Death by the Numbers
Hollow victories indeed. Sure, Hillary Clinton won the Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island primaries, but according to the Obama camp, she only received a net gain of four delegates out of more than 370 available from those states. Their math goes like so:
Clinton gained 187
Obama gained 183
That's less than half of Obama's net gain of nine from DC and less than the net gain of eight from Nebraska. Obama, and every pol in America last week, was saying she needed BIG wins to be viable and she didn't get it, according to Obama.
Making matters worse is the idea that Tuesday's results mean she needs even bigger wins in upcoming states to keep the dream alive. As Newsweek's Jonathan Alter points out, Clinton needs an average plus margin of 23 points in the remaining 12 primaries to win the nomination. Obama leads by 134 pledged delegates and Clinton picked up just ten on March 4.
Additionally, she trails Obama in the popular vote by 600,000, according to Alter. Superdelegates he talked to said there was no chance they'd undermine those voters and throw their support to Clinton. So much for that plan.
And then there's money. Clinton posted a damn impressive $35 million month only to be outdone by Obama today with—get this—a jawdropping $55 million in February.
Math's a bitch, yo.
Comments
Plus now they're saying Obama probably actually won Texas (because of the caucuses), but nobody knows for sure because TEXAS IS FUCKING KA-RAY-ZAY!
Posted by: Jake | March 6, 2008 7:03 PM