At OpenLeft, Chris Bowers again projects delegate counts for the remainder of the Democratic campaign, which has Hillary Clinton behind Barack Obama by roughly 180 delegates (not counting Puerto Rico, which should be a net gain for Clinton, though nowhere near enough).
A RCP, Jay Cost outlines how Clinton could stake a “moral claim” to the nomination outside the delegate count:
The most persuasive method is to count the votes. This is why the Obama campaign needs to be careful. Clinton could acquire a powerful argument for her nomination. Obama currently has a slight lead in the popular vote (52% to 48%), excluding Florida and Michigan. However, if Clinton wins Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania – his lead will be under threat. This is also where Florida and Michigan come into play. I get the sense that few neutral Democratic politicos are interested in seating the Michigan and Florida delegations while the nomination is up for grabs. That’s good for Obama. But what about factoring their voters into the counts? I think Obama can convincingly argue against factoring Michigan in, as he was not on the ballot. However, he’ll have a harder time arguing that super delegates should ignore Florida voters.
This means the race is tighter than many people believe. While Clinton has to win something like 75% of the remaining pledged delegates to overtake him in that count – she only has to win about 53% of the vote to overtake him in the count that includes Florida. That’s not so much a royal flush as a three-of-a-kind.
If Clinton pulls ahead of Obama in this count, she could make a compelling moral claim.
Cost concedes, however, that Clinton will have difficulty closing the popular vote gap if she does not win Texas. Based on current trends, Clinton is unlikely to rack up much of a popular vote margin in Texas. Moreover, Cost assumes that Florida would be resolved without some sort of second primary, or that the result of such would be the same. That is a lot of “ifs” for Clinton to rely upon, but it may be all she has left.
And hey — I live in Ohio and at 6:30 this morning on the way into work I stopped to vote — and the precinct judge hadn’t shown up yet so the equipment couldn’t be opened — and I was told to come back —
Now this is a prosperous suburb and heavily conservative, many Republicans. Many, I assert, that because of a lack of interest on the Republican side, would vote the Democrat ticket, and Hillary at that. The Board of Elections (downtown) is riddled with Democrat sympathizers, from what I’ve been given to believe, and most of them are Obamamaniacs. I think I’m a victim of voter suppression!!!!!
It’s the charge that’s important, dammit!
What the hell do “morals” have to do with a political knife-fight?…
[…] little to no chance that she can pass Obama in the pledged delegate count and could at best have a “moral claim” to the nomination based on the popular vote, Lizza seems to indulge the Clinton campaign spin that […]