I've been following the American presidential primary race (maybe a little too) closely. Despite what the conventional media makes it sound like, the race for elected delegates is all but decided.
Obama built up such a huge lead that Hillary can't catch up unless she wins every remaining state with a greater margin than she has won any other state in this entire primary race. And some of the states remaining are predicted to go to
Obama.
However, after all the primaries, neither candidate will have enough elected delegate votes to win the nomination at the convention so the decision will ultimately be made by the super-delegates. They are free to vote any way they choose (as opposed to elected delegates that must vote according the primary results). But if they choose to give the nomination to Hillary, the party will effectively overturn the will of the people. I don't think this will happen because it will fracture the Democratic party and alienate all the citizens that voted for
Obama. Disenfranchisement of that magnitude will likely cost the democratic party the November election. An election that currently looks preordained for the democrats to win.
Yet, Hillary is still competing. Some people think that she is either deluded enough to think she can still win the elected delegate race or will use her (and her husband's) political clout at the party convention to convince enough super-delegates to give her the nomination. I think people in the party are aware of the potential consequences and wouldn't go for it, but I don't think that is what Hillary is trying to do. I don't think she is trying to win any more and instead she is trying to raise money.
At the beginning of April, Hillary's campaign was 15-million
USD in debt (including a 5-million personal loan Hillary made to the campaign) with 9-million cash on hand. So negative 6-million in total. But a campaign can't raise much money after it has given up. So since the time that it became a foregone conclusion that
Obama would win, I think Hillary has been making it look like she is fighting like hell, to inspire people to continue donating money and hopefully get her campaign out of the red.
A lot of
Obama supporters want her to give up because they think that Hillary's “kitchen sink” strategy has been hurting him and the Democratic Party's chance of eventually winning the general election. But I think that if
Obama wanted to, he could put enough political pressure on Hillary to make her quit now. I think he wants Hillary to keep running (no matter how negative she goes) because:
- The longer the primaries keep going, the more popular he becomes. Even in Pennsylvania (where he lost) he held his biggest rally to date. I've read estimates ranging from 20,000-40,000 people attended to listen to him give a stump speech.
- During these primaries many states have recorded record voter turn-out. And regardless of whether they vote for Hillary or Obama now, they will mostly vote democrat in November.
- As long as the Democratic primaries keep going, it dominates the US news, and the Republican party is marginalized.
- Right now Obama is campaigning as if he were already the nominee, mostly addressing McCain but McCain doesn't have a forum to reply. Nor can McCain continue campaigning until the primaries are over because his primary budget is gone. He can only access the rest of his money after the primaries are over, and the presidential race begins.
In the end it all comes down to the money, and while the primaries continue, it is an advantage that
Obama can exploit.
