- Superdelegates accept that she has won the popular vote
- Superdelegates believe that she is a much stronger general election candidate and,
- About 85% of the remaining superdelegates choose her over Obama, overturning the pledged delegate result
Here’s why this is not going to happen in a million years...
Popular Vote Shenanigans
Based on the results from Puerto Rico and the expected results from Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton will only be ahead in the popular vote if you accept that 0 people in Michigan intended to vote for Obama when they cast their ballots for "uncommitted" in January because his name was not on the ballot. There are very few people in this country who have followed this race who are foolish enough to believe that is true.
Even if you call the popular vote a "tie" by counting Hillary’s votes in Michigan and giving Obama something like 60% of the "uncommitted" vote (because Edwards wasn’t on the ballot either), you are still faced with the problem of the caucus states. Not only can we merely guess their popular vote totals, but if those states had known that so called "popular vote" was a legitimate measure of support in this primary, they would not have chosen to do caucuses in the first place. You can’t change the rules at the end of the game.
The bottom line is that the popular vote is not a legitimate measure of support in this primary. Pledged delegates are how the Democratic Party fairly represents the will of the people in the same, uniform way across every single state.
Polls, Polls, Polls
Hillary sent out a letter to the superdelegates several days ago that laid out, using multiple polls, the case that she is a much stronger general election candidate than Obama. Hillary has constantly maintained that she is stronger in the "swing states" that "democrats must win" like OH, FL, and PA, but what she doesn’t seem to understand is that Obama has polled consistently stronger in WA, OR, NV, NM, CO, WI, MN, IA, MT, and arguably other states as well. If Obama has been experiencing a dip in head to head polls lately, it is probably due to the fact that Hillary’s supporters are trying to come to terms with the fact that their candidate will lose and are reluctant to turn around and support they guy that is beating her. Superdelegates know this, and they aren’t going to be fooled. They know that the vast majority of democrats will eventually come around to back Obama over McCain.
Despite the letter’s obsession with polls, it neglected to show the national gallup poll, which has Obama beating Hillary among national democrats by a 52-42% margin.
Superdelegate Revolt!
Not only has there been story after story about how the superdelegates aren’t paying attention to Hillary and how most of them quietly support Obama, Hillary will need somewhere in the neighborhood of 85% of the remaining superdelegates to commit to her after the last primary in order to overtake Obama in the overall delegate count and reach the magic number. If you think that it’s unlikely that this would happen, it’s made even more unlikely by the fact that Obama has won 72% of the superdelegates who have declared their support since February 5th. Hillary would have to take the trend that has been continuous for months and completely reverse it in her favor. Impossible.
Superdelegates are aware of the problem that disgruntled Hillary supporters pose for party unity. They are even more aware, however, of the exponentially worse problem Hillary would have with disgruntled Obama supporters if they were to overturn the pledged delegate result. Even though Hillary’s electability argument may be at least partially true in a vacuum, it cannot hold because she has no path to nomination that does not involve outraging millions of Obama supporters and literally tearing the party to shreds.
To Summarize...
- Sueperdelegates aren’t going to believe Hillary is ahead in the popular vote because she is not.
- Superdelegates aren’t going to believe that Hillary is more electable, because winning the nomination would make her unelectable.
- Superdelegates aren’t going to flock to her because they have been flocking to Obama for months in a continuous stream.
This race is over, it’s up to Hillary what she decides to make of it.