Click here for Hillary Clinton's letter to the Superdelegates. Read it and then come back. Didja read it? Good.
So Clinton is making the point that she's more likely to defeat John McCain in the general election than Barack Obama is.
One of the arguments she makes to support that assertion is that, "nearly all independent analyses show that I am in a stronger position to win the Electoral College, primarily because I lead Senator McCain in Florida and Ohio." This does not mean that she thinks she'll win the popular vote, but the all-important Electoral College vote. Even though Democrats stated that Bush really lost the 2000 election because he lost the popular vote, should Clinton, or Obama, repeat that achievement, expect the Democrats and the media to be curiously silent about it.
Another argument she makes is that more people voted for her in the primaries than for Obama, indeed more than for any Democrat candidate in the past. In her words, "I expect to lead in the popular vote and in delegates earned through primaries."
First of all, if I'm interpreting it correctly, she's completely ignoring the delegates earned through the caucuses in those states which held them, including my home state of Washington.
Second of all she doubtless includes the votes in Michigan and Florida, the former of which didn't even have Obama on the ballot since he obeyed the DNC's ruling regarding Florida holding its primary too early and withdrew his name.
For the sake of argument, though, let's concede that her argument is correct and that she has a better chance of defeating McCain than Obama does. Let's also assume that enough superdelegates agree to make the difference and hand the nomination to Clinton if they vote for her. Will they?
Before I attempt to answer that, let's take a look at the superdelegate system and the reason I, at least, think that it was put in place. Quite simply, the superdelegates exist to override the will of Democrat voters (and caucus attendees) if the party elite decides that the people made the wrong choice. After all, the people can't be trusted to make such an important decision correctly all the time, right?
So given that, and given the assumptions above, will the superdelegates give the nomination to Hillary when all is said and done? I think it's unlikely. The reasons? There are two: The 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections, especially the former where Gore did actually win the popular vote. During and after those elections, and especially after the Florida debacle in 2000, the Democrats made such a big deal about how so many voters were disenfranchised (most if not all allegations of which were not supported by the evidence) that they don't dare give the impression that they're doing the same thing even though the superdelegate system is designed to do exactly that. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place on this and they're trying their damnedest to navigate these tricky waters successfully. I think this is why the remaining uncommitted superdelegates are biding their time waiting to see the final results of all the primaries. And even now there are superdelegates announcing support for Clinton.
But Clinton obviously doesn't care. She's willing to say and do anything to win the nomination and then the general election. Even if it means truly disenfranchising the majority of Democrat voters and caucus attendees. And she either thinks she can pull it off, or she is trying to damage Obama sufficiently that he'll lose the election and thus give her another shot in 2012.
