[QUOTE=tallguy;128511]As one local commentator pointed out:

"Isn't it absurd to on the one hand say 'he isn't ready to be President' and yet in the next breath say 'maybe he should be VP'? Isn't being ready to be President at a moment's notice job qualification #1 for a VP?!?"

Good point...[/QUOTE]

In utopia, perhaps.

In this reality, the only qualification to be VP is the ability to bring in
votes from a state in which the presidential candidate is weak. Typically,
this is the VP's home state.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;128437]... but whose primary victories are in states with noticeably more Electoral College votes than the states in which Obama has won, IIRC, so she does have some basis for her stance.[/QUOTE]

Ah, yes, Hillary's insult-40-states primary strategy. One flaw in her argument is that even Kucinech could carry California, New York, and Massachusetts in the general election. Well, probably. Her best argument is Ohio and Florida - important swing states where she fares much better than Obama.

The superdelegates face an interesting dilemma. Should superdelegates underweight the results in safe and/or impossible states? Should momentum play a part in their decision (say if Hillary won 12 of the final 15 contests)? Should they vote for the candidate they think has the best chance to win? Or for the one they think would do the best job? Or maybe the one they think will help get them re-elected or has funneled more campaign cash to them? Can they really afford to nominate Clinton if Obama is ahead in both delegates and popular vote? How much damage would be done to the Party among the black and the youth vote?

I do agree with Hillary that superdelegates are free agents. They were put in place to exercise independent judgment. However, IMO, Hillary had better overtake Obama in the popular vote to have a convincing argument to make to the remaining uncommitted superdelegates.

An interesting, logical discussion of "How the Democrats Could Lose" (if this link works properly...)

[URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/10/AR2008031002246.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter"]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/10/AR2008031002246.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter[/URL]

The correlation to Nixon-Vietnam-1972 is disturbing...

Norm

Geraldine Ferraro's Attack of Foot-in-Mouth
 

Of course we all know that Gerrie's [unsuccessful] VP candidacy way back when had nothing to do with her being a woman - that was strictly on the merits, her 35 years of Foreign Policy experience, her willingness to answer the Red Phone at odd hours, her century of work with the starving children in Calcutta...

[quote=Prime95;128536]Ohio and Florida - important swing states where she fares much better than Obama.[/quote]... and those are [I]important[/I] swing states precisely because they each have so many [I]electoral[/I] votes (20 and 27). Wasn't New Mexico (5 EV) one of the closest states in 2004? Why don't we speak of New Mexico as an important swing state, even though
(a) each NM voter counts for just as much in popular vote as each FL or OH voter, and
(b) NM's popular vote percentage margin (not to mention absolute popular vote margin) might be even smaller than that of FL or OH?

Closeness in popular vote makes a state a [I]swing[/I] state, but its [I]importance[/I] in that category depends on its electoral vote.

Obama's primary victories in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming almost surely have no direct relevance to the question of which candidate will win the general election, because all of those states are [I]strongly[/I] likely to award their electoral votes to the Republican candidate in the general election regardless of who the Democratic candidate is! Fewer of Hillary's wins are in that category (FL is more of a Dem-Rep tossup, and so more likely to be swayed by Dem candidate choice than any of those nine Obama states).

See [URL]http://uselectionatlas.org/PRED/PRESIDENT/2008/pred.php[/URL] (note that this site uses red and blue colors in the opposite sense to most media [URL]http://uselectionatlas.org/note.html[/URL]) versus [URL]http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=2008&off=0&elect=1&f=0[/URL], for instance.

OTOH, the Survey USA links I posted earlier showed (as of then) that Obama was projected to win more electoral votes than Hillary, when each was matched against McCain.

So these considerations are in flux, but my main point is that only a state's electoral vote, not total popular vote, is relevant to the question of which candidate will be more likely to win in November.

- - -

BTW, I'm saying only that Hillary has a strong argument, not which candidate I personally prefer.

But just because Obama lost to Clinton in those states, it doesn't mean that he will lose those states again.

In 1992, Bill Clinton lost in 11 states during the primaries; he won nine of those states in the general election and almost won the other two (Arizona (lost by 2%) and South Dakota(lost by 3.5%))

[quote=masser;128820]But just because Obama lost to Clinton in those states, it doesn't mean that he will lose those states again.[/quote]Correct. But the argument is that she's more likely to win the general election in swing states where she won the primary than Obama is likely to win those same swing states in the general election. The nine states I listed as Obama primary victories are very, very unlikely to be either Clinton or Obama wins in the general election, and thus are not swing states. Clinton has some in that category, but fewer than Obama.

