Opinion | Columnists
Negative campaigns, wounded candidates
Obama's lead in elected delegates is simply too large for Clinton to catch up in the nine contests that remain.
- By James J. Zogby, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:05 April 28, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
Despite Hillary Clinton's nine-point victory in Pennsylvania, she still cannot win the Democratic presidential nomination. All she can do now is wound Barack Obama through negative campaigning, making it more difficult for him to win in November.
Obama's lead in elected delegates is simply too large for Clinton to catch up in the nine contests that remain. This election is not unlike a 52-lap motor race. In the first 43 laps, it is as if Obama has passed Clinton twice, building up a lead that is insurmountable.
Now in the middle of the 44th lap, because they are on the track together, it may appear that they are close, or that Clinton has a lead after Pennsylvania. But the reality is that Obama's delegate total, after having won 28 of the first 42 contests, has put him far ahead.
What is interesting is how much hype surrounded the Pennsylvania contest. This was due, in part, to two factors.
One was the seven-week gap between the first 42 contests and this week's match-up and another reason was the tenacity and temerity of the Clintons who, despite all objective indicators pointing to the fact that she simply cannot win, continued to present this election as close and her as a fighter still determined to win.
But here are the facts:
In order for Clinton to even catch up with Obama, she had to win Pennsylvania by a margin of almost two to one, and then win all of the nine remaining states by that same margin. Doing this would only put her slightly ahead of Obama.
To win, she would still need to then capture almost two-thirds of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates. Since she has not won any state by the margin she must win in the remaining nine, one can see that while her nine-point victory in Pennsylvania was impressive, it was nowhere near the 30 point win she needed.
The only way that Clinton can now possibly win, is to change the rules of the game. That is why she has sought to have the disqualified elections in Michigan and Florida count. She won both states, but in neither state was there an actual election.
But even if one counts the results of both Michigan and Florida, Clinton's margins of victory in both will still not be enough to put her ahead of Obama in the number of elected delegates won.
Another strategy
And so, Clinton seems to have adopted another strategy, and that is to so tarnish and weaken Obama by negative campaigning that she convinces a substantial number of superdelegates to cast their ballots for her, and even convinces some of Obama's elected delegates to abandon his campaign with the argument that he cannot win in November.
This would, in effect, overturn the results of the elections to date, resulting in a devastating division within the Democratic Party, and a wound that would not heal by November.
There is no doubt that Democrats have been energised by this election. From the beginning, Democrats seemed to feel that, after eight years of the Bush presidency, not only was America ready for a change, but that Democrats would be united to win.
What was not expected was a divisive campaign such as we are in the midst of, which would run the real danger of weakening the party's chances for victory. Polls show that there is a growing fracture within the Democratic Party coalition.
Six weeks ago, when Obama and Clinton voters were each asked if they would support the other candidate should he/she win the nomination - and at that point about 15 per cent said they would not. Today, after Pennsylvania, it is in the mid-30 per cent to low 40 per cent range.
There are those who suggest that the various components of the Obama and Clinton collations will come together after a nominee is chosen, but should this campaign go on longer and become more divisive, it appears near certain that they will not.
What is interesting here is that, while the continued negativity of this campaign will weaken the eventual Democratic nominee, the Republican's presumptive nominee, John McCain, has had the field to himself.
His problems remain, however, on the fringes of the party, where libertarian and religious conservative elements are threatening either to boycott or to run independent candidates for the presidency in November.
The bottom line is that Obama will win, but emerge wounded, creating an interesting match-up with his wounded Republican counterpart. The resulting dynamics of that contest will be unpredictable.
Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC.
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