Lighting Up the Scoreboard with SDs

The Democrat candidates have taken to heart the monicker given the Indiana and North Carolina elections: The Basketball Primaries.

In what is now the most entertaining aspect of the Road to 2025 — that is the number of delegates needed to secure the Democrat nomination — both campaigns are engaged in an hour-by-hour game of superdelegate hoops.

Obama sank a free throw to start the morning with Rep. Bruce Braley (IA). By 11 a.m., Clinton scored with one of her own, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO president Bill George.

Basketball is Obama's game, though. By noon, he got an assist from Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer, Congressman Baron Hill.

But Clinton is a "fighter," much like the fish that thrashes on the line as it is hauled into the boat. Before the clock could strike 1 p.m., Puerto Rica SD Luisette Cabanas threw her support behind Clinton.

Obama continues to serve notice he will not allow Clinton to maintain even a tie in this game, and he had yet another SD to prove it. California Rep. Lois Capps endorsed the senator from Illinois to give him a 3-2 lead on the day … so far.

UPDATED TOTALS

Overall delegates: Obama 1,737, Clinton 1,602

Pledged delegates: Obama 1,490, Clinton 1,334

Superdelegates: Clinton 268, Obama 247

Since Pennsylvania: Obama 10, Clinton 6

Since Super Tuesday: Obama 77, Clinton 8

Note: Delegate totals from MSNBC.com's First Read

Obama's Pocketful of Superdelegates

During the weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania primary, there were suggestions from Obama's camp and the press that he had a stable of SDs chomping at the bit to endorse him. The quandary: What is the most effective way to roll them out – one by one or en masse?

Another posit circulated as mainstream media incredulously denied Obama's campaign could have that great political capital and not spend it ahead of the primary in order to bolster support in Pennsylvania. They questioned: Does he really have a large, unannounced group in his corner? Or is he just posturing?

Perhaps MSM and pundits would be better served if they didn't doubt one of the most successful campaigns in the history of American politics.

Going into Pennsylvania, everyone knew Obama had a tough row to hoe — Clinton started with a 20 point lead and the demographics suited her well. Why, then, would he burn up useful, headline grabbing endorsements when there were still almost two months left before the final primary?

Obama's campaign has doled out superdelegates with brilliant precision. I'm sure the temptation was great to use them ahead of Pennsylvania. But, he would likely lose the state anyway, and then be left with no means to stall Clinton's "momentum."

Instead, he held on and now sprinkles out one or two when Clinton has the rare occasion to show off one of her own, dulling her spotlight and staving off the notion the SDs are scared and flocking to her. 

Since Clinton's win in Pennsylvania, Obama has rolled out seven new supers to Clinton's four.

Since Super Tuesday, Obama has outgained Clinton 74-6.

The Case Against Clinton

The interminable tour that is the Democrat primary has rounded Pennsylvania and set its sights directly on the Hoosier state. Not in my lifetime has Indiana played such a critical role in selecting a presidential candidate. The outcome here should impact whether this contest continues, but it could also signal a sea change in Indiana's political identity.

While no straight-line Democrat voter, I am 100 percent behind Barack Obama, to the point I've volunteered for and donated to his campaign, both firsts for me. Because I believe Obama has done extremely well articulating his own positions, and because I know Hillary Clinton's campaign has trouble with honesty, I argue the case against Clinton.

First, we should acknowledge that this race is already over and has been for a couple months. There is no way, save a meteor falling on Obama's head between now and the Democratic National Convention in August, that Clinton can overtake him in the delegate count. And delegates are the only metric by which Democrats determine their candidate. Clinton will lose North Carolina and Oregon; there's just no way around that. Thus, she needs to earn about 80 percent of the remaining delegates in the few states left to vote, and that is just not going to happen.

I would never suggest anyone vote based on who is the front runner, though. In fact, I wouldn't want anyone to base their vote on what they read here. I truly hope voters engage themselves in the process and realize the truth on their own.

But the facts are out there and they completely undercut any argument Clinton has left to maintain her candidacy. Worse, they belie her ridiculous statements the last three months regarding who is winning or should win this contest.

WHEN A WIN REALLY ISN'T

Clinton won Pennsylvania by a little more than nine percent, a decent victory and one with which she should be happy. But it is not the game-changer she would have voters believe. 

In fact, the demographics in Pennsylvania were tailor-made for Clinton: One of the oldest populations in the land where women voters outscore men three-to-two — both groups have strongly supported her throughout this process; Clinton has family ties in the state; the governor and Philadelphia mayor trumpeted her candidacy; and even MSNBC's Chris Matthews shamelessly advocated for her at every turn, repeating "shots and beers" and "hometown girl from Scranton" ad nauseam.

And yet her 20 point lead from only four weeks before the primary slipped to just less than 10 percent despite controversial topics for Obama such as Rev. Wright and "Bittergate."

