A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on January 23rd, 2008 in Campaign News

Hillary Clinton has abandoned South Carolina to focus on Super-Tuesday states New York, New Jersey, California, and Arkansas:

The logic seems simple: She represents New York in the Senate, and New Jersey is next door; she was the first lady of Arkansas for a decade; and California will be the biggest prize when 22 states vote on Feb. 5. But in a system that awards delegates by congressional district, with some worth more than others, the calculation is far from straightforward, and Clinton backers fear that the setup could boost Sen. Barack Obama if he fares well in populous corners of key states.

It’s more than that. As explained over at Blue Jersey a primary election is really multiple simultaneous elections. Each delegate district is its own election. But there are also super-delegates awarded to states that have elected Democrats to statewide and national offices or have had high Democratic turnout in previous elections. HRC already has ten such delegates in New Jersey, thirty-nine in New York, sixteen in California, and eight in Arkansas. That’s 73 of her 93 (or maybe 166) super-delegate count. She has to blow Barack Obama out of the water in those states or she is going to make her super-delegate supporters look mighty stupid. And, in New Jersey, at least, there are indications that this might be a problem for her.

Call it the “elections don’t matter” method of locking up the nomination. Or at least something close to that. Clinton will still have to gather a lot of delegates through elections, but her super-delegate count makes her virtually untouchable in the early states. If she can do even moderately well, she wins. It doesn’t matter if Obama gets a delegate or ten more than she does - she has a cushion that she can use to defend her front-runner status.

It also says something that someone who has raised as much money as Hillary Clinton can’t compete from coast-to-coast. It says that a lot of her money is locked up in a general election fund and she can’t get to it - an indication that her support is a hell of a lot thinner than it would appear at first blush. But it also just says that it is expensive as hell to run for President.

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