Hillary Clinton is in Indiana now, but she spent the first two-and-a-half days following her Pennsylvania victory in North Carolina. I don't think this is any coincidence.
The Clinton campaign's strategy at this point is pretty simple: maximize the number of popular votes she receives over the remaining primaries. The more popular votes she gains, the more of the myriad number of versions of the popular vote count she'll have an opportunity to tout a lead in to the superdelegates. And by this measure, a vote in North Carolina matters just as much as a vote in Indiana.
True, if Obama wins in Indiana -- I would expect the referees to step in and end the fight. But if Obama wins by 20 points in North Carolina and loses by 4 in Indiana -- the race will be just as over. Obama would have wiped out any popular vote gains that Clinton made in Pennsylvania, and eliminated any opportunity she has to beat Obama in any of the more widely-accepted versions of the popular vote count.
In most respects, the nomination process is a zerosum game, so if Clinton is devoting, say, half her time and energy to North Carolina, one might expect Obama to do the same. But the race for the nomination is not the ultimate goal -- these are the semifinals in the race for the Presidency. Obama can still win a 'clean' victory by winning Indiana (and probably only by winning Indiana). And a clean end to the nomination process will, in my opinion, ultimately buy him a couple of points against John McCain (at the very least, it will buy him a couple of weeks of good press, instead of the bad press he'll have to endure when the assuredly lopsided numbers come in from West Virginia and Kentucky).
But the Clinton campaign can only win a 'dirty'/disputed victory -- style points do not matter them. And that means going where the votes are and letting the chips fall between different states where they may.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Is Indiana really more important than North Carolina?
-- Nate Silver at 9:04 PM
Labels: indiana, north carolina, popular vote, primaries
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Pretty good analysis. I'm coming here more and more these days, I find it more cogent than the other group blogs I've read for years. Nice work.
The problem for Clinton, is she's losing by winning. And with North Carolina awarding more delegates
than Indiana as well as there being more votes cast in NC, she falls further behind.
It's sad she can't pull this one out, but that's what happens when you lose 11 straight in February.
Really great analysis here. I always read you on DailyKos, but now I come here every day instead. +++
I proudly voted for HRC last week in PA because I thought that she would be the better president. However, it is apparent to me that she will drop out the next time that she loses a competitive state.
While it is her fault for not having a better February game plan, the calendar since then is not her fault.
She would have dropped out if shew would have lost the primaries (not the caucus or convention) in OH or TX. She didn't so she stayed in.
She would have dropped out if she lost PA. She didn't so she stayed in. If she loses IN, the same deal applies. If not, she stays in.
Why drop out after a win?
Also, if BO loses to McCain in November (which I do not predict), does anyone think that the Dems would switch to a winner take all system like the GOP?
Also, does anyone think that the primary calendar will be vastly different next time around?
pittsburgh kid asks: "Why drop out after a win?"
A good question, to which I think there's a good answer: "A win is not a win is not a win."
This is not the World Series, in which the tally is by number of games (=states) won. Clinton did not gain any ground with her PA result -- in fact, she lost ground -- because she failed to garnish the % of popular vote or delegates that she would have needed in the remaining states to catch Obama.
Down 10 runs with 5 innings left, she needed 2 runs per inning on average. This was supposed to be her strongest inning, and she got only 1 run. She now needs to pick up at a higher average rate, with only weaker opportunities ahead.
Four innings gives her more room to catch up than she has. I'd say this is the next to the last inning right now.
Obama's got that 10-run lead, and May 6 he's at bat: he'll add 3 to his lead.
After that, she'll score in West Virginia and Kentucky, and have a shot at some further points after that. But her most loyal fans will only expect her to gain 5 in that inning, and 5 in the next.
Time to head for the parking lot, folks. They'll play the ninth inning out for show, but the game's already over.
Hi,
I'm wondering if you can discuss turnout in West Virginia and Kentucky, where Obama is polling in the twenties (!). I'm very nervous about popular vote margins (even though I think it's totally bogus, it will lead to problems if Clinton is able to demagogue the issue.)
