Overdone
According to her own advisers, Hillary can’t win even by changing the rules:
In a Clinton campaign conference call with reporters on Wednesday, three top advisers acknowledged that even if all the delegates from disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida were seated at the Democratic convention, Mrs. Clinton would still not have enough delegates to claim the nomination.
Phil Singer, a spokesman for the campaign, estimated that in a best-case event, where the Michigan and Florida delegates were apportioned according to each state’s popular vote, Mrs. Clinton would still be about 100 delegates shy of the number needed. Delegates in those states have not been counted, the penalty for holding early primaries.
So it’s difficult to see where she has a case to stay in the race (I’m a rapper) if she can’t even win via a coup d’etat.
Christopher Neu on 10 May 2008 at 10:48 am #
Despite the flimsiness of her campaign, I still have some respect for Hillary Clinton. However, I do have to express concern about the democratic elements of her downplaying Obama’s wins in smaller states, or states with caucuses, or states with African Americans, and so on.
For a candidate who has made such a stink about not representing Michigan and Florida, it might be worth remembering that the Democratic candidate is running for the President of the United States, and not just leader of middle-class white males in Ohio.
The weighting of states in the electoral college and the importance of battleground states are surely important for the electoral process, but it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that this process is about national representation.
Regardless of their “unimportant” status, the people in these states turned out on the day of their assigned primary to vote for the candidate they wanted. That’s more than you can say for Michigan and Florida.