Just like the Everready Bunny - she keeps going...and going...and going...

by Nancy Kivlen

The calls by Obama supporters for Hillary to quit the race are deafening. They want YOU to believe that she can't win, but what they are really afraid of is that SHE WILL WIN.

Based on Hillary's comeback history and her perseverance to fight to the finish and win, Obama and his supporters know that this race is far from over. They realize that from Pennsylvania forward it will only get worse for Obama and they are running scared.

Once Hillary wins the last big state in the election there will be a momentum shift towards her in the remaining eight primaries.

Hillary has made comebacks after New Hampshire, South Carolina, Super Tuesday, Ohio & Texas.....So, making a comeback into the final stretch of the nomination is possible.

Obama and his supporters want you to believe that the delegate math simply cannot work in her favor.  That only Obama can win because he has the most pledged delegates.  The Obama campaign, his supporters, and certain members of the Democratic Party leadership want you to believe that it is her fault that the race has turned negative and if she doesn't step down now, the democratic party and Obama's chances to win in the general election will be ruined.  And, it's ALL HER FAULT.

But the truth is that the delegate math does not work out for either candidate and this nomination will be decided by the Super Delegates. Neither of them can reach the magical 2,024 number needed.

When all is said and done and the last vote is counted, Hillary and Barack will be in a statistical tie. She will lead in the popular vote, he will lead in the delegate count. And that is the nightmare the Obama campaign was hoping to avoid.

According to CNN's calculations, Hillary is behind Barack by 161 pledged delegates, when you add in Super Delegates that have committed, then she is behind 129 total delegates.

The Obama people know that from this point forward, the gap between Hillary and Barack in the upcoming primaries will close.  The way the Obama supporters talk you would think there was a 30% or 40% gap between them in delegates - but there is only a 4% gap as of today.

Fourteen months ago Hillary Clinton announced to the world that she was running for President, "I'm in and I'm in to Win!"  She has never ceased to amaze her supporters or detractors with her ability to rally and win even after some daunting defeats.

So how is it that Hillary Clinton got to a place that has her behind in delegates?

Hillary's campaign is partially to blame for it's mismanagement.  She ran her campaign with a big state strategy assuming she would win by larger margins than she did which would have given her an edge in the delegate race.  But that didn't happen.

After her wins on Super Tuesday, Hillary announced that she lent her campaign $5 million dollars because it ran out of money. That shouldn't have happened. Her supporters rallied to her rescue with donations and that has allowed her to stay in the race. Unfortunately, the contributions did not come fast enough to allow her to compete effectively in the races that took place shortly after Super Tuesday: the Potomac Primaries which included Maine, Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, all of which Obama won. This cost her in the delegate race.

But the Democratic Party and the way it allocates delegates from each race is a convoluted mathematical calculation nightmare that has caused the predicament that the Party finds itself in.

One wonders if the Democrats have such a difficult time calculating delegates and selecting a nominee, how on earth will they fix the economy?

When the winner of a state is actually the loser because their calculations show 1 + 1 equals minus 5, then the DNC can point the finger at themselves for causing this mess.

Hillary entered the race as the front runner, but her opponent was a well-funded underdog that ran a 50-state strategy focusing on winning in states that held caucuses with an effective ground game in these states.

A total of 13 states have held caucuses and Barack Obama won all of them except Nevada. A total of about 1 million people voted in these caucuses (excluding the extra caucus for Texas) and Obama won these by a margin of 28% or just under 300,000 votes.

*note: not all the vote results are known in all the caucuses yet, this number is an estimate.

Why did Hillary perform so poorly in states that held caucuses?

Aside from the fact that her campaign did not plan for caucuses effectively, the fact is that caucuses by their very nature are designed to disenfranchise about 95% - 98% of registered voters.  Caucuses are held at a specific location, on a specific day, at a specific time.  They are a public vote and they can take up to several hours to conclude.

