The debate over whether Hillary Clinton should stay in the race or drop out continues today with the Washington Post editorial board and Washington Note editor Steve Clemons saying she should stay in and Maureen Down saying she should drop out. The reality is that you can make good faith arguments either way. But there are some very bad arguments being made that deserve rebuttal, and others that warrant further examination.
One of the strongest arguments being made for Clinton staying in is that the process is helping the party by boosting registration and grassroots activism. Here’s how the Washington Post puts it.
There is no lack of excitement in the Democratic Party. States that have cast ballots have reported record turnouts. Registrations are through the roof. Just last week it was announced in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary April 22, that since November the number of registered Democrats increased by about 161,000. Altogether, Democrats now outnumber Republicans there by about 830,000.
Let us concede the point that contested primaries have helped the Democratic Party so far. Yet, most of that advantage has already been accomplished. Of the ten states that remain to vote, only Oregon and Pennsylvania voted for either Al Gore or John Kerry, and Pennsylvania’s voting registration closed last Monday. It’s true that heated contests in Kentucky, Indiana, and South Dakota, for example, would boost the party somewhat, but with what Electoral College consequences? Could any of those states be put in play as a result of Clinton remaining in the race to contest them? And if the Democrats are winning in Montana and North Carolina, isn’t it a foregone conclusion that the election has been a blowout? In short, the upside of engagement in the remaining 10 states is very limited, but the potential damage to party unity and the candidates’ images is not limited at all.
Another Washington Post argument is that the campaign has been filled with surprises, from the resurgence of John McCain to Clinton’s upset win in New Hampshire, to the strength of Obama’s strategy. In other words, we’d be foolish to predict how the campaign will unfold from here. This has a kind of superficial appeal, but it ignores that Obama’s campaign has predicted the winner of every state but one since Super Tuesday. The one they got wrong was Maine, where they defied their own estimates and pulled out a decisive victory. They also predicted that Clinton would win Texas and gain a 101-92 delegate advantage. As it turned out, she won only the primary portion of the contest and wound up losing the delegate count 99-94. The race has unfolded almost exactly as Obama’s campaign predicted, except that he won by wider margins than expected.
So, unpredictability hasn’t been nearly the factor that some would have you believe. But there is another problem with this argument. And that gets to what people call ‘The Math’. Barack Obama has a 1414-1248 advantage in pledged delegates. To demonstrate what ‘The Math’ means, you can go to Slate’s Delegate Calculator and give Clinton 60%-40% wins in every remaining contest. Even in such a scenario, Obama would retain a 1639-1595 pledged delegate advantage. This shows how unrealistic it is to believe that Clinton can win on the basis of the vote as expressed (according to the rules) by the electorate. The outcome of the upcoming contests may be in doubt, but ‘The Math’ is not.
Likewise, the popular vote is not in much doubt. The best estimate of the popular vote shows that Obama currently leads by about 827,000 votes. Even if you include Michigan (where Obama was not on the ballot) and Florida, Obama still leads by 94,000 votes. There will be no revote in Michigan, but if there were Obama would not be giving away 328,000 votes to Clinton in that state. We can confidently predict that Obama will emerge with more popular votes than Hillary Clinton.
So, even conceding a certain degree of uncertainty about the future, there is almost no uncertainty about the eventual winner of both the pledged delegate and the popular vote winner. That will be Barack Obama.
Another rationale for Clinton remaining in the race is that it is always possible that some scandalous information might come out that renders Obama unelectable. This is not a reasonable rationale. As the Clintons never tire of pointing out, even the pledged delegates are not legally bound to vote for the candidate they were elected to represent. Proving the point, one of Clinton’s pledged delegates in Iowa chose to vote for Obama. If Obama were suddenly caught up in an Eliot Spitzer-like scandal, his pledged delegates would have little problem voting for someone else. Clinton’s chances in such a scenario would not depend on how many delegates she wins in Montana and Puerto Rico, but how willing Obama’s delegates were to back her rather than some compromise candidate (like Al Gore or John Edwards). In other words, Clinton’s chances of winning the nomination in the aftermath of an Obama collapse are diminished, not enhanced, by further negative campaigning.
There’s another argument that I see people make that amounts to magical thinking. Here’s the Washington Post’s version from today.
We understand Democrats’ concern that Mr. McCain benefits most as their candidates tear each other down. Recent polls show the favorable ratings of both Democratic candidates declining, Ms. Clinton’s more than Mr. Obama’s. Making the case that you’re better qualified inevitably involves, to some extent, explaining that the other candidate is less so. But instead of continuing to blur the line between civil discourse and destructive denunciations, the candidates and their campaigns could talk more substance…
The list of issues to hash out is endless, and doing so in polite political combat could produce a stronger Democratic candidate for the fall and a better-informed electorate.
According to this theory, the campaign can go on indefinitely without any harm to Barack Obama, provided that the Clintons stick to substance and eschew ‘destructive denunciations’ and remain ‘polite’. Anyone familiar with the Clintons knows that they aren’t genetically capable of polite political combat. When low-key and thoughful Clinton surrogates like Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter are attacking Obama’s choice of church you know that there is nothing the Clintons won’t stoop to to win this race. A leopard can’t change its spots, and it is disingenuous to say that Clinton should stay in the race if it is predicated on her behaving in a civil manner.
What this gets down to is a cost/benefit analysis to Clinton remaining in the race. If she stays in she will continue to make negative attacks against Obama. Her surrogates will continue to push the racial divide by tarring Obama with his pastor and criticizing his well-respected church. They will weaken him among whites, drive up his negatives, shorten his ability to campaign everywhere, and make it harder to reunite the party.
Some will argue that this is nothing different from what the Republicans will do to Obama once he is the nominee. That’s true, but attacks from your allies have added salience. They provide excellent 30-second advertising fodder. “Even Mayor Nutter said he would have quit that church.”
But what if Obama really is vulnerable because of his church? Well…Clinton is vulnerable because if the Tuzla, Bosnia video. If she was the near inevitable nominee would it be wise for Obama to bring that video up constantly to argue she was unfit for office? Obama’s vulnerability to race-baiting distortions is precisely why Clinton should be defending him. That she does the opposite shows a destructive and self-centered tendency.
There are also opportunity costs. Every dollar Obama spends to defeat Clinton is a dollar lost in defeating McCain. Every day he is forced to campaign in South Dakota or Oregon is a day he can’t campaign in Ohio, Colorado, or Nevada.
If Clinton is going to be the nominee it isn’t going to be because she won the majority of the contests that remain. That won’t cut it. If she is going to be the nominee it will because something came out that is currently unknown that killed Obama’s chances. If that happens, Clinton will be in a stronger position to claim the nomination if she isn’t seen as in any way responsible for killing off Obama. In other words, as Patrick Leahy said:
“Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to. As far as the delegate count and the interests of a Democratic victory in November go, there is not a very good reason for drawing this out. But as I have said before, that is a decision that only she can make.”
It’s nothing personal. It’s what is best for the party. And if you have a vote in the Pennsylvania primary, you should vote for Obama even if you prefer Clinton. Losing Pennsylvania will weaken but not defeat Obama. Winning Pennsylvania will not do anything to help Clinton, and will probably hurt her chances in the long-run.
After all, if she drops out graciously after losing Pennsylvania, she’ll be in a much better position to win a brokered convention later than she would be if Obama supporters think she sabotaged their candidate.
