A quick Clinton exit wouldn't help Obama
She'd still be on the ballot in several states and Puerto Rico. How would it look for him if she won some of them?
"The Democratic race now moves to West Virginia," Jay Leno noted the other night. "Today, Hillary Clinton claimed she always wanted to be a coal miner. But those dreams were dashed when she was forced to attend Wellesley and Yale."
The political focus now does, indeed, shift to the Mountain State for its primary on Tuesday. And then Kentucky and Oregon and Puerto Rico, down to the very end in Montana and South Dakota on June 3.
Times political writer Mark Z. Barabak had an interesting conversation with Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist not involved with a candidate this time. Counterintuitively, the way he sees the inevitable delegate math in favor of Barack Obama, the worst thing that could happen to the Illinois senator now is what so many party members are clamoring for: Hillary Rodham Clinton to drop out.
Why?
Because with her name still on the ballots, she'd be very likely to win in West Virginia anyway. And maybe Kentucky too, given the demographics in both places. And possibly Puerto Rico as well.
How would that look if at the end of the Democratic race the winning candidate with clearly the most delegates and popular votes went down to defeat against a candidate who isn't in the contest anymore? Ouch! That would tend to overshadow his expected wins in Oregon and Montana.
In fact, although little noticed because the Republican race had long been over, Sen. John McCain won his Pennsylvania primary with 73% of the vote. Put another way, the surefire Republican nominee lost about 27% of his party's vote to a candidate who had long since dropped out (former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee) and a Republican rebel who never really had any chance of winning (Texas Rep. Ron Paul).
"If [Obama] lost to a candidate who's withdrawn, that would hurt him a lot," says Devine. "And there's a good chance that could happen."
Better for Obama, he figures, for the former first lady to remain in the race a few more weeks, as long as she recalibrates her rhetorical cannons at McCain and President Bush.
Sign them up, they said
Ever since he claimed his big North Carolina win, Obama has clearly signaled that he's moving on with a general election campaign.
So his campaign announced 14 co-chairs of a nationwide voter registration drive. All pretty predictable and routine . . . until the list is perused.
- Clinton, Obama to debate tonight Feb 21, 2008
- Mind the mogul Feb 23, 2007
- Obama gets protection from Secret Service May 04, 2007
