Clinton and the Delegates: A Friendly Reply to Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow wrote a thoughtful, reasoned piece on Huffington Post this week (here) about the Michigan/Florida mess and the chances that Hillary Clinton goes all the way to the convention. One thing in her otherwise fine analysis didn't ring so clear:

After the primary calendar has ended, Clinton's campaign can only justify or explain her staying in the race if she makes the case that the Democratic Party still has not chosen a nominee conclusively. Clinton needs an argument that the game should go into extra innings. Overtime. Bonus round. Detention. Whatever.

On the one hand, Rachel's right that Democrats won't have a conclusive nominee when the final contests end on June 3. As of now, the magic number of delegates to win - minus the 2.3 million Americans who voted in Michigan and Florida (and they were real Democrats, not "Second Life" avatars) - is 2,026. Adding the delegates of Michigan and Florida brings the needed number to 2,210.

Neither Obama nor Clinton can get to either of those magic numbers based on pledged delegates alone. Absent any movement by the so-called super delegates, Maddow is correct that they'll be no conclusive nominee by the end of primary voting.

After acknowledging this reality, Maddow writes that Clinton will then need "extra innings. Overtime. Bonus round. Detention. Whatever."

Au contraire! The nominee isn't determined until two-thirds of the delegates are in hand, period, even if it takes multiple ballots at the party convention to get them. Without two-thirds, the game remains in regulation, so her analogy doesn't fit.

This is not a matter of semantics. Too many people promote the faulty impression that Democratic Party rules somehow say, in essence, that the nomination goes to the candidate who merely comes closest to the required number of delegates. The rules say no such thing. This isn't "The Price Is Right" TV show, where you only have to do better than the other person.

Besides, a candidate not getting their party's nomination prior to the convention isn't novel, and nominating rules exist for that reason. Nobody is guaranteed a coronation, as Hillary herself has learned.

It took FDR several ballots at the 1932 Democratic convention to secure the nomination. In 1952, Adlai Stevenson didn't even participate in any primaries and had no delegates. He beat a candidate who arrived at the convention with hundreds of actual delegates -- yet not the required number to win. After several ballots they moved toward Adlai, who won the nomination and ultimately lost that fall to the hugely popular war general Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1980, Obama's highest-profile supporter, Ted Kennedy (with the help of a young Joe Trippi), famously urged delegates of President Jimmy Carter to switch to him at the convention; Carter held on to the nomination.

When Clinton casually floated the same idea two months ago, the Obama crowd in the media howled at the suggestion. Liberals didn't ridicule a man 28 years ago for trying the tactic, but sure belittled the hell out of a woman in 2008 for mentioning it.

We're Democrats. Nominating fights define us. It's how and why we're progressive. We air it out, and we have two high quality candidates still standing, albeit one on the ropes. It is condescending to think that Clinton should have already stepped aside (these demands began months ago) out of deference to the senator from Illinois.

The point, however, isn't about blatant sexism, or her stubbornness. It's that the nominee isn't the nominee until they officially cross the finish line. Any legitimate maneuvers by candidates prior to that are not dirty pool, they're the system as the political parties designed it and redesign it every four years. It's a fine and meaningful enterprise, even if sometimes built wrong.

Take the Democrats' system of delegate selection. The super delegates were created after 1980 to be free of constraint. They're elected leaders and are supposed to "sanctify" the results of the voters and make sure we don't accidentally choose a loser. Not sure I buy the idea, but that's the reasoning behind their existence.

As for the way dems divvy up regular "pledged" delegates, it's proportional in each state. If the dems ran primaries on a winner-take-all basis like they once did, and like the electoral vote is handed out in the general election, Clinton would have already won the nomination with over 2,000 delegates. She beat Obama in Ohio by a whopping 237,000 votes, but out of 141 pledged delegates at stake she won just nine more than he did. Hey, that's a screwy system no matter who's ox is getting gored.

Democrats do it that way, so it's strictly a mental exercise to imagine otherwise. It's worth noting, though. Mental exercises put things in perspective.

