The Democratic nominating contest now enters a new phase. There are no elections until April 22nd, in Pennsylvania. Let’s look at the lay of the land. First, let’s look at contests won. Forty states have voted. Barack Obama has won the popular vote in twenty-six of them. If we look at a different measure (the winner of pledged delegates), Obama has won twenty-eight of them (and tied in Missouri and New Hampshire). Put another way, Clinton has won the delegate fight in 12 of 40 contests. If we add in DC, the Virgin Islands, Democrats Abroad, and American Samoa, Clinton has won the delegate fight in 13 of 44 contests. That’s a less than 30% success rate.
Obama has a popular vote lead of over 700,000 votes. If we include Florida (where no one campaigned) Obama has a popular vote lead of over 400,000 votes. If we add in Michigan as well (where Obama was not even on he ballot), Obama has a popular vote lead of just under 80,000 votes. Of course, Clinton received 328,000 votes in Michigan and Obama received none, so that is a very unfair way of tabulating the popular vote.
Two thousand six hundred and eighty-seven pledged delegates have been elected and Obama has won 1,403 (52%) of them. Clinton has won 46% of them.
The only measure where Hillary Clinton still maintains a lead is in the superdelegate count. She has a 247-211 (54%-46%) advantage. On Super Tuesday (February 5th), Clinton had a ninety superdelegate edge. Now the edge is a mere thirty-six.
Using Slate’s delegate calculator, even if Clinton wins every remaining contest with 60% of the vote, she will only pick up 111 pledged delegates, and will finish 52 delegates behind Obama.
In spite of this, the Clinton campaign plans on doing this:
The Clinton campaign plans to use the coming six-week gap in primary voting to aggressively push its case that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., lacks the necessary experience to be president as the superdelegates loom by far as the most important voters in the race…
…Mississippi marks the last primary or caucus for a six-week stretch — by far the longest pause in this year’s nomination fight.
That gives Clinton a chance to battle Obama without time pressures that magnify every moment on the trail, allowing her to make a deliberate and methodical case in favor of her candidacy — and against Obama’s.
Here is my question. Why should the Party allow the Clintons to spend the next six weeks tearing down our nominee? Why not get together and tell the Clintons that the nomination is over?
