Sober Reflections On Delegatery
by sarabeth at 8:34 am on June 2nd, 2008 in 2008 Presidential, Hillary, MediaSo what if Obama leads in terms of total delegates? So what if Obama is likely to clinch 2,118 delegates in the next few days? Jake Tapper of ABC News put that into proper perspective:
By ABC News‘ calculation, Obama only needs 47.5 more delegates to reach what he considers to be the magic number of 2,118 delegates to wrap up the nomination.
It’s just what he considers to be the magic number. And you can’t be going by what candidates choose to believe, can you? If that number of 2,118 had any real validity, any responsible journalist would have told us so. So it certainly couldn’t be the official target as per today’s edition of the Democratic Party rules.
And not only is that target of 2,118 totally suspect, but Hillary Clinton is still ahead by every metric that matters.*
She is ahead in terms of the popular vote — if you count the popular vote exactly as she tells you to — and everyone knows that the popular vote is much more important than the number of delegates, or the number of electoral votes, or anything like that.
We are also about to learn in the next few days — the Clinton campaign is going to wait till late in the evening on June 3 to break this bombshell — that even if Obama has more delegates, if you take all the delegates and lay them end to end, Clinton’s candidates will stretch 265 feet longer than Obama’s. So no one can any longer say that Hillary is not winning, not by a long stretch. But more importantly, since the average height of delegates is 5′ 9.6″, Hillary is incontrovertibly ahead by 45.7 delegates.
Not only that, but delegates pledged to Clinton have so many more vowels in their first and last names than delegates pledged to Obama that it’s not even close. Which is why Hillary will claim a landslide victory tomorrow evening, and call on Obama to gracefully concede the nomination, and start working to heal the deep rifts he has caused in the party.
* Definition of metrics that matter: those by which Clinton leads, or can be said to be leading, or can be made to lead by squinting just so.
theo from toronto wrote:
As a Canadian citizen and a black male I have been fascinated by the Democratic race between OB and HRC and Company. I do not see the Clintons giving up the fight until the lady in the pantsuit sings. I see the party hopelessly divided based on things that at the end of the day are meaningless. If you hope to oust the Repugs (i got this phrase from the blogs…cool!) in November, but at the rate you’re going, the Repugs will win just like last time.
I do think however that there is hope for our brothers and sisters south of the border. You have confidently campaigned a woman and a black man, to my astonishment, for the candidate of president. I don’t expect to see that in Canada in my lifetime. I am proud to say that the United States has invigorated me with the hope (do I dare use the word) that things are getting better and that the sacrifices made by those who came before me were not in vain.
So, I suggest both sides of the contest congratulate each other and those who participated in the process by voting for you because win or lose in November, you have changed the face of politics in your country from now on…
and I salute you for it!
Democrats in ‘08!!!
Posted 02 Jun 2008 at 2:17 pm ¶