How Hillary Clinton Wins the Democratic Nomination

If you could bet on presidential politics in Las Vegas, Senator Barack Obama would be the overwhelming favorite right now. Like the New England Patriots 18-0 run before the Super Bowl, Obama has slowly been picking up momentum for several months and seems destined for the history books. But as Hillary Clinton’s adopted hometown team the New York Giants showed with their stunning upset, the improbable sometimes becomes reality.

Senator Hillary Clinton needs a game-changing play as spectacular as when Giants quarterback Eli Manning evaded every defender when launching a Hail Mary prayer pass answered downfield somehow by David Tyree who caught the ball using his helmet. In other words, she needs to find a way to put points on the board when no one thinks she can.

Ironically, Clinton started this campaign as the “inevitable” Patriots so dominant that everyone feared crossing her path. After that strategy failed she has to now finish the race as the scrappy Giants overwhelming the infallible, beloved, pretty boy quarterback (Tom Brady or in this case Obama) with sheer toughness and determination.

Obama has already won more states than Clinton and thanks to the Democrats’ proportional representation system, will likely beat her on pledged delegates. But neither candidate will have enough pledged delegates to capture the nomination on their own. That means the 800 super-delegates, elected representatives and party officials, will be the voters who matter most in the end.

Like most of us, super-delegates want what’s in their own self-interest. Most will be running down the ticket from the Democratic nominee in November and want someone at the top who will help not hinder them in keeping their jobs.

If Obama wins more pledged delegates as is expected, many super-delegates in the party of Civil Rights will be uncomfortable depriving the nomination from potentially the most important black figure since Martin Luther King, Jr.

What kind of message would that send to his 90-plus percent support in the black community and all the young voters he’s turned out to vote for the first time? Obama has them believing “Yes We Can” but the party would be telling them, “Actually, NO you CAN”T!”

To overcome that discomfort in super-delegates’ stomachs, Clinton must convince them that Obama is not only less electable than she, but UN-electable.

She must have a combination of the following five events to win:

1. UN-Forced Errors from Obama: A few months ago did you know that Obama’s personal pastor for twenty years the Reverend Jeremiah Wright had said in a sermon “God damn America!”? Videos of Wright’s many controversial Sunday speeches threatened to undermine the heart of Obama’s candidacy—that he is a unifying healer that makes white voters (including some Republicans) comfortable voting for a black man they believe respects them.

Gallup polling shows that Obama’s widely praised race relations speech effectively put a band-aid on the Wright “wound” for now but it might not be so easy with another major scandal.

Obama said himself in his book that he smoked pot and did “a little blow”; are there stories of him selling drugs out there? A corruption scandal that challenges his squeaky-clean ethical image?  Likely not, but who would have thought now-former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer was sleeping with prostitutes while prosecuting prostitution rings?

Even though the Clintons bare the scars from more scandals than they would like to remember, a major Obama scandal would be their clearest path to victory.

2. Forced Errors from Obama: Clinton has at least two more nationally televised prime-time debates to confront Obama face-to-face—one in Pennsylvania with ABC’s Charlie Gibson the other in North Carolina with CBS’ Katie Couric. Look for Clinton to raise questions about Rev. Wright and anything else she can to make Obama seem like “just another politician”.

Obama has always been a cautious debater but playing with the lead he will be even less likely to say anything controversial. Clinton’s challenge is to get him off his game of continuous coolness long enough to say a stupid sound-bite where he sounds naïve, inexperienced, or too effete. Remember, the media likes to create heroes and then tear them down.

At the same time as looking fiercely tough and more competent than Obama, Clinton needs to seem gracious and not too much like a you know what (rhymes with witch).

Pundits have generally scored Clinton a slightly better debater than Obama in the past, bur that is not enough anymore. In boxing terms, she needs to knock him out and not win a squeaker on points.

WIN Big and Unexpectedly: The political pundit class already expects her to win April 22nd’s Pennsylvania primary by double digits. She has to hope that Obama starts to creep into her lead in the polls close to Election Day only to see her dominate the vote and beat his over-inflated expectations (as she did in Ohio, Texas, California, and New Jersey).

She must take her Pennsylvania momentum and sweep the May 6 primaries in the toss-up state of Indiana and the Obama-friendly North Carolina (he leads in N.C. by 23 points). If she can win where it is close and take him out on his own territory, then she can make a clear and compelling argument that Obama’s momentum has peaked and the Wright scandal has made him un-electable. Clinton would then have a much easier time to keep winning and essentially “run the table” with the remaining contests. Then, “Obamamania” seems like an uncool and inexplicable trend like Taylor Hick’s “Soul Patrol” from American Idol,

Florida and Michigan: When FL and MI defied the Democratic National Committee’s repeated warnings and moved up the dates of their primaries, both Clinton and Obama agreed not to campaign in either state or put much weight behind their results. Obama even removed his name from the ballot in MI, leaving Clinton as the only serious Democratic contender. Somehow she won overwhelmingly in MI! She also won FL by nearly 20 points.

Now that she needs every last vote to win, Clinton is desperate for FL and MI to have their massive delegations seated at the convention. Obama’s team already helped kill the fairest scenario to count them—the states have a re-vote. Counting the current vote totals (especially the Soviet-style election in MI with one candidate) will be a hard pill for Obama backers to swallow.

Clinton’s team argues for voters “voices to be heard” every day on the trail, but be on the lookout for lawsuits of “disenfranchised voters” in both states to intensify the case.

Win the Popular Vote:  More than the delegate totals, FL and MI are most significant because they could help push Clinton over the top on the total popular vote (assuming she finishes extremely strong in remaining contests).

If she wins in the popular vote, she has a very easy argument to make—“I won more votes, I should be the nominee.” Democrats still have a very bad taste in their mouths from the last time someone won the popular vote and didn’t take the election (imagine President Gore now finishing up his second term in the solar-powered Oval Office).

Without the popular vote, Clinton will need polling results that shows her more likely to beat Senator John McCain in key swing states (which she already has) and more Dems to think she can win nationally (which she doesn’t). Most super-delegates weren’t math majors, but almost all of them can clearly read a poll.

More than anything, they can feel the winds of political momentum and like moths drawn to a light they cling to the one they perceive as the winner. Voting against Obama if he wins more states, delegates, and total votes would go against every political instinct.

Right now Obama’s swagger and smile is that of a winner on a path to wards achieving immortality. But Tom Brady looked pretty cool before being dragged into the mud so frequently and intensely he veered off his game. Can Hillary Clinton do the same in the Super Bowl of politics? Most likely not, but who knows? That’s why they play the game!

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