Supers stay quiet for a day or so and then the move to Obama starts back up as the impossibility of her math after this less than a blow-out more than squeaker win settles in.
Her fundraising picks up a little but just a little. Still little enough that she is running on empty spending more than she is taking in every day and running more and more of a net debt.
North Carolina is of course an Obama blow-out. 115 delegates there, probably he picks up a net of 25 which more than erases Clinton’s delegate pick up of roughly 15 tonight (per RealClearPolitics calculations).
Indiana … less old than Pennsylvania. If she wins there it won’t be by much, certainly less than she won by tonight. At this point I’d give him a good underdog’s shot at winning there, and her no chance of winning by a margin that makes significant inroads in delegate or popular vote counts. More likely than not those 72 delegates split mostly down the middle.
And that’s where she bows out unable to manage any bigger of a campaign deficit than she’ll have by then. No choice.
I’d thought of starting this thread, but you beat me to it. I was gonna call it “Indiana and North Carolina: Do We Have To?”
There’s going to be a game-theoretic aspect to this pair of primaries, especially for Hillary. If she goes whole-hog into Indiana, with the idea that winning one out of two justifies continuing her campaign past May 6, she risks NC becoming a blowout like VA and SC were, where Obama wins big enough in the voting to win by ~35 delegates - while only picking up 6-8 delegates, net, in Indiana.
But the more time and resources she expends on NC, the more she risks losing Indiana, which leans Hillary demographically, but less so than Ohio and PA. And if she loses Indiana and NC, the arguments for her continuing get really, really weak.
My WAG is that she’ll spend just enough time and money in NC to make it look like she’s contesting it, but devote more like 80% of her time, and most of her money, to Indiana, over the next two weeks.
I think the big unknown right now is what the Pennsylvania victory will do for her war chest. According to some snippet – most likely from her campaign, so take it for what it’s worth – she she raised $500K on the heels of this victory in less than a day, from small donors.
If that’s a pace that can keep up, she may have the resources to steamroll onward.
Of course, that was a day after the media reported her to be $1mil in the red. From The Washington Post:
That doesn’t include her $5mil self-loan but does include the $6mil she owes Penn. Which, from what I hear, isn’t likely to ever be fully paid just because that’s how these entities operate. Either way, a couple million in contributions isn’t likely to level the field much between perhaps $5mil and $40+ million.
Clinton spends the next to weeks touting her new “He Can’t Close the Deal” message. That further entrenches her constituency and keeps enough supers on the sidelines. Both candidates limp into the convention where the party fractures. Clinton gets the nod, younger voters and independents are disillusioned and stay home, McCain presidency.
“He can’t close the deal” is a nonsensical tactic for Clinton to take. I mean, perhaps it speaks badly of Obama’s skills, but it doesn’t speak well of Clinton’s either! If the gold medalist isn’t good enough, why should we go for the silver?
The political math already does not add up for HRC. There is almost no realistic way she can pull this out in the primary elections barring some hugely dramatic misstep by Obama.
My opinion is her only reason for staying in the race at this point is to extract promises of one sort or another for her personal benefit at the convention or threaten fracturing the party (of course she would never couch it in those terms).
If she actually cared about the democratic party and doing what is necessary to defeat McCain she’d have bowed out already. Certainly after PA. Not doing so can only be self serving.
Perhaps if she tries to blow up the Democratic Convention they’ll nominate Gore (actually seen that suggested as a possibility).
Don’t know about Ohio, but Obama is going to wipe the floor with Clinton in North Carolina. Her biggest source of support–working class white Democrats–are scarce as hen’s teeth here. She’s not shown much interest in courting North Carolina voters either. Obama’s campaign headquarters in my town opened about 5 weeks before Clinton got around to setting up one.
I think she’s just off by a letter. The truth is, Obama can’t lose the deal. She cannot catch him in delegates won, in popular vote (assuming the remaining states split as they do and you don’t count the Soviet-style result in Michigan), or in contests won. He polls better than she does against McCain and the national polls show him preferred by more Democrats. The deal is closed, she clings on with the hope of audacity. Any other Democrat would have had the good sense to pack it in weeks ago.
Why does Clinton get the nod? From what I’ve seen both candidates have been masters at holding serve, which is why we are here. NC is definite Obama turf, and Indiana, while a definite wild card, does sit right next to Illinois… we can assume safely that northwestern Indiana, at least, will be fruitful for Obama as well.
The good news is Hoosiers love basketball, and Obama is a better basketball player than he is a bowler, or at least he says so. I don’t see either side taking Indiana by > 5%, so delegate-wise it’s a wash.
It’s the demographics of their constituencies. Obama on the whole has the more fickle supporters. He’s got the younger vote and the progressives, the progressives can be counted on to go democrat anyway. The young can be counted on to “grow up”. The black vote can be discounted totally as politics has proven time and again. Meanwhile Hilary has the feminists and the elephant everybody seems to be ignoring sans the pollsters and that the Boomers. Don’t think for one minute that both of these groups aren’t counting on the Supers to realize this. As a matter of fact as Hillary keep making this point watch for her numbers to improve in both states. If you’re the party apparatus which group do you alienate?
