Over at Open Left, Chris Bowers writes that there are four candidates -- Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney -- with plausible paths to their party's nomination. Here's Bowers analysis of my favorite, Barack Obama:
Obama faces a must-win in South Carolina on Saturday. Assuming he pulls that off, he can immediately even up the nomination on February 5th by winning California. A win there would be a huge momentum boost heading into a very favorable schedule for him the rest of February. However, if he wins South Carolina, but loses California, then he needs to take as many delegates and states as possible in order to survive for the favorable February schedule. Staying within 100 or fewer pledged delegates of Clinton, and winning as many of the following ten February 5th states as possible are key: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri and North Dakota. Those are the ten February 5th states where I think Obama has a good shot if he wins South Carolina. While he can still be close to Clinton in delegates even if he doesn't win many states, the reality of our nominating process is that the national media narrative and Super Delegates will anoint Clinton as the nominee should she win two-thirds or more of all February 5th states. It isn't just about delegates: Obama must appear viable according to the media dominated rules of our nominating process in order to keep going after February 5th. The only way to do that is to win a bunch of states, probably seven at a minimum. If he manages to win nine or ten of the states I listed, he then has the potential to rack up wins in February, and take the national lead heading into the mini-Super Tuesday on March 4th.
Note that if Obama does well on February 5, Bowers believes he will "rack up wins in February." That would include Virginia on February 12, where Ben and I have a $100 bet on who will win (I've got Obama, Ben's got Clinton). Stay tuned...
The delegate allocation is set not just by state population/electoral college votes, but by Dem performance in recent elections. Most of the states on Bowers list are either solidly Republican or have mixed performance for Dem candidates. But a lot of the states not on Bowers' list are solidly Democratic so they're weighted to have more delegates (three states hold 41% of the Delegates available on Feb 5: NY, NJ and CA) and they're probably more likely to break for Hillary. I'm not concerned about SC or any of the tiny states on the docket for Feb 5, I'm just hoping Obama can compete heavily enough in these three states to stop the bleeding.
(I should mention that for right now I dispute Bowers' notion that Obama can take California against Clinton if the demographic trends noted in Nevada carry across state lines. In NV, latinos voted strongly in favor of Clinton, and she carried women stronly again, too. Those two demographics are going to constitute a huge chunk of the electorate in the Golