The basic dilemma the Clinton campaign faces is that it is now in effect fighting a two-front war. On one front, they now trail substantially in elected delegates. Chris Bowers puts the count at Obama +135, while the Obama campaign itself claims that it is 136 delegates ahead. The trivial difference arises because the Obama campaign is holding out on allocating the last New Mexico delegate where as Bowers is giving it to Clinton, but either way -- it is a substantial margin, and one that is quite a bit larger than what either campaign probably anticipated heading out of Super Tuesday.
On the other front, the Clintons are trying to win a war among media members, opinion-makers, their large institutional surrogates and donors, and the superdelegates themselves. This war concerns the proper role of superdelegates, and the disposition of the unsanctioned delegates from Florida and Michigan.
Fighting a two-front war (even a metaphorical one) is never easy, but it is particularly problematic in this instance, because gains in one war may lead directly to losses in the other. Recently, the Clintons have decided to concentrate on the media/superdelegate war, to the possible detriment of the delegate war. Consider the following:
#1. Wisconsin. Hillary's decision about how much to campaign in Wisconsin is perhaps the best example of the trade-off. On the one hand, if she campaigns vigorously in Wisconsin, she lends it more importance in the media narrative, and therefore might suffer more of a momentum hit if she loses the race. On the other hand, if she sidesteps Wisconsin, voters in the state are liable to be turned off -- and that means a larger delegate win for Obama. If we've learned nothing else from 2008, it's that voters have demonstrated a strong tendancy to punish candidates who do not make a wholehearted effort to win their state; we saw this in the caucus states on Super Tuesday, and in essentially all of the post-Super Tuesday contests, where Obama won by margins that were far larger than anticipated. We also arguably saw it in South Carolina, and in several instances on the Republican side, as reflected in the poor showing by Rudy Giuliani in all of the pre-Florida states, and the very good showing in Nevada by Mitt Romney, where he was the only Republican to campaign seriously in the state. Clinton does not have any events scheduled in Wisconsin until at least Friday, and therefore we can conclude that she's more focused on the media war than on delegates.
#2. The $5 million loan. The Clinton campaign announced publicly that the $5 million loan given by Hillary to her campaign has been repaid to Clinton. On the surface, it would not seem to matter when this loan would be repaid to Hillary; nobody is going to lose track of $5 million dollars. However, there are some perceptual trade-offs either way. If Hillary has loaned her campaign money, it increases the sense of urgency among her donor base, and creates the perception that Hillary is as invested in her campaign as they are. Hillary raised funds very effectively after the loan was disclosed; and so it seems a bit odd that she would rescind that carrot as soon as she could. But, on the other hand, repaying the loan conveys strength to superdelegates, and eliminates some of the "sky is falling" narrative from the media. So in this instance as well, the Clinton campaign has opted to win the spin war rather than the ground war.
#3. Public defenses of the role of superdelegates. Making the case that superdelegates should override the collective decision of the voting public is likely to be exceptionally unpopular with one of the aggrieved parties -- the voting public. You are simply not going to win a popularity contest from Hillary's side of the argument, and if the issue comes up in the debates, it could potentially be quite damaging to her. However, the Clinton campaign has pressed their argument with surprising force -- not just through surrogates, but through the candidate herself.
ORONO, Maine (CNN) – Senator Hillary Clinton took issue Saturday with the notion put forward by the Obama campaign that party superdelegates should vote the way of their states and districts.
"Superdelegates are by design supposed to exercise independent judgment, that is the way the system works," she told reporters after a town hall in Orono, Maine. "If Sen. Obama and his campaign continue to push this position which is really contrary to what the definition of a super delegate has historically been then I look forward to receiving the support of Sen. Kennedy and Sen. Kerry."
#4. Running as the frontrunner versus the underdog. Clinton seemed to do exceptionally well in the five days between Iowa and New Hampshire when she was perceived as the underdog, leading to her surprising comeback victory in New Hampshire. In that instance, however, her campaign seemed to embrace the underdog tag, arguing in essence that Hillary had worked too darn hard to be pushed to the curb as the result of a few thousand voters in Iowa. But this time around, the Clinton campaign seems to be reluctant to accept that position, as the latest memo from Mark Penn should attest:
The Path to the Nomination
This election will come down to delegates. Votes are still being counted and delegates apportioned, but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are separated by approximately 40 delegates right now – that is, barely 1% of all the delegates to the Democratic convention.
Change Begins March 4th. Hillary leads in the three largest, delegate rich states remaining: Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These three states have 492 delegates – 64 percent of the remaining delegates Hillary Clinton needs to win the nomination. According to the latest polls, Hillary leads in Texas (IVR Jan 30-31), Pennsylvania (Franklin & Marshall Jan 8-14) and Ohio (Columbus Dispatch Jan 23-31). After March 4th, over 3000 delegates will be committed, and we project that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be virtually tied with 611 delegates still to be chosen in Pennsylvania and other remaining states. This does not even include Florida and Michigan (where Hillary won 178 delegates), whose votes we believe should be counted.
Or, check out the comments from the candidate herself:
But her strategy is fraught with risks, not the least of which is dismissing the relevance of thousands of pro-Obama Democratic voters in small caucus states and in the seemingly hostile terrain of traditional Republican strongholds.
"It’s not a factor," was how Clinton dismissed Obama victories in Maine, Nebraska, Louisiana, Virgin Islands and Washington state in an interview with WJLA and Politico on Monday.
"We had a great night on Super Tuesday. We’re winning the states that we have to win. The big states that are really going to determine whether the Democrats win," she said during the televised discussion.