(To that earlier point: I recall a presidential nominee not so long ago who was regarded as someone with whom the common man could have a beer. I wonder how that turned out for America …)

Clintonistas were quick to shout down Obama following the Pennsylvania contest, questioning why he can't close this thing out.

The more pertinent question is: Why, with all her name recognition and the machine behind her, could Clinton not close this out in February when everyone, including her own camp, suggested the nomination was hers for the taking?

WELL, SHE SAYS SHE'S DEMOCRAT …

The most disturbing aspect about her incessant march toward Democrat oblivion is that in her campaign strategy, Clinton has become a Republican.

A serious analysis of that audacious statement is required. Consider: Clinton answered the question as to whether Obama is not Muslim with, "Not that I'm aware of." And the attack ads she aired in the final hours before the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries were so offensive to the basic decency upon which Democrats ostensibly differentiate themselves from Republicans that the New York Times, which has endorsed Clinton's candidacy, took her to task post-Pennsylvania for employing tactics "torn right from Karl Rove's playbook."

But these examples are child's play, political tiddlywinks compared with Clinton's self-determined path to victory, which employs dubious math, feigning outrage about disenfranchising voters, and a scorched-earth mentality.

Her line coming out of Pennsylvania is that she has garnered the most votes in this process. This is where Clinton deceit, exposed prominently during Bill Clinton's presidency, rears its ugly head.

In her now ruthless quest to secure the power of the White House, Clinton includes in her popular vote total tallies from Florida and Michigan, states that all Democrat nominees agreed almost a year ago would not count because the states violated party rules.

What's worse, Obama's name wasn't even on the Michigan ballot.

Clinton's fight for disenfranchised voters would be considered a noble endeavor were it not that she is completely fine with shutting out Obama supporters in Michigan who would have voted for him had his name been on the ballot. And it must be noted she had no qualms over bucking Michigan and Florida voters when the nomination was thought fait accompli.

What's more, her calculation completely erases votes from caucuses since they don't factor into popular vote totals. Clinton now derides the caucus process as inherently un-American, though she never had a problem with it until it was politically expedient.

Clinton's specious argument disregards the fact the Democrats' nominee isn't determined by total votes, anyway. 

These practices, to me, seem inherently Republican: Determine your path to victory, change the rules midstream to reflect that blueprint, eliminate voters who are against you, and redefine how the winner is determined based on what best suits you.

At what point, we must wonder, does Clinton attempt to argue that only Clinton votes count. Oh wait … she already is.

CLINTON'S FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW

Hillary Clinton has an extremely narrow window of opportunity to run for the presidency. She couldn't run against George Bush in 2004 because he hadn't completely lost moderate Republicans and Independents; his failed Iraq policy wasn't yet regarded so. Thus, no cross over votes.

Though Clinton was seen early on as the shoe-in candidate, Obama came from nowhere to overtake her. He is wildly popular and, should he be the Democrats' nominee, he will likely win the White House. If his presidency is what his supporters hope, he will certainly hold on for a second term and likely leave his vice president as the strongest Dem candidate in 2016.

Clinton must realize that this campaign holds the keys to her only shot at the presidency, and her tactics bear this out.

She has been trying for months now to manufacture a win based on sullying Obama to the point superdelegates fear defeat in November, ignore the will of the voters in this process, and steal the election for her.

Another and far more nefarious strategy that I've been suggesting the last several weeks to anyone who would listen is that she is trying to damage Obama so badly that he indeed becomes unelectable and loses to John McCain. Then Clinton can run again in 2012.

My thoughts on this have now been echoed by South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn. 

DIVISIVE … AND THEN SOME

At some point the question must arise: Does America need a Democrat version of a Bush administration? Can this country suffer another megalomaniacal president who defines truth based on exigent political necessity?

If Democrats and Independents who supported Bill Clinton in the 1990s take honest stock in political history, they cannot ignore that the groundswell of support that launched Bush into the White House was fomented by a sharp visceral reaction to Clinton's tawdry actions and political divisiveness.

A Hillary Clinton presidency would only buttress that political divide, one that has subsumed Washington and crippled our country the last 15 years.

Clinton's "Day One" refrain doesn't pass muster when you consider her greatest impediment: Republicans distrust and loathe her. I fail to see even a remote possibility that the GOP will come to her aid to implement the kind of change necessary to reverse our woeful economy and regain the United States' standing within the global community.

Clinton isn't even waiting until the Fall or a possible presidency to begin splitting Americans, though. She's already dividing her own party, and that is raising the ire of even her most ardent supporters.

At the end of the day, the electorate must decide whether they want to continue with the political status quo. A Clinton presidency portends only more of the same, even if it's from the other side of the aisle.

But don't take it from me. David Geffen, a close personal friend and financial supporter of the Clintons, said of them, "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling."

Indeed.