Caucuses do not allow absentee voters or military personnel who are not present to participate. If you are out of town at the time your states caucus is held, too bad - you are out of luck and can't vote.  They are inconvenient and difficult to attend for a certain demographic of voters who happen to be the core supporters of Hillary Clinton:  working class, shift workers, single mothers, elderly.  Many of these voters cannot get the time off work, have child care issues and/or are elderly or disabled, and cannot get to the caucus.

Only about 2% to 5% of registered voters actually show up and vote in a caucus.

Texas had a 2-step process where they required democrats to vote in a primary (for 65% of the vote to count) and come back and vote a 2nd time in a caucus for the other 35% of their vote to count!!!

It is about as undemocratic a process as you can imagine, yet that is how they select a nominee in Texas.

To be fair, they are still counting the caucus results, but even though Hillary won this state by a 4% margin, last time I checked, Obama won in delegates.  Hillary received around 94 delegates, Obama 99 and that is how the DNC math works: 1 + 1 equals minus 5!!

It is completely unfair and undemocratic.

When you look at Washington State, you can see similar results.  The caucus in WA state is what counted, however, due to a number of ballot issues the state added, they also held a primary where these voters could  vote for President, as you can see the results were quite different (again). 

	Hillary	Obama	Total
WA Primary	315,740	354,111	669,851
	46%	51%
WA Caucus	75,782	166,231	244,458
	31%	68%
Difference	239,958	187,880	425,393

425,393 more people voted in the Washington state primary, which didn't count,  then voted in the caucus that did count!

Hillary lost by 5% in the primary, but by 37% in the caucus. 

Hillary did not campaign in Washington, when you consider this her primary loss was not that bad.

Caucuses in no way reflect a general election, which in the end has to be the overriding concern of the Democratic leadership and Super Delegates. How will the Democratic nominee do against John McCain in the general election? Caucuses give us no indication of this because of the low voter turnout and lack of exit polling data.

So what happened in the states that held primaries?

A whole different story. 

A total of 31 primaries have taken place, Obama leads in popular vote totals by around 500,000 excluding Michigan and Florida.

If you include Michigan and Florida, Hillary leads by around 95,000 votes.

But Michigan and Florida's votes won't count? !!

Today their votes won't count, because the Democratic leadership has failed to find an adequate solution to their decision to discount these voters for "breaking the rules".  Even though New Hampshire, for example, also broke the rules, the DNC chose to let their votes count.

So, apparently, the DNC's rules are discriminatory.

But the DNC is obligated to resolve the situation in FL and MI to ensure that these voters voices are heard. Hillary and her supporters have asked and offered to pay for a re-vote in these states. Although they cannot be sure of the outcome, they are sure that if voters in these states do not have their votes counted, the Democrats risk losing both states in the general election. Obama and his campaign do not support a re-vote and they do not support having these votes count.

So much for Obama the "Uniter".

If the Democratic party leadership really wanted this race to be over and really wanted Obama to be the nominee, then the Super Delegates could all agree to move to Obama and end the race today. 

Why don't the Super Delegates support Barack Obama and just end the race?

Three reasons

1.  They would anger so many Clinton supporters that instead of 28% of her supporters vowing to vote for McCain in the General Election (if Obama is the nominee), this number could jump even higher as women (in particular) would feel rightly cheated.

2. There are still about 6.4 million more voters that will go to the polls between April and June to vote in the upcoming primaries. You would risk losing support and enthusiasm of these voters.

3. The data from the exit polls scares the Super Delegates because they see that it is Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama who has the broader support to win in the general election against McCain.

So far over 26 million people have voted in primaries with exit polling information.

