-
sponsorship
Campaigns toss around lots of numbers, many of which get published without any double-checking. And with delegates we’re usually not sticklers, since everyone has their own count. But one number being floated today struck us as just plain wrong.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said on a conference call today that if March 4 is a tie, Clinton would need to win 75 percent of the remaining pledged delegates. This seemed high to me, given all the monkeying around we’ve been doing with Slate’s delegate calculator.
After re-crunching the numbers, I’m pretty convinced their calculation is off. Check it out:
The campaign claims Obama currently leads by 162 pledged delegates. (That’s about right.) They point out that after March 4 there are another 611 pledged delegates up for grabs. So far, so good.
But if Clinton wins 75 percent of those 611 remaining delegates (giving her 458 delegates), that means Obama will win 25 percent (giving him 152 delegates). If you add that to Obama’s current lead of 162, he will have 314 delegates total. In other words, Clinton: 458. Obama: 314. She would have a lead of 144 pledged delegates. That’s a lot more than "catching up" (epecially when coupled with her current lead among superdelegates).
A little algebra* shows that if Clinton and Obama split the March 4 delegates, she would actually have to win about 63 percent of the remaining delegates to tie it up.
The number matters because it’s used to illustrate the Obama campaign’s claim that Hillary has no mathematical chance of catching up. To be fair, we agree with them that 63 percent is extremely difficult for her. But it’s hardly as daunting as 75 percent. Just wanted to clear that up.
Got a problem with our math? Let us know.
*OK, here goes: If x = percentage of delegates Obama wins after March 4, then the percentage Hillary wins is (1-x). y is the number of delegates each candidate will have won between now and the end of the primaries, including Obama’s current 162 delegate lead. So,
611(1-x) = y
611x + 162 = y
Solve for x, and you’ll find that x = 0.37, which means (1-x) = 0.63.
-
sponsorship
At Tuesday's debate, Hillary Clinton unleashed the canned complaint of the week:
Well, can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time. And I don't mind. I—you know, I'll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious, and if anybody saw Saturday Night Live, you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow.
As Slate has discussed in various forums, this quote is very curious, to say the least. First of all, answering a question first isn't a disadvantage. You get to set the tone of the debate with your response and get to look like the smartest guy/gal in the room. Especially in the primaries, if you cover all the bases, your opponent is forced to mimic your every word and concede that you're right on the key points of the issue. First impressions matter.
So by no means do we buy Hillary's grievance that answering first is a problem. What we do buy partly, though, is that at the previous debate in Texas, she had to answer a disproportionate number of questions first.
Crunching the numbers using the New York Times' masterful debate analyzer, we've discovered a curious stat. At CNN's Campbell Brown-moderated debate in the Lone Star State, Clinton answered first 11 times, compare with four first responses from Obama. (The number is complicated partly because some questions were posed only for Clinton, some were directed at Clinton first, and some Clinton volunteered to answer first.) But still, 73 percent of the time, Clinton was the first to respond.
But that was the only debate where such disparities were in play. At the previous debate—a CNN affair in Los Angeles—Obama answered nine questions first, compared with Clinton's seven. (Note that in Clinton's original quote she said "in the last several debates.") At the MSNBC debate this week, Clinton and Obama had almost an even split by the end of the night, although Clinton did answer the first two topics.
So, yes, Clinton was sort of right to point out that she was answering too many questions first. But we're still not sure if that helps or hurts a candidate whose greatest strength used to be, and still is, her deft touch on the debate stage.
-
sponsorship
The Obama campaign comes back on Hillary's "3 a.m." ad with their own takeoff, "Ringing."
It starts like Clinton’s, but quickly morphs: "When that call gets answered, shouldn’t the president be the one—the only one—who had judgment and courage to oppose the Iraq war from the start. … Who understood the REAL threat to America was al-Qaeda, in Afghanistan, not Iraq."
Nice twist, but the real story is the turnaround. That took what, 12 hours? I'm picturing David Axelrod barking into the phone, "Get me kids, cute kids! Asleep! With blue light!"
-
sponsorship
Did someone from Barack Obama’s campaign call an official from the Canadian Embassy and tell them that the senator’s opposition to NAFTA is just “rhetoric,” as CTV reported? No, according to both the campaign and the embassy. But whether or not someone made the call, the real question is: Would it even have been necessary?
