Hillary cleaned Obama’s clock in PR today, a commonwealth that will not have a voice in the general election (would someone please makes them a state of give them independence – this wishy-washy, middle of the road commonwealth status must be dropped).
This victory makes it that much easier for her to claim she has won the popular vote, although she still only gets to make that claim by creative, self-selective math. But the media repeats it, so everyone will think it is true. Strangely, it mimics Obama’s supporter’s arguments when he was winning states but still behind due to superdelegates; the argument was that superdelegates should not overrule the will of the people. Well, now it is not so clear the will of the people has been sorted out. The vote totals are pretty close after more than 35 million votes cast.
The irony is that Obama supporters now claim the popular vote does not matter and only delegate totals do. Pretty easy to make that argument when your candidate now has more superdelegates than his opponent, huh?
But here is what is true. Since the 4 March primaries, she has beaten Obama 8-6 and has tallied 620,000 more votes than he. Even with MT and SD on Tuesday, which Obama will win, the tally is still 8-8 and Clinton will likely have 600,000+ votes more than him since 4 March. That does not inspire confidence in Obama.
Clinton knows this, and from her victory speech today in PR, she will take this all the way to the convention. The only hope is a resounding defeat of Clinton in SD and MT along with a rush of superdelegates to Obama. That might make her give up her valiant quest. But she can still appeal the DNC’s decision to seat half of Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates, so expect that to happen in the next few days.
I have said it before and I will say it again – never count out a Clinton. She has used race and elitism against Obama, both potentially fatal in a general election, to keep herself in the race. She has claimed he is inexperienced and flamed questions about his patriotism, both also potentially fatal. And she has done so when it is patently clear she will not get the delegate total she needs unless she wins protracted legal battles and buys off a couple of hundred superdelegates.
This Puerto Rico victory has her dreaming that she can still pull this thing off. How does Obama close this thing out?
1) Win big in MT and SD. MT is particularly important since the Dems can win it in November. He should start making the claim it is in play.
2) Convince the remaining superdelegates that Michigan and Pennsylvania will not go for McCain in a year that is lined up to be the Democrats’ year by all political measures. If Kerry could win them against a cheating Republican Party and a war time President, there is no way Obama will lose when everyone hates Republicans now. Moreover, MI was not a real vote since he was not on the ballot and PA was a closed primary. Had it been open, he would have won.
3) Make the claim that he will not only have a great chance of winning OH and FL, but will put states in play the Republicans have not had to defend for years, like MT, CO, VA, MO, NC, AK, and even some states in the deep south, like MS and GA, not to mention the perennial swing states of IA and NM. By forcing the Republicans to play defense in states like VA, that allows Obama to put a full court press on OH and FL with less Republican opposition.
Hillary cannot open the battle on too many new fronts; Obama can. That should be his main argument.
But how to bring the party back together?
Reiterating points from my previous posts, Obama should focus on the Appalachian working class. Go on a ‘Listening Tour’ and listen to their concerns and see more closely the lives they lead. Try to understand how they vote by understanding what things they hold dear. Only then can Obama effectively address the cultural divide facing the nation and the notion that he is elitist.
Of course, ultimately he has to persuade the American people to vote on issues more important than their cultural dispositions, but the first step is to take them seriously and listen to what they have to say without an agenda of convincing them of something.
Issue wise there is very little gap between Clinton supporters and Obama. The main problem is the elitist perception. If he can tackle that he can move on to the suspicion in many Democrats’ minds that he will not fight for them and traditional Democratic goals since he is too busy finding common ground with Republicans in his post-partisan quest. If he nails those two things, most Clinton supporters will come his way, although there will still be a few holdouts who believe he will not defend the nation well enough. That is a much tougher nut to crack, but he has tackled this some by going after McCain recently on Iraq, the GI Bill, etc…
Actually, Obama will have to tread a fine line between his ‘lets all come together’ rhetoric and blasting McCain. But he will have to blast McCain if he wants to show his fighting spirit. That is exactly what hurt Kerry, perhaps fatally, during the Swift Boat charade; he showed little gumption to fight.
Can Obama fight McCain and by extension, defend the country, the way Clinton has tenaciously hung in during the primary? If there is an election snafu similar to Florida in ’00 and Ohio in ’04, is there any doubt Clinton would tie the whole process up until she won or the cows came home? No, and Obama needs to show the same tenacity.
But that is more of a general election issue. Right now, first things first. Rein in the remaining superdelegates.