Frankly, all of those undeclared super delegates across the country could hold a press conference en masse tomorrow and announce that enough of them were coming out for Obama to put him over the top, ending the whole thing. They've had ample opportunity. Maybe they will and maybe they won't. They haven't yet.

So is he the nominee? Not quite. Is he damn near the nominee? Obviously. He's on the precipice, has been for some time, and I look forward to voting for him in November. It will take all hands on deck -- those Clinton supporters included -- to keep John McCain from a third Bush term.

Obama knows it, which is why he's lately taken to praising her profusely. Seating Florida and Michigan delegates (an idea the media and Obama supporters have foolishly trashed for months) also helps the dem nominee with those states in the general election, and he knows that, too. More than anything, he knows that the two of them got the same number of votes fighting for this nomination, damn near 18 million apiece.

Funny: as in olden days, before women finally got the right to vote in 1920, it's the man who again covets a woman's dowry...in this case her political dowry.

In short, Rachel, it's "game on" until one has the required delegates or one quits.

I don't know the politics of Eli Manning, star quarterback of the football New York Giants, but after this year's last minute Super Bowl win against the Patriots, I suspect he'd appreciate the concept.

POSTSCRIPT: Friday afternoon it was widely reported that Clinton said the following in response to a newspaper editorial board question about getting out of the race:

People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa...It is unprecedented in history...Historically that makes no sense...My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, in June, in California. I don't understand it.

Presuming the inelegance of the remark was not borne of a dark heart (and the full context of the quote suggests it wasn't), it's nonetheless the kind of moment that could speed up the endgame in this charged climate.

On a related note, The New York Times reports this on its website Friday night regarding a well-known son of the late Bobby Kennedy:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, defended her remarks in a telephone interview Friday evening. "I've heard her make that argument before," Mr. Kennedy said, speaking on his cell phone as he drove to the family compound in Hyannis for the holiday weekend. "It sounds like she was invoking a familiar historical circumstance in support of her argument for continuing her campaign." He said his support of Mrs. Clinton has not wavered.

Comments

[slc20]

"It is condescending to think that Clinton, who would be the first woman to head a major party presidential ticket in U.S. history, should have already stepped aside in deference to the third-year junior senator from Illinois."

This comment makes me IRATE.

OBAMA HAS HELD ELECTED OFFICE FOR FOUR YEARS LONGER THAN HILLARY.

HILLARY DOES NOT GET CREDIT FOR HER HUSBAND'S EXPERIENCE.

HILLARY IS A "JUNIOR SENATOR" WITH LESS LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE THAN OBAMA.

Hillary is older, but certainly not wiser or more experienced than Obama.

Hillary didn't lose because of sexism, but because of her Iraq war vote (not to mention her flag burning bill, her cluster-bomb vote, and her Iranian guard vote), her comments about "obliterating Iran", her unorganized campaign, and her arrogant assumption she would sail to the nomination without obstruction.

HILLARY'S CLAIM OF "EXPERIENCE" IS A FARCE.

The more experienced, better candidate, Obama, will be the nominee, and he deserves it, and has earned it.

[bkovitz]

I think this article misses the point of the objections to Hillary's continuing to campaign. The objection is not that the rules say the game is over; obvously, that doesn't happen until someone gets 2,026 delegates. The objection is that by continuing to campaign when her only realistic hope is a scandal or a tragedy, she is diverting precious time and money away from the November campaign.

Every day spent attacking each other is a day that McCain gets to put his message across to voters first. Being able to get your message across first is a huge advantage. It takes a lot away from the Democrats' starting advantage due to widespread dissatisfaction with Bush, for McCain to freely position himself as a very different sort of Republican, a supporter of the poor, etc., a lot like the "compassionate conservative" move Bush played successfully in 2000. If the Republicans get to define themselves and the terms of the debate first, the Democratic candidate could actually lose, wasting the best opportunity to win the presidency that they've had in years.

