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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
It's All Over, Senator Clinton
By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
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She lost hard in North Carolina, and barely held on to win Indiana. Hillary Clinton just doesn't have enough straws left to clutch. The best (or worst) she can hope to do the rest of the way is bloody Barack Obama enough to make him lose in the fall, allowing her to come back in 2012.

In fact, Obama basically clinched the nomination with his string of 11 straight primary and caucus wins in February, many by wipe-out margins - giving him a lead in elected delegates that Clinton couldn't hope to close, especially given the nutty proportional-representation rules that govern the Democratic Party.

Do the math. Last night's results leave him with a lead among elected delegates of 150 or so, and among all delegates of around 130.

Only a handful of states are left to vote, with a combined total of about 230 delegates. She'll probably win West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico - and lose Oregon, North Dakota, and Montana. She most likely could pick up a net 10 delegates, leaving him with a lead of at least 130 (110, counting in superdelegates).

If Hillary manages to get Florida and Michigan seated (which she won't), she'll net another 47 delegates. So Obama, worst case, will have a lead of at least 60 delegates. Most likely, it'll be more than 100.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Chairman Howard Dean have all made it clear that they expect superdelegates to decide who to support within (in Reid's words) "days, not weeks" after the last ballots are cast on June 3.

In that environment, Obama - who'll be only about 100 delegates short of a majority - will be an irresistible choice. Few superdelegates will want to risk civil war by overruling the verdict of the voters - and almost all will want to climb aboard the victory bandwagon so as not to get shut out of the White House for four (or eight) years.

In the past few months, Obama has closed Clinton's lead among superdelegates from 60 to 20. The trend will accelerate after popular voting ends; he'll probably pass the 2,025 threshold in the first two weeks of June. Continued...
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About The Author
Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race. To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com
 
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(38 comments so Far)
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Reply # 38
Date: May 9, 2008 - 12:25 AM EST
Subject: countryman
no you don't get it.

your definition of the democratic party is the first hint of that.

democrats came to a consensus on tuesday night.

the race between obama and clinton energised the party it did not put them at each other's throat.

it was like mccain and romney.

some conservatives vowed never to vote for mccain but they are coming around, just like clinton supporters will come around.

do you think that the unions will vote mccain when they know republicans hate unions.

do you think hispanics will vote mccain when the republican party has insulted them for the last 4 years.

do you think the independents who hate this war and voted democrat in 2006 will now support mccain and his 100 year war.

thanks rush for making obama and clinton better candidates and for preparing them for whatever the swiftboating republicans will try this fall.

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Reply # 37
Date: May 8, 2008 - 4:36 PM EST
religiouslib
You and thousands other just don't get it; Rush's strategy is to set Dems at each other's throats then stand back and watch them implode into a fractured, chaotic mass that can come to no consensus for decades.

By it's very nature, the Democratic Party is a collection of balkanized groups who have little in common with one another other than their dislike of conservatives and Republicans. Rush is just expanding the existing cracks between the groups.

Whether or not they pick up new voters and more money is beside the point.
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