Obama Camp: Our Popular Vote Lead Is Pretty Insurmountable Too

Buttressed by a victory in last night's Mississippi primary, Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign claimed on Wednesday that it not only had a pledged delegate lead that would be hard to reverse, but also a popular vote advantage that Sen. Hillary Clinton would have difficulties overcoming.

"Although we don't think this is the barometer on which the race will be decided, we have a big popular vote lead," said campaign manager David Plouffe. "Our popular vote lead is up around a million. Which is obviously a significant edge and one they would have a very tough time reversing."

Plouffe's estimation was much higher than those offered by news outlets. According to Real Clear Politics, Obama leads Clinton by slightly more than 700,000 votes after 40-plus primary elections. That number drops to just over 400,000 when including Florida's results (in Michigan Obama was not on the ballot).

The difference between these estimates and those from the Obama camp, Plouffe offered, was due to the fact that many of the caucus states had yet to tally their popular votes. In Texas, he offered as an example, "we project to pick up a 120,000 popular vote advantage [in the caucus], which is larger than what Senator Clinton got out of the primary." In Mississippi, meanwhile, Plouffe estimated that Obama would have a net gain of approximately 100,000 votes.

With only ten primary elections left in the nomination process there is an increasing likelihood that Obama will end up with a relatively substantial pledge delegate lead. After Mississippi's election his campaign estimated that he had not only erased the losses he had in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island, but now bested Clinton by 161 such delegates.

Faced with these obstacles, the Clinton camp has tried to refocus the political spotlight on the popular vote; the logic being that if they could overtake Obama in that account they could make a strong case to super delegates -- the party insiders who vote independently for candidates during the Democratic convention -- to come to their side.

"They are trying to hold the popular vote out there because they can't overtake the delegate lead," said Plouffe. "They are trying to create a diversion there... But our lead is bigger than most counts have it."

The confidence of Plouffe's delegate and popular vote projections stood in contrast the pessimism with which he discussed the upcoming Pennsylvania primary. In a heavy dose of expectations-setting -- something the Obama camp has been accused, by supporters, of lacking -- he argued that the state was tailored to Clinton's strengths. "They are the prohibitive favorite, they will campaign there very hard," Plouffe added. "We will try to win but our campaign will not be defined by Pennsylvania."

The Obama campaign also sent out a memo to reporters in the midst of the conference call. The document read:

The Clinton Campaign would like to focus your attention only on Pennsylvania - a state in which they have already declared that they are "unbeatable." But Pennsylvania is only one of 10 remaining contests, each important in terms of allocating delegates and ultimately deciding who are nominee will be.

Comments

[flatus]

Clinton would not still be in this race if she didn't know somethings. Maybe those 'somethings' are the IOUs in Bill's back pocket that will will be force-fed to the ever pliable 'super delegates?

However, the 90%+ black turnout for Obama does not bode well for him. I believe that whites will come to believe that this, in itself, is more than a tad racist and will turn on him in response.

[Buddhabman]

Hillary has to be judged on her leadership of her campaign, the people she choose to run it, the strategies chosen, and the type of organizational structure she devised.

Hillary Clinton had all the advantages, political connections, fund raising connections, 1st choice in talent and over 7 years to choose a message and a strategy.

The Clinton campaign today is truly indicative of her potential administration. It's behind the curve, negative and divisive, arrogant and abusive of other parties involved.

It's time to choose a new style and new generation of leadership and a new grass roots, progressive method of involvement and organization.

Obama 08

[cosmic]

Ahead in delegates, states won, popular vote, but an insurmountable lead. Hillary's only hope is to get special favors, break rules, scorch the earth, and make bizarre arguments about big states (New York and California aren't going blue for Obama in '08? yeah right). How does she think any of this will help us? Her campaign is joining the "chorus of voices that will only grow louder and more dissonant".

[dutchess2]

It took until today for CNN to admit on its web page that Obama won Texas... while its been available elsewhere for several days.

It took until last night for MSNBC to announce that CA had actually counted a few more delegates for Obama, and Hillary's March 4 gains were gone...

Someone needs to take the Clintons aside and tell them its time for them to withdraw gracefully,
while they still can.

