Hillary Clinton Wins Both Texas and Ohio to Surprise of Many
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) roared back into contention for the Democratic presidential primary race Tuesday night after claiming primary victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. These win ensure that her challenge to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) will continue through Pennsylvania's primary on April 22.
Clinton's popular vote margin in Ohio was larger than expected, while she appeared to eke out a very narrow win in Texas. Earlier in the night, Obama won an easy victory in Vermont while Clinton cruised to a triumph in Rhode Island.
As the New York Times notes, voters are not yet ready to write Senator Clinton off:
Barrack Obama still leads in delegate counts - some 1466 to 1376 by one estimate Votes in Mississippi and Wyoming are coming up in the next week which favor Obama. Even with the large number of delegates at stake in Pennyslvania, and Clinton being currently favored there, Clinton is in a difficult position trying to overtake Obama.Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s victories in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday night not only shook off the vapors of impending defeat, but also showed that — in spite of his delegate lead — Senator Barack Obama was still losing to her in the big states.
Those two states were the battlegrounds where Mr. Obama was going to bury the last opponent to his history-making nomination, finally delivering on his message of hope while dashing the hopes of a Clinton presidential dynasty.
Yet then the excited, divided American electorate weighed in once more, throwing Mrs. Clinton the sort of political lifeline that New Hampshire did in early January after her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.
The battle now is going to shift to the undemocratic process of superdelegates committing and the question of what to do about Michigan and Florida whose delegates are not currently being counted because they broke party rules and moved their primaries to January.
The irony here is that Clinton won both of these states when the candidates agreed not to campaign there. With all their names on the ballot in Florida, Clinton won Florida. In Michigan Clinton's name was on the ballot but Obama's was not. People had to vote uncommitted if they didn't want Clinton and wanted Obama. Clinton still won. Both Michigan and Florida are states the Democrats want and need to win in November.
While Clinton has not won as many states as Obama has, the delegate and vote count is close. Unlike the electoral college which is winner take all, the Democratic primaries and caucuses assign delegates to the Democratic National Convention based on the proportion of the vote each candidate won.
As the New York Times notes:
The nomination is not determined by the number of states won, but Mr. Obama’s inability to win major battleground states beyond Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and his home state, Illinois, is a concern of some Democrats — especially since Ohio and Florida have become must-wins in presidential elections.
Quoting Clinton according to the NY Times:
"If we want a Democratic president, we need a Democratic nominee who can win the battleground states, just like Ohio,” she said. “We’ve won Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, Arkansas, California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Tennessee"
There is plenty for Democrats to think about. The hope is that a resolution can be reached and a nominee selected without splitting and losing the combined passions of the Clinton and Obama camps. The last thing the Democrats need is to enter the fall campaign split and angry at each other rather than united in working to defeat the Republicans and John McCain.
One thing for sure - the Democrats need to come up with a better plan and timing and spacing of primaries for the next party contested Presidential election. Reform of the process should include making the elections fairer by going to an all primary system where voters can see how their votes count and maximum voter participation is ensured - something the caucus system doesn't do.
Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ohio, Presidential election, Texas Debate
Posted by Steve Zemke at 12:02 AM | Permanent Link
3 Comments:
What's to be surprised about? Clinton was killing Obama in the polls in Texas and Ohio as recently as three weeks ago. What is amazing is that the contests were so close!
And when all the delegates are added up, she'll pick up only 4 delegates on Obama for the entire night, from over 370 at play.
With only 611 left, that doesn't bode well for her chances of catching Obama at all.
The surprise is that mnay had written Clinton off. Obama was supposed to knock her out of the race but didn't.
Yes Obama is ahead in the delegate count but he has not closed the deal yet.
Just like Huckabee continued against McCain, Clinton has a right to continuee the fight until someone locks up the vote. And she is in an entirely different position than Huckabee trailing by 100 or so delegate votes.
And remember that many caucus delegate votes are estimates that could change if precicnt delegates don't show up at the next level or change their votes based on threshold levels to get a delegate at the next level.
Also unresolved is the issue of Michigan and Florida delegates - there could be a revote because it doesn't make political sense to exclude two major states from the national convention that Democrats need to win in Novenmber.
People "hoped" Obama would knock her out of the race because a Texas and Ohio win would have been statement wins given where he was 2 weeks earlier. Don't confuse that with the expectation that he could do so.
Regarding the caucus numbers I don't expect that delegates will drop the ball in a tight race like this. People will show up. The energy is there.
Meanwhile, whatever they do with Michigan and Florida I don’t see those states being allowed to decide anything. Here are some scenarios:
1) They seat MI and FL delegates and split them 50-50. That changes nothing and Obama still wins.
2) They somehow allow the delegates as determined in those primaries. That leaves a sizeable amount of “uncommitted” delegates that could very well decide at the convention to support Obama. If Obama maintains his 150 pledged delegate lead, and that is likely, even seating those delegates as voted on would surely not be enough to make up the difference for Clinton and Obama still wins.
3) They don’t allow the delegates as originally rules. Obama still wins.
4) They allow new elections, probably caucuses in MI and FL, and one can expect that Obama will win those, or at least that Clinton won’t pick up much ground. Obama still wins.
None of this has any bearing on the super-delegates. Obama still leads Clinton even being behind in super-delegates, so he could still get fewer and still win.
What likely scenario does Clinton have to win this that doesn’t involve some dramatic event that wouldn’t create an earthquake in the Democratic party? I can’t see any. Democrats won’t let that happen. Howard Dean and the Credentials Committee at the convention won’t let that happen.
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