Clinton's thematic argument
It’s down to the wire for Hillary Clinton. Or is it? Many, including her husband, said she has to win both Texas and Ohio, but it now seems that she’ll probably go on if she only carries Ohio. This morning, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Clinton advisor Terry Mcauliffe
said his candidate will win Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, and so far, according to today’s polls, it looks pretty good for her. The tides may be turning. But let’s back up for a minute. Journalists like Jonathan Alter are arguing that it’s nearly mathematically impossible for Clinton to close the gap on Obama’s pledge delegate lead, so why is she still trying?
But here’s the problem: Neither candidate can clinch the nomination because they are statistically deadlocked, so if we use the math argument, why don’t they BOTH candidates drop out now?
It should be obvious now that Clinton is going for the nomination based on a thematic argument that says she’s won all the general election blue states, plus the all important swing state of Ohio. For Clinton to overturn the pledged delegates, former Clinton advisor Dick Morris, who has it out for Hillary, admitted last night on Hannity & Colmes that if Hillary builds up a string of victories in the end, she can win. In a nutshell, he said super delegates will be less willing to leave Clinton’s side if she wins –even by a vote— in these contests. He also argued against the line of reasoning that says if Hillary stays in the race, she will tear the party apart, is superficial. Instead, the limelight will stay on the Dems , and off John McCain, which would be positive.
Agree with Morris or not, an interesting Pew survey is out there that will surely be part of Clinton’s push for the nom. A Salon blog post reports that “if their favored candidate is not the Democratic nominee, a quarter of Hillary Clinton's primary supporters would defect and vote for John McCain in November, while only 10 percent of Barack Obama's supporters would do the same.” That doesn’t bode well for Obama in the general.
If that isn’t enough, there’s still Florida and Michigan to worry about if Clinton pulls out a split or a decisive win tonight. Isn’t it ironic that it may all come down to Florida…again? Obama, Clinton, Hillary, barack, nomination, Democratic
