Is the Fat Lady ready to sing?
When looking back, we here at Common Sense Politics have not always been correct in our predictions when we made them. For example, we did not pick John McCain as even having a chance of getting the Republican nomination before the primaries and caucuses began. But slightly more than two month ago, on March 11 of this year to be precise, we posted an article entitled ‘And the winners are….McCain and Obama‘. We claimed that it was statistically impossible for Mrs. Clinton to overcome the delegate lead of 111 that Barack Obama was enjoying at the time. At that time, he needed 450 additional pledged or Super delegates to win the nomination of the Democrat party. There have been four state primaries since and he now only needs about 140 more delegates to get to the magic number of 2025. His lead over Mrs. Clinton has increased since March 11 to about 166. There are only five contests remaining between now and June 3 and the total number of pledged delegates is down to approximately 170.So much for the reality of the numbers and the statistical data. In recent days, there have been increasing public calls by Democrats for Mrs. Clinton to bow out of the race for the good of the party, to end the race for the nomination. They see Barack Obama as the winner and think it harmful for the contest to continue. There are approximately 230 uncommitted Super delegates who are being urged to come out and support the winner. Yet it seems that it is not over yet. There are several unresolved issues of which the seating of Florida and Michigan delegates at the Democrat’s National Convention is likely the largest one. They are in suspension now due to party rules established last year by which these two States moved their respective primaries up into last January against clear instructions by the Democratic National Committee that threatened to eliminate their delegates at the convention in late August. Attempts to resolve this issue have failed so far. Yet Mrs. Clinton wants them included in the total delegate count. What she does not say is that this would of course raise the number of delegates required for the nomination by approximately 184 from the current number of 2025.
The other argument Mrs. Clinton is extolling at every campaign stop is the fact that she won the larger States like California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey. That she is therefore more electable than Mr. Obama come November. She has said time and again that she is in the race to stay until there is a nominee. Well, this could happen as early as next Tuesday when primaries are being held in Kentucky (60) and Oregon (65) when a total number of 125 pledged delegates are being awarded. Not that this is enough to put Mr. Obama over the top regardless of the outcome of these two contests because of the pro-portioning of delegates, yet more and more Super delegates could come out and declare publicly to support him.
We will wait and see what happens next but it does not change our long-held opinion that Barack Obama will be the nominee of the Democrat party. Since John McCain is the Republican nominee, we will then address the two candidates in greater detail, their backgrounds, their beliefs and their proposals for America for the next four years. From what we know already, the differences between these two men will be huge and should make for a very exciting general election season after the two party conventions.
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