What would Hillary need?

[Bravus]

Here's Walter Shapiro at Salon*

Quote:

Despite evidence to the contrary, Hillary and Bill Clinton do indeed know the meaning of the word "quit." The problem is that they exclusively define it (courtesy of Webster's Third International Dictionary) as "any of various small passerine birds chiefly of the West Indies." So if Hillary is asked any ornithological questions during the run-up to the June 1 Puerto Rican primary, she will happily talk about quits. Otherwise, the topic is off the table -- at least for the moment.

The New York senator has obviously reached the death-with-dignity phase of her 2008 ambitions. Normally in presidential politics three types of shortages drive a candidate out of a hopeless race -- a lack of press coverage, money and prominent supporters willing to keep on spinning and sowing. But, as Barack Obama is learning with each passing day, none of the usual rules apply while waiting for Hillary to hoist the white flag.

The Clintons on the downslide remain a riveting psychodrama, so the press pack is unlikely to abandon them to speculate about President Obama's would-be secretary of agriculture. Having already invested (or squandered) $11 million on the campaign, Hillary and her n'er-do-well husband have another $98 million to go before they tap out. And after eight years in the White House, the Clintons have acquired enough loyalists like campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe (who appeared Sunday on "Meet the Press" and "Face the Nation") to dutifully go through the motions on her behalf on national television.

So what will it take for Obama to finally be allowed to celebrate the triumph of hope over experience?

Clinton's dreamscape has been reduced to the kind of defy-the-odds optimism of hard-core lottery-ticket investors who actually believe the TV ads that claim, "All you need is a dollar and dream." In all likelihood, the only thing that could possibly save Clinton at this point is an out-of-nowhere Obama scandal like the revelation that his minister before Jeremiah Wright was Jerry Falwell. The best argument that McAuliffe could muster on "Meet the Press" was: "By the end of this process, I believe we will be ahead in the popular vote. I believe that within the delegates it will be within 100."

The popular vote argument is plausible, albeit with a bit of ignore-this-but-count-that finagling. If you include the results from the queue-jumping Florida primary but ignore Michigan (where Obama was not on the ballot), Clinton is currently behind in the popular vote from the primaries by 441,000. A landslide for Hillary in Puerto Rico -- coupled with high turnout (2 million voters cast ballots for governor in 2004) -- could by itself undermine Obama's popular-vote claims. Of course, a wrangle over the symbolic significance of toting up the primary vote from an island that is not permitted to vote for president in November could cause problems for a party that already is facing fault lines over race and gender.

But the delegate count is what creates Mission Impossible. The math is more daunting for Clinton than it is for a high-schooler who has slept through calculus class all year and has belatedly decided to crack open the textbook the night before the final exam. Most media scorecards give Obama about a 170-delegate lead with flocks of superdelegates signing on before the boarding doors close for takeoff. Even the most optimistic Hillary scenario of landslide two-to-one victories in West Virginia (May 13), Kentucky (May 20) and Puerto Rico -- coupled with even splits in Oregon (May 20), South Dakota (June 3) and Montana (ditto) -- would narrow Obama's lead by just 46 delegates, according to the Slate delegate counter .

The Clinton campaign has been arguing for months that the outlaw January primaries in Michigan and Florida -- both conducted in defiance of Democratic National Committee rules -- should count. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that the Clinton team employs magical powers to cloud minds when the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee convenes May 31. Even then, if the DNC implausibly dropped all its sanctions, Clinton would gain a 56-delegate advantage , 38 from Florida and 18 from Michigan.

That is right. If all the stars align for Hillary, if the DNC -- despite expectations -- rushes to do her bidding, she would still come out of the primaries about 70 delegates behind Obama. By the way, that is not a best-case forecast -- that is more like a Beverly Hillbillies hit-oil-in-your-backyard scenario. Even if (ha!) all that were to happen (and the new number for nomination were 2209), Clinton would still have to corral more than 60 percent of the remaining 300 up-for-grabs superdelegates (including those from Michigan and Florida) to win the nomination by one vote.

*Yeah, I know about Salon's slant to the left, but in the Obama/Clinton discussion they've been fairly reliably for Clinton, and I think Shapiro's numbers and assumptions are pretty good in this piece.

[Dr. Shane]

I take no exception to Salon.com's discussion of this race as it is a left-wing race. It is like Limbaugh discussing Republican politics.

I wonder what would happen if Obama choose a running mate and went to the remaining states and campaigned with his running mate.