Tip of the Iceberg

Category politics
Two months ago, I mused about the state of the Democratic primary. Between then and today, a number of things have occurred:

• The media painted Clinton's performance in the March 4 and April 22 contests as a "comeback", despite the reality that her wins were by far smaller margins than early polling had predicted.
• Having long since exhausted all substantive policy discussions, the campaign devolved into a discussion of issues typically left to the tabloids - issues that have very little bearing on either candidate's ability to effectively govern - including a ridiculous debate televised on ABC that left me wondering if I was actually watching a TV version of the Weekly World News.
• Barack shrunk Hillary's superdelegate lead from approximately 100 to approximately 20.
• Hillary shrunk Barack's pledged delegate lead by 3.

That last figure seems the most stark to me. Her "big comeback" on March 4 (winning the primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas) brought her a net total of 4 delegates, because Obama's performance in the Texas caucus outweighed Hillary's in the primary, netting him a total of 5 delegates for the state, and his win in Vermont netted him 3. Within a week, he had netted 9 more in Wyoming and Mississippi, so Hillary's next "big comeback" in Pennsylvania (again by far smaller margins than originally anticipated), which netted her 12, brought her a grand total of 3 delegates closer to Barack than she had been on March 3. Then they split Guam evenly. But due to the steady drip of superdelegates in Barack's direction, as of this morning she was actually far further from the nomination than she had been two months ago.

So what happened today? Well, that's still up in the air, but here's what we know so far:

• Barack appears to have won NC by about 14% (including my early vote a week and a half ago). This should net him 17 delegates.
• Hillary appears to have won IN by 4%, which should net her 2 delegates... except there's a catch. NBC is still labeling this "too close to call" because there are about 220,000 left to count, and most of them are in Gary. Which is actually a city. Which means it's "Barack-friendly" territory. So he's congratulated her on her apparent win there and she's claimed a win, but by morning he could actually get more delegates than her from IN.
• Barack's net gain in the popular vote from today will be in the neighborhood of 200,000. This eliminates Hillary's argument that PA allowed her to pass Barack in the popular vote, which until today was only true if you count Florida and Michigan. I'm actually not opposed to including Florida, since Barack's name was at least on the ballot there, although the candidates had agreed to the DNC's request that they not campaign there, so the voters there made a decision without the luxury of getting to know the candidates in the same way as citizens of other states, a process which throughout the campaign has consistently favored Barack. In Michigan, on the other hand, Barack's name wasn't even on the ballot. To include those results now would be to adopt the approach of countries whose electoral process we tend to mock. Unless the remaining 220,000 in Indiana broke overwhelmingly for Hillary, not only will Barack's net delegate gain for one day be about 4 times Hillary's gain over the last 2 months, but it puts him back on top in the popular vote count, even if we include the two states that both candidates agreed prior to their primaries would not count.

So what happens now? Hillary's "magic number" (the spread she needs to catch up in pledged delegate count) is now 86. That's a 72-point spread (86-14), compared with the 40% spread she needed after March 4. 80-20 would actually bring her within 40 delegates, at which point she could probably make a case that it's essentially a tie and ask the remaining superdelegates to give her the nod. But recent polling shows him up by roughly 8 in Oregon and 12 i n South Dakota, and down by only 13 in Puerto Rico, 28 in West Virginia, and 34 in Kentucky. Were the results to match that polling precisely, Hillary could win 100% of Montana (for which no public polls have been released) and still wind up 128 delegates behind (144 if they split the state evenly).

Under just about any scenario, it's ridiculous for Hillary to continue, but it appears she's going to. However, Russert just announced that she's now cancelled the morning talk show appearances she had scheduled for tomorrow, which implies she'd been hoping to gloat about another big comeback but has now decided there's not much to gloat about. Chuck Todd made an interesting observation the other night: after tonight, there are now more uncommitted superdelegates (~270) than remaining pledged delegates (217). This essentially means the campaign is over. Each candidate will continue to air TV ads in the remaining states, and may make a few trail appearances, but for the first time, there's actually more to gain by courting the remaining PLEOs than by courting the remaining voters.

Aside: I just saw a fox. And he didn't eat me. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Okay, back to the analysis. If it turns out that Barack actually did win Indiana, I suspect there will be a flood of superdelegates flocking to Obama's banner (and possibly a few more defecting from Hillary's camp) to try to put this to rest once and for all. Otherwise they may just let this drag on. But because there are so few delegates left to gain in the remaining primaries, I think interest will wane rapidly from now until June 3. On the other hand, that's only 4 weeks away, so it's probably a wash. One theory I do have is that Barack will soon extend a pseudo-magnanimous gesture: "Okay, fine. Seat the Florida and Michigan delegations. With them included I'm still up by 100 pledged delegates, still up by 200,000 in the popular vote. I won. Get out."