More Magic Numbers for Obama

Just to continue the delegate battle debate, there are a few other magic numbers that we should consider as the race continues.

From a previous post, we repeat the first two, in order of difficulty:

1) 2024 pledged delegates - the number required to prevent superdelegates from overturning the win.

2) 1627 pledged delegates - the number required to prevent superdelegates from overturning the democratic results. This number will likely be achieved by the Obama campaign after Puerto Rico.

Now, there are a few more magic numbers that are important, assuming that we take the numbers of superdelegates from both campaigns as a starting point. This gives us Clinton with 242, and Obama with 210. Now, assuming that these delegates are solid, and this will become more true as the race progresses and gets more heated, we get two more numbers.

1.5) 1814 pledged delegates - the number required so that Obama only needs to hold his existing 210 superdelegates. This is likely not going to be achieved by the end of the race on June 3.

3) 1537 pledged delegates - the number required so that Obama only needs to get half of the remaining unassigned superdelegates. Obama will likely achieve this during the May primaries after Pennsylvania. These primaries, in order, are Guam then Indiana and North Carolina, then West Virginia then Kentucky and Oregon. If the campaign sets up the appropriate expectations in the press, it could be all over after North Carolina. North Carolina will likely put Obama over this number.

4) 1471 pledged delegates - the number required for Obama to go over the top without poaching Clintons existing 242 superdelegates. In other words, if Obama convinces all the rest of the superdelegates to vote for him and none of Clintons superdelegates move, he would have access to 553 superdelegates to put him over the top. It is possible that Obama could achieve this after Pennsylvania.

5) 1229 pledged delegates - the number required by either campaign to achieve 2024 by getting a unanimous decision by ALL the superdelegates. Both campaigns are already there. Both campaigns, ironically, went over the top on this number after the March 4th primaries. Since neither campaign can PREVENT the other campaign from achieving this number, there is no reason for either side to withdraw. In fact, it is a moot point because if one of the campaigns had enough to prevent the other side from getting this, they would be at 2025 anyway. The wonders of math.

Now, lets look at the timing of this thing.

Obama will likely achieve threshold 4) after Pennsylvania, but Clinton will not be able to say the same thing until after Kentucky and Oregon on May 20th. This give Obama almost a month to rub in the point that she can not win without my superdelegates, but I can win without hers. Clinton presently needs only 1439 for her threshold 4).

Now, after a few weeks of this, Obama will likely go over threshold 3) before Clinton crosses her threshold 4). This will be major bragging rights. Clinton will not be able to win without poaching his super delegates, but Obama can win with only HALF of the remaining superdelegates. This will be the period where Clinton will likely be forced to withdraw if there has not been a major change in the campaign landscape.

This crossover will likely be achieved for Obama after North Carolina.

So, this blogger so predicts, that the Clinton campaign will be forced to withdraw from the fight in the second week in May. This is assuming that Obama does not win Pennsylvania on April 22nd.

I guess the larger point of this blog is that the Democratic Party unwittingly created a complicated series of thresholds by adding in these crazy wild card superdelegates. Since we can not predict how they will behave at the convention, the only hard number that matters is 2024. The trouble is, that since the total number of pledged delegates is 3253 this is A LOT HARDER TO GET!!!

Basically, any candidate must get over 62% of all the pledged delegates in order to lock away the nomination before the convention. This can be compared to the Republican case where they only need to get 50%. This creates a smoother campaign, and a much easier process at the convention.

Wow.

Think of this in a historical context (and this is all from the wiki, by the way).

The first National Democratic convention was held in 1832. That is when they created the DISASTROUS 2/3 rule for the nomination process. Candidates had to get over 66% of the delegates, so it became really really hard to WIN the nomination, but really really easy to STOP someone from getting the nomination.

This rule was waved in the 1835 and 1840 conventions because it everyone realized that it was STUPID, and was brought back in 1844 by opponents of Van Buren, so that they could STOP HIM. So, the roots of this rule go way back in stopping the democratic will of Democratic party voters.

The crazy Democrats kept this stupid rule for the next hundred years. It was used, for example, to deadlock the 1924 convention and produce a compromise candidate that no one liked and lost huge to the Republicans that year. Starting to ring a bell?

They finally drop the 2/3 craziness in 1936 during the re-nomination of Roosevelt. Hmmm, seems to me that the Democrats won a lot of elections after that...

So, it seems, bad ideas die hard. The sneaky Democrats brought the rule back in another form after the chaos of the Seventees. Good job there. You really won a lot of general elections since then, losers. By creating these "superdelegates", that can not be pinned down until the convention, they force the prospective nominees to get over 62% of the elected delegates or essentially go to the convention hat in hand, begging for the good graces of the superdelegates to bestow legitimacy on the nominee.

What a crazy and self destructive system. In fact, it is a system that seems only good for the situation that we see before us now. The Democrats essentially have a winner, but the stupid convention rules create a system where his opponent will not drop out (because neither side can secure 62%), and he can not unite the party. This almost guarantees a weaker general election candidate, and a more likely loss in the general to the Republicans. Good one, guys.

DID A REPUBLICAN SPY WRITE YOUR CONVENTION RULES???

I'm even going to go one step further in making fun of the Democratic Party.

Lets consider the possibility that the Democrats made all their states winner take all. Would that solve their problem? No. Both sides would STILL not have 2024 EVEN THEN!!!

Obama would have only 1309, and Clinton would have a large lead at 1834. But the point is that even after winning all those big states, AND making them give ALL their delegates to Clinton with winner take all rules, she would still not be over the 2024 threshold. The Democrats have screwed themselves with these dumb superdelegates.

Big Time!

They almost guarantee a weak general election candidate if there is any contention in the primaries at all.

I reiterate a point from a previous post. If the Democrats can not unite behind Obama and win the general election, they should disband as a political party. At least Obama would have a chance of winning the nomination of the party that rises up to replace them.