Obama's May 20 Strategy
The Politico reports that an Obama aide has confirmed the Obama campaign's plans to declare victory on May 20th, the date on which they expect to have won a majority of pledged delegates.
Their math goes like this:
According to DemConWatch, Obama has thus far won 1590.5 pledged delegates. Per the Obama projection spreadsheet, by May 20, they expect to win 13 of West Virginia's 28 pledged delegates, 23 of Kentucky's 51 and 28 of Oregon's 52 giving him a new total of 1654.5, putting him over the 1627 pledged delegate majority threshold.
Problem is, 1627 is only a majority if one assumes the total number of pledged delegates in play is 3,253, which is only the number if you don't count Michigan and Florida. The Clinton campaign, of course, rejects this number and instead insists the number of total delegates needed to win is 2,209, which would make the majority of pledged delegates threshold 1,784 (assuming a total universe of 3,566 pledged delegates including Michigan and Florida.) If the remaining contests go according to the Obama projection spreadsheet, Obama will fall well short of this number, maxing out at around 1700.
Does the Clinton campaign have an argument here? The Politico doesn't seem to think so. Look how they frame the Obama position:
The Obama campaign agrees with the Democratic National Committee, which pegs a winning majority at 2,025 pledged delegates and superdelegates--a figure that excludes the penalized Florida and Michigan delegations. The Clinton campaign, on the other hand, insists the winner will need 2,209 to cinch the nomination--a tally that includes Florida and Michigan.
But Howard Dean, chairman and mouthpiece of the DNC, had this exchange with Keith on MSNBC the other night:
Keith Olbermann: Isn't it still 2,025 according to all the rules?Howard Dean: There's going to be a Rules Committee Meeting on the 31st of May where we're going to take up the issue of Florida and Michigan and how to deal with them. [...]
So, there's going to be some kind of a compromise is what I would predict. I can't tell you what's in it but right now the number is 2,025. On May 31st, we'll find out what the Rules Committee does and how they plan to work out seating a delegation from Michigan and Florida.
In other words, he qualified the 2025 number, allowing that the mere fact that the Rules Committee is meeting on May 31st to determine the outcome of Florida and Michigan makes the question of how many delegates it takes to win actually sort of ambiguous. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise as Dean has long rhetorically erred on the side of Michigan and Florida inclusion so as not to alienate those states' voters but in the process he may give Clinton the winning argument as Obama tries to spin a win on May 20th.
Either way, though, there's no getting around the fact that declaring victory with simply a majority of pledged delegates qualifies as moving the goal posts and changing the rules in the middle of the game, something Obama supporters have long chided the Clinton campaign for doing. So, while the Obama campaign will try to end it after Oregon and Kentucky vote on May 20, I suspect this thing will only end when Senator Clinton says it does.
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