I wrote this for today's BeyondChron.
Hillary Clinton had reason to celebrate last night for winning the popular vote in Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas – but only because Barack Obama did not deliver the final knock-out punch to end her campaign. In the fight for the presidential nomination, Obama maintains a 150+ delegate lead – and Clinton did not put a dent in his edge last night that she needed to wage a successful comeback. For all of the media obsession with the popular vote in Texas, it ignores two cold, hard facts: Obama won more delegates in Texas, and across all four primaries Clinton won a grand total of an estimated two more delegates. And after Saturday's Wyoming caucus and Tuesday's Mississippi primary, Clinton will be further behind than on March 3. Her campaign has just finished Act 2 of a Greek tragedy: after an arduous path full of setbacks and defeats, the heroine suddenly appears on the brink of recovery – only to suffer inevitable loss in Act 3. Clinton’s performance last night makes it even more mathematically difficult for her to win the nomination. But she can damage Obama’s prospects, and hurt the Democratic Party--- Will Party leaders allow this?
Just like the aftermath of Super Tuesday, Clinton will win the battle for headlines today because she won the “big states.” But as we’ve learned throughout this primary season, the battle for the Democratic nomination is a fight for delegates – not a simple contest of which states get colored on the map for your candidate. And once the dust settles and the delegate count is apportioned, it will appear that last night’s results hardly changed the outcome.
Let’s start with Vermont and Rhode Island. Obama won Vermont by a comfortable 60-38 margin, and Clinton took Rhode Island with an 18-point lead. Both states have about the same number of delegates – and based on the results they cancelled each other out. If you want to get technical, Clinton probably netted one delegate – which is not much to celebrate. It’s fair to conclude that it was basically a wash between the two states.
Clinton won Ohio by a 12-point margin – but again, this is a race for delegates where the losing candidate gets their proportional share. Delegates are allotted by district, and high-turnout cities like Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus (which Obama won) get more than the rural districts. Clinton won more Ohio delegates statewide – but according to projections by blogger Chris Bowers, she probably only got a net gain of eleven.
Now comes the fun part. Texas has a bizarre system – known as the “Texas two-step” – where two-thirds of the state’s delegates are chosen through the primary election and the remaining third get picked at a separate Democratic caucus. Early returns show Obama winning the caucus – which will cut into Clinton’s delegate lead from Ohio.
And while Clinton narrowly won the Texas primary after a long night of counting, the delegate distribution only shows her edging out Obama by one delegate. Like Ohio, Obama won parts of Texas that have a larger share of delegates. Obama won cities like Austin and Houston – along with African-American precincts that have high turnout.
Before last night, Clinton suffered an 11-state losing streak – with Obama’s lead growing to about 160 pledged delegates. She barely narrowed the gap last night (if at all), after winning two states that she had long been expected to carry by a landslide. Clinton cannot catch up before the Convention, which leaves her no choice but to rely on superdelegates to win the nomination. And that won’t look good for her campaign.
Which is not to say that she did not make progress last night. After the Wisconsin primary two weeks ago, I noted how the Clinton coalition that had kept her going was crumbling: she lost white working-class middle-aged voters to Obama, which appeared to spell disaster for the rest of the primary season. Clinton managed to win back these voters in Ohio, and continued to hold her steady lead among Latinos in Texas.
But it wasn’t a pretty comeback. The Clinton camp shamelessly pulled the fear card with a Karl Rove-like ad showing kids sleeping at 3:00 a.m. – while the White House phone rings due to a national crisis. It was most effective among white women, which helped stem her downward fall. Exit polls in Ohio and Texas also showed that while voters still picked “change” over “experience,” the gap was far narrower than in other states.
And of course we had the kitchen-sink attacks hurled at Obama. We heard a lot about the NAFTA memo (which affected the outcome in Ohio), and more allegations about Rezko. But most disturbing was Clinton’s implication that John McCain would make a better President because of his foreign policy experience. This implied a willingness to destroy the village to save it, as if she’d rather see the Democrats lose if she doesn’t win the nomination.
Clinton’s gutter campaign tactics helped her win states on March 4th where she had the demographic advantage, but she won’t have that advantage going forward. Wyoming will caucus on March 8th – and Obama should win (as he won Utah and Idaho.) Next, the state with the largest black population (Mississippi) will be voting on March 11th. While Clinton has a shot at winning the Pennsylvania primary on April 22nd, the rest of the calendar doesn’t look good. Again, it’s a fight for delegates – and she’s already lost.
As Hillary Clinton lives the Greek Tragedy of her inevitably losing campaign, the only question is whether she will allow the fight to get nastier – and bruise Barack Obama to the point that he would be vulnerable to John McCain. Clinton may cut Obama’s lead in future primaries, but her scorched-earth tactics will not help her get enough pledged delegates to deny him the nomination. Last night’s result, however, gave Clinton the “green light” to keep the campaign going beyond March 4th
Which means we’ll have to put up with this train wreck for another few weeks.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In his spare time and outside of regular work hours, Paul Hogarth volunteered on Obama’s field operation in San Francisco.