Kentucky Fried Candidate

Great night for Hillary, but Obama is within inches of the nomination....here's the straight dope:

(2,026 delegates needed to clinch the nomination)
Obama: 1,656.5 pledged delegates, 304.5 SuperDelegates = 1,961 Total Delegates
Clinton: 1,501.5 pledged delegates, 277.5 SuperDelegtates = 1,779 Total Delegates
Remaining Delegates: 86 pledged, 214 SuperDelegates = 300 Total Delegates

Obama needs only 64 delegates to clinch the nomination....Clinton needs 246 and, soon, the number of delegates she needs to clinch will be more than the total number of remaining delegates, pledged or otherwise.

Last night was a big night for the Clinton campaign as she trounced Obama in Kentucky by 35 points and a margin of 250,000 votes. However, that victory was rendered virtually meaningless as Obama picked up enough delegates (14) in Kentucky to clinch the majority of pledged delegates. He went on to win Oregon (no surprise there) by 16 points and regain almost 100,000 votes he lost to Clinton in KY.

There is no way Hillary can pick up enough delegates in the remaining primaries (Puerto Rico on June 1, Montana and South Dakota on June 3) to catch Obama. Her only hope is to sway enough SuperDelegates to overlook the facts that she's lost every conceivable metric in these primaries (popular vote, primaries, caucuses, and the only one that counts - delegates) and that her campaign released the news last night that she is $20 million in debt. An attractive combination to any Democratic SuperDelegate, indeed (/snark).

The Clinton campaign has morphed into Don Quixote on HGH....they are pulling out any and every justification for staying in the race, even though, as of 9 pm last night, the "race" was officially over. The cable news coverage was replete with these knee-slappers from Clinton surrogates:

1) "Hillary leads in the popular vote..." - uh, well yes...but only if you count Florida and Michigan, which actually don't count because they violated DNC rules for moving up in the primary calendar and had their state primaries voided as a result. They're also not counting sixteen four states that held caucuses instead of primaries (IA, NV, ME, and WA), all but three of which but Nevada were won by Obama. This is akin to saying that the New England Patriots scored more points in Super Bowl XLII, if you don't count the final touchdown the Giants scored in the fourth quarter. Or the field goal NY kicked in the 1st quarter. In any case, this point is meaningless because popular vote doesn't count - delegates do.

2) "Hillary is the stronger candidate in the general election..." - we can discount this right off the bat as the stronger candidate in general elections is usually the candidate who wins the party nomination. Apart from that, looking at the electoral map, Hillary won the Northeast and Rust Belt states that will reliably go to the Democrats in the fall (NY, NJ, PA, MA) as well as California. However, Obama started with a stunning victory in Iowa and proceeded to cut a swath through the Deep South (AL, GA, SC, NC, MS, LA) and pick up impressive victories in the Mid- and Northwest (ID, KS, ND, CO, NE, WY). Basically, Hillary cleaned up on states that will most likely go to Democrats in the General Election while Obama drove record turnout in states which haven't voted for a Democrat for President since the mid-1960's. Couple that with the assumption that putting a Clinton on the ticket makes the GOTV (Get Out The Vote) efforts of the GOP that much easier due to the Hillary-Hate on that side has to convince the SDs that Obama is the Democrats' best and only option.

3) "Hillary voters will rebel if she is not the nominee" - ah, the lamentations of the unfulfilled and bitter. TV pundits are making a lot of hay out of exit polls showing that between 20-40% of Hillary voters will not vote for Obama in the general election if he is the nominee. They will either vote for McCain or not vote for President at all. I'm not too concerned about this at this juncture because a) Hillary is still in the race and b) once we Democrats calm down and consider the spectre of a McCain presidency, cooler heads will prevail and the jilted Hillary supporters will return to the fold. How the Democratic convention plays out and how much of a role Hillary plays in it will go a long way to determining how her supporters will act. While I'm hoping she's not Obama's VP selection, she may extort that out of Obama and the party leaders in exchange for her dropping out of the race.

4) "The 'hard-working, white' voters who supported Hillary will never vote for Obama" - this, of course, is in reference to the 20% of Hillary voters in Kentucky and West Virginia who, in exit polls, admitted that race was a major factor in their vote. No, they won't vote for a black candidate, so fuck them. Let them continue voting against their own self-interest (jobs, schools, healthcare, energy, the environment) because they're scared of black people. Appalachia will benefit from a Democrat in the White House, just the same as everyone else.

So, we now look to the the big powow on May 30, where representatives from both campaigns will meet with DNC officials to discuss how the Michigan and Florida delegates will be seated and if Hillary exits the campaign with dignity or with guns-a-'blazing. Stay tuned.

Oh, and in response to the inane criticism that Obama's support is based only on a narrow coalition of young, snot-nosed punk kids and blacks:

Myrtle Strong Enemy, 101, waits for US Democratic presidential candidate and US Senator Barack Obama, (D-IL), to speak in Crow Agency, Montana May 19, 2008

UPDATE: had my facts wrong on the number of caucuses the Clinton folks are "dis"counting toward the popular vote total