Clinton's Endgame Strategy!

[kennetha]

Here is Clinton's endgame strategy.

Part I. WIN OUT


She's COUNTING on victories in: Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico.

She's MAKING A SERIOUS PLAY FOR either squeaker surprise victories or narrow loss "moral victoris" in: NC and Ore.

If she can pull part I off, she moves to PART II.

PART II SOW DOUBT!

She's counting on success with Part I, to cause serious doubts in the uncommitted superdelegates, and maybe even a few persuadable already committed supers, about Obama's electability. She wants Obama to be limping into the convention having lost or barely won all the remaining major contests. (She'll give him South Dakota and Wyoming, but that's about it.)

If she succeeds in raising enough doubts, she needs to also offer the Supers a legitimate seeming WAY OUT. That leads to PART III of the endgame.

PART III. FLOOR FIGHT!

She needs to get the vote count and delegate count to a point that WITH Florida and MI included, she is the winner on both fronts.

She wants the ONLY rationale that the Obama forces can offer for keeping FL and MI out to be seating them would tilt the nomination to her. But Obama will be such damaged goods that the supers will see that he simply can't win. So Instead of keeping FL and MI out, in order to assure his nomination, they will let Florida and Michigan in in order not to appear to be "throwing" the nomination to Clinton over Obama's pledge delegate lead.

She's counting, in other words, on three things: (A) on getting the delegate count close enough that with FL and MI she will lead; (b) on Obama being beaten down by the remaining process; and (c) on Florida and Michigan, once seated, being enough to give her the lead in pledged delegates.

If that all happens, she's the nominee.

Is it a stretch? Well, since it's a strategy with lots of moving parts, if one of them fails to come through it's hard to see what the back-up plan would be. But if all goes as planned, I think she really does have a very strong chance of becoming the nominee. A very strong chance indeed. But it's clearly a big if.

[sellitman]

1. The "Victories" in Part one is the rub.

Victories at this point have to be at 70% or greater.

That clearly isn't going to happen.

Loosing part one looses the SD.

The fat lady has sung.

It is over.

[kennetha]

4. You are wrong!

You misunderstand. She doesn't need to overtake Obama in pledge delegates through the remaining primaries. She just has to get close enough that Florida and Michigan if and when seated, will put her over the top. Especially since Obama is fighting hard to keep FL and MI out, he may actually end up with fewer delegates than you might think from both those states. Plus the supers in those states must be pissed at Obama. So that's a another large and untapped source of delegates for her.

[tekisui]

6. The supers of which states will be pissed? FL and MI?

They won't be seated either.

[kennetha]

9. We'll see!

[tekisui]

14. Even if they find a way to seat FL's delegates,

and a way to split MI's delegates, the Supers will still be punished.

[sellitman]

19. I don't sign on to cheating like you apparently do.

Going against the DNC rules is cheating. Trying to change the rules when it suits you is cheating. Signing onto the rules in the beginning then trying to change the when it suits you is cheating. Disengenuous posters such as yourself disqualify intellectual discourse on the election when they want their candidate to cheat.

No, I am not wrong Hillary is wrong and worse yet.....she is a cheat.

[phrigndumass]

2. She'll need help from the repugs in North Carolina and Oregon, then

If sowing doubt is a strategy, best to make another call to Richard Mellon Scaife or Karl Rove.

[izzie]

3. Well we can count on this-----

She will find she has a second cousin that worked her fingers to the bloody ends in the lace mills of Ind. and Bill's third Uncle was a field slave in NC in 1700 so they have ties to these two states and can almost call them home. It should give some reason to vote for them. Course both Bill and she spent parts of their Summers with these ancestor's families duck hunting.

[tekisui]

5. Right now, Obama is up 3 % in IN, and up 15.5% in NC

Part One is going to be tough for her. If she loses IN and NC, that will look bad. All she would have left is PR, WV and KY.

OR, SD, MT will most likely go to Obama. She won't be within victory, even with MI and FL. Ans, there is no way MI will be seated "as is". FL, perhaps.

[kennetha]

8. Cherry-picking poll!

The poll that has Obama up by 3% in Indiana has 21% undecided. If you don't think that most of those undecideds are Hillary voters who won't admit publicly that they aren't voting for Obama, well... I'd take a poll like that with a large grain of salt.

Latest SUrvey USA poll has Obama up by 9. BUT it has a total undecided of 5% (which is relatively low) and among those who have actually voted it has undecided at 15%. I predict that those already voted undecideds are mostly if not entirely Clinton voters. THat would make the arleady voted something like 50-47 Hillary rather than 47-35- 15 (Obama, Clinton, Undecided).