Specifically, I'm concerned that most of the turnout projections may be much too low, since they are based on Kerry votes, and both of these states have huge numbers of Democrats who voted for Bush (in the neighborhood of 30% each, or double most other states). Fr example Bush won WV by double digits despite Dems outnumbering Repubs 2-1. These seem like definitely Clinton voters if they turn out. Can you shed any light on how many will turn out?
Just to add tomy previous comment (anon 10:21), if you look at Oklahoma, which was another closed primary in a red state where 30% of Dems voted for Bush, turnout reached 80% of Kerry voters, or 69% of Democrats who voted in 2004. Either of those models would imply a turnout in Kentucky of over half a million. And that's despite the fact that neither Obama or Clinton really campaigned in Oklahoma. One wonders whether turnout in Kentucky could be even higher. But I really have no idea, I'm just worried.
The Kentucky polls fit my eighteen years of experience here. Active campaigning by volunteers, surrogates, and candidates will raise Obama's margin a little, and unexpected turnout will raise it a little more--but 35% for Obama will be an achievement.
poblano,
In light of your older post regarding the advantage that each candidate gains by campaigning in a state (+3.5ish for Obama/+2.1ish for Clinton) there are some ways that Obama could use those numbers to both run up the score in NC while pulling off a close win in IN.
I'm not the mathmatician, but it would seem that with 8 days left Obama should have 3 visits to NC (2 full days) with 6 remaning full days in IN for 7 visits.
Finding that balance would mean that Hillary would be prevented from winning IN, while either forcing her to use limited funds in NC to prevent a run-up or just concede another state that doesn't matter.
I still think Indiana's more important. The thing is here, and what all the media talking heads seem to have either forgotten, or don't want to mention either because they're afraid of Clinton's wrath or don't want their ratings to go down because there's non exciting "close" primary anymore, is that by any rational measure, CLINTON HAS ALREADY LOST!
There's effectively no way she can come close to catching up in the pledged delegate count. She likes to point out that "neither candidate can get the 2025 delegates needed to win the nomination without super delegates, but this is extremely misleading. Over half of the super delegates have already declare, about equally for Clinton and Obama, and Obama could cinch the nomination without anymore super delegates than he has now, Clinton can't. In a more realistic scenario, She'd have to win 3/4s of the remaining super delegates to win, which isn't very likely. And her "the super delegates are starting to have some doubts about Obama" meme, from what I've seen on Mr. Super's blog (which is about as credible a source as they come, considering he's an undeclared super himself who talks to other supers a lot), and News organizations which have actually gone out to talk to supers instead of parroting Clinton spin, is more or less BS.
The argument Clinton surrogates are having with undeclared supers isn't about weather to support her, but weather to hold off declaring for Obama. The argument goes: well gee, you don't want to alienate Clinton's supporters (or be slimed by clinton for supporting Obama like Richardsen or Kennedy)... you need to get re-elected in November... why don't you wait for a presumptive nominee... As Mr. Super Put it: There are no undecided super delegates. The Only way she can win is if Obama totally collapses. Which Isn't gonna happen.
So anyways, as to why Indiana is more important: If Obama wins both states, even if Clinton doesn't drop out, a chances are, a Critical mass of super delegates will come out any endorse Obama. Furthermore, he'll be well within 200 delegates of synching the nomination, Cllinton will need almost twice his numbers. She'd become Mike Huckabee, post-super Tuesday.
The whole contest at this point is about the dynamic going into the general election. The point here is to stop the democratic infighting. Obama needs a clean "win" to get a big unit Bounce. And this is his last best Opportunity to pull it off. It also has the added advantage of avoiding the West Virginia and Kentucky Primaries... In fact, if Clinton decides to play Mike Huckabee, those states could be her version of Kansas and Louisiana. Hopefully, she'll see sense.
For the superdelegate race, I can just point to
demconwatch.blogspot.com
This is the best site for Superdelegate Tracking I know on the web. And I think after the NC/IN primaries the superdelegate gap will disappear completely.
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