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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Can we be frank about the Democratic candidate for POTUS?
Because the media sure can’t…
The media is heavily invested in making sure the Dem primaries are still “up in the air” and that there is still some uncertainty and excitement left in them.
There isn’t.
There are only 2 ways that Clinton can win: One, Obama dies, gets sick, or is seriously injured. Two, he is implicated in some catastrophic political scandal. That was true before Tuesday’s primaries and it is even more true now.
For some reason the media refuses to say that.
Clinton will spin her victory in Indiana. Wolf Blitzer said it right when he said that because the Dems split the delegates, it didn’t really matter if she won by a little or lost by a little. He is 100% correct. When a Dem candidate “wins” a state it is a nominal (in name only) win. There is no “winning” or “losing” a state - you simply win some delegates in each state according to how many votes you get or precincts you “win” or what have you.
Clinton “winning” Indiana is like a team down 15-0 getting a run in the 8th inning, while the other team scores nothing in the 8th.
I don’t expect Clinton to publicly say, “The only way I can win this race is if Obama dies or gets caught with a dead woman or live boy in his bed (as the old political saying goes),” but that is the truth and if she does not know that, she is delusional.
In addition, we already know EXACTLY what is going to happen in each state within some margin of error, whether it be by the polls or by common sense (Clinton overwhelmingly wins the seniors, Obama wins the young voters, Clinton wins the rural conservatives, Obama wins the rural liberals, and Obama overwhelmingly wins the blacks).
Now, if the race were close, that margin of error beyond which we can predict with almost 100% accuracy (whatever that may be) could make a difference in the race. But because she is so far behind, she would have to win a proportion of all the remaining states which is FAR outside those margin of errors. She therefore has ZERO chance to win, other than the two ways cited above (which apply to McCain as well).
That is what most of the media will NOT tell you because then there would be less reason to watch or read the news.
Example: When 99% of the votes were in in Indiana tonight, Clinton was up by 22,000 votes. There are only 1.2 million voters. So there are only 12,000 total votes left. If all of them were for Obama (which they could not be of course), he still “loses” by 10,000 votes. Somehow the CNN people (John King, et al.) told us that, “until all the votes are in, we don’t know yet who is going to win the state.” Yes we do John. Do they really need to lie (or be so mathematically challenged) just to get us to watch them for another half hour? That is insulting.
Obama leads in pledge delegates by around 147. Clinton leads in Super Delegates by anywhere from 14 to 19 (depending on the source). We’ll give her the 19 and say that Obama leads by 128. There are 217 and 5 states and PR left.
For Clinton to win, she needs to get at least 173 of the remaining 217, which is 80%. I don’t know exactly how each of the remaining states apportion their delegates, but she needs to win around 80% of the votes in the remaining states and PR. (Or a little less and then get some more Super Delegates).
The chances of that happening if Obama does not get implicated in a major political scandal or gets sick, injured, or dies, is EXACTLY:
ZERO
Or, as close to zero as you can get and still not be zero.
That does not mean of course that you should not vote if you can, or that Hillary should quit (that is up to her), but I just wanted to set the record straight, for those of you who have not followed the numbers, because the media will NOT tell you the truth about this.