There's a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about Hillary supporters threatening to flee the Democratic Party in droves if Clinton is not declared the nominee at the convention. The argument, as I understand it, is that these supporters feel slighted by Obama, his campaigns, or his supporters, and, as a result, would refuse to support him as the nominee. If you're one of these people, then this is for you. Here's one simple reason why you should support Barack Obama if he is the nominee:

Hillary Clinton will support Barack Obama if he is the nominee.

"I can assure you, as I have said on many occasions, that no matter what happens, I will work for the nominee of the Democratic Party, because we must win in November," she said.

Keep in mind, she didn't say this in a concession speech. She declared her support at the same time she declared victory in Indiana. If Hillary Clinton loses the nomination, she's going to stay and fight for Barack Obama, not pack her bags and go home. And do you know why? For the same reason that many of you have been supporting her for over a year.

She gets it.

She knows that this presidential race is about more than just her. She knows that this country can't survive a McCain presidency, and she's putting her country first by making sure that a Democrat--be it her or Obama--is elected president in November.

Are there differences between her healthcare plan and Obama's plan? Yes, but they both want Americans to have insurance, while McCain will let the healthcare industry keep committing murder by spreadsheet.

Did she and Obama occasionally diverge on their support for Bush's Occupation of Iraq? Yes, but they both want to withdraw our troops, while McCain will keep them in harm's way for at least four more years, letting thousands more of your brothers, sisters, and children die.

Does she, as a woman, bring a unique and perhaps superior perspective on reproductive rights than Obama does? Yes, but they're both pro-choice, while McCain will appoint right-wing judges who will overturn Roe, giving the government control over American women's bodies.

Do you really think that Hillary Clinton, of all people, doesn't know the differences between herself and Barack Obama? And yet she has already declared her support for Obama if he is the nominee. She did this because she knows that John McCain is poison for the United States. If he is elected president, he will destroy this country.

Die-hard Clinton supporters, whatever you may dislike about Barack Obama, always remember that he, like Hillary Clinton, is thousands of times better for America than John McCain will ever be. You can point to Obama's ties to Rezko and Wright in the fall, but you should really be pointing to McCain's ties to Hagee and Bush. Hillary Clinton will be doing the latter. What will you do?

True, the rules do say that no candidate is officially the nominee before the convention, but both candidates will go to the convention, and either Obama or Clinton will come out the nominee. Regardless of the outcome, though, I guarantee you that Hillary Clinton will leave the convention with her head held high, and she will proudly begin to do everything she can to elect the next Democratic President of the United States.

If you claim to be a liberal, progressive, or a Democrat, but you're considering refusing to support Obama if he is the nominee, then you don't deserve to have an incredible candidate like Hillary Clinton--a proud Democrat first and foremost.

Hillary will fight for the nominee, so why won't you?

(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy and DailyKos)

Today on Hardball, there was more fawning over how great John Edwards and Barack Obama looked on the stage together yesterday, the point, of course, being that they're a ticket made in heaven. I have to agree they did look great but so did John Kerry and John Edwards four years ago and we all know how well that worked out. The truth is, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton looked perfect together too once upon a time, but the quintessential Dream Ticket image of them standing on the stage together after the Los Angeles debate has been overshadowed by the tension of the race between them that's ensued since then, not to mention the most recent debate, which was anything but a showcase of unity.

But in the minds of these talking heads who seem to have written off an Obama/Clinton ticket but now see Obama/Edwards as the key to Democratic victory in the fall, the perfection of Edwards extends beyond aesthetics. On Hardball today it was suggested by one guest that Edwards was a perfect match for Obama because he could be the bridge between Obama and those elusive white working class voters. It's ironic, of course, that Edwards's endorsement would prompt this discussion since Edwards had cited his concern over the white working class narrative that had emerged post-West Virginia as one of the reasons he chose yesterday to endorse. But my real point here is that in fact, as great a guy and a candidate John Edwards is and was, he has in no way demonstrated that he would somehow be the key to the white working class vote.

Poblano has the goods. He begins:

It seems to be taken for granted that John Edwards had some stranglehold on the working class white vote. But this was not really the case. The working class vote was not a particular strength of John Edwards in either relative or absolute terms.

As evidence, he breaks down how all three candidates performed in the first 5 contests -- through Florida after which Edwards dropped out -- on several measures in an attempt to gauge white working class support. Poblano concludes:

Firstly, John Edwards actually performed slightly better among voters making more than $50,000 per year than among those making less.

