Hillary Clinton can STILL WIN THIS.

[FlyingSquirrel]

This will probably be my last "Devil's Advocate" thread on this subject - or so I'm hoping.

Save the flamebait and boilerplate arguments, I'm an Obama supporter. I recognize how low the chances are, and I know all the arguments against the types of things the Clinton camp would wish to do (counting MI/FL, etc.) in order to secure the nomination. The reason I'm doing this is because I keep seeing people baiting Clinton supporters asking exactly how she could possibly win, and I haven't seen anyone respond with any kind of real analysis; so I thought I'd do it for them.

Let's start with the Superdelegates. The ones who have endorsed -- for either candidate -- take them out of the equation. Why? Because they can change their minds all the way up to the convention. They're not like regular delegates that are not changeable. (I'm willing to cut Hillary some slack, but I'm not willing to accept her argument that the pledged delegates can "vote however they want". They'll be chosen for their loyalty and the overwhelming likelihood is that they'll vote as expected.)

So now we're only looking at Pledged Delegates.

We MUST assume that Michigan and Florida will be seated - otherwise there's no real chance. We'll go with the best case scenario for Hillary: They're seated as-is and their superdelegates are also seated. Uncommitteds in Michigan will be dealt with later in the analysis, and MI delegates for Hillary will be added to her total.

According to DemConWatch, with MI and FL included our totals are as follows:


Pledged Delegates with MI and FL - current:

Obama 1657.5; Clinton 1604.5


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Total number of Pledged delegates would be 3566, so 1783.5 would be a majority of them.

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Now we look at the remaining states. Being generous, I give Hillary the following numbers:

Percentages: WV 71%, KY 69%, OR 47.5%, PR 59%, MT 61%, SD 46%

Delegates: WV 20, KY 35, OR 25, PR 32, MT 10, SD 7


Pledged Delegates with MI and FL - after all primaries:

Obama 1745.5; Clinton 1733.5


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Note that neither has yet reached 1783.5 - Edwards has 32 and there are 55 uncommitted from MI.

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On to popular vote. Currently Obama leads Clinton 17,210,970 to 16,816,712. In this case I gave Obama the Uncommitted vote in Michigan and counted all the caucus votes. I got these numbers from thegreenpapers.com, adding them up myself in a spreadsheet. I could not find numbers for TX caucuses so they are not included. Washington State's primary and caucus are both included.

I've estimated what the turnout might be in the remaining states. Based on my estimate and the above percentages, Clinton could hope for the following numbers, best case scenario:

WV: Clinton 397,845; Obama 156,842
KY: Clinton 618,190; Obama 269,309
OR: Clinton 366,610; Obama 406,604
PR: Clinton 483,386; Obama 331,624
MT: Clinton 185,980; Obama 117,021
SD: Clinton 143,242; Obama 169,091

ALL: Clinton 2,195,253; Obama 1,450,490


Final Popular Vote: Clinton 19,011,965; Obama 18,661,460


Although this is probably overly optimistic for Clinton and is not above reproach for many other reasons (not fairly estimating the actual popular vote in caucuses, for one, and including MI and FL for another), it illustrates the fact that Hillary could still win the popular vote by as many as 350,000 votes using the most advantageous metric for her. If the media were willing participants, this could lead to a belief among many Americans that she had actually won the popular vote - whether or not this were really true.

This is important, of course, because some Superdelegates may actually be willing to use it as their justification to vote for her.

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So there we are at the Convention, MI and FL have been allowed by the rules committee to be seated as-is, but with a stern warning to behave themselves next time. ;) Neither candidate has a majority of pledged delegates. There's a big squabble over the Uncommitted vote in MI on the first ballot; Hillary manages to get perhaps 18 or 19 of them away from Obama and deny him the ability to claim the lead in Pledged Delegates.

So now at this point it's up to the Superdelegates. Obama leads, 1781.5 to 1752.5 and it's game time. The magic number is 2,208.5; There are 850 Supers. Obama needs 427 of them to clinch; Clinton needs 456 of them. Again, we're not looking at the number of Superdelegate endorsements they've received to date; we're allowing for the fact that each Superdelegate could change his/her mind at the very last moment.

Note that the best case scenario for MI and FL just about has to happen for Hillary to win. Every other scenario which involves any kind of compromise would lead to Obama gaining over 50% of the available pledged delegates, and this would probably be enough to prevent Hillary from getting enough Superdelegate votes. If, for example, MI and FL are counted as-is, but with a 50% penalty in delegates, Obama would then have 1712 out of 3409.5 Pledged Delegates EVEN WITHOUT the Uncommitted in MI (of which there would only be 27.5 due to the penalty).

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So there you have it. This is the scenario Hillary Clinton is working for, and as unlikely as it is to actually occur - it is possible. Other things are possible as well in a brokered convention; deals could be made, Superdelegates who might otherwise support Obama could agree to support Hillary at the top of the ticket on the condition that Obama be named VP at the same time.

Good enough?

:7