Obama’s got the Math, but Clinton’s got the Machine

Posted on March 5, 2008 
Filed Under Democratic Primary, Politics

Obama 

Now that Hillary has taken three of four - an outcome we predicted - who really has the advantage going into the stretch run?  The math is certainly on Obama’s side, but we shouldn’t go anointing him the Democratic nominee just yet.

 

 Out of the 2,546 delegates that have been awarded, 1,340 have gone to Barack Obama and 1,206 have gone to Hillary Clinton (RCP).  There are 611 additional pledged delegates at stake in the remaining contests and the history of this primary season holds (the winner receiving no more than 52 % or 318 of the remaining), then we are looking at the super delegates becoming a factor, or “automatic delegates” as the Clinton acolytes have begun calling them.  The numbers are on Obama’s side, albeit slightly, as he would need just 46% of the 795 party leaders to secure the nomination.  Clinton needs 63%.  

 

Complicating matters for Obama is the Democratic machinery, which is firmly in Clinton’s corner.  Further, while Obama’s February winning streak was due in part to a schedule that dramatically favored him, the schedule from here out is kinder to Hillary with Pennsylvania and Indiana (two important bellwethers) comprised of demographics that firmly favor Clinton.  Obama will almost certainly head to the convention with a marginal lead in delegates, but he won’t have enough to lock up the nomination meaning he somehow has to battle the Clinton machine in Denver.

 

This all makes Florida and Michigan and what Howard Dean does with their unseated delegates enormously important.  Do the Democrats risk going into the general election by not only disenfranchising voters in two key states, but possibly thumbing their nose at their entire electorate by allowing the Super Delegates to decide this thing?  For a party that has been all about making all the votes count and railing against the “stolen” election’s of 2000, and 2004 it could be lethal, not to mention the long-term damage dealt to the party by undercutting the historic movement that is Obamamania.  Would African Americans ever again trust the Democrats if they pulled the rug out from Obama after he won more votes than Hillary Clinton?

 

While the conventional wisdom has suggested that the longer this fight goes on the more it weakens the Democrats there is a contrary view worth considering.  Whoever survives this knife fight will emerge stronger, having withstood everything thrown at them with the knowledge of how to defend against every possible attack.  More importantly, both Clinton and Obama will their organizations to the final group of states where their growing infrastructure will help them battle each other. Having secured the Republican nomination, John McCain will not have to bother bringing in the foot soldiers, but this will put him at a disadvantage in those states, particularly Pennsylvania and Ohio, come the general election, as he will have to start building his organization in those states from square one.

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