A great article from pollster Charlie Cook today on the state of the race...
The good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she’s winning a lot of battles. The bad news is that the war is pretty much lost...today, she is 133 delegates behind Obama, 1,728 to 1,595, according to NBC News. At this point last week, she trailed by 136 delegates. Since then Clinton has scored a net gain of 10 delegates in Pennsylvania, according to NBC, but has lost a few more superdelegates, so she has made little headway.
More after the jump...including the likely endgame he sketches out...
UPDATED: Blogger/Author Taegon Goddard makes exactly the same point and I'll add his quote to the bottom of the posting...
Charlie says in essence that the Clinton folks have to make the arguments they are making (such as "hey look at the popular vote, that's close!) since they have no other arguments left... but then he adds:
At the end of the day, the popular vote for the Democratic nomination means nothing. I doubt that having won the popular vote in the 2000 general election is of much solace to Al Gore. Many a football team gains more yards than its opponent in a game yet loses on that important technicality called points.
And he ends it off with that the next battle ground - basically in Indiana - is key:
The race now moves to Indiana and North Carolina, which vote on May 6. Obama appears to be narrowly ahead in the former and enjoys a 20-point advantage in the latter. If given the choice of Clinton’s momentum or Obama’s money going into two states where he is already ahead, I’d take the money and run.
and he sketches out a possible end game...
In some ways, Clinton has spent the past six weeks in a horrible situation. How do you quit a race when you’re still winning primaries? The delegate and fundraising pictures looked dismal to the point of near-impossibility, yet she was still taking the big primaries...As long as Clinton is winning, she can’t quit. But even in victory, she isn’t getting any closer to securing the nomination. This political purgatory will continue if she manages to win Indiana but loses North Carolina—hard to drop out but harder to see winning the nomination. If she loses in both states, then her campaign’s donors and creditors, as well as superdelegates and party leaders, are likely to intervene.
A well written critique from a bipartisan pollster I trust a great deal...
The game is really over already, but time to push it to a technical close and we have thirteen days to do it.
UPDATE: Taegan Goddard sees exactly the same thing:
Clinton now needs 296 of the remaining 435 delegates up for grabs (or approximately 68% of the vote.) In contrast, Obama needs 140 of the remaining 435 to have the majority (or about 32% of the vote.)
Therefore, despite her win in the Keystone State, the results have in fact made it less likely Clinton can win.
Considering that most polls predict Obama should win North Carolina by a healthy margin and both campaigns think Indiana will be close, the chances of a Clinton victory are actually lower than ever.
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