Secondly, while we only have this data available in three states, there was no real difference in the education levels of Edwards supporters.

Thirdly, in every state where we have data available, Barack Obama performed significantly better than Edwards among voters making less than $50,000 per year, and among voters who did not attend college. This held true in racially mixed states like Florida, as well as extremely white states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Fourthly, in every state where we have data available, Hillary Clinton performed significantly better than Edwards among voters making less than $50,000 per year, and among voters who did not attend college.

Now, as Poblano correctly states, this is not to in any way disparage John Edwards but rather just to point out that if it's white working class voters you want, there's just no evidence that John Edwards would deliver them. In fact, Hillary Clinton didn't exactly blow Obama away on this measure either that early in the game but as we've seen in the most recent contests, the game has changed.

It's projected that Hillary Clinton will have more popular votes than Barack Obama on June 3rd.  Some news organizations have already declared her the popular vote leader.  

Yet many party officials seem anxious to coronate Barack Obama prior to the Democratic convention.  They must have short memories, and have forgotten the sense of outrage and injustice we (the Democrats) experienced when Al Gore was robbed of his election mandate 8 years ago.

"Hillary Democrats" will feel aggrieved if the Superdelegates over-turn their votes.  It's naive to assume that they'll jump on the Unity Express to join forces against Republican enemies in November.  Millions of Democrats (and some others too) -- the majority of whom belong to that key demographic called women -- are already steaming mad at how Clinton is being treated by her colleagues, aided by a misogynist mass media.

As a reminder, Hillary Clinton has dedicated decades of her life to fighting for progressive causes and Democratic candidates.  She is a 2-term Senator from the 3rd largest state in the union, and a major voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee.  At the end of this primary process, she will have inspired nearly 20 million people to get out and vote for her.  Millions of them are just like me -- actively campaigning and donating for the first time in our lives.

Now, this takes nothing away from Senator Obama, as he has also inspired millions of people.  But he's getting the respect due from Democratic peers while Hillary Clinton -- champion of children and sick people and veterans and women -- is being treated like a nuisance. Some have even attacked her character and dignity, such as Obama surrogate Ted Kennedy who recently said that Clinton is not "in tune with...the nobler aspirations of the American people."

In the absence of a rational explanation for this abuse, millions of women (and men too) are fuming because, frankly, it reeks of good ole fashioned back-slapping sexism.  I'm not alone in wondering out loud whether a man in Clinton's position -- that is, a serious contender for the presidential nomination who has won swing states (most recently by 41%) and built a formidable coalition needed to win the White House -- would be taunted, ridiculed, and treated like an outcast.

As a woman who has been on the receiving end of double standards, and one who happens to believe that Hillary Clinton will be the best President of my lifetime, I want to urge Senator Clinton to take her campaign all the way to the convention floor.  By earning more than half the votes cast, she has every right to make her case directly to party representatives in the proper venue, and even a responsibility to the voters.

See, this is the way it is for Clinton supporters.  If you throw Hillary under the bus, we go with her.  And although our leader would be gracious in asking us to disregard the injustice, millions of "Hillary Democrats" will be unable to do so.  "Backlash" is a real social and psychological phenomenon.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Note:  please don't shoot the messenger.

There's the usual push-pull on this site.  

In general, Hillary's supporters believe she will eventually win the nomination, even if it means a difficult convention fight. In Churchillian terms, they believe Hills will never be defeated.

But a few of her supporters now tell me the race has been decided.

Me thinks it's a good time for a pulse and for some eye candy.

Okay. Everyone roll up their sleeves and rock da vote.

Remember: this is a secret ballot.  You can vote your conscious without fear of retribution.  Full results will be posted.

► Fan favorite and uniter, Tina Fey

I'd mentioned earlier in the Edwards endorsement speech thread, that John Edwards currently has 19 delegates that may, but don't have to, go to Obama. DemConWatch clarifies:

So how many Edwards delegates are there? Four from New Hampshire, 8 from South Carolina, and 4 so far from Iowa.

With the help of Ben Smith, DemConWatch identifies 13 of the 16. But what about the other 3?

