It's been a really long time since I've posted a substantive diary on DKos, but given that I've already written this, and I'd like feedback on my thoughts, here goes:
So, I got asked by a friend this afternoon, "Scott, Obama reports having like 20 some more delegates than Clinton. Discuss."
My answer: Right now no one has any idea how many delegates either candidate has won. The Obama team says that they won the delegate war by 9 delegates, 845 to 836. Clinton's team disputes this and says they won by a small margin. The news media are everywhere, ranging from over 100 more for Clinton on the AP estimate to a 20 delegate win for Obama from NBC. The damn counts are so varied because delegates are (for the most part) distributed by how people did in each congressional district. Take Illinois, for example. 100 of it's 133 pledged delegates come from the congressional districts that make up the state, while the other 33 are given out in proportion to the percent of the popular vote. Each district has ~8 delegates to hand out (I believe). If Obama wins by a certain amount (say, 71%) in one of those districts, he might win a 6-2 split of the delegates. But if he wins by a smaller amount (say, 55%) he might end up with a 4-4 split. Add to that the fact that many states, including California, have a certain number of their delegates going proportionally to the winner of the state. In Cali's case the breakdown was 52/42 Clinton/Obama- so it'll be very close there depending on how exactly California apportions the at large delegates.
Lastly, just to make this more confusing, there are "superdelegates" (such as congresspeople, state party chairs) who have votes that they've tied to who wins their congressional district or county or state or whatever. While pledged delegates (what you get from winning a district/state) far outnumber these superdelegates, in a tight election the superdelegates matter and are the big reason why Clinton currently has more overall delegates despite being behind in pledged delegates from states. In a state like California, there's about 370 pledged delegates and another 71 superdelegates. Right now about 350 superdelegates have chosen between Obama and Clinton, with many more who haven't yet decided and who may not. Some current predictions say that they're gonna go to whoever gets the most pledged delegates to avoid a brokered (read: backroom cigar and whiskey negotiations) convention, the worst possible result for Democrats this year.
No one knows exactly how the votes are broken down yet, especially in the later reporting states like CA and NM, so no one has a really accurate count. Thus, the Obama people are claiming a win, and NBC news is backing them up, while the Clinton people are claiming victory and the AP is backing them up. Regardless, neither side picked up a significant advantage in delegates yesterday (this doesn't mean a candidate didn't "win" yesterday). Likewise, the estimates of the popular vote between the two major Dem candidates show less than a half percent difference (~50.2/49.8 for Hillary according to Time) with about 7.3m votes cast for both candidates.
On the republican side things are hella simpler. unlike the Democrats, most Republican states are "winner take all." For example, Mike Huckabee won Georgia by 2%, with 34% of the vote. He gets every single pledged delegate from Georgia. Thus, while McCain didn't win anything like a majority of all votes in most states, he gets the lions share of the delegates thanks to winning states like New York and California. That leaves Huckabee and Romney in deep trouble, as they split the conservative vote (less than half of McCain voters call themselves "conservative" compared to 80% or more for Romney and Huckabee) and ate away each others votes. McCain could still blow it, but he's the presumptive nominee given Romney's failure to win a big state last night, and Huckabee's woeful money issues and failure to get the evangelical leadership to fall in line behind him. It's not over, but McCain has got to be so happy he doesn't need Viagra today. Romney needs to pick up a big win somewhere soon, or Huckabee has to prove he's not just a regional candidate and get a cash infusion, to stop McCain from being the nominee. I don't see how either does that, just like I didn't see it back in late December when I called John McCain as the R nominee.
"So where does the Democratic Primary go from here?"
Well, I believe that Obama comes out fairly strongly from Super Tuesday. He did exactly what he needed to do, he's got more money right now, and he's proven that he can go toe to toe with an extremely tough and talented opponent. He's shored up his strengths, he's winning white voters in many states, he's closed some of the gap among latinos (he may have won NM, where nearly half the voters were latino), and the divides in this campaign aren't so much along gender or racial lines, but instead along age and class lines. I remember reading that Obama won every group over $50,000 a year, while Clinton won every group under $100,000. Clinton won voters over 60 for the most part, Obama those under 60. (As an aside, old people vote like crazy, which is why Clinton can win... and to me it's Obama's biggest problem).
Moreover, Obama's got a favorable schedule ahead of him. The next elections are on 2/9, and they're a primary in Louisiana, and caucuses in Washington and Nebraska. Obama swept the caucus states yesterday, and has won all of them but Nevada. he blew out Clinton in Kansas, the state most like Nebraska, and he has what seems to be the best ground organization. Louisiana could be close (it's adjacent to Arkansas), but has a large African American base and is fairly similar demographically to Alabama where Obama won by 15 points. Lastly there's Washington, which is a caucus state. Clinton has gotten 2 big endorsements from Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, but as far as I know the Kings County executive and Seattle mayor haven't endorsed, and if there was one thing that was proven yesterday, it's that the best endorsements when it comes to getting votes is those of big city mayors (Clinton won MA and CA in part on the back of crushing Obama in Boston and Los Angeles... both of which have strongly pro-Clinton mayors). WA is the big prize of the night, it has over 90 delegates at stake. Expect Obama and Clinton to spend time there and in LA. If Obama can sweep, he's in excellent shape, but I can't see him beating Clinton in both WA and LA and I expect them to split the two.
Maine is the 10th, and a caucus, but in the fairly pro-Clinton northeast. If Clinton loses 2 of the three states on the 9th, it could provide a bulwark before the February 12th primaries. It could do the same for Obama if he loses both LA and WA.