These results show the following:

Hillary wins over Obama among the following important groups:

Women	1 million votes	+ 6%
Latinos	993,000 votes	+30%
Democrats	800,000 votes	+ 4%
45 years +	1.5 million votes	+10%

The all important White Male Vote, Hillary wins by a slim margin:

White Male

14,000

less than 1%

Obama wins over Hillary among the following important groups:

African Americans	3.5 million votes	+69%
Independents	750,000 votes	+15%
18-44 years	1.8 million votes	+18%

The areas where Democrats are vulnerable to John McCain in November, based on Republican exit polls are:

White Men, Seniors and Independents

Potential cross overs could be:

White Women and Latinos

Since Hillary Clinton does better among all these demographic groups except Independents, she is the more competitive candidate to be the Democratic nominee.

Super Delegates will pay close attention in the upcoming primary exit polls, as they reveal strengths and weaknesses of each candidate.

In the upcoming nine primaries, Hillary Clinton is poised to win the majority of them based on current polling data in each state. 

Hillary is  expected to win Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico.  Obama is expected to win North Carolina and Oregon.  (Montana and South Dakota are up in the air).

Over 6.4 million people are expected to vote in these primaries, this is about 18% of the total votes that will be cast in the Democratic nomination elections.

With Hillary poised to win most of them, you can see that this race is far from over.

Here is the current state of the popular vote totals as of March 30th:

	Hillary Votes	Barack Votes	Difference
Current (no FL/MI)	12,861,905	13,689,323	-827,418
	48.44%	51.55%	-3.11%
with FL/MI votes	14,061,120	14,265,537	-204,417
	49.64%	50.36%	-.   72

Without FL/MI, Obama leads by 827,418 votes. If you include MI/FL, Obama leads by 204,417 popular votes.

Now look what happens to the popular vote totals after the remaining primaries are finished (based on estimated results from current polling data):

State	Est Clinton Margin Victory	My Est %	Clinton Victory/Loss
PA	10% - 20%	14%	+259,140 votes
IN	6% - 20%	10%	+  79,469 votes
NC	- 10% loss	-10%	-118,864 votes
WV	16% - 40%	20%	+  53,553 votes
KY	16% - 30%	20%	+  89,804 votes
OR	- 6% - -10% loss	- 8%	-   47,535 votes
PR	24% - 30%	26%	+255,000 votes
MT	-10% to + 20%	0%	0
SD	-10% to + 20%	0%	0
TOTAL			+ 570,560

Real Clear Politics has Hillary's margin of victory around 435,220 votes after all the primaries are finished.  US News and World Report has Hillary's margin of victory as high as 933,684.  My guess is it will be somewhere in between.

Here is how the popular vote tally will look by the end of the primary season (estimates):

	Hillary Votes	Barack Votes	Difference
in June (no MI/FL)	16,369,460	16,626,318	-256,858
	49.61%	50.38%	-.77%
with FL/MI votes	17,568,675	17,202,532	+366,143
	50.53%	49.47%	+1.06%

Without FL/MI, Hillary still does not win the popular vote total using  RCP or my estimates, she does win the popular vote using US News & World Report estimates.

When you add in FL/MI, however, she wins the popular vote on all estimates.

There does not appear to be a way for Hillary to catch up in the pledged delegate count, however, neither candidate can reach the 2,024 figure needed to win the nomination.

	Hillary Delegates	Barack Delegates	Difference
current Pledged	1,253	1,414	-161
current Super	243	211	+ 32
Total Current	1,496	1,625	-129
	47.93%	52.06%	-4.13%
thru June	303	259	+ 44
Total Delegates	1,799	1,884	- 85
	48.85%	51.15%	-2.3%

Hillary will still be short 225 delegates, Barack will be short 140 delegate to reach the 2,024 number. I'm estimating about 85 delegates, or just 2% will separate them.

This number does not include unforeseen Super Delegates that continue to weigh in between now and when the primaries end.

If you include FL/MI delegates, then the magic number to win the nomination changes to 2,207, here is what the delegate count would look like:

	Hillary Delegates	Barack Delegates	Difference
FL/MI	178	124	+ 54
Total Delegates	1,977	2,008	-31
	49.61%	50.38%	- .77%

Only 31 delegates would separate them, a difference of less than 1%.

