"Clinton faces an Uphill Struggle"

[AZBlue]

From Bill Schneider
CNN senior political analyst
updated 2 hours, 47 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With both Florida and Michigan primary re-vote plans stalled, the road ahead for Sen. Hillary Clinton appears to be a rocky one.

Sen. Barack Obama leads Clinton in both pledged delegates and popular votes. The question now: Can Clinton overtake Obama's lead in pledged delegates?

For that to happen, she would need to win about two-thirds of the pledged delegates in the remaining contests, which will be tough.

CNN estimates that Obama has 1,413 pledged delegates and 208 superdelegates for a total of 1,621. Clinton has 1,242 pledged delegates and 237 superdelegates, a total of 1,479. A candidate must have 2,024 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.

Another question that arises: Can she overtake Obama's lead in popular votes?

In the primaries and caucuses to date, Obama has garnered about 700,000 more popular votes than Clinton.

CNN estimates that about 6 million more people are likely to vote. To overcome Obama's lead, Clinton would have to get 56 percent of those votes.

(snip)

The ultimate decision now could very well rest with the superdelegates: the 800 or so Democratic elected officials, party leaders and other officials.

But the superdelegates are likely to pay a lot of attention to who's ahead in the popular vote and in pledged delegates, a fact that could ultimately help Obama surge to winning the party's nomination.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/20/schneider.look.ahead/index.html

[jlake]

1. Unless all votes are counted, the nominee will never be fully legitimate.

[DJ13]

4. That didnt bother Clinton back when she thought she would win

Nobody held a gun to her head to force her to abide by the DNC decision that those two states wouldnt have delegates as punishment for moving their primaries.

[jlake]

6. I don't care what Clinton thought or said. I am stating a fact.

[DJ13]

8. I don't care what Clinton thought or said.

Of course not.

Its just random coincidence that you're parroting the same line that Hillary said this morning.

:eyes:

[jlake]

10. A fact is a fact from me, Hillary, Rush, KO, Billo, Obama, Axelrod, Penn or Oprah.

Learn it. Live it. Love it.

[AZBlue]

12. Don't waste your breath.

Put them on ignore like I did! ;)

[KittyWampus]

7. don't you feel sort of stupid regurgitating Hillary's words EXACTLY? Do you think we didn't her her

squawking on the news?

[Umbram]

9. Lemme guess though - if the popular vote was for Obama and the SD's went Clinton

you'd be just fine with that, right? Because it's not the voters that count, it's the delegates - right?

[jlake]

11. The supers are allowed to vote however they want - that is their purpose.

I would support them however they choose to vote - I know the interest of the party is what drives their decisions.

[Umbram]

13. So, you support the RULES set by the party when they favor Clinton, otherwise you favor the voters

Party rule 1. Supers can vote for whomever they want and overturn the will of the people.

You support this, despite the fact it goes against the will of the people.

Party rule 2. States that disobeyed the party and moved their dates forward get no say.

You don't support this, because it goes against the will of the people.


Boiled down: jlake supports whatever rules benefit HRC on any given day.

[Umbram]

21. I'm waiting on a response as to this. Thanks (nt)

[wileedog]

15. So how does that work in your world

if the Superdelegates overturn the vote and elect Clinton? Do MI and FL have to have their useless votes in too?

[Recursion]

17. Why didn't MI and FL want their votes counted?

I still don't get that. I would think a state would want their votes counted. MI and FL didn't hold a valid primary, though; I just can't understand why they wanted to waste that much time and money.

[papau]

18. I agree - which is why popular vote leader -incl Mich/FL - should get nomination

[billbuckhead]

2. No one thought electing the first woman president would be easy

[goclark]

3. Or the first African American

[Umbram]

5. It was hers to lose, and she's been succeeding in that quite nicely (nt)

[mtnsnake]

14. What else is new. She only has to go against Obama, the corporate media, Olberman, Morning Blow, etc

That she can take on so many corporate adversaries and still have a chance to win is nothing short of amazing.

[wileedog]

16. She was up by 30 4 months ago.

That she managed to blow this so badly is nothing short of amazing

[AZBlue]

19. It really is astonishing.

[mtnsnake]

20. The only thing that matters will be who is the last one left standing when its all over