All this weird Clinton spin about what states do and don't count doesn't help them get delegates, I don't get it. Earning delegates is how you win. Is this some kind of pathetic lawyer mentality in action?

I don't think the Clinton camp WANTS to lose the caucuses, but if they think it's inevitable that is certainly the lemonade that will come from the lemons. I wonder how it will taste?

In the end, I just don't see how they expect to by getting their asses kicked

We already had both a caucus and a primary, in Wash., and Obama won both.

So, what's the excuse for that one? Not a state we need to win in November? What? What?

wasn't Obama's last 5 victories primaries? The Wisconsin, DC, Maryland, Virginia, and expat ones.

Hillary is definitely doing a great deal to up her reputation, unfortunately it is among Republicans who will never vote for her, but they must be loving how she is tearing the party apart.

Karl Rove said Hillary leaving is up to the voters, and that she should stay in to give them a chance, regardless of how she does on Tuesday. So Hillary is going to take the advice of Karl Rove now.

Sometimes it seems that it hasn't dawned on the Clinton campaign that they are in a race for delegates, not positive media spin.  Now projections are showing that she will likely lose the delegate race even in Ohio where she will almost certainly win the popular vote.  

Sure, putting a good spin on things might swing a few extra superdelegates to her column by the convention, but unless she starts winning pledged delegates, she need to take the vast majority of the remaining unpledged ones, and there's no way a few narrow victories and some favorable spin does that for her.

You're right, clifton, but if she pulls ahead in popular vote she can make the case (with some legitmacy) that primaries and caucuses are screwy and that she has the real mandate.  That will be her pitch to superdelegates and the media (and the former are, of course, heavily influenced by what the latter says- they are politicians, afterr all).   If delegates are close and she is ahead in popular vote she has an argument to make, a serious one which even as an Obama supporter I would respect.

She is prepping for the lawsuits in Terxas, Florida and Michigan.  She is getting the public ready, because, let's face it, most of the public don't read TNR, or anything for that matter; they won't know!!

"Earning delegates is how you win. "

No, getting the most delegates, including superdelegates, is how you win. Clinton is clearly building a case for proving that more Democrats support her.

That's how she's going to win the nomination (if she does). Not through pledged delegates.

Jmkerr is right on one point. If she wins the nomination it will be through superdelegates because she CAN'T win with pledged delegates. Moreover, she can't even get even with Obama (or even plausibly close to even) on pledged delegates, which is why they are resorting to these painfully contorted arguments about how they are going to win. And when one doesn't pan out, they morph to another strategy. it is getting painful to watch, quite honestly.

No, of course Hillary and the Hillaristas don't _want_ to lose the Texas caucuses. Not even Hillary, whose strategy now consists of losing her way to the nomination, prefers losing to winning.

However, at this point I'd like to know whether Hillary ever intends to abide by primary results. Close-second-place finishers have sometimes simply walked out of party conventions rather than recognize defeat. Has Hillary given any indication that she really will accept the results of the convention if it's clear she's not going to win, or is she reserving the right to threaten a convention walkout in order to sway superdelegates or even pledged delegates? In other words, is Hillary willing to take the Lieberman option off the table?

I really don't have anything substantive to add to the online conversation at this point, except to say: "GO AWAY HILLARY CLINTON"

VC, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the question of whether Hillary's presence on the ballot in November would hurt Mark Warner enough to let Republicans win the Senate race here?

If there was the remotest possibility that the Clinton argument is a *principled* argument, i.e. that they would also deploy it in a context within which no advantage would accrue to them, then yes, there's an issue about the relative legitimacy of caucuses and primaries.

As nobody with two functioning brain cells could doubt that, were it the other way around, the Clinton campaign would be passionately defending the caucuses as sensitive instruments of party decision-making, then I see no reason to take this nonsense seriously.  The only "principle" Clinton is really committed to is the one that says she's damn well entitled to the nomination and no upstart is going to take it away from her.

RE: Mark Warner

She'd drag him down a couple of points, probably. He'd win by 12 instead of 15.

Barack Obama would help Warner a bunch by turning out the black vote. So...instead of a 15 point win, Warner gets a 18 point win.

That seems to be the CW

Like a broken clock, jmkerr is right (though only once so far today).

Hillary Clinton's greatest hope at this point is not a delegate victory but an overall majority in the popular vote which she can use to push superdelegates in her direction. And, like bone, I recognize it's a legitimate argument to make (though she can't couple it with a Michigan-Florida goalpost-change).

Actually, I believe when the superdelegate issue emerged, Obama's camp, fearing Hillary's lead in supers, was the one that floated this argument that the supers should reflect the will of the voters (they did not say they should reflect the pledged delegate count).

To win this thing hands-down, Obama needs to lock up the popular vote, or at least keep it close, as well as winning the most states and delegates. What is the popular vote count at this point, anyone?

I still don't get the position of people that regular delagates are all that matter.  Sure, if you win enough regular delagates, you deserve the nomination.  If you win the majority of regular delagates AND the total popular vote, you deserve the nomination.  But if you can't win the necessary number of regular delagagtes AND you lose the popular vote, why do you deserve the nomination?  

And why does it take the Republican governor of Florida to stand up for democracy and offer to assist in holding a real primary for the Dems?

lymon, since Obama has so far won more pledged delegates, more states, and more total votes cast than Hillary, it's a pretty each choice, right?

But the question of total votes cast really isn't here or there, is it? That's not how either party chooses its nominee. And it would not be a monument to Hillary's general-election bona fides if she had to make the argument that she won the popular vote but couldn't figure out how to win more of the delegates who actually decide the election. After all, it's entirely possible to win the popular vote in November but fail to win the election.

It would be a bit like a team that hits 9 singles in a ballgame without scoring a run complaining that it should have won even though the other team "only" hit 5 home runs. You don't win because you get more hits, you win because you get more runs. And in both the party primary and in the general election, you don't win because you get more votes, you win because you get more delegates or electoral votes. Those are the rules, and to date I've only heard one candidate in either party whine about the rules. At the Democratic convention, it might be possible for Hillary to overturn the rules, stage a sort of "coup," and win the nomination. But come November, she will not be able to whine her way to changing the rules of the game at the last minute.

"Those are the rules"

It's utterly foolish to point to state primary "rules" as some sort of touchstone.

The superdelegates can vote for whoever they want. *That's* the rules. Those are the only rules that counts.

That's why Hillary is pitching to the superdelegates, because she doesn't have to address the majority of Dem voters. She's already won them, something Obama hasn't managed to do.

I just wanted to run through what tonight's possible scenarios would mean: 1.) Hillary wins both