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Edited on Tue Apr-01-08 07:29 PM by gcomeau
...and vice versa.
Alright, this really shouldn't require saying but apparently the need is there. I keep seeing Clinton and Obama supporters talking right past each other on this issue so let me try to clarify something.
When Obama supporters talk about how Clinton can't win, they are not addressing if it is theoretically possible within the rules for Clinton to win. They are talking about under what scenario they should realistically expect it to actually happen. So they talk about the reasons supers will vote a certain way and the math ruling out Clinton significantly closing the pledged delegate gap, etc...
When Clinton supporters talk about how Clinton can win they tend to do the opposite. Their focus is on if it is possible within the rules for her to be given the nomination and the probabilities of it occurring often take a back seat, so they tend to talk about "neither of them has 2024 votes yet" and "the supers are allowed to vote for whoever they want, it's the rules", etc...
Both sides keeping this in mind may do wonders for our ability to communicate with each other.
The other day I was having an exchange with a Clinton supporter in which every time I tried to explain why the superdelegates would not give Clinton the nomination without her securing overwhelming victories in all the remaining states (which is beyond unlikely) I received a lecture on how the rules say the supers could vote for whoever they wanted, and accusations that I cared nothing for rules and laws if I said she couldn't win. It was a very clear case of what I've mentioned here at work, perhaps better illustrated by an analogy.
Let's say the superdelegates are one player in a chess game. The republicans are the other player. We, the DU population, are the spectators.
When some of us point out the consequences of the supers voting against the outcome of the primaries to give the nomination to Clinton after Obama finishes with a significant pledged delegate lead, the massive backlash it will cause, and thus why they're not going to do that, we're arguing "Hey, if they move their knight there then they're going to be checkmated in two moves and lose, and it's blindingly obvious, so they won't do that".
Responding to this argument by saying "They're allowed to move their knight there! The RULES say so! Don't you care about the RULES?" is so missing the point. Yes, the rules say they're allowed... if they do they're toast. That's the part that needs to be dealt with.
Simply pointing out that the rules say the supers can vote for anyone they want is not a response to the reasoning that tells us why they will not overrule a clear win in the primary and caucus races when doing so would be political suicide for the party in this particular contest. The rules will not be any defense to them against the nationwide perception that a few hundred party leaders went directly against the outcome of a process in which millions of people voted and expressed a clear preference that they then disregarded. In which they told the first non white viable presidential candidate ever, who actually WON the nationwide vote, that no they're still not letting him have the nomination. In which they reject the candidate who has FINALLY mobilized the youth vote in record numbers after decades of desperate attempts by the party to do exactly that... that once that youth vote put him ahead they're going to ignore it and run someone else. Do the rules allow them to do it? Yes.
And if they do... checkmate. They're toast.
So please, if any Clinton supporters want to argue that Clinton can still win can they try making an argument that addresses what we're really asking? How we can realistically expect that it actually will happen, not a listing of the rules that establish that it's a technical possibility?
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