Another objection to Hillary's continuing to campaign is that she is getting many of her supporters emotionally committed to seeing Obama lose. Partly this is due to her Rove-ish style of campaign tactics, partly just human nature to get emotionally dug in when you take a side.

[Lisaustin]

Williams plainly said that democrats don't do winner take all. He called it a mental exercise to look at things anew. Nothing wrong with that. And Obama didn't execute strategy "flawlessl­y." He lost most big electoral swing states, by a lot. Ohio (by 237,000) Pennsylvania (by 217,000), to name two. Yes, she had Gov Rendell in PA, but he outspent her by a gazillion, still lost big. Obama had the Gov in progressive Massachusetts as well as senators Kennedy and Kerry, and still lost by 200,000 votes there. OK, he cleaned her clock in caucus states, but they're undemocratic, had far fewer voters than primary states, and most are decidedly red in November anyway.

Granted, she expected it would be done by Feb 5 super Tuesday, a coronation. Her team didn't plan the caucuses. I get that, which is why she's fallen short, but barely. The popular vote nationwide is hers, and may still be by June 3 even without counting the 2.3 million REAL Democrats who did nothing wrong by voting in Michigan and Florida. And delegates? She's within 200 out of more than 4,000! That's extraordinary.

This race has been fascinating. Williams showed a historical pattern regarding 1932, 1952, 1980, and now 2008. It seems every 25 years or so there's a nomination challenge, going back three-quarters of a century, yet Williams got jumped on by Obama partisans just for pointing that out. Why do people act like we're in some vacuum today? We're not.

[Bobrobert]

Clinton is TOAST without butter.

Be sure to vote all.

:-)

[Bobrobert]

Silly season.

Trying to promote the lie doesn't make the lie the truth.

Everyone intends to get the foolish states seated.

The old lady and you want to pretend that everyone else is being mean.

Get off you lies - this one won't work

The sniper fire in Bosnia didn't work either.

Show us where the opposition has said anything but that the rules need to be followed.

You need to wake up and stop peddling lies lies lies all the time.

GET A LIFE!!!

Be sure to vote all.

:-)

[PuppaX]

I think you make a mistake in essentially parroting HRC's claim that "Obama supporters" are trying to force her out for no reason.

I think few people would mind (or would have minded) a long fight; it's simply the manner in which it was carried out. Simply banking on doing enough damage (some if potentially lasting into the general) that you could make an argument that your opponent is unelectable is classless and selfish. People are sick of "Look how bad I hurt him this time; there's no way he can get back up."

[thewizard13]

And if Democrats were Republicans, there wouldn't be any Democratic primary at all. And if fish and elephants had wings they could all fly like birds.

[SethBLiNK]

Actually that's not true.

The true statement is, if the Democrats ran their primaries exactly the way they do, and then after they were over changed the rule to winner take all, Clinton would have won.

What Obama's team did was look at the race as it was to be run, and created a strategy that would work for that race, and executed it flawlessly.

I would have to imagine that if the race was run differently, he would have run his campaign differently and still would have won because they had, the better candidate, better strategy and better execution.

If you'd like to see how Obama does with a winner-take-all format, tune in this November.

I guess next you're going to tell us that if they ran this race like they do in China, Hillary wouldn't have any campagin debt.

[ProgressiveNotLiberal]

If the dems ran primaries on a winner-take-all basis like they once did, and like the electoral vote is handed out in the general election, Clinton would have already won the nomination with over 2,000 delegates.

No she wouldn't. The strategy would have been different and with Obama's organization on the ground every where, I highly doubt Clinton would have done so well in the heavy delegate states with a different focus. You can't change the game or speculate on the outcome if different rules were used. That logic just doesn't hold water, but it does feed an ailing Clinton camp to muse wildly and blindly.

[editrix66]

That's a great point, PNL. Obama used a more successful campaign strategy based on the rules of this primary election. If we had different rules, he and his team would have developed a different strategy. Clinton used a strategy based on old elections rules and it cost her dearly. Complaining after the fact that the current rules aren't fair is a little ridiculous, don't you think?

