GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
Just in case anyone was still wondering about Hillary’s chances…
Obama picked up several more superdelegates last night and this morning - right after his embarrassing 40-point defeat in West Virginia. In and of itself, that should tell you something, but the math is even more stark for the Clinton campaign. That brings the current Superdelegate count according to CNN to 284-273 - advantage Obama.
Which means, if anyone’s counting, in the last 8 days, 33 superdelegates have declared and have broken for Obama 28-5. Ouch. (In the last 44 days, it’s been 68-23.)
Playing around with CNN’s delegate counter, it now appears that Hillary needs roughly 80% of the remaining superdelegates just to send this thing to the convention. To outright win it, she’ll need to pull around 86-87% of the remaining superdelegates.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Obama announced several superdelegate endorsements right after PA as I recall. It’s an effective way to divert attention from a loss.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:45 am
The thing is, superdelegates can change their mind at any time.
There’s a small chance, that as Obama’s electoral weaknesses are discussed more and more, and Hillary looks more and more resilient, that there could be a massive move toward her next month or later.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I want them to go to the convention and for Obama to win it at the convention. That would be the ideal situation. Even if it doesn’t go to the convention, the longer it goes on the better. Obama is a weak nominee. If this weren’t an anti-Republican year, McCain would win in a landslide. That McCain even has a chance in a year like this really tells you something about the Democratic nominee.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Metro, that is precisely why this is not lasting too much longer. The strategy is to give Clinton until the last primary so that there can’t be an argument that she was forced out. (Even though if Clinton were a man she would have been forced out weeks ago.) In exchange for this added time it seems the delegates have accepted the argument that the delegate leader is the nominee. All the Clinton talk about big states and even popular vote are bunk.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Obama is in Michigan today. It looks like he’s totally ignoring Hillary Clinton now and focusing on John McCain. This may hurt him a bit in Oregon and Kentucky if she’s the only one campaigning in those states.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
The thing is … it really doesn’t matter whether she “gets out” after June 5 or not. She will most likely “suspend her campaign” and simply allow McCain and Obama to go after each other for most of the summer. She can spend the summer helping Democratic candidates for other offices and doing fundraisers to retire her debt. If Obama makes a big mistake, then she can “resume her campaign” and urge the supers to vote for her at the convention. There is almost no downside for her in this scenario.
Anyone who is expecting Hillary to endorse Obama on June 6 is, in my opinion, very naive. The only reason for Hillary to concede and actually endorse Obama is if she wants to name the veep (especially if that means putting herself in that spot).