The Race Is Over…
…but only because the media says that it’s over.
Here’s the thing about Obama’s much-vaunted majority of the pledged delegates: it means bupkus. There is a certain symbolism, I suppose, but the Democratic Party’s inane primary system–a system that awards pledged delegates from primary victories but gives the super delegates equal power–is set up in a manner that you can win the majority of the pledged delegates and not have enough delegates to clinch the nomination. And that’s exactly what we saw last night: If Obama doesn’t get another delegate, he can’t be topped in the pledged delegate count but he also couldn’t get the nomination. He’d still be almost 400 delegates short: 20% of the 2,026 necessary.
All of this is a way of saying that I don’t understand why Hillary’s critics on the left argue that her strategy of staying close in the pledged delegates and using the super delegates to put her over the top is illegitimate, especially if she can pull ahead in the popular vote. Hillary picked up almost 155,000 votes last night, narrowing the gap between them to 440,000 or so votes. If you add the votes tallied in Florida, that gap falls to less than 150,000 votes. (I don’t think even she can count Michigan with a straight face, since Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot, but if you do she’s actually ahead by 180,000.)
If you can indulge me for a moment, let’s posit a hypothetical: Hillary wins the remaining primaries (Montana, South Dakota, and Puerto Rico) by 500,000 votes.* I’d say this is an incredible long shot, but it puts her over the top in the popular vote by a hair. Why is it so crazy to think that she could go to the super delegates and say “Hey, look–he picked up a lead in pledged delegates by gaming the caucus states. Excuse me, the extremely-undemocratic-caucus states. But in the states that actually, y’know, vote, I was the winner.”
I think you’re hard pressed to argue that, in the event of a popular vote win by Hillary and the lack of a nomination-clinching lead amongst pledged delegates by Obama, she wouldn’t have just as legitimate a claim to the nomination as Obama.**
*I think she could probably make the same argument if she wins by 150,000, giving her the popular vote if you count Florida. There’s really no reason not to count that state’s votes, even if the DNC strips them of their delegates. But that sort of victory gives the super delegates an easy out.
**I realize I defend Hillary a lot on this blog. I just want to get this out there, for the record: I can’t stand her, or her attitude of entitlement, or her policies, or her laugh, or her pant-suits, or pretty much anything else about her. I just hate the Obama-worship in the media even more.