[tekisui]

12. Not cherry-picking.

It's the RCP average of all the polls that has Obama up 3(less than 10% Undecided) , same with NC.

Here are the latest Polls from IN, with the average on top.

RCP Average 04/14 - 04/24 - 43.3 46.3 Obama +3.0
Research 2000 04/23 - 04/24 400 LV 47 48 Obama +1.0
Indy Star/Selzer04/20 - 04/23 535 LV 38 41 Obama +3.0
Downs Center 04/14 - 04/16 578 LV 45 50 Obama +5.0


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/in/indiana_democratic_primary-639.html

NC won't even be close, it will a real double digit win for Obama.

[Buzz Clik]

7. In other words, she doesn't care about the process or the people. This is all about her.

No surprise.

[bowens43]

10. So it comes down to cheat, steal, lie and over turn the will of the people.

A strategy that guarantees that if she does steal the nomination, she loses the election.

[kennetha]

11. I don't see it that way!

Where's the "cheating" part? Where's the "lying" part? And where is the "stealing" part? And are you denying that people of Florida and Michigan are part of "the people?" Does their will not get to play any role in determinign "the will of the people?"

[bowens43]

13. well

cheating - trying to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida
lies - her entire campaign for start to end , especially the campaign in Pennsylvainia
stealing - see above
Florida and Michigan knew the consequences, both candidates agreed the delegates wouldn't be seated .

The woman lacks integrity. She can't be trusted. Her only goal is power, Most Americans know this. She will never be president.

[kennetha]

15. Seating delegates is within rules

You do know that it is within the power of the credentials committee to seat the Mi and FL delegations. It's also within the power of the committee as a whole to do so on the basis of a minority report to the floor. So how would using the rules to make an appeal to seat the delegations count as cheating?

As for lies? What lies are you talking about? Her national health insurance plan? IS that the lie? I think Obama's the one lying here, since he claims to be for "universal coverage."

And how is it stealing to play by the rules (i.e making an appeal to seat the delegations?)

The voters of FL and MI deserve to be heard. And they may well be the deciding voice. Obama fears the will of the people just like the repugs. That's why he is trying hard to silence their voices.

[tekisui]

16. The Primary in MI was a false Primary.

They will not seat "as is", and I trust the Credentials Committee is not stupid on that one.

FL's vote will probably be used, maybe penalized by half. Again, the Credentials Committee will likely do it right.

And, they will not be enough to tip it to Hillary.

[cali]

17. lol

sorry, it's clear that MI and FL delegates will not count until the convention- except in so much as some SDs may take them into consideration. Why can't hillworlder's admit that hilly's chances are very, very slim? Denial isn't a good thing.

[GoesTo11]

18. Her real endgame strategy

President John McCain.

Courtesy of Hillary Clinton.

What the OP describes could be a good strategy for the GE - a traditional negative, dirty campaign. Negative campaign attacks hurt the attacker and the attacked. That's ok if you just need to win by 1 vote, as in the GE. But if you need to go on for another round - and if your opponent in the race is really your ally in the national debate - it is nothing but destructive.

[kennetha]

20. As for those polls showing Obama way out front in NC

One of them is from Public Policy Polling.

But I'd take their NC poll with a grain of salt, given what they had to say about Pennsylvania:

Raleigh, N.C. – Barack Obama continues to hold an overwhelming lead in North
Carolina, according to the newest survey from Public Policy Polling.

He has a 57-32 advantage in the state. This is PPP’s fifth weekly poll in a row showing
him with at least an 18 point lead over Hillary Clinton.

“The bigger question than whether Barack Obama would win North Carolina might be
whether the Democratic contest even ends up coming to the state,” said Dean Debnam,
President of Public Policy Polling. “Our Pennsylvania numbers are showing a very tight
race and if Obama pulls off a victory or even a narrow defeat Clinton may drop out
before the primary here.”

[ecdab]

21. It's sad watching a DUer get all excited about the possibility of creating enough spin

to damage a Democrat and find loop holes in the rules to manipulate the voting process.

You are correct - that is the Hillary strategy at this point. Try and win as much of the remaining contests as possible (which is a fine goal for any campaign), then spin, spin, spin, kneecap, kneecap, kneecap, and then try and turn the convention in a bloody mess where the entire Party will emerge damaged.

The big problem she faces is that many super delegates understand that is the path she is on. She has no positive or unifying path from here until to convention. She can only win by sticking a bunch of wedges into the party. I don't have a crystal ball - but I doubt they let her play that strategy out to it's conclusion.