Slate Magazine: With revotes unlikely in Florida and Michigan, Hillary Clinton's hope is fading.

[apocalypsehow]

"As of now, she would need to win each remaining state by 28 points to catch Obama in pledged delegates."

http://www.slate.com/id/2185278/

[papau]

1. it is a super delegate race for both Obama and for Clinton

[tekisui]

2. It is a SuperD race for Hillary to have even the slightest hope of catching

Obama.

Obama has to only hold his own.

[jefferson_dem]

8. The ONLY plausible way she could claim the nomination is by winning the popular vote...

and then convince the supers to hand it to her. Too bad for her ... that won't happen, especially with FL and MI off the table. It's over.

[annie1]

27. i agree that she needs to win the pop vote in order to win the SD's...

and i don't think that would be having the nomination handed to her by any means. But i disagree that FL and MI are off the table, talks are still in the works. but if they bow out, and there is no way she can win the pop vote, then i agree, it is over. super dels wouldn't nominate her, no way no how, nor should they.

[papau]

32. FL and MI aren't off the table - but a counting Mich/FL popular vote loss would end it

[Zhade]

25. True. They'll go with the winner. That's Obama.

NT!

[Pirate Smile]

3. That is the spread Obama won Virginia by - 64% Obama to 36% Clinton

[apocalypsehow]

4. Just a little *kickety-kick* to let the truth sink in...

n/t.

[Cha]

5. So that's why hilary's smearing 24/7..

so she can get the populace to come out in record numbers for her and only be satisfied if there's not one more vote for Obama.

And the m$$$m is carrying her water.

[apocalypsehow]

6. Yep - exactly right. And the Republicans are eating it up with a spoon. They love every minute of it

n/t.

[Cha]

12. Yeah, what a gift they have in hilary...there'll

be an ode to hilary on some fascist plaque somewhere, sometime.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

16. she's trying to get McCain elected, so she can try again in 2012

she would be too old to try in 2016 when Obama finished 2 terms.

[Cha]

19. "68"? Isn't mccain like 70?

But, the lies hilary's tellin' she'll be old before her time.

[Diane R]

33. If she fails in '12, she'll run in '16, and '20 and '24, and......until she gets her 'turn'!!!

[jefferson_dem]

7. NYT says the same thing. "Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination"

Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton needs three breaks to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Senator Barack Obama in the view of her advisers.

She has to defeat Mr. Obama soundly in Pennsylvania next month to buttress her argument that she holds an advantage in big general election states.

She needs to lead in the total popular vote after the primaries end in June.

And Mrs. Clinton is looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr. Obama so that superdelegates, Democratic Party leaders and elected officials who are free to decide which candidate to support overturn his lead among the pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses.

For Mrs. Clinton, all this has seemed something of a long shot since her defeats in February. But that shot seems to have grown a little longer.

Despite Mrs. Clinton’s last-minute trip to Michigan on Wednesday, Democrats there signaled that they are unlikely to hold a new primary. That apparently dashed Mrs. Clinton’s hopes of a new showdown in a state she feels she could win, and it left the state’s delegates in limbo.

The inaction in Michigan followed a similar collapse of her effort to seek another matchup with Mr. Obama in Florida, where, as in Michigan, she won an earlier primary held in violation of party rules.

Without new votes in Florida and Michigan, it will be that much more difficult for Mrs. Clinton to achieve a majority in the total popular vote in the primary season, narrow Mr. Obama’s lead among pledged delegates or build a new wave of momentum.

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers had hoped that the uproar over inflammatory remarks made by Mr. Obama’s longtime pastor that has rocked his campaign for a week might lead voters and superdelegates to question whether they really know enough about Mr. Obama to back him. Although it is still early to judge his success, the speech Mr. Obama delivered on race in Philadelphia to address the controversy was well received and praised even by some Clinton supporters.

<SNIP>

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/us/politics/20memo.html?hp

[apocalypsehow]

10. Wow - just followed your link and read the whole story. She and her boosters are really grasping at

straws at this point - and all the while smearing a fellow Democrat, giving the Republicans their talking points. Or maybe her campaign is *taking* their talking points from the GOP at this point. :shrug:

[Zhade]

28. Obama's shown he can take rightwing attacks - from her, and McLame.

She's done.

It'll be nice for Obama to focus on beating one conservative, instead of two, once she finally accepts her loss.

Then he has to convince ME to support him! >:)

[cbayer]

9. Here's the problem (as I see it, so take it however your want)

Neither is going to take the nomination on pledged delegates.

The Super delegates will decide.

Most voting democrats want the super-delegates to choose the person they think will win the GE. They want to win.

A lot will happen between now and Denver to influence the decisions of the supers.