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe flatly denied the original story. But when more details emerged—economic adviser Austan Goolsbee may have placed the calls to a Canadian consulate in Chicago—the campaign stopped responding head-on. Today on a conference call, a reporter asked if Goolsbee had ever phoned a Canadian official in Chicago to discuss NAFTA. Plouffe reverted to the blanket denial that “the story is just not true. … Our guy and the Canadian ambassador denied this. It’s just not true.”
Fine, innocent until proven otherwise. But here’s the problem: Goolsbee didn’t need to make the call. Canada already knew that the candidates' new tough-on-NAFTA rhetoric was political, not permanent. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said as much. “If a future president actually did want to open up NAFTA, which I highly doubt, then Canada would obviously have some things we would want to discuss,” Harper said recently. From CTV:
But Harper also noted that assertions made in the heat of political campaigns should be taken with a grain of salt.
Indeed, the whole NAFTA pile-on has been conducted with a wink and a nod. When Tim Russert pressed Clinton during Tuesday’s debate, she said she would withdraw from NAFTA—unless we renegotiated it. Obama agreed. But “renegotiation” doesn’t mean “overhaul.” When asked for specifics, both candidates say they would impose labor and environmental standards. But they don’t say they would scrap the system that currently benefits farmers in Obama’s home state of Illinois and drives Ohio’s manufacturing jobs overseas. The promise on Obama’s Web site to “amend” NAFTA is hardly abolitionist: “Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.” For NAFTA haters, that’s weak consolation.
Whether or not Goolsbee placed a phone call, the reassurance is implicit: We’re not going to have a president who aggressively resists free trade and brings jobs back from overseas. (A subject on which McCain has been upfront.) They may well try to humanize the agreements and make them more palatable to American workers. But it’s difficult to see the candidates living up to their current rhetoric, and Canada is certainly OK with that.
-
sponsorship
We were pretty much on board for “Yes We Can.” Nothing wrong with a little inspirational music to sweeten the policy memos.
Not so sure about this one, though. Is it just us, or are these Obama tribute videos getting creepier and creepier? (Also, way to give grist to the dolts crying fascism.)
Plus, a friend points out similarities to the now-ubiquitous “I’m F*cking Ben Affleck.” Both soulful declarations of love. Both examples of orgiastic celebrity self-worship. Both featuring Macy Gray!
-
sponsorship
On a conference call chock-full of logical fallacies and non sequiturs, Howard Wolfson responds to Barack Obama's claim that Hillary's new "3 a.m." ad constitutes "fear-mongering":
I think it’s an insult to voters to say that a discussion about national security is fear-mongering. ...National security is an essential part of what the president does. ... It absolutely undersells the intelligence of the American people.
The real insult to people's intelligence is to equate the ad—what with its ominous narrator, shots of innocent children snuggling in their beds, and sounds of a ringing phone—with "a discussion about national security."
-
sponsorship
Ah, expectations. With yet another Tuesday right around the corner, the campaigns are spinning like dreidels.
The Obama campaign is essentially arguing that Hillary is beaten on the board. On a conference call this morning, David Plouffe said that Clinton will “fail miserably” at closing the pledged delegate gap. He added that if there’s a tie in Ohio and Texas, Clinton would need to win 75 percent of pledged delegates from there on in order to close the gap. (Slate’s Delegate Calculator offers a much more conservative estimate of 62 percent or so.) It’s a notable shift in rhetoric: Before, Obama’s team claimed he was still the underdog. Now, they’re saying Hillary has no mathematical chance of winning. When confronted with a similar dilemma, Mike Huckabee said he “majored in miracles.” Clinton has not yet resorted to the supernatural.
She has, however, resorted to the highly implausible. Clinton’s camp is raising sky-high expectations for Obama. Their latest “memo” argues that given all the time Obama has spent in Ohio and Texas “meeting editorial boards, courting endorsers, holding rallies, and—of course—making speeches,” and considering all the money spent—$18.4 million to Clinton’s $9.2 million for advertising in the next four states—anything other than total victory constitutes failure: “If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there's a problem.”
In short: Obama says Clinton has no chance. Clinton says Obama needs a blowout. Both claims are fairly over-the-top. But at least Obama’s has the benefit of being vaguely rooted in science. Plus, they can both finally agree on something: Obama is ahead.