With recent rumblings of the possibility of a revote in Florida and Michigan, Hillary supporters are starting to sense the beginnings of a Clinton comeback. But there is little evidence that new votes in Florida and Michigan will be valuable enough to put Clinton back on a trajectory that leads to the nomination.
Clinton currently trails Obama in pledged delegates by 156. She leads Obama among superdelegates by 38, a lead that has been cut by more than half since Super Tuesday. Florida has 185 pledged delegates. Michigan has 128.
In January, Hillary won Florida with 50% of the vote, seventeen points higher than Obama. But at the time, Edwards and Kucinich were still in the race, and received a combined 17% of the vote. Thus far, exit polls have suggested that Edwards and Kucinich supporters have trended toward Obama.
But let's assume Hillary's dream scenario. We will assume that more than 60% of those Edwards and Kucinich voters cast votes for Hillary. We will assume that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Obama's aggressive campaigning in the state won't see any other increase in support. In such a situation, Hillary would win Florida 60-40, netting, at most, 37 delegates.
In Michigan, a state with demographics highly favorable to Obama, we will also assume that Clinton wins 60-40, an amount she wasn't even able to achieve when hers was the only name on the ballot. In such a situation, she would net, at most, 24 delegates.
Between the two states, she will see a net gain of 61 delegates, but Barack Obama will continue to maintain a pledged delegate lead of more than 95. In that best case scenario, she would still have to win two-thirds of the remaining pledged delegates to regain the lead, a feat that will require far more than two-thirds of the votes.
As a result, Hillary has turned her attention to the superdelegates. But even among them, she is seeing a number of pitfalls. Since Super Tuesday, Obama has gained 45 superdelegates while Clinton has lost 6. There are approximately 320 superdelegates that remain unpledged. If Clinton's comeback continues to be as dramatic as we assumed in Florida and Michigan, if she manages to cut Obama's remaining delegate lead in half, he will still have a nearly 50 pledged delegate lead. Clinton will have to then convince almost sixty percent of the remaining superdelegates to ignore the will of the people, tear the party in half, and hand her the nomination.
Such an outcome is truly inconceivable, and the strongest argument the Clinton campaign is making to those superdelegates is markedly unpersuasive.
Hillary Clinton has aimed her sights at painting Obama as unable to defeat John McCain. She argues first that she has won big states like New York, California, New Jersey, and Ohio, all states that are necessary for a Democrat to win in November. Her argument, plainly, is that her primary wins are somehow predictive of her general election outcomes. This argument is ridiculous in terms of its intellectual dishonesty.
The voting population of a Democratic primary is vastly different than that of a general election. Winning the Ohio primary suggests only that the Democratic base prefers one candidate over the other. But in the general election, Democrats, including many who don't vote in primaries, as well as Republicans and Independents will be voting. The voting population is entirely different, and the coalition for victory must include a combination of Democrats, Independents, and some Republicans. Hillary's win among Democratic voters says absolutely nothing about her ability to attract other voters. In fact, Obama has consistently faired dramatically better among Independents and Republicans than has Clinton. A recent Survey USA poll shows both Obama and Clinton ahead of McCain by double digits in Ohio.
Moreover, the notion that Obama would be unable to win California and New York in a general election is insultingly ludicrous. Both states have been consistently Democratic, and no public polling data suggests otherwise.
In terms of electoral strategy, Hillary Clinton is in a far weaker position, and is using misleading data to bolster her claims. It is true that Hillary Clinton cannot win the general election without New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida. She is still playing on a traditional field, the same on which Kerry and Gore served up painful losses. But, as those same Survey USA numbers show, Obama is playing on an entirely different field. Obama's victory will not require Florida, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey. He can build a broader coalition, with states like Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Nevada, and Virginia. Obama's success in those states means the party will not have to depend on states like Florida, many of which have been tragically unreliable.
The weakness of Clinton's arguments should say something about the likelihood of her victory. But even if her arguments were logically sound, they are consistently undercut by national polling which has consistently shown Barack Obama beating John McCain. In most polls, Hillary Clinton loses or is within the margin of error.
Her rationale might work with the average voter, but it will not work with politicians and party insiders who are familiar with presidential elections. She has no realistic path to the pledged delegate lead, and lacks any persuasive argument to convince superdelegates to fall in line.
And yet, she continues.