[JackieW]

More inane arguments which begin with, "if ... if ... if ..."

For all the people wanting to cite RFK Jr.'s giving Clinton a pass, the much more telling aspect of his response was this:

"But he [Robert Kennedy, Jr.] added that the protracted fight for the Democratic nomination would only last “two more weeks.” “The candidate’s going to emerge within the next two weeks, and the party will get behind them,” Mr. Kennedy said.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/clinton-calls-vp-chatter-completely-untrue/

[in4success]

thank you for the civic lesson, J.W. -- i do not think, however, that anyone would mind hillary clinton's fair run at the presidency until a winner absolute. and it is not that she is a woman. not for me or anyone i know anyway.

the problem is the PERSON . . . and those that surround her. we are all tired of those slimy, scurvy characters and their anit-american interests. we're tired of liars and funky math and rule breakers and hubris and nastiness and fear cards and misrepresentations and triangulation and MADNESS and politics as usual and those who believe they are smarter than us and on and on and on...we want our voices heard. we want a new direction . . . . we want a clean slate.... we know without it america is dead.

we want change - - she wants to "change up"

we're tired of dynasties who do not losten to us -- she has not been listening.

we need obama in 08 to hear our wounds, move forward and renew our standing in the world -- she wants to obliterate iran.

that's why we want her to go . . . because she poisons us with her obsession and her entitlement.

[noneIn2008]

Relevant article on why the Dems tend to lose the Presidency to weak Republicans. The Dem primary process is broken. It has been broken and delivered poor results. The rules are very different from the general election, thus yield results that don't deliver. As proof of the broken process, how could any process select a candidate that could have lost to Bush in the second term?

I understand those who argue that, your article is not relevant to the current Dem primary, because it is already in progress. "They knew the rules". Ok play this one out. But, change the future for the good of the country. In the back of your mind, you must ask if the broken process will deliver the same results again. There are many other warning signs.

Considering your point, and more importantly a number of other factors, would it not be in the Democratic parties best interests to run Hillary and save Obama for 2016. Groom him more and vet him more. Lock up the White house for at least 16 years. Why risk it all right now, based upon a primary process that has failed a number of times and really hurt the country.

[NorVaGal]

Well, noneIn2008: To answer your question, while still considering the author's point and "other factors", NO it would NOT be in the Dem Party's best interests to run HRC this year and "save Obama for 2016." She has even higher negatives now than before she started her presidential bid. Nominating her would end up in mobilizing a presently apathetic GOP, as well as suppressing turnout for Dems and Independents who have been outraged at her divisive campaign against Obama. Why should they come out to support a Dem Party that betrayed their trust?


Elections are won or lost on the rules that we HAVE, not the ones that MAY be enacted later. Both Clinton and Obama agreed to the primary process, as it currently exists, however flawed it may be. If Obama is unsuccessful in his bid against McCain, he will have the option of running in 2012 or 2016, as will Hillary. The Dem process can, and no doubt will, be changed once the GE is over.

[bunkai]

and I am 6 numbers away from winning the lottery - the point is according to established rules that everyone signed on to HRC is done PERIOD
time to get over it

[Dadoodaman]

As Jon Stewart so aptly noted when confronted with this Hillary logic: Hillary would be the nominee if Democrats were Republicans.

Like the MI, FL vote arguments.

Those primaries were unsanctioned, the votes invalid, the numbers meaningless. It's no more a raw deal for those who bothered to vote than for those who didn't because they got the memo.

Got it?

[23000Days]

"Presuming the inelegance of the remark was not borne of a dark heart ....."
And why should we presume such, after two thinly veiled repetitions?

Your entire premise is a straw man, Jackson. Surely you realize that if those had been the rules, Obama would have ran his campaign to match them, as he's doing now. Sadly, never-say-die sometimes leads to Monty Python's version of "flesh wounds".