The 12th is the Beltway Primary/Potomac Primary, when Virginia, Maryland, and DC vote. DC is going Obama, his lower margins among African Americans has been about 3/1 over Clinton, and DC Democrats are largely African-American. Virginia and Maryland are both favorable for Obama, Virginia in no small part to the strong support of Governor Tim Kaine and the large, affluent, democratic population of NoVa. Maryland has about 1/3rd of its votes come from Baltimore, and another 1/3rd come from the affluent suburbs around DC. Those should be Obama territory (rich whites from the burbs and the African-American vote of B'more) given recent results, and Obama will probably invest heavily to try and sweep those primaries and gain a leg up on Clinton, especially if he has already won 3 of the 4 prior races leading up to this day.
Winning there would give Obama a full week before the next primaries (Wisconsin and Hawaii) to build support and become the "frontrunner." Hawaii has institutional support for Clinton, including Senator Daniel Inouye, but it's also where Obama was born. I'd give a slight edge to Clinton. Much more important for Clinton (if things go down like I'm predicting) is Wisconsin. This year neighboring Minnesota went 67/31 for Obama, and the two states do share a good deal in common politically. Minnesota is slightly more progressive and has more urban citizenry in the Twin Cities area, and Milwaukee is more downscale than Minneapolis (a potential advantage for Clinton), but I believe that given Obama's ground game and money advantages, he could really hurt her in Wisconsin and be in the catbird seat heading into the next set of primaries.
Which are 2 weeks away. I believe that the first place this primary could end are after the Ohio, Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island. The delegate counts after February will still be fairly close (thanks again, proportional distribution!), but momentum could have shifted strongly towards Obama, or even towards Clinton if she wins a comeback victory in a 2/12 or 2/19 primary. Texas shows a rapidly tightening race, Ohio has institutional support (Governor Strickland's endorsement) and a 20-25% lead in recent polling for Clinton. Those two states are two of the biggest ones left (the only other remaining states with more than 100 delegates are North Carolina and Pennsylvania), and Obama could score a knockout blow by taking both of those and one of the two smaller states. Conversely, Clinton could win both of them and step right back to where she was before yesterday, in fairly strong position and now with a pledged delegate lead despite poor showings in the February primaries. I don't believe that the race will end that day, but we might know who's going to be the nominee. The third option is that we could be in the same position we are now, with Obama and Clinton splitting the large states, or finishing with 5% of each other and coming out near tied in delegates.
No matter what happens case, Pennsylvania will matter. That primary is the first major one after 3/4, and the first after 3/10 (when Mississippi will go for Obama) and it's 6 whole weeks later on April 22nd. Pennsylvania will be huge, either as the nail in the coffin for Obama or Clinton, or as the boost either one of them needs to actually break out after 6 weeks of gabbering. I have to think that unless Obama has momentum coming out of 3/4, this state favors Clinton given the endorsement of Philadelphia's mayor and Pennsylvania's governor as well as it's bipolar (two large cities, rural area in between) geography. However, given that there's over 40 days where Pennsylvania will be plastered with intention, and given that Obama closes in polls the more people get to know him, it could still play well with him.
If Pennsylvania isn't dispositive, the race starts getting rapidly crazy. I tend to think it will be, there's going to be a lot of pressure if one side has lost significant ground. If Obama loses TX and OH and then loses PA, i think he's done, and I believe it's likewise for Clinton. I also think it could even happen if one of them loses 2 of the three, especially if it's Clinton coming off of a bad February.
After Pennsylvania the pickings get sparse. North Carolina and Indiana go on May 6th, with only West Virginia, Oregon, Kentucky, Montana and South Dakota left. May 6th is the only day with more than 200 delegates apportioned, and the media will be going batshit crazy if there isn't a presumptive nominee at that point, and the pledged delegates remain close. For one, there may not be enough delegates for someone winning 60% of the vote in the remaining states to win the nomination on the first ballot. For another, the battle over superdelegates will become a bloodbath as both sides try to garner the support they need to make up the gap and win on the first ballot. If we get that far and things are as tight as they are now, expect everyone to be talking about a brokered convention.
One thing that could throw off my predictions: Clinton running out of money. It seems kinda insane, given that she's raised over 100 MILLION dollars, but her burn rate is pretty high, and she raised significantly less money than Obama in January (13.5m vs. 32m). Further many more of her donors are "max" donors compared to Obama ($2300 is the most you can contribute to a candidate for a primary campaign, and about 75% of Clinton's donors have given that much compared to roughly 50% for Obama). Obama's average donation in January was about $188.20, Clinton's was much higher. Given that last night was a slight loss for Clinton (she had geographic, institutional, and polling advantages that all were narrowed considerably in under 2 weeks) and that Obama's best fundraising day was actually the day AFTER he lost New Hampshire, the money advantage is likely to stay with Obama. This means he can pay for more ads, more offices, more events, and more staff in big, expensive, states like Virginia, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania. At the same time he can be placing offices, staff, and advertising in small states like VT, RI, and NE (a large part of the reason why he swept the small states last night was because of his presence on the ground and on the airwaves in states like Idaho. If Senator Clinton loses a string of states in February, it'll be hard for her to attract new donors and most of her strongest backers will have already given their maximum donation. If she's running on empty after OH/TX and doesn't win decisively enough to prime the money pump, she's going to have a hell of a time holding off Obama in Pennsylvania.
I hope that all makes some sense. My personal prediction says that Obama wraps things up after April 22nd and Pennsylvania having won NE, LA, VA, MD, DC, HI, WI, and OH previously. However, given how fluid this race has been thus far, I wouldn't bet more than a glass of decent scotch on it.