Clinton has laughed out loud when asked about her losses in red state bastions such as Kansas and other caucus states, backhanding them as products of her own party "activists" and not real voters.
In each of these instances, we see the campaign pursuing a strategy that is likely to be unpopular with voters themselves, but sets up certain gambits within the media.
Then again, perhaps the Clinton campaign has concluded that the delegate war is lost -- and that it will need to win the spin war to win the nomination. Let's start with Chris Bowers' reported figure of Obama +135 pledged delegates, and then add in the projected results of all remaining contests other than Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Obama campaign's "leaked" spreadsheet projects the outcome of these races as follows, in terms of the net swing of pledged delegates:
Mississippi Obama +7
North Carolina Obama +7
Wisconsin Obama +6
Indiana Obama +6
Oregon Obama +4
Vermont Obama +3
Democrats Abroad Obama +3
Hawaii Obama +2
Montana Obama +2
Wyoming Obama +2
South Dakota Obama +1
Guam TIE
West Virginia Clinton +2
Ohio Clinton +5
Rhode Island Clinton +5
Kentucky Clinton +5
Puerto Rico Clinton +5
Pennsylvania Clinton +8
Texas Clinton +9
TX/OH/PA Clinton +22
Other States Obama +26
Total Obama +4
Even though these are the Obama campaign's estimates, I use them because they line up pretty well with the conventional wisdom, and in fact have tended to be conservative so far. If we're nitpicking, I suspect the estimate is too aggressive in Indiana, which looks more like a toss-up to me, but underestimates Obama's likely margin in several of the smaller states, like Oregon, South Dakota, etc. In any event, Obama appears to have a slight edge in the remaining states
other than Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which the spreadsheet pegs at +26. When we combine this with the 135-delegate lead that the Obama campaign already has, we see that Clinton would have to make up 161 delegates between Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania to tie the elected delegate race.
As others have pointed out, this is very nearly inconceivable: Hillary would have to win 66.4% of the available delegates in the three big states, i.e. claim about a 2:1 margin. Even the friendliest polling data does not suggest such a thing is possible. However, depending on the way we deal with three or four contingencies, the margin becomes more attainable:
- Superdelegates. The current Associated Press estimate puts Clinton at +82 superdelegates. Her deficit is reduced by this amount if we include those in the total.
- Florida and Michigan. There are a couple different scenarios here. First, it is possible that the delegates from Florida are seated, but not those from Michigan. This seems plausible for several reasons, the most obvious of which is that Obama's name did not appear on the ballot in Michigan. But, also, Florida's decision was somewhat hijacked by the Republican party in that state, whereas Michigan can make no such claim. So it's conceivable that Florida's delegation would be seated, but Michigan would have to re-vote. The second option is that Michigan is seated in addition to Florida. But this leads to the further problem of what to do with the uncommitted delegates in Michigan. Are these delegates given to Obama -- or do they remain truly uncommitted? I have accounted for each of these scenarios. If Florida is seated but not Michigan, Hillary gains a net of 38 delegates. If Florida and Michigan are both seated, but Obama is given Michigan's uncommitted delegates, Hillary gains 56 delegates. And if both states are seated and the uncommitted delegates remain uncommitted, Hillary gains a massive 111 delegates.
- John Edwards' delegates. John Edwards accumulated either 26 or 39 delegates, depending on whether you count his delegates from Florida. Although none of his delegates would be required to caucus with Obama or Clinton if he endorsed one of these candidates, some of them probably would. Thus, I have also accounted for the various permutations involving an Edwards endorsement, on the (unrealistic) assumption that all his delegates would follow the advice of their candidate.
There are 24 possible permutations, accounting for all of these contingencies:
"FL/OH/PA" is the proportion of delegates that Hillary would have to win between those three states, depending on which assumptions we select. The four scenarios that I consider to be the most plausible are shaded: these are the superdelegates either being counted toward Hillary's total or not, and Florida/Michigan being seated or not, but with Michigan's uncommitted delegates counting toward Obama (which I think is very likely in any compromise that results in Michigan being seated).
As you can see, Obama has a substantial lead in all but a couple of the more far-fetched scenarios. If we simply take an average of all 24 scenarios, it works out that Clinton would have to win 57% of the delegates from Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to win the nomination, which corresponds to their winning the states by a 14-percentage point margin. This is no easy task, but much better than the 2:1 margin she'd need to win if we're counting officially-sanctioned pledged delegates alone.
Still, the events of the last seven days are quite significant. The Obama campaign picked up 34 more delegates than it was anticipating between Virginia (+11), Maryland (+6), Maine (+5), Washington (+4), Louisiana (+3), DC (+3), Nebraska (+1) and the US Virgin Islands (+1). That means the Obama-Clinton gap is 68 delegates wider than it had anticipated. This has made Clinton's task in the three big states exponentially more difficult, and may be why she has concluded that she has to win a big "lump-sum" victory with respect to superdelegates or Florida/Michigan to win the nomination -- she is already too far behind to win at the margins.
Still, even this scenario is precarious, given the six week interval between Ohio/Texas and Pennsylvania. The choice that Pennsylvania voters would face is as follows:
If you vote for Obama, you get Obama as your nominee.
If you vote for Clinton, you get a big stinkin' mess.
This is the point in the campaign at which we often begin to see some "herd behavior" -- voters behaving in the best interests of the party, rather than voting their own personal preferences -- and that could begin to work toward Obama's benefit. And the narrative that the Clinton campaign has adopted in recent days only seems to accentuate the problem.