What’s up with that?
Kid you not. That’s what the Clinton Camp wrote in a Memo to reporters:
“Barack Obama cannot reverse his downward spiral.”
Ben Smith, Politico, has this piece:
“In a laudably bloggy spirit, the Obama campaign annotates a bravado-filled Clinton memo from earlier today –
(“Barack Obama cannot reverse his downward spiral.”)
This exchange jumped out a bit though:
The path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes through Pennsylvania so if Barack Obama can’t win there, how will he win the general election?
[Answer: I suppose by holding obviously Democratic states like California and New York, and beating McCain in swing states like Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin where Clinton lost to Obama by mostly crushing margins. But good question.]
That sort of suggests Obama is contemplating a strategy that doesn’t run through the traditional swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, though an Obama aide assures me that’s not what it means, and that he expects to beat McCain there as well.
Full, annotated, memo after the jump.
From: Bill Burton
Sent: Wed 3/12/2008 6:36 PM
To: Bill Burton
Subject: FW: The Clinton Memo… as annotated by the Obamatake the full read
Just wondering what the Clinton’s camp take will be on this Wall Street Journal piece:
The Numbers Guy: Obama’s California Comeback
March 10, 2008, 4:43 pm
A little-noticed shift in the tally of California’s Democratic delegates may affect the primary between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton as much as the heavily hyped results last Tuesday in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island.
[.]
ED: Trust The Bloggers
The shift, if validated once the state certifies its election results this week and the party chooses its delegates, is a reminder that the commonly reported delegate totals are mere estimates, subject to change as states finalize election results. It also highlights how a blogger with intense focus on the numbers may be faster than the established delegate counters.
David Dayden Dayen, who blogs at the site Calitics and serves on its editorial board, wrote last week that Sen. Clinton won 203 of the state’s 370 pledged delegates — and not the commonly reported total of 207. He relied on updated vote totals from the state, based on late counts of absentee and provisional ballots. Later, when he noticed that several major news organizations still were showing Sen. Clinton with 207 delegates, he wrote a follow-up post explaining his calculation and exhorting, “I know math is hard and everything, but get out your calculators, people.”
It’s hard to explain the difference because most news organizations don’t provide a breakdown of projected delegates, district by district.
Some of the discrepancies may arise from the peculiar math of congressional districts. For instance, in the 16th district, Sen. Clinton received 50,056 votes; she needed about 58 more votes to get three of the district’s four delegates, but instead she split them evenly with Sen. Obama.
In the 53rd district, which has five delegates, Sen. Clinton received a small plurality of the early returns, but has fallen behind, which swings that fifth delegate to Sen. Obama.
The statewide vote matters, too. On primary night, it appeared Sen. Clinton won the state by 10 percentage points. Now she’s up by 8.7 percentage points. That means she gets an 11-margin win among delegates apportioned on the basis of the statewide vote, rather than a 13-margin win.
(emphasis added)
There’s that other big state.
How about Texas?
Obama: 99 Clinton: 94
Take a look at this map at The Numbers Guy website.
Obama: Pledged delegates 1411 Clinton: 1250 Others: 26
According to Clinton’s interview yesterday with Morning Edition, aired by NPR, this morning – those wins are meaningless. Those 30 states won’t count in the general election.
Yep, sure looks like a downward spiral.
So, as she attempts to win this thing her justification will be Obama has been in a downward spiral, anyway…. There’s not a snowball chance in hell he can with the General Election.
Here’s what’s troubling.
Clinton is up 18 points in Pennsylvania Primary but the polls show Obama to be the more electable.
In PA she loses to McCain.
Karma gods, please make her go away.