IOW, what happens if you exclude primary victories in states where either party is predicted to be [I]strongly[/I] likely to win the general election (regardless of Dem candidate choice), and look only at primary results in the states most likely to have narrow margins in the general election? Hillary's argument is that she is stronger than Obama in that comparison.

[quote]In 1992, Bill Clinton lost in 11 states during the primaries;[/quote]... and what, at a comparable stage of the primary season (i.e., mostly completed, but not entirely), were the projections for which party would win those 11 states in the general election? If they were strongly Democratic (or strongly Republican) states, then the party convention shouldn't care much which Democrat won the primary in those states -- in regard to which Democratic candidate was more electable in the general election.

[quote]he won nine of those states in the general election[/quote]IF those nine states were always considered strongly likely to be Democratic victories in the general, then Bill's lose/win contrast didn't have any real meaning relative to the party's choice (Bill or someone else) of candidate! [I]That[/I]'s what would be the parallel to what I'm saying about Hillary's argument right now.

If a state is strongly likely to go Democratic in the general election regardless of who the Democratic candidate is, then who wins that state's primary is unimportant. Similarly, if a state is strongly Republican regardless etc., then who wins the primary is unimportant.

Only if the party's choice of candidate is likely to swing a closely-contested state for or against that party in the general election is the party's choice of candidate important.

Suppose state S1 is considered strongly likely to vote for McCain over Obama, but is a tossup in a Hillary vs. McCain contest. Then Hillary would be the stronger candidate for the Democrats than Obama [i]with regard to that state[/i]. Suppose the opposite is true in state S2. Integrate that over 50 states, weighted by electoral vote, to get the stronger choice of party candidate.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;128818]... I'm saying only that Hillary has a strong argument,...[/QUOTE]

I'd say she has a plausible argument that she has a better chance of winning the general election.

However, she must first convince the superdelegates that electability should be their top criteria in casting their vote. I think if she's behind in delegates and behind in popular vote then she will have a tough time convincing enough delegates to "overturn the will of the people".

[QUOTE=cheesehead;128826]Correct. But the argument is that she's more likely to win the general election in swing states where she won the primary than Obama is likely to win those same swing states in the general election. The nine states I listed as Obama primary victories are very, very unlikely to be either Clinton or Obama wins in the general election, and thus are not swing states. Clinton has some in that category, but fewer than Obama.
[/QUOTE]

I don't see how she can really make this argument. For instance, look at Rasmussen Report's current polling from PA - Clinton beats Obama by a sizable margin, but McCain's lead over both of them is within the margin of error. I bet polls in other "battleground" states would show similar results. The split between democratic voters doesn't say much about the split between general election voters. What matters most in the general election, is where the independents go...

[quote=Prime95;128838]However, she must first convince the superdelegates that electability should be their top criteria in casting their vote.[/quote]What evidence do you have that Democratic superdelegates are anyhow slow-thinking in that regard? Perhaps a superdelegate would disagree with you on electability of a particular candidate, and even argue that s/he is in a better position to evaluate that than you are.

It's not a matter of convincing them that electability be the top criterion; it's a matter of convincing them that she has more of it than Obama, or of convincing more of them that she has it rather than Obama.

[quote=masser;128902]I don't see how she can really make this argument. For instance, look at Rasmussen Report's current polling from PA - Clinton beats Obama by a sizable margin, but McCain's lead over both of them is within the margin of error. I bet polls in other "battleground" states would show similar results.[/quote]Polls can vary in their own day-to-day results recently, not to mention disagreeing with each other. After all, I just posted links to a different poller who found, as of the time I made my posting, that either Clinton or Obama would defeat McCain, not the reverse as your choice of poller indicates. Such variations do not invalidate the argument I presented (which is, to be more precise, my [I]interpretation[/I] of Hillary's argument rather than a paraphrase thereof).

Why should Rasmussen Report's current polling from PA as of today mean that Hillary can't make her argument???? Surely she's looking at other polls, and at factors other than polls, and is doing so over a longer time span than just today or yesterday or even last week or month.

[quote]The split between democratic voters doesn't say much about the split between general election voters.[/quote]... which is why I started my previous response with "Correct. But ..."!