Hotline After Dark -- Campaign Calculus
Reporters and pundits practiced their math skills last night as delegate counts were the topic du jour. Most pundits pointed out that even if Hillary Clinton wins most of the remaining delegates, she still won't catch up to Barack Obama in pledged delegates:
ABC's Gibson: "The Democratic race is just like the Energizer Bunny -- it keeps going and going and going" ("World News," 3/5).
MSNBC's Shuster: "Based on all the contests to date, Barack Obama leads her in the pledged delegate count by a difference of 142. And even if Clinton were to win each of the remaining caucuses and primaries by 15 percentage points each, she would still find herself trailing Obama" ("Hardball," 3/5).
CNN's J. King, examining the remaining delegates: "For the sake of argument, we are going to say that Senator Clinton wins the rest. There's no reason to believe she will, but let's say she wins the rest, all of them. And, by this margin, she is winning at 55-45, narrow victories in every state. Look what happens.... She roughly catches up with Senator Obama at that perspective among the pledged delegates, but she doesn't make it to the finish line" ("Situation Room," 3/5).
But, NBC's Todd points out: "Obama can't get to his 2,025 with what he needs without the superdelegates" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 3/5).
And then there is FL and MI. CNN's Johns: "Democratic members of Congress from Michigan and Florida meeting here at the Capitol tonight trying to figure out how to make the votes from their state count. It sounded very much like a brainstorming session, quite frankly" ("AC 360," 3/5).
NBC's Russert, on FL and MI: "There may, in fact, be do overs in June but we're not there yet" ("Nightly News," 3/5).
DNC Chair Howard Dean made the morning show rounds this a.m. to discuss what will happen with FL and MI. He put the issue back to the states and echoed much of what he said in yesterday's statement. More details will be in today's Hotline. [EMILY GOODIN]
Thank you for bringing up the matter of super-delegates.
There needs to be lots more transparency about super-delegate selection. The Wikipedia, for example, and some other sites have good background, but more is needed, especially in a voter-friendly format.
Disclosure of the names of the super-delegates would also be fair, especially if there is a situation where a super-delegate may ignore the vote of her or his constituents. In that event, the constituents should have some sort of notice and due process.
Is the Democratic party going to be democratic, or what?