Hillary would still be 230 delegates and Barack would be 199 to reach the 2,207 number needed to win the nomination with MI/FL.

Now we play the Game of "Survivor"

Just like the TV show, Hillary and Barack will appeal to the "Tribal Council Jury" - in this case the Super Delegates to make their cases.

Obama's argument will be that he should be the nominee because:

1. He has the most delegates
2. He (most likely) will have the popular vote excluding FL/MI
3. FL/MI should not be counted because they broke the rules
4. He won more states
   
5. He polls better among independent voters.
6. 19% of his supporters are likely to vote for McCain if he isn't the nominee.
   

Here are the arguments that Hillary will make why she should be the nominee:

1. That Florida and Michigan should count as we will need them in the General Election.
2. That with these votes she wins the popular vote.
3. That she polls better against McCain in the demographics Democrats will need to win in Nov: Whites, Women, Latinos, Seniors and White Men.
   
4. Based on the Electoral College - the states Hillary won were 308 electoral votes vs 230 for Obama
5. The states she won have more voters in them than the states Obama won. Her wins (with FL/MI) include 53% of the population, his states include only 34% of the population.
6. Caucuses are undemocratic. Obama's delegate lead came primarily through caucuses, Democrats give an unfair delegate weight advantage to caucus voters vs. primary voters.
   
7. Obama's claim that he can win in Red States because he won a caucus does not translate into the polls vs. McCain.
8. She can bring about 24 more electoral votes against McCain than Obama can.
9. She can claim she has won most all of the recent races, therefore the momentum has shifted back towards her as we head into the General Election.
10. 28% of her supporters are likely to vote for McCain is she's not the nominee.
    

Obama, Nancy Pelosi and others have made the argument that the Super Delegates should not over turn the will of the people and they should award the nomination to the person with the most pledged delegates, even though that is not the role of the Super Delegates.

What is the will of the people?

Does this mean that all Super Delegates should follow the will of their states? If that's the case, then Gov. Richardson, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Patrick Deval would all have to switch their endorsements from Obama to Clinton. 

If it's about the "Will of the People", then shouldn't Florida and Michigan count?

Shouldn't caucuses be ruled undemocratic since they exclude 95-98% of registered voters? And shouldn't the delegate math be more equally distributed according to the number of people voting?

The Super Delegates must now do their job and select the right nominee to win in November. The problem is that 50% of the party will now be disappointed, disenfranchised, disenchanted, disgusted - basically dissed - with whatever the result is.

The DNC has created their own mess due to certain rules applying to certain states, but not others.  Due to their calculations to select delegates. Due to their selective disenfranchisement of voters.

A unity ticket is the only way to keep the majority of supporters for both candidates. Otherwise, we can assume John McCain will be our next President and the Democrats will have blown a great opportunity of winning the white house in 2008. 

I believe that Hillary Clinton will be at the top of the ticket and Barack Obama will be the Vice President.

This will need to be brokered by the party leadership.

With all the pressing problems in the world from the economy, housing crisis, energy crisis, global warming, foreign policy mishaps, and two wars, I believe Clinton will be at the top of the ticket first.  To ensure her win, we need Obama as the VP. (Obama supporters also need to realize that they need Clinton just as much).

Hillary first to fix the problems that are complex and require experience (yes, the E word that Obama and his supporters pretend is not important). Then Obama.

They will both make history. He will make history twice - being the first African American Vice President and the first African American President. And so will she.

Even if it is a brokered deal for Hillary to take the first 4 years and Obama the 2nd so be it, this is what has to happen in order to win the White house.

THAT is the petition that Democrats should be signing. Not a petition to force Clinton or Obama out of the race.

Clinton/Obama 2008

Obama/Clinton 2012