US Politics / Chicken Dinner / 18 April 2008 /

Hillary Clinton still offers terrific value to win the Democratic nomination, say Chicken Dinner...

There's something starting to gnaw at even the most hardcore of Hillary Clinton fans: if she can't run a good, efficient primary campaign against Barack Obama, how on earth is she going to take on the Republicans in November?

Obama is seven points ahead of Clinton again, as her campaign drifts into the doldrums. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, and the steady crossfire of personal attacks has started to sour Democrat party relations. About a fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they wouldn't vote for the other candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, on the other side, John McCain's approval ratings have soared 11 points - he is now viewed positively by 67% of Americans.

Having exhausted her credibility, even her most senior advisors are telling Clinton a win is near impossible. So why does she go on like this?

1. Not every delegate has been counted

The Democrat nominee needs 2024 delegates to win, and neither candidate is there yet. Obama currently has 1639 delegates to Clinton's 1503. If you ignore the forecasts and take these statistics for what they are, there's still a lot of room for manoeuvre. Furthermore, in the states that chose their representatives by primaries (secret ballot, much like local or general elections here), they are almost even. Obama has a clear lead because of his success in caucuses (utterly bewildering selection process, involving people forming into groups according to the candidate they favour), which are arguably less clear cut indications of general support.

2. Clinton could lose the delegate count, but take the popular vote

This would really throw a spanner in the works. The Clinton campaign has taken to boasting that its candidate has won states with more electoral votes than Obama (in the presidential election, the winner of each state wins that state's electoral votes. First to 270 gets the house). Clinton has thus far won 14 states that carry 219 electoral votes while Obama has won 27 states with 202 electoral votes. In percentage terms, Clinton has won states with 41% of the electoral votes (49% if you include Florida and Michigan, whose primary votes weren't allowed to count, as they didn't play properly), while Obama has won 38% of electoral votes. Population-wise, that's 132,214,460 people (160,537,525 if you include Florida and Michigan) for Clinton, and a mere 101,689,480 for Obama. And those are numbers that could sway the voting of the "special delegates" at the convention.

3. She's got plenty of gas left in the tank

Usually, candidates get ushered to their own funeral. The voters spurn them, the media stops covering them, they run out of money, their staff deserts and they are forced to concede. In 1976, when former senator Fred Harris ran for the Democratic nomination, his campaign plane was full of reporters -- until he lost Iowa and New Hampshire. "Hell, I had 'em with me one day, and the next day I didn't. That's how you know." But Clinton has enough money, votes, media attention, and loyal fans to easily make it to the convention.

4. In a presidential campaign, she'd start with a clean slate

John McCain may be basking in the sun of his own popularity right now, but if Hillary wins the nomination, there's plenty of time to chisel away at his weaknesses, and by goading him about his age and his affairs hopefully she can even get him to lose his famous temper a few times.

Clinton said that ending her campaign now would be as if "Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those steps and said, 'Well, I guess that's about far enough'." Rocky actually lost the fight in the 1976 film, but at [7.4] on Betfair - and sorry to be such a broken record - Hillary still offers terrific value.

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