too politically expensive to overrule the primaries.

It's not corruption; it's all within the party's rules. But the Republicans don't nominate that way, and why should the Democrats?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I strongly object to the characterization of caucuses as somehow inferior vehicles for selecting candidates, by the way, especially the sort of well-attended caucuses we've seen this year.

Ax, I didn't get the sense that Cerin was saying that caucuses are inferior vehicles for selecting candidates, but rather because of their different nature it makes it more difficult to truly determine who received more popular votes (Cerin, I'm sure you will correct me if I am wrong about that ). I agree that the system is so complicated that it leads to a lot of competing methods for how to determine who was the most popular candidate. I'm not always a big fan of uniformity, but in this case I think the process would be better served by more standardization (that is perhaps even more true on the Republican side, with its mish-mash of proportional states and winner-take-all states).