[YRM]

An insurmountable lead he would like to maintain by making sure Michigan and Florida don't count. His campaign staff say they want to do a caucus in those states, or just split the delegates. They don't want primaries because Clinton would end up with more of the popular vote. By design, the Obama candidacy has functioned as the toxic mold that will result in the demolition of the Democratic Party. Karl Rove and the G.O.P. knew they could never beat Clinton in November, so enabled Obama to wage this campaign. They rigged his U.S. senate election in 2004, forcing his G.O.P. challenger Jack Ryan to drop out of the race. Then they organized massive crossover voting drives in red states where Republicans dominate, insuring that Obama would pick up those delegates. All the big blue states Clinton won because there simply weren't enough Republicans in them to make difference. Thanks to this tactic, the constant race-baiting of Clinton, and the viral videos on the internet, Obama achieved his "insurmountab le" lead. Makes you want to stand up and cheer, doesn't it? For more on the Rove strategy, see the article I've posted at thecityedition.com

[indc]

Obama won more delegates in TX... so he can claim the total delegate win and the caucus vote win, and she can claim the primary vote win with help from Limbaugh encouraging cross over voting for her, to help McCain run against the weaker candidate.

[Windsor]

It's time for all Democrats to make a choice with their heads. Take a week and look at the options. I think it comes down to a very obvious conclusion - Either we unite very soon and focus the energy on defeating Senator McCain or we will lose the general election in the fall.

[RallyRound]

This will be a close race . As an Obama supporter and donor, I want him to contest Penn. He needs to stage big rallies of young people and others inside the mid-state zone. He needs to go door to door among working class whites to offer his programs.

He can't win Penn. But the margins count.

Fight back when attacked but combine that response immediately new points for the future.

[bluestatelib]

Obama will win the popular vote, have more pledged delegates, and have won more states than Hillary. So how exactly will Hillary win this primary without going against the popular will as expressed by the voters or splitting the Democratic party apart along race, gender, and age?

[Sparhawk]

The popular vote doesn't mean squat...

[Dannydel]

Would you please reprint this article in a language that Hillary Clinton might understand? She obviously has some difficulty with english, otherwise she would realize that she is LOSING! and she might think twice about sacrificing the WHOLE PARTY because she didn't get what she wanted.

[JohnCochtosten]

I hope they didn't send "who are nominee" out on an official memo, because that's a pretty obvious grammatical error.

[frappe]

In the best interest of the Democratic Party and the country, Hillary Clinton should withdraw her candidacy. Her recent efforts have only served to divide the country and lessen Democrats' chances everywhere of winning historic majorities in Congress while recapturing the White House. Clearly, it's time for Democrats to unite behind the clear leader and that candidate is clearly Barack Obama.

[kellygrrrl]

and can we finally put to rest the claim that Clinton won TX?

time to change the color of that state on all the charts:

From CNN:

"After a comprehensive review of these results, CNN estimates that Obama won more support from Texas caucus-goers than Clinton. Based on the state party's tally, Obama's caucus victory translates into 38 national convention delegates, compared to 29 for Clinton.

And though Clinton won more delegates than Obama in the primary, 65 to 61, Obama's wider delegate margin in the caucuses gives him the overall statewide delegate lead, 99 to 94 — or once superdelegate endorsements are factored in, 109 to 106.

CNN's estimate is based on a statistical review, which combined the county-level results provided by the state party with data from the U.S. Census, exit polls and telephone surveys.

That analysis showed that the counties that reported data to the state party last week appear to be a representative cross-section of the Texas population. The analysis also indicates that areas that were won by Obama reported results at essentially the same rate as areas that were won by Clinton.

Every procedure used to statistically model the outcome of the caucuses indicated that Obama had more support than Clinton."

[BlueOnBlue]

How Obama does in Pennsylvania may depend largely on two factors: the registration drive over the next 12 days (March 24 is the deadline) and the effectiveness of his media campaign in the Philadelphia market.

So far, Democratic registrations are soaring, through no effort of the Clinton apparatus. In another sign that Clinton's candidacy does not bode well for the Democratic Party, her campaign is actually discouraging its supporters from registering new voters because new voters are seen as most likely to be Obama supporters. In contrast, the Obama legions are pounding the pavement for new voters and for party switchers. In my county (Chester), Obama supporters have increased Democratic registration by thousands since the beginning of the year, while Republican registration numbers are actually falling.

After this effort, the Philadelphia region comes into play. There are only 103 delegates elected by Congressional district (the rest are at-large). Of these, 53 are in the Philly media market and Obama stands to get most of them.

The outcome in Pennsylvania will be far from a simple calculation of the popular vote, regardless of the spin the Clinton camp will try to use.