UPDATE - Reality strikes inside Camp Clinton: She can't win
Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Politico have a new piece up that quotes Clinton camp insiders as knowing full well that she has little to no chance of winning the nomination.
Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote -- which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle -- and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.
As it happens, many people inside Clinton's campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.
In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.
VandeHei and Allen break down why and how the Clinton team has managed to keep this fantasy alive, with the complicity of a media that loves a horse race.
The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics.Journalists, for instance, have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is. Most coverage breathlessly portrays the race as a down-to-the-wire sprint between two well-matched candidates, one only slightly better situated than the other to win in August at the national convention in Denver.
One reason is fear of embarrassment. In its zeal to avoid predictive reporting of the sort that embarrassed journalists in New Hampshire, the media -- including Politico -- have tended to avoid zeroing in on the tough math Clinton faces.
Avoiding predictions based on polls even before voters cast their ballots is wise policy. But that's not the same as drawing sober and well-grounded conclusions about the current state of a race after millions of voters have registered their preferences.
The antidote to last winter's flawed predictions is not to promote a misleading narrative based on the desired but unlikely story line of one candidate.
It is the math. And the piece goes on to describe the overwhelming math problem Clinton faces. Even her own advisers don't believe she can overcome Obama in total delegates or popular vote.
The story concludes:
Her advisers say privately that the nominee will be clear by the end of June. At the same time, they recognize that the nominee probably is clear already.What has to irk Clintons' aides is that they felt she might finally have him on the ropes, bruised badly by the Wright fight and wobbly in polls. But the bell rang long ago in the minds of too many voters.
So it appears she will hang on through June, watching her campaign slowly peter out. So we can look forward to a continuation of the bitterness and "kitchen sink"-hurling until then.
Unless enough heavyweights in the Democratic Party have the strength, courage and candor to tell her that it is, indeed, over.
Even her aides know it. I wonder if they've told their candidate?
Update [2008-3-21 15:48:30 by Bob Johnson]: Halperin at Time adds fuel to the "It's over" fire:HALPERIN’S TAKE: Painful Things Hillary Clinton Knows — Or Should Know1. She can’t win the nomination without overturning the will of the elected delegates, which will alienate many Democrats.
2. She can’t win the nomination without a bloody convention battle — after which, even if she won, history and many Democrats would cast her as a villain.
3. Catching up in the popular vote is not out of the question — but without re-votes in Florida and Michigan it will be almost as impossible as catching up in elected delegates.
4. Nancy Pelosi and other leading members of Congress don’t think she can win and want her to give up. Same with superdelegate-to-the-stars Donna Brazile.
5. Obama’s skilled, close-knit staff can do things like silently kill re-votes in Florida and Michigan and not pay a political price.
6. Many of her supporters — and even some of her staffers — would be relieved (and even delighted) if she quit the race; none of his supporters or staff feel that way. Some think she just might throw in the towel in June if it appears efforts to fight on would hurt Obama’s general election chances.
7. The Rev. Wright story notwithstanding, the media still wants Obama to be the nominee — and that has an impact every day.
8. Obama might not be able to talk that well about the new global economy, but she (and McCain) can’t either.
9. Many of the remaining prominent superdelegates want to be for Obama and she (and Harold Ickes) are just barely keeping them from making public commitments to him.
10. She can’t publicly say more than 2% of all the things she would like to say about race, electability, beating McCain and experience.
11. If she somehow found a way to win the nomination, she would have to offer Obama the veep slot, and she doesn’t want to do that.
12. This is a change election, and Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton can never truly be change.
13. Obama is having fun most days, and she isn’t.
14. Even though her campaign staff is having more fun than it has for a long time, there’s hardly anyone there who, given half a chance, wouldn’t slit Mark Penn’s throat — and such internal dissension won’t help her in the home stretch.
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