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Tue 8 Apr, 2008 06:37 pm
Why the race is not ending yet, I:
Quote:The economics of Hillary withdrawal
[T]here's actually a third possibility -- that most party elders would prefer that Hillary withdraw but don't want to pay the cost of pushing her out of the race. There are two classic economic problems here. The first is that the collective benefits of pushing Hillary out are much larger than the individual benefit to any one party leader (i.e. there's a positive externality). Why would Pelosi or Reid risk becoming a hated figure to millions of Hillary's supporters? As a result, everyone is likely to sit back and hope that someone else will pay the cost of forcing her out.
The second problem is it's difficult to coordinate a joint effort to push her out. In other words, there's a collective action problem. If all the leaders could magically come together to ask her to withdraw, it might be less costly to them individually to push her out, but any effort to make this happen would inevitably leak, generating untold recriminations and infighting. The incentives to defect from such an agreement would also be strong. As a result, no one is likely to chance it.
For both of these reasons, it's likely that the race will go to the convention unless (a) Hillary decides to withdraw on her own or (b) the accumulation of superdelegate commitments after the primaries drives her out.
Why the race is not ending yet, II:
Quote:There are a number of reasons that hasn't happened yet; Congress depends on the high-dollar donor base, which is loyal to Clinton; many of the remaining supers come from Blue Dog districts or the Mountain West and might not want to going on record endorsing either candidate; and it would look really really bad if they endorsed Obama en masse and Clinton proceeded to win seven of the ten remaining primaries. Now is not a convenient moment for the supers to end the race.
What they really need is an excuse to end it. There are basically two possible excuses left. An Obama win in Pennsylvania would end the big state/Ohio River Valley argument and suggest that Clinton can't get her delegate deficit close enough to force a "tie". Or, he could go two-for-two on the May 6th primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, ending Clinton's domination of Lower Midwest and likely leave Obama with a larger delegate lead than he has today, with only 211 delegates remaining. If neither of those things happen, we're almost certainly going all the way to the June 3 elections.
Succes goes to your head,
Failure to your heart.
I tend to buy the 1st argument more but I'd disagree that it is the Clinton supporters that they fear. I think it is Hillary herself that they fear. As the old proverb goes "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." and if there a woman that NO ONE wants to see scorned it's Hillary...
I think 2000 has made Dems very sensitive to the "will of the people" arguments. I think this is ultimately good for Obama, unless something freaky happens between now and the end of voting and/or something freaky happens with MI/FL.
But I think a lot of the hesitant superdelegates want to avoid any appearance of meddling with the process -- they want to avoid "it's all your fault!" in favor of "the voters have spoken." Takes some of the heat off of them.
So I'm really thinking at this point that if Obama has a significant lead in pledged delegates, states won, and the popular vote by the time the primary voting has ended in June -- and that looks likely -- the superdelegates will coalesce behind him quickly.
Could happen after PA if Obama does really well, especially if he wins. (Good excuse, as per reason II.) (Unlikely to happen though.) May well happen after North Carolina, with John Edwards setting things off -- that's my hope.
(Re-reading, I guess that's pretty much a synthesis of reasons I and II.)
The key is the superdelegates... and this will be over by early June at the latest.
None of the superdelegates (at least none whose last name is not Clinton) want a bruising floor fight. Their job is to do what is best for the Democratic party which means they will use their power to prevent a floor fight.
You will see the majority superdelegates flip over to the Obama side (this has already started). When there is a definitive majority for Obama, Clinton will drop out.
Most superdelegates are waiting to get behind Obama because they think this is the best way to ensure the unity of the party. The current primary battle isn't even all bad since it keeps McCain largely out of the news.
But after June (and perhaps after PA) there will be no reason to keep this thing going any more.
At this point the superdelegates will end it.
I think the Dems are waiting for the other shoe to drop on Obama.
The Tony Rezko affair is still simmering.
The Jeremiah Wright thing scared them to death , and they know it will be back in the general election big time.
The Bill Ayers thing hasn't gotten momentum yet, but insiders know of it.
How many other questionable associations does Obama have?
That is the problem with plucking a 'Mr Smith' out of nowhere and grooming him on the fast track for high office.............you don't know what you have until it's too late to turn back. Crash and burn.
Interesting take "Real".
Any predictions on how long you think they will wait?
ebrown_p wrote:The key is the superdelegates... and this will be over by early June at the latest.
None of the superdelegates (at least none whose last name is not Clinton) want a bruising floor fight. Their job is to do what is best for the Democratic party which means they will use their power to prevent a floor fight.
You will see the majority superdelegates flip over to the Obama side (this has already started). When there is a definitive majority for Obama, Clinton will drop out.
Most superdelegates are waiting to get behind Obama because they think this is the best way to ensure the unity of the party. The current primary battle isn't even all bad since it keeps McCain largely out of the news.
But after June (and perhaps after PA) there will be no reason to keep this thing going any more.
At this point the superdelegates will end it.
This is close to my thinking/guessing. The assumption that Obama will be the nominee has now come to dominate most of the pundit world, from rabid rightwing to the thoughtful folks (of either leaning). Recent experience doesn't give this fact much predictive credibility but it seems to align with most polling I've attended to and with the overall moves of superdelegates.
I voted early May but this race was over long ago but no one told the media or Hillary.
real life wrote:I think the Dems are waiting for the other shoe to drop on Obama.
The Jeremiah Wright thing scared them to death , and they know it will be back in the general election big time.
The Bill Ayers thing hasn't gotten momentum yet, but insiders know of it.
The Tony Rezko affair is still simmering.
The only thing still simmering is your idle and very lazy, wishfully thinking fantasy laden mass of grey matter in your cranium (or your posterior.)
The Bill Ayers thing? Next you will be cliaming Monkeygate is going to be a big scandal. Really, don't you have better things to have wet dreams about?
It makes perfect sense for the candidates to campaign into June. If they stick to attacking McCain, it also works since both candidates are raising money and an aggressive race brings in the donations. Another point is that the Clinton campaign has to let the fire cool a bit before supporting Obama at the convention. The late March rhetoric was pretty vicious and Clinton has to be able to say with a straight face "I spoke with Barak and now I see that he is ready to be the Man on day 1, ready to lead the military, ready to take on healthcare reform, ready to lead this party." It's still too early for that.
I'd like to see the democratic primary come to an end soon. McCain needs to be able to focus on a single opponent and there is bound to be a poll bump for the Dem's once one is selected. Better to have that bump sooner then later.
McGentrix,
It seems to me that the best scenario is to have that poll bump happen late October/early November.
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