And the Winners are … McCain and Obama
The second ‘Super Tuesday’ for the remaining Presidential candidates has come and gone. For us here as Common Sense Authors, we can share with you what you already know and we can still comment on it from our perspective. While there is a clear winner on the Republican side when John McCain attained more than enough delegates to get the nomination at the convention in early September of this year, nothing has essentially changed on the Democrat side, other that the fact that both candidates, Senators Clinton and Obama have now more delegates than before. Yet, it looks like Senator Barack Obama has an almost insurmountable delegate lead!
The part that makes us say this is the fact that even though Hillary Clinton won the two larger States of Ohio and Texas on March 4, she hardly made a dent in the delegate lead that Barack Obama is having. According to the Real Clear Politics, Obama has about 1575 delegates in total of which 1366 are pledged delegates (these are the ones that were allocated by way of the election results in states) while Clinton has a total of 1464 delegates of which 1222 are so-called pledged delegates. This amounts to a lead of 111 delegates in the total tally for Obama and 144 pledged delegates. The totals include 451 committed or declared Super delegates out of a total of 796, leaving 345 Super delegates yet to decide as to who they will support at the party’s convention in late August of this year. In terms of votes cast, Mr. Obama has a lead of 585,780 over Mrs. Clinton (12,992,669 versus 12,406,988). Based on current facts, it will take 2025 delegates to win a majority to get the nomination on the Democrat side; that said, Obama needs 450 more delegates and Clinton needs 561 additional delegates.
Now what does this mean: Since all remaining state caucuses and primaries are allocated based on the percentages of the voting results, it appears that it will be, realistically speaking, impossible for Mrs. Clinton to win the nomination outright. By winning Ohio and Texas and Rhode Island on March 4, she gained only 15 to 20 delegates more than Obama out of the 421 delegates in these three states. And while the focus is now on the primary in Pennsylvania on April 22 (six weeks from today) where188 delegates are at stake, it is very difficult to imagine that either candidate will win in such large margins that the delegate allocation would make a big difference there. The same holds true for such other states as Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon and Puerto Rico where voting will take place between May and June.
Based on the fact that winning Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas did not close the gap in delegates by more than 15 to 20, how will Mrs. Clinton gain more than 111 more delegates in the remaining states in order to beat Mr. Obama? We have to say it again: It is a statistical impossibility and very unlikely! Can we therefore declare that Barack Obama will be the nominee of the Democrat party for the general election in November? We think so if we could count on total compliance to currently established election rules by the Democrats. But there are a few issues that could change the picture. One is a change to allow the delegates of Michigan and Florida to be counted even though the Democrat National Committee eliminated them last year. These two states were told unequivocally that their delegates would not be seated at the convention if they, the state Democrat party would hold their primaries prior to February 5, 2008.
Well, they did anyway by holding their elections in January. It involves a total of 366 delegates. Being behind in the delegate count, Mrs. Clinton is now calling for a change by seating those delegates after all. She won both primaries overwhelmingly since the other candidates declared to abide by party rules and did not even place their names on the ballots (in Michigan) and while Mrs. Clinton promised the same thing, she now wants to change the rules! Negotiations and discussions are currently under way to hold another set of primaries in Florida and Michigan at a later date. It will remain to be seen what the outcome will be but we can already say that Mrs. Clinton objects to these so-called ‘do-over’ primaries. Why does that not surprise us?
Another possibility of Barack Obama not attaining the majority of delegates is the uncertainty of where the remaining Super delegates will line up at the party convention. Even current commitments are not carved in stone; a Super delegate can change his or her mind up until the day of the voting at the convention. The question is then: If Obama wins the contest in the pledged delegates’ race and the total of the popular vote; would the Super delegates be willing to go against the “will of the people” and support the “losing candidate”? We do not have the answer to this question. Another unknown at this time is the possibility that either candidate slips up in such a way that people will not vote for them in the remaining caucuses and primaries. Based on the campaigns so far, we find this very unlikely.
We here at Common Sense Authors believe that Senator Barack Obama will get the nomination on the Democrat ticket if the currently established rules are strictly complied with. But we are also aware that events could happen that might prove us wrong and we are willing to wait and see!
This article and others on Common Sense Authors are designed to provoke further thought and investigation. It is not the intent for the articles to be politically biased. Sources are referenced in each article to encourage readers to delve into the supporting material. We welcome all readers to participate with their point of view either in support or contrary with additional information sources.
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