There are two main reasons it's absurd. First,even if he doesn't win a primary, he'll be third at worst in all of them, gathering a substantial number of delegates. If Obama and HRC continue to swap wins, which is very possible, it may be impossible for either of them to garner the number of delegates required to win outright, which sends us to the convention, and puts Edwards in a position of immense influence over what comes out of that convention (ie, politics as it has been practiced for all of our history, EXCEPT for the last few election cycles.)
Second, his message is compelling, particularly among rank and file employee/union types. So even if the unions are endorsing someone else, his message will have great pull among the members, and the MEMBERS have votes, the endorsements don't. So, it's possible that he will start to do better in the bigger, more urban state (who picked three rural podunk states (sorry, I really do like NH!) to be the grand poobah determiners of our presidential candidates?) So, it's conceivable he could pull out the nomination.
To wit, the following chart, ripped from the front page of CNN.com. Despite his horrific third place finishes in the two primaries, look at the delegate counts. The winners have maybe 1% if the numbers needed to win the nomination, and Edwards is SEVEN votes behind, but he's DOA. Go figure. Stupid media.
Election Results
Delegate Count /
Democrats /States Won /Del*
Democrats /States Won /Del*
Obama IA 25
Clinton NH 24
Edwards --- 18
Republicans /States Won /Del*
Romney WY 24
Huckabee IA 18
McCain NH 10
Election Center » *Pledged delegates to date
Update: Sorry, all my attempts at maintaining any semblance of formatting on the chart have failed. Should have grabbed a screenshot, but it's 4am and too much work :)
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