... because both the math and the structure will keep Hillary in the game no matter what happens on March 4.
I know that a lot of my readers (especially my Progressive brethren and cistern) will want to discount this article because of the source, but pay attention to the math in Mark Hyman's The Coming Brokered Democratic Convention and you may feel a chill running down your spine:
Let's try a thought experiment and suppose that this scenario is correct. How does it affect the general election.
I foresee two likely (and one Democrat fantasy) scenarios.
Scenario One: Hillary wins (I will let the reader decide whether to use the word "steal"). A combination of super delegates and a successful credentials fight (or lawsuit) gives Hillary a narrow victory; probably less than fifty delegates. You may think that the she-Clinton won't have the juice to influence enough super delegates if she's outright stealing the nomination, but the Clinton machine is hardly dead. The result: a severely wounded party limps out of the convention as more than half the Obama youth votes goes home (Barack is neither offered nor considers the Veep nomination). Clinton's fortunes sag into September, rebound in early October, but ultimately she loses to McCain in a virtual electoral repeat of 2004. McCain comes into office with a Democratic congress, and who knows what happens then? He wants to work with them on social programs, but is completely at odds over the war. No real progress from the present day.
Scenario Two: Barack wins (again, if you prefer "sweeps to victory" that's up to you). It will not, however, be without a bloody convention fight in which the deeply committed Hillary faction pulls anything but nominal support away from the ticket. Although she doesn't command anything like the numbers of Obama, she does hold critical constituencies and party organizations in New York and California. The general election is, quite literally, a toss-up. The Republican machine will fall in line behind McCain against Obama. The ironic problem for the Democrats is that even if Obama wins his coattails, in terms of Dem wins in the House and Senate will be shorter than Clinton's would have been. He will be faced with a Senate unable to muster the 60 votes necessary to defeat GOP filibusters and a House that is--despite a Dem majority--more conservative than he is. (Think Bubba from 1992-1994.)
Democratic Fantasy Scenario: Hillary calls it quits sometime between 7 June and the convention because the super delegates deliver an ultimatum: get out or be embarrassed at the convention when we all vote for Barack en masse. This show of unity allows Obama to concentrate on running against McCain from mid-June through November, and he manages a near electoral landslide.
That last one's not going to happen, but everybody (especially liberal Democrats) could use a little hope now and again.
The grand irony of this year's presidential election is that having two strong Democratic candidates has actually put the moderate Republican John McCain back into the game.
If there is a brokered convention we may all see something nobody predicted a year ago: Bush going out and leaving the reins of power to another Republican who favors a hard line on Iraq.
Read 'em and weep.
I know that a lot of my readers (especially my Progressive brethren and cistern) will want to discount this article because of the source, but pay attention to the math in Mark Hyman's The Coming Brokered Democratic Convention and you may feel a chill running down your spine:
There is only one thing the public can be certain of regarding the Democratic presidential nomination: without a miracle, there will be a brokered convention. Senator Barack Obama was leading Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the delegate count going into the Super Tuesday II primary elections on March 4. Obama held 1,193 primary delegates to Clinton's 1,038. The status of the super delegates is meaningless because their pledges today may not carry any meaning come the Democratic nominating convention in Denver during the last week of August.
A Democratic candidate needs to reach a minimum of 2,025 delegates to clinch the nomination outright. Clinton will not reach that figure before the last primary election is held in Puerto Rico on June 7. Neither will Obama. The Illinois senator needs 832 more delegates to reach the magic number of 2,025. There are only 981 remaining primary delegates that are up for grabs. Three hundred seventy delegates will be decided on March 4 and 611 will be divvied up across 12 primaries between March 8 and June 7. Obama would have to win an astonishing 85% of the remaining 981 delegates in order to claim the Democratic nomination outright. There are no winner-take-all primaries for the Democrats. Obama will never get the needed 832 delegates. He may fall short of reaching 2,025 delegates by as many as 250.
This means that neither Obama nor Clinton will tally the needed 2,025 delegates when the primary election season is completed....
Complicating the matter for Obama is the status of the 313 primary delegates Clinton picked up in the Michigan and Florida primaries. The Democratic Party has stated it would not seat the Michigan and Florida delegates because those two states moved up their primary dates without national party blessing. But will national party leaders really not seat the Michigan and Florida delegates? Not hardly.
National Democratic leaders realize their nominee must capture at least one and possibly both Michigan and Florida if their candidate is to win in November. Party leaders cannot afford to disenfranchise the voters in those two states and give them a reason to stay home in November. On top of this, Clinton will not let the status of the Michigan and Florida delegates pass without a fight. She could turn to the courts for relief.
Let's try a thought experiment and suppose that this scenario is correct. How does it affect the general election.
I foresee two likely (and one Democrat fantasy) scenarios.
Scenario One: Hillary wins (I will let the reader decide whether to use the word "steal"). A combination of super delegates and a successful credentials fight (or lawsuit) gives Hillary a narrow victory; probably less than fifty delegates. You may think that the she-Clinton won't have the juice to influence enough super delegates if she's outright stealing the nomination, but the Clinton machine is hardly dead. The result: a severely wounded party limps out of the convention as more than half the Obama youth votes goes home (Barack is neither offered nor considers the Veep nomination). Clinton's fortunes sag into September, rebound in early October, but ultimately she loses to McCain in a virtual electoral repeat of 2004. McCain comes into office with a Democratic congress, and who knows what happens then? He wants to work with them on social programs, but is completely at odds over the war. No real progress from the present day.
Scenario Two: Barack wins (again, if you prefer "sweeps to victory" that's up to you). It will not, however, be without a bloody convention fight in which the deeply committed Hillary faction pulls anything but nominal support away from the ticket. Although she doesn't command anything like the numbers of Obama, she does hold critical constituencies and party organizations in New York and California. The general election is, quite literally, a toss-up. The Republican machine will fall in line behind McCain against Obama. The ironic problem for the Democrats is that even if Obama wins his coattails, in terms of Dem wins in the House and Senate will be shorter than Clinton's would have been. He will be faced with a Senate unable to muster the 60 votes necessary to defeat GOP filibusters and a House that is--despite a Dem majority--more conservative than he is. (Think Bubba from 1992-1994.)
Democratic Fantasy Scenario: Hillary calls it quits sometime between 7 June and the convention because the super delegates deliver an ultimatum: get out or be embarrassed at the convention when we all vote for Barack en masse. This show of unity allows Obama to concentrate on running against McCain from mid-June through November, and he manages a near electoral landslide.
That last one's not going to happen, but everybody (especially liberal Democrats) could use a little hope now and again.
The grand irony of this year's presidential election is that having two strong Democratic candidates has actually put the moderate Republican John McCain back into the game.
If there is a brokered convention we may all see something nobody predicted a year ago: Bush going out and leaving the reins of power to another Republican who favors a hard line on Iraq.
Read 'em and weep.
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