The DCW tracker shows Edwards with 19 delegates. Why the difference? It's because Edwards is projected by The Green Papers to get 3 state-wide delegates at the Iowa State Convention on June 14. But as we learned at the Iowa Congressional District Conventions in April, these delegate projections are only estimates. And it's difficult to see the Edwards forces holding together in June. (assuming the race is still going on then). So those final 3 delegates will likely get reassigned to other candidates, leaving Edwards with the 16 delegates described above.

Edwards also has 13 delegates out of Florida whose fate we will know after the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting on the 31st.

Now, as for the extent to which Edwards's delegates are now compelled to vote for Obama:

...from a political and practical viewpoint, pledged delegates will keep their pledge to vote for the candidate they were elected for until "released" by that candidate. By endorsing Obama, Edwards finally ended his campaign, which had been "suspended" up to now, and "released" his delegates to vote for the candidate of their choice. Of course, these delegates may decide to follow their original candidate and support Obama, and Edwards will of course be contacting them to urge them to support Obama.

In other words, as of now, they are essentially unpledged delegates akin to the supers. The likelihood is, of course, that they'll declare for Obama.

In fact at least one already has.

Today's Quinnipiac University National poll is the second poll in a row showing a majority of Democrats favoring an Obama/Clinton ticket.

By a 60 - 33 percent margin, Democrats say Obama should pick Clinton as his vice presidential running mate.

That's almost 2 to 1 among a group that prefers Obama to Clinton for the nomination by a slim 45-41 margin.

It should be noted too that the poll finds that either Obama or Clinton at the top of the ticket would defeat McCain in November, Obama by 7 points, Clinton by 5.

Interestingly, Quinnipiac finds that Clinton and Obama perform quite similarly against McCain among white voters, among men and among women. The real difference between how each Democrat fares against John McCain comes among groups with whom Obama has traditionally held more appeal. In other words, when up against John McCain, Barack is stronger among Hillary's base than Hillary is among his.

In an Obama-McCain matchup, independent voters back the Democrat 48 - 37 percent, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds. Men split with 45 percent for McCain and 44 percent for Obama, while women back Obama 49 - 36 percent. McCain leads 47 - 40 percent among white voters, while blacks back Obama 87 - 4 percent.

In a Clinton-McCain contest, independent voters split with 41 - 41 percent. Men go with McCain 46 - 42 percent while women back Clinton 51 - 36 percent. White voters back McCain 48 - 41 percent, the same margin as the Obama-McCain matchup, while black voters back Clinton 79 - 8 percent.

What I find most remarkable about these results is how close this contest is still. The poll was taken from May 8-12 in the wake of the results of last Tuesday's primaries, indeed, at the height of the post-IN & NC "it's over" talk. Yet Obama is up only 4 points above Clinton for the nomination and only fares 2 points better against McCain. It really shows you not only how popular Hillary Clinton is but also how solid her support continues to be and it really begs the question does Barack Obama want to expand the map and have a landslide victory in the fall as he has said he does or is he content to risk simply winning with 50+1? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, more and more I'm convinced that if we're really going to accomplish the former, finally, Hillary Clinton must be on the ticket.

Update [2008-5-14 21:11:59 by Todd Beeton]:I wanted to add that it's also striking how at odds the will of the voters is with conventional punditry. Not only does a majority of Democrats want Obama to pick Clinton for VP, which itself contradicts the "it'll never happen" chorus from the talking heads on the teevee, but there's also this result from the poll:

"Party leaders may be cringing over the potential damage to Democratic chances in November from the endless primary campaign, but two-thirds of the rank-and-file think Clinton ought to keep battling," Carroll added.

In an interview with CNN, Hillary Clinton is signaling even more strongly her intention not to use the final weeks of this campaign to take Barack Obama down, as some had feared. For one thing, she reiterated strongly her opinion that it would be a mistake for her supporters to support John McCain in November in the event that she is not the nominee, calling it a "grave error."

"Anybody who has ever voted for me or voted for Barack has much more in common in terms of what we want to see happen in our country and in the world with the other than they do with John McCain," Clinton said on CNN's "The Situation Room."

"I'm going to work my heart out for whoever our nominee is -- obviously I'm still hoping to be that nominee, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that anyone who supported me ... understands what a grave error it would be not to vote for Sen. Obama."