The only way out of this is a unified ticket.

[apocalypsehow]

13. You may indeed be technically correct, but I see a "unity ticket" a very tough sell to EITHER side

at this point. But, as you say, a lot will happen in the coming months before the convention in Denver. It's just very hard to predict at this point how any scenario could play out with HRC at the top of the ticket - or even on it, IMHO.

[cbayer]

18. I think it would be hard to sell in DU

but out in the real world, most see it as a very good idea. Whatever your position, it would be just silly to deny that Clinton is extremely popular to a significant proportion of democratic voters. Or to deny that Obama is.

As to who should be in which position? That's a tough one. Both scenarios have their advantages and disadvantages.

[apocalypsehow]

20. As a practical matter, you may well be right. We'll just have to see. Right now, it's difficult to

imagine such a scenario playing out, even outside in the "real world" away from DU.

[Zhade]

29. It's not a tough one - Obama's winning, so he gets the top slot.

I doubt he wants her dragging the ticket down, either.

[foo_bar]

21. I think the expression is "unity ticket"

Unified is an adjective that describes most tickets (except for, oddly enough, two headed "unity tickets" like JFK-LBJ, Reagan-Bush or Kerry-Edwards), but the real rookie mistake is thinking a pair of junior Senators from non-swing states could somehow complement one another (much less compliment).

[cbayer]

23. I am a real rookie is some ways.

I think you might be a teacher, but I am just guessing.

I think your point was that an Obama/Clinton ticket would not be a winning ticket because they are too similar.

Am I right?

[MindMatter]

22. If by "unity" you mean Obama/Clinton. that's a monumentally bad idea

#1, that completely undercuts the thing that has brought Obama to this point: the need for a real change. Clinton is the quintessential beltway politician.

#2, she has negatives that are nearly 50%. Moreover, these are INTENSE, unyielding negatives, the kind of negatives that will bring and extra 4 million people out to vote Republican. With the Obama V/ McCain race looking like the same 52/48 race we have seen the last several elections, we cannot afford a Clinton boat anchor on the ticket.

#3, she doesn't help in any significant way with any demographic or any geography where Obama needs help.

I'd look more at something like Obama/Richardson or Obama/Edwards. Those guys would be net assets. Clinton to Obama would be like Lieberman to Gore.

[JVS]

34. You can't have a unity ticket after a kitchen sink has been thrown.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Ain't gonna happen. n/t

[apocalypsehow]

14. What's that?

n/t.

[DefenseLawyer]

15. Hillary is campaigning for 2012

She wants Obama to lose so she can run next time, just like she wanted Kerry to lose so she could run this time.

[apocalypsehow]

17. I think you are quite right: I have come (somewhat sadly) to the same conclusion over time. But this

realization, which I've come to realize many supporters of Senator Obama share, has fueled a good deal of justified anger. A lot of it is evident right here at DU. That is why many of us, I think, find talk of a "unity ticket" difficult to stomach.

[Zhade]

24. Good. She doesn't get to cheat her way out of defeat.

NT!

[casus belli]

26. I just hope she doesn't try to characterize it as a stolen election. n/t

[jlake]

30. It's already being stolen from the true Democrats thanks to Repukes and "Independents" voting

for Obama because they know he'll be easily defeated in the GE.

[cottonseed]

31. I'm not sure that winning is even her "hope" anymore.

She's not stupid, or a dreamer, or blinded by ambition (well maybe not that one). She's got to know she has no legitimate chance however. Makes you wonder what her real reasons are for dragging this thing out.

[Tom Rinaldo]

35. Well that is Obama's strategy, to block revotes if at all possible

It amazes me all the posts I read here that claim Clinton is the one playing politics over Michigan. Obama is doing everything he can to protect his lead in the popular vote, and having to count the expressed will of voters in Michigan and Florida is upsetting to his political strategy, so he is willing to undermine efforts to let them vote again.

It is a pure political power play on Obama's part, the type of thing that is probably smart politics for his own campaign though it may hurt our Party's chances in November. In other words it is the exact type thing that Hillary Clinton is always accused of and blasted for doing, but since it's Obama there has to be some other explanation for it.

[grantcart]

36. That is straight from Hillaryhub. Obama is fine with a revote that

doesn't have a built in bias. He is not against a revote in Michigan that allows all democrats and independents to revote. Florida - no one has advanced a realistic plan to revote the entire state and the mail in proposal fell a part on its own - how to disqualify republicans that already voted for example.

Obama is playing by the rules that were agreed upon and he is winning them.

Hillary is trying to change the rules and game a win - even though she is behind in all categoreis to date.

Most neutral observers have observed that if there was a revote in Michigan it would cost a great deal and mean very little in difference in delegates.