Junior Super Tuesday Results Indicate Superdelegates to Decide Dem. Nominee
Finally, a confetti moment
Looks like the super delegates will decide this thing after all. After winning Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas, Clinton is certainly back in the game.
CNN: “Clinton’s Texas win can be attributed to some of the same factors that led her to prevail in Ohio: Overwhelming support from seniors, voters worried about their financial status, and late deciders. Her big margins among these blocs were key in tilting the state to her favor.”
Time: “Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victories in Texas and Ohio fundamentally change the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in at least one important way: she’s still in the race for the nomination…Clinton will fight on for at least the next seven weeks, until Pennsylvania votes on April 22. To get an idea of how long a period that is in political years, the Iowa caucuses — remember them? — were only eight weeks ago.”
MSNBC: “As in other contests Obama won the black vote by a wide margin (86%-14%). But remember, blacks make up only 19% of the Democratic electorate, so the white vote was key for Clinton…Clinton regained her lead among the “white working class” — those who make less than $50,000 (69%-28%). She also won among whites, who make more than $50,000 (61%-37%)….Clinton also showed her strength in other areas: She won the late deciders; she won among union households; she was seen as best qualified to be Commander-In-Chief, and she was seen as the candidate with the best chance of winning in the fall.”
Politico:[Clinton stated,] “For everyone who has stumbled and stood right back up and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you!” Clinton said. “You know what they say: as Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Well, this nation’s coming back and so is this campaign.”
Time: “Clinton is emboldened not just by her Tuesday wins, but by several other developments over the past few days. She has now taken the popular votes in all the major industrial states that have held contests, except for Obama’s home state of Illinois. Additionally, from Clinton’s point of view, Obama is only now beginning to experience the aggressive media scrutiny standard for a serious presidential candidate. And she has finally found an advertising and rhetorical strategy to highlight Obama’s relative lack of national security experience — his greatest weakness with voters.”
“Clinton’s only hope of winning a majority of the delegates is to overtake Obama’s elected delegate lead by winning the bulk of the remaining superdelegates.”
“This is the heart of Clinton’s multi-dimensional challenge. Obama has of late signed up more superdelegates than Clinton in part because they are swayed by his lead in elected delegates. Yet unless there is a significant change in the overall dynamic — a major Obama blunder or scandal for example — he is likely to continue accruing superdelegates regardless of Clinton’s big March 4 wins. Also, the act of securing the nomination with unelected convention votes could be considered by many Obama supporters as highly undemocratic, embittering and dividing the party on the eve of the general election.”
MSNBC: “It’s going to be a long seven weeks to Pennsylvania….”
What is most interesting to me is the flip in how late-deciders chose to vote. Just last week, the later a Democratic primary voter made up his or her mind, the more likely they were to vote for Sen. Obama. That trend seems to have turned on its head as a sense of buyers remorse has overtaken many party members, as further doubts in Obama’s ability to win in the general election surface.
Though neither Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama will likely accrue the needed the 2,025 state delegates to seize the nomination, Clinton’s Tuesday win gives her a strong hand to play, even if her delegate count comes short of Obama’s. By winning the states that are the largest, most important, and must-win in the general election (no president in living memory has won without Ohio), Clinton can claim that she can win all the battleground states against John McCain.
But she can’t win the nomination without the super delegates.
“Independent judgement”
So how does this whole super delegate thing work anyways? At the State of the Black Union, which Sen. Clinton was the only presidential candidate to attend, Sen. Clinton spoke to Tavis Smiley on how the super delegates function.
The job of the super delegates is to choose the strongest nominee for the party in case of a split convention, no matter what the final delegate count, and ultimately who would be the best president of the United States. And choose they certainly will.
See also:
Florida & Michigan Might Play Election Role They Wanted After All
Stumble it!
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