Much has been written about Sen. Clinton's inability to catch up with Sen. Obama's pledged delegate lead.
Clinton Wins Big, but Math is Troubling.
Given the remaining contests — many with electorates favorable to Obama — Obama's existing hundred-plus delegate lead, and the rules by which Democrats apportion delegates, it is almost a political and mathematical certainty that Obama will have an elected delegate lead at the end of the process, barring dramatic, unforeseen circumstances.
Of course, Clinton, whatever you may think of her, isn't an idiot. She knows this. She also knows that--barring some unforeseen catastrophic event--Obama can't win the 2025 pledged delegates required to get the nomination. Anyway we slice it, the superdelegates are needed to push either Obama or Clinton over the edge into becoming the nominee. Both candidates will continue to furiously lobby the SDs for their support. And, because she's not an idiot, Clinton's arguments won't be based on pledged delegates. I think many Obama supporters are failing to notice this and therefore aren't effectively addressing Clinton's strategy. We're going to get outmaneuvered if we continue to argue yesterday's arguments.
Jonathan Alter runs a scenario similar to Halperin's in Hillary's New Math Problem and determines--barring some unforeseen catastrophic event-- Clinton can't catch up among pledged delegates.
I think Clinton will focus on the fact that she's won the large battle ground states of Ohio and Florida (yes, I know; FL was a clusterfuck) and is favored in Pennsylvania. More than that, however, she's making a play for the popular vote.
From Clinton's website:
This race is extremely close and more than 5 million Democrats are likely to vote. After 28 million votes have been counted, the popular vote contest in the Democratic primary is within one-tenth of one percent. Applying the same level of turnout to the remaining contests, there are still more than 5 million Democratic voters – 17 percent of the total – who are likely to participate in this contested primary race. After 41 primaries and caucuses, the delegate count is within roughly 2 percent.
She even provides a handy dandy chart with the popular vote totals displayed above the pledged delegates.
For hours, Talking Points Memo has displayed headline "Dem Popular Vote Race a Virtual Dead Heat" on their front page. The addendum "With FL and MI" came later.
Alter thinks Clinton winning the popular vote is unlikely, but that it's her best argument:
Clinton's only hope lies in the popular vote—a yardstick on which she now trails Obama by about 600,000 votes. Should she end the primary season in June with a lead in popular votes, she could get a hearing from uncommitted superdelegates for all the other arguments that she would make a stronger nominee (wins the big states, etc.). If she loses both the pledged delegate count and the popular vote, no argument will cause the superdelegates to disenfranchise millions of Democratic voters. It will be over.
Projecting popular votes precisely is impossible because there's no way to calculate turnout. But Clinton would likely need do-overs in Michigan and Florida (whose January primaries didn't count because they broke Democratic Party rules). But even this probably wouldn't give her the necessary popular-vote margins.
It would be hard for Clinton to win the popular vote, but certainly not impossible. According to CNN, Clinton earned 228,781 more votes than Obama in Ohio. Due to the rules of delegate allocation she's only earned 12 delegates more than Obama. A strong win in PA could similarly cut into Obama's popular vote lead and not significantly alter the pledged delegate count. If there are new contests in FL and MI, the same could happen: Clinton can cut into Obama's popular vote lead while simultaneously failing to make much of a dent in the pledged delegate counts.
If Clinton can get close or outright win the popular vote, combined with wins in OH, FL, and presumably PA, she can make a fairly credible case to the superdelegates that she should be the nominee.
And just to make this crystal clear: superdelegates can support either candidate for whatever reason they find compelling. It is not against the rules for the superdelegates to support the winner of the popular vote.
I don't think that making an argument based on the popular vote is particularly effective. First, I'm unclear whether or not caucuses are included in all or some of the popular vote totals. Some caucus states don't report popular votes. Moreover, if a candidate isn't viable in a precinct in a caucus state, their support isn't counted. This certainly isn't true in a primary where even one vote would be reported in vote totals. Beyond that, both campaigns have been operating under the idea that they need to earn delegates. Both Obama and Clinton could have--and probably would have--created different strategies if they needed to win a nationwide popular vote. As such, I think the popular vote winner will win it incidentally, not because they have significantly greater popular support.
What anyone one of us thinks of the merits of a popular vote argument, however, is rather beside the point. Clinton knows she can't win the pledged delegate totals. She knows she's going to have to make her argument elsewhere. While we continue to point out that Clinton can't win with pledged delegates, the Clinton campaign will create a different argument out of necessity.
Obama's campaign and supporters should be prepared to answer that argument.