Saturday, March 8, 2008

The End Game

Call her what you will (and many of us have) but Hillary Clinton is not stupid. She has to know she can not win this race. Barack has much to large of a lead to overcome. After Barack beats her Tuesday and picks up a minimum of 6 additional delegates than her, he will have 162 delegate lead in elected delegates. In the unlikely event Hillary would win every contest from Pennsylvania forward by an average margin of 12 (56-44), Barack would still have an 87 delegate lead. Even with a Florida and Michigan do over, she still can not get anywhere near a majority. Even in this most unlikely of scenarios, she would need a major scandal to get superdelegates to overturn the will of the people.
Hillary is bright enough to know this. Overturning the will of the people would automatically be a recipe for a November defeat and the end of her Presidential aspirations.
So why is she sticking around? She is doing two things. She is inflicting enough damage to weaken him for the General Election hoping that she would get a do over in 2012. The other thing she is going is hanging around and hoping for the scandal that has yet to be unearthed.
If you have any doubt that she is trying to damage him for the general election, watch this clip. This is one of several instances where she has favorably compared McCain to Obama.

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