In addition, Clinton has taken to defending Obama against a McCain attack rather than amplifying it or remaining neutral with a "well, that's up to voters to decide..." as she's done in the past. Via Josh, here she is on the subject of McCain's "Hamas endorsement" attack:

BLITZER: Here is what McCain said about Barack Obama and I want to get your reaction. He said, "I think," this is McCain, "I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. I think people should understand that I would be Hamas' worst nightmare. If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly." McCain was referring to a statement by the North American spokesman for Hamas endorsing, in effect, Barack Obama. Is McCain right?

CLINTON: No, I think that that's really an overstatement, an exaggeration of any kind of political meaning and I don't think that anybody should take that seriously.

I'm glad to see this shift. As we saw from the results last night, Clinton still has a compelling case to make to superdelegates for her own electability, but she appears unwilling to pursue the line of argument at the expense of the likely nominee. I can only hope that now her most ardent supporters will follow her lead.

As DemConWatch rightly points out, the goal posts for what constitutes a win have been moving, but legitimately so, not just by the shear force of will of a campaign, as the number of total delegates has fluctuated over the past few months. As of last night, with Travis Childers's MS-01 win, a new superdelegate was added to the mix, bringing the total delegate universe up to 4049, which means the candidates need 2025 to win (when Donna Edwards officially wins her MD-04 seat on June 14, that number will bump up to 2025.5.)

In all likelihood, the number of delegates needed to win will once again bump up on May 31 when the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meets to deal with the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegations. Yet until then, it's hard to argue the number is anything but 2025.

Now, both campaigns have been a bit disingenuous when it's come to what it takes to declare victory. Team Obama has been spreading the idea that because they'll get to a majority of pledged delegates by May 20 (1627 of the current 3,253 pledged delegates currently in play), that constitutes victory. Well, unfortunately, that's a fake measure and will likely be moot as of May 31 when the entire pledged delegate universe, and hence the number needed to achieve a majority, likely shifts once at least part of the Michigan and Florida delegations are ratified. There's nothing lamer than declaring victory one day only to have to retract it 11 days later.

The Clinton campaign though continues to insist that the magic number of total delegates to win is 2209, which is 2025 plus all of Michigan and Florida's pledged and superdelegates. This presumes that the DNC RBC will reinstate 100% of Michigan's and Florida's delegates, which just simply isn't either a terribly likely scenario (one suspects the committee will keep some punishment in tact, perhaps docking them half their pledged delegates...) nor is it technically operative prior to the 31st.

Does any of this really matter since Hillary Clinton has said she's in it through June 3rd anyway? Last night on Larry King, Obama booster Ed Schulz suggested the one scenario in which it could matter: if Barack Obama reaches 2025 before May 31. But is that likely to happen?

After last night's contests and any pledged supers announced today, the delegate count according to DemConWatch's running tally is Obama 1885, Clinton 1717. There are only two contests left between now and May 31, Kentucky and Oregon on May 20. After allocating pledged delegates from those primaries according to the Obama projection spreadsheet, as of May 20 the total delegate counts will be up to Obama 1936, Clinton 1769. Hence Obama would need 89 superdelegates to declare for him in the next 16 days to be able to declare a 2025 victory prior to May 31. Could it happen? Well, it's possible but at a rate of more than 5 supers a day between now and then, it doesn't seem terribly likely, especially after Clinton's huge win last night with another one on the way next Tuesday.

At this point, it just doesn't make sense for supers to force a showdown over whether victory has been achieved, which is what allowing Obama to reach the 2025 threshold before Michigan and Florida are settled would essentially do. Also, no doubt part of why the DNC is even hearing the cases of MI & FL prior to the end of voting is to make MI & FL feel that they were a part of the process, which is arguably important psychologically for voters in those states. Do supers really want to derail that? So, as of now, I have to say, while for the next few weeks we're going to have to listen to both campaigns spin what constitutes victory, I doubt we're going to see the rate of superdelegate declaration for Obama that would be required to force a real showdown between Clinton and Obama prior to May 31. Of course, I've been wrong before...

Update [2008-5-14 16:0:27 by Todd Beeton]:Per Ben Smith, Howard Wolfson said today that Childers's win bumps the total delegates needed to win up to 2210.

Update [2008-5-14 16:44:55 by Todd Beeton]:Via e-mail, with the endorsement today of Oklahoma Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan, the Obama campaign has their total superdelegate count at 288.5, making the number needed to reach 2025 down to 134.5. By my count, approximately 80 of those would need to be supers to reach 2025 before May 31.