The Clinton claim that she makes the better candidate to run agaianst McCain in the upcoming general election based on her, "winning the big one's" simply doesn't hold up to asecond look.
I began this election as a Kucinich supporter. If you have been paying attention that tells you I am far out on the left wing of the Democratic Party. I voted for Bill Clinton twice but I am still making the huge assumption that the Clinton camp will not succeed in their scorched earth politics and at some point we will be in Denver with an evenly divided party. Today’s bloviating heads on the Sunday shows are making the Clinton case that Obama can’t close and that she wins the big states. I think this is a gross misstatement of the facts and involves some bad assumptions. First let us take a look at the data.
Ohio---- Obama 979,025
McCain 636,256
McCain + Huckabee 961,837
Texas--- Obama 1,358,785
McCain 709,477
McCain + Huckabee 1,233,031
This shows that Obama wins those states also. Arguing that Hillary is the stronger candidate because she wins those battle ground states is speciousas Obama beat the Republicans there too.
The other states are a bit trickier but let’s start with Michigan.
McCain--- 337,847
Clinton 328,151
If your argument is I beat McCain in all the big states, well not so much; not in what really matters for your argument. I wont get into the 40% that voted for non- committed, (anybody else) or the non-campaingning taking names off the ballot.
Florida gets me into the area of fuzzy math and there are questions concerning ad buys that may have gotten some bump for Obama
Florida---- McCain 693,508
Obama 569,041
Obama + Edwards 817,645
My crystal ball is not that clear but I will accept the polling data that shows the Senator from New York winning in Pa but I think it will be minimal and with no contest on the Republican side I think the trend I have pointed out will hold but in this case it will be meaningless.
Senator Clinton has every right to put forth her argument but when you do the math it just doesn’t hold up. It is not my contention that Clinton step aside, the idea that anyone with the ego structure it takes to run for president would quit when they are in a virtual dead heat I find laughable. I say hold the rest of the contests, stop the negative attacks, count all the votes and on June 8th and the one with the most votes wins. The numbers quoted are from cnn.com