Three days after Sen. Hillary Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania, a new poll suggests a dead heat in the May 6 Indiana primary — the next crucial battleground that could decide the Democratic presidential nomination.
Gee, if I got all my news from credible news sources like the Associated Press, I’d think there was actually an even contest still going on for the Democratic nomination between Clinton and Obama. The mainstream media really can’t give up on this notion that the nomination is still up in the air. For nearly two months now, anyone doing a thorough analysis of the contest has concluded that Hillary Clinton has needed essentially a miracle to overcome her delegate and popular vote deficits. Before Pennsylvania, she needed to pick up over 60% of all the remaining votes to pull even in the popular vote or somehow convince a ton of superdelegates to switch to her. After Pennsylvania, which she only won by 8%, she needs to win all remaining contests with something like 67% of the vote. She’s going to lose North Carolina by 10-20 percentage points. Yet, the Clinton campaign and the media don’t seem to care. They speak as if Indiana, home of most fraternity and sorority headquarters and the most interstate highways per square mile, as if the nomination hinges on it. Clinton could win Indiana by 10 points, and it wouldn’t matter.
I don’t say this as a big Obama supporter or a Hillary hater. I am neither. I don’t think Hillary needs to drop out. But I also think it’s completely disingenuous for any responsible news agency to portrary the nomination contest as one that could easily go either way. Barack Obama would have to pull an Elliot Spitzer to lose the nomination at this point.
Toastie, aren’t you exaggerating just a tad? If your preferred candidate were nearly-even even the delegate count and slightly behind in the popular vote, wouldn’t you hope the media would portray it as a close race, even if, mathematically, the odds were still long for your candidate to win?
In fact, didn’t you complain an awful lot that John Edwards was shut out of what was touted as a two-person race back in December and January, even though you didn’t think he was really that far behind?
Yes, indeed, I did. Good points.
If Hillary does manage to wrestle the nomination away from Obama, I will still vote for her. The question is, of the thousands who will come rally for Obama at the Dean Smith Center on Monday night, how many of them will vote for Hillary should she be the nominee? After all, the Clinton campaign has all but said that they wouldn’t need North Carolina, or most of the states won by Obama, to win in November.