At what point should a political candidate bow out of a primary race and concede victory to an opponent? After winning in Indiana but losing in North Carolina, can Hillary Clinton manage to pull a rabbit out of her hat and win the Democratic nomination?
There are six primaries remaining to be held before June 3.
And then there are the Florida and Michigan primaries, both of which had their delegates stripped from the contest over failure to comply with the DNC national election calendar. Clinton is wrangling to have both states readmitted into the primary process in an attempt to garner those delegates to her side.
But how much clout does Hillary Clinton have left? She is being urged by friend and foe alike to withdraw now, after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, rather than to continue on as she has vowed to do.
Publicly, Clinton advisers mapped out what communications director Howard Wolfson called her "path to victory." It first envisions Sen. Clinton winning next week in West Virginia, then doing well in the other five contests, though Sen. Obama is favored in several.
Mr. Wolfson, asked if campaign advisers had discussed whether Sen. Clinton should drop out, was brief: "No."
The key to success for Sen. Clinton is to win her disputed claim to a majority of the 366 delegates from Michigan and Florida. The party disallowed both delegations because the states held primaries in January earlier than party rules allow. Sen. Clinton won both, though no candidates campaigned in the states due to the party's sanction. Sen. Obama and several other Democratic contenders at the time removed their names from the Michigan ballot. Party talks to reach a compromise to seat them have so far been fruitless.
But even the admission of Michigan and Florida wouldn't be enough for Sen. Clinton to overtake Sen. Obama's lead in delegates. So her hopes ultimately hinge on what is proving harder than ever after Tuesday's outcome: persuading superdelegates that she would be a better candidate against Sen. McCain than the less-experienced, less-battle-tested Sen. Obama.
The key to success for Sen. Clinton is to win her disputed claim to a majority of the 366 delegates from Michigan and Florida. The party disallowed both delegations because the states held primaries in January earlier than party rules allow. Sen. Clinton won both, though no candidates campaigned in the states due to the party's sanction. Sen. Obama and several other Democratic contenders at the time removed their names from the Michigan ballot. Party talks to reach a compromise to seat them have so far been fruitless.
But even the admission of Michigan and Florida wouldn't be enough for Sen. Clinton to overtake Sen. Obama's lead in delegates. So her hopes ultimately hinge on what is proving harder than ever after Tuesday's outcome: persuading superdelegates that she would be a better candidate against Sen. McCain than the less-experienced, less-battle-tested Sen. Obama.
To further make her push in making sure the Florida and Michigan delegates are admitted into the contest, Clinton has written a letter to Obama urging him to join her in supporting allowing the two states elections to be counted in the race, arguing on behalf of the residents of those states not being allowed to have their voice count in the national process of choosing a candidate.
Obama, on the other hand, is rumored to have chosen May 31st as his announcement of declaring victory in the race for the Democratic nominee.
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.”
It boils down to Michigan and Florida. Clinton, along with Obama and other Democratic candidates still in the race at the time the decision was made to exclude the two states from the process, signed her name in agreement not to campaign in either state. She's now crying foul, demanding that their delegates be included. Clinton was the only candidate not to withdraw her name from the primaries in both states.
Was this a calculated ace in the hole strategy on the part of Team Clinton to make sure that they had a point of contention with the process should she not be the front runner in the final analysis? Or is Hillary Clinton simply grasping at straws in a last ditch final assault before the shrieking, kicking and screaming end of her bid for the Presidency?
The bottom line regarding both Michigan and Florida is that both state conventions were aware of the consequences that would be imposed upon them by the national party if they moved their elections up. They did so anyway, and Hillary Clinton joined in with the rest of the candidates and the party at large in making sure that those consequences were imposed. Would baseball fans tolerate a major league team calling for a change of the rules in the seventh inning stretch of the tie-breaker game of the world series? Would football fans stand for a team to demand that the rules be changed in the last 30 seconds of the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl?
Hillary Rodham Clinton: heroine of the Democratic Party, or political parasite to the system?
Once and Always, an American Fighting Man
.
No comments:
Post a Comment