Time Is On Hillary’s Side?
According to ABC News, it could very well be that time is on Hillary Clinton’s side. Sure, Barack Obama is leading in delegates, but Hillary has enough time to convince superdelegates to turn their backs on Obama and to, instead, support her, the former first lady and now Senator for New York.
That could all very well be true, but I think she’s fighting an uphill battle nonetheless. This nomination is Obama’s to lose. The main question right now is whether Clinton can destroy Obama’s image. Or do enough damage to it to bring it down (to earth).
Last week one got the impression that she was succeeding in doing just that, this week is a less bad week for the Senator from Illinois. He’s winning primaries again – as expected but still – and there seems to be less negative attention paid to him in the media and on blogs.
What hurt Obama more than Clinton’s attacks, though, was the amateurism on display by him and his advisers. NAFTAgate, Iraqgate, Monstergate, Rezkogate and so on.
Obama, then, has to do two things:
- defend himself against attacks and try to play down the significance of all these controversies
- close the ranks; no more leaks, no more stupid mistakes by his own advisers
If he does both, I think he’s going to be the nominee. If he fails in one or both, he has a problem.
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Maybe I just haven’t learned my lesson from the seemingly endless capacity of the Democratic Party to do the thing least in it’s own interest, but I simply can’t think that superdelegates are stupid enough to do anything other than go with whomever is ahead.
Only two scenarios occur to me that could make the supers go for Hillary:
1. Florida and Michigan are seated (not a re-vote, which Florida is rejecting, but seated directly). Florida by itself wouldn’t be enough to close the gap, but with Michigan it would, since Obama isn’t on the ticket. She would get ahead this way, and the supers would have an excuse to go with her. It would have to be masterfully played in order to convince voters that it wasn’t simply changing the rules to benefit Clinton. Doubtful, but possible.
2. IF she can make the argument that ALL the supers from states she won should go with her AND those are enough to put her over the top.
What’s more likely is that the supers sit tight till convention day and then sit with whomever has the numerical advantage at that point.
I disagree Claudia. I think they’ll go with the person who they deem least damaged goods. And yes, that may mean the person with the most delegates, but if Hillary wins the popular vote (which is possible) she can make the case that Obama wins in delegates, but not in votes. That’ll influence some people I am sure, especially if she’s doing better in the final weeks of the nomination process.
That’s her path to the nomination. Obama, though, is the favorite… but it’s not as simple as you seem to think. It’s actually quite complicated.
Actually it looks like time is on McCain’s side, at least as long as the Dems keep duking it out.
The more hypotheses I read about what the superdelegates will do, the more surprised I am that people are making suggestions that they’ll behave monolithically. Look at how much variance there is when it comes to opinions about what they should do. Isn’t it parsimonious to think the SD will have the same sort of variance? I think that a wide variety of rationales will be employed, and that most of the SD are open to changing their minds depending on which rationales seem compelling based on the trends come convention time. But since there are many plausible rationales, it seems unlikely that the SD will split by more than say 55% to 45%. I can see the SD giving the nom to Clinton if she closes to within say 70 or less, and certainly if she closes to within 50 or 30. But if Obama keeps a 3-digit lead? No way.