A day is a lifetime in politics. There are nine days to the Oregon primary. That is nine lifetimes--and it is all the lives that Hillary has left. I believe that within those nine days, Hillary's support will decline a great deal and at least 45 superdelegates will flood to Obama. After Obama trounces Hillary in Oregon, Hillary will go to her headquarters to reexamine her campaign. That Wednesday, Obama will pick up a flood of superdelegates. Well-known Clinton superdelegates will tell Clinton that she will have to quit. On Thursday, May 22, 2008, Hillary Clinton will drop out of the race and endorse Barack Obama.
I am overconfident? I do not think so. Barack has quitely set goal posts and he does not set goal posts unless he thinks he is going to meet them. Obama's campaign has been based on careful planning--and now they are planning Hillary's exit.
One of the things that impresses me the most about Barack Obama and his campaign is how smart they have been about planning for the future. For example, the day after Obama lost the New Hampshire primary, David Plouff, Obama's campaign manager put out a public memorandum on Obama's planning for Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008. The follow passage from Plouff's January 9, 2008 memo is quite interesting looking at it today:
In the six caucus states – Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Idaho, Alaska and North Dakota - we have been engaged in heavy organizing and voter contact. In many of these states, our opponents are not engaged in any organizing. We firmly believe you cannot build a caucus operation in a matter of four weeks, so we are at a decided advantage in these states where we have already identified tens of thousands of Obama supporters and where, in the last five days, the number of new volunteers and supporters has exploded.
So, on January 9th, the Obama campaign said they were going to blast Clinton in six caucus states. The results on February 5th:
Colorado: Obama 35 delegates; Clinton 20 delegates
Minnesota: Obama 48 delegates; Clinton 24 delegates
Kansas: Obama 23 delegates; Clinton 9 delegates
Idaho: Obama 15 delegates; Clinton 3 delegates
Alaska: Obama 9 delegates; Clinton 4 delegates
N. Dakota: Obama 8 delegates; Clinton 5 delegates
Total from Six caucus states: Obama 138 delegates; Clinton 65 delegates
That is a total of a net 73--twice the of Clinton's win in California
Now quitely and firmly, Obama is plotting Clinton's exit. On Thursday, Obama predicted he would win the nomination as a result of the Kentucky and the Oregon primaries:
Senator Barack Obama said today that he did not yet consider himself to be the Democratic nominee.
Asked by Brian Williams, in an interview to air tonight on NBC Nightly News, if he were the presumptive nominee, Mr. Obama replied, "Not yet. I will be, if Senator Clinton decides not to go on or if we complete the six contests and we are ahead as we are now."
He indicated that May 20, the day of primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, could be the day he claimed the nomination."That will be an important day," Mr. Obama said. Analysts expect him to win Oregon; they also expect Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to win in Kentucky.
The Clinton campaign has set out different goal posts, they have indicate that she plans to stay in the race until mid June and more importantly, Clinton claims Obama has to reach 2209 (with Florida and Michigan), not 2025--the DNC number to lock down the nomination. This clash in goal posts caused Politico to predict a coming train wreck in the Democratic party:
Not long after the polls close in the May 20 Kentucky and Oregon primaries, Barack Obama plans to declare victory in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
And, until at least May 31 and perhaps longer, Hillary Clinton’s campaign plans to dispute it.
It’s a train wreck waiting to happen, with one candidate claiming to be the nominee while the other vigorously denies it, all predicated on an argument over what exactly constitutes the finish line of the primary race.
The Obama campaign agrees with the Democratic National Committee, which pegs a winning majority at 2,025 pledged delegates and superdelegates—a figure that excludes the penalized Florida and Michigan delegations. The Clinton campaign, on the other hand, insists the winner will need 2,209 to cinch the nomination—a tally that includes Florida and Michigan.
"We don’t accept 2,025. It is not the real number because that does not include Florida and Michigan," said Howard Wolfson, one of Clinton’s two chief strategists. "It’s a phony number."
We have good evidence that Obama will be able to lay claim to the nomination on May 20, 2008 with little opposition. Since the Indiana and the North Carolina primaries, the pace of superdelegate endorsements has rapidly picked up. Obama got 4 on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday, 9 on Friday, 5 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. So, 21 in five days--or 4.2 superdelegates per day. Obama is now 155 votes alway from the nomination. If we assume a small uptick in the pace of endorsements, Obama will get 45 superdelegate endorsements between now and May 20, 2008 (5 superdelegates per day for nine days). In addition, his famous prediction sheet forcasts that Obama will win 13 delegates in West Virginia, 20 in Kentucky and 28 in Oregon. So, that is 61 pledged delegate votes. So, Obama could easily gather 106 votes in the next nine days and be just 46 delegates away from the nomination after we know the results of the Oregon primary.
It would be easy to image that those 46 votes would appear immediately after the Oregon primary. Mr. Super has indicated on his blog that the outstanding elected officals are Pelosi Club. See April 24 entry on Mr. Super blog. When Obama wins Oregon he will win lock up the title of pledged delegate winner. He is 33 pledged delegates away now and his campaign has projected that it will win 61 pledeged delegates in the next three contests. So, all the Pelosi club votes should kick in after Oregon.
There is another compelling reason to think there will be a flood of votes after Oregon. Congress goes on Memorial Day recess on May 23, 2008. See Mr Super blog entry for May 9, 2008 Congressman and Senators will went this settled before tehy go back to their district. So, there is a very good chance Obama will hit 2025 a day or two after Oregon.
Once Obama hits 2025, party elders like Reid, Pelosi, Dean, Gore, Carter will then back Obama as the nomineee. They will only be weighing in after Obama locks down the nomination.
And Clinton, what will she do? She cannot continue her rebellion to hold things up until Florida and Michigan are included because there is no reason to think that the majority of her superdelegate supporters would back an attempt to defy the consensus naming of a nomineee. Indeed Clinton has lost the support of four superdelegates in the last ten days or so. And she had to have a conference call on Saturday to try to reassure her superdelegates. This was noted on Talking Points Memo on Saturday
Furthermore, on the day of the Oregon primary, Clinton will have to file her FEC report which will show millions (perhaps $20 million) in debt. This will emphasize the fact that she is broke at the worse possible time.
Broke, losing friends and superdelegates, Clinton only alternative is concede and back Obama and this will happen a few days after the great state of Oregon announces its results.
UPDATED (2X)
I note that in the comments, there is a lot of concern that Clinton will never give up. I would point out that Clinton can only stay in this if her superdelegates hold. I see no evidence that the majority of her superdelegates will stick around for a prolonged fight once Obama gets to 2025. Senator Diane Finestein has already made this clear. If 100 Clinton superdelegates flip to Obama out of party unity, then Obama will be ahead by something like 400 votes. And I think that these superdelegates will flip. The junior senator from the state of New York cannot help you as much as President Obama.
I was a pledged delegate for Edwards in 2004 and was lucky enough to go to the convention. From the people I met in that experience, I got the strong feeling that the superdelegates care a lot about the Democratic party--indeed, a lot more about the party than the fate of a candidate that has lost.
The bottom line is that even if you believe that Bill and Hillary are crazy and will not accept the handwriting on the wall, Hillary's superdelegates will. So, somebody needs to show me evidence that Hillary's superdelegates are as determined as she is. No seeing that evidence, I strongly believe that Hillary's superdelegates will flip in large numbers. Obama could easily get more than half of Hillary's superdelegates in the next few weeks.