The Candidates
Thus, far Hillary’s tried to make the argument that Barack is fatally weak with significant constituencies within the Democratic Party, and that he’s doomed to electoral disaster because of this. She’s only had limited success in selling this argument, in large part because it’s rather difficult to “prove” that working class whites really won’t vote for Obama in November. After all, maybe Obama is doing poorly with this group because they REALLY love Hillary. Last night’s tremendous failure further complicates the argument, to the point where she almost has no means to convince the superdelegates. Almost no means.
Let’s suppose, instead of trudging on and wracking up large victories in West Virginia and Kentucky, she instead decides to “suspend” her campaign within the next 4 or 5 days. She doesn’t endorse Obama, and she doesn’t officially withdraw, but for all and intents and purposes she’s conceded. Now, let’s suppose next Tuesday something odd happens; Hillary Clinton still wins West Virginia, and by a fairly sizable margin. Suddenly, Obama’s weakness with working class whites doesn’t just look like a problem, but an insurmountable problem. He can’t even win the demographic when his opponent has conceded; they’d rather cast a protest vote then vote for him.
Afterwards, Hillary declares that, in light of the West Virginia results, she has no choice but to resume her campaign. The public wants her, and Obama simply cannot win the demographics needed to become president. The timing for “suspending” her campaign is key here. She wants to suspend it early enough that the media absorbs her withdrawal, but not so early that the public does. Sunday night sounds promising to me. This scenario is not at all far fetched. Hillary is looking down the barrel of a 30-40 point victory in West Virginia if she remains in the race. No state in the country is more favorable to her, or more unfavorable to Obama. She could potentially win the state through her early votes alone. And recall that Ron Paul is still getting 17% of the vote in primaries.
It’s not at all unprecedented to put up amazing showings despite not officially being in the race. What’s more, in terms of actual delegates, there’s really no meaningful benefit to winning the state by 30-40 points instead of 5-15. Hillary can’t win on delegates; she must win on narrative, and no conceivable narrative gives her the momentum or leverage to convince the superdelegates if she remains in the race. If she wants to win, if she hopes to prove that Obama really can’t, in any circumstances, win working class whites, she must drop out. So that she can attempt to rise from the ashes after West Virginia. It’s still a huge long-shot, but it’s frankly the only hint of a hope she has left.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Wow. I just made the same point in the “Drudge” thread.
Great minds think alike.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Nice. West Virginia is also an excellent place for such a tactic, because it has a peculiar history; the Democrats haven’t won the Presidency without winning West Virginia since 1916. Now everyone who’s serious knows Obama won’t win West Virginia in November. No one supposes that losing it’s 4 (?) electoral votes will doom him, despite that history. But, rhetorically it will seem devastating for Hillary to say “we haven’t won the presidency without West Virginia since 1916. Obama can’t even win the state when he’s the only one in the race. And you think he can win in November?”
May 7th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Interesting point, but this is all mental masturbation at this point.
The Superdelegates all know that Hillary is going to win WV. It is the perfect combination of homogeneity, poor education and racism for her.
They won’t care either way.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:46 am
On a related subject, does anyone think it would be a good idea for John McCain to call on the Democrats to abolish superdelegates in the 2012 race or is that too insiderish for people to relate to?
May 7th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Clinton just lent herself 6.4 million, she can’t quit, she has to stay in it just to raise money. Unfortunately even Today, if she took 100% of all the delegates in WVA, KY and PR, and Obama only got 55% of the delegates in MT, ORE and SD, Obama would win if you split the super delagtes right down the middle. Anything less spells doom for Clinton, but she’ll hang in there and put the dems through the ringer to bail herself out of debt.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Gah! I was thinking this myself!
May 7th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Interesting idea Matt, but I don’t think she’ll play it this way. First of all, she just lent herself 6 million bucks. Secondly, she needs to maximize her delegate victories, and thirdly, the more she stomps Obama in WV, Ky, and PR, the more the super delegates are going to give pause and consider voting for her at the convention. I think her main problem will be if a bunch of them begin declaring they are with Obama this week.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:54 am
How many people out there are stupid enough to donate to her campaign even though she has no chance and is only staying in to erase her debt? There must be a lot of stupid people out there.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:14 am
The result we had yesterday wasn’t too far from expectations. Let’s calm down.
No stunts or desperate decisions make sense right now.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:21 am
George McGovern just switched his support from Hillary to Obama. He also turned on his own VP pick just because he had once seen a psychiatrist. I wouldn’t want McGovern with me in a foxhole.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Too obvious. Way too obvious.
Nobody would buy “West Virginia loves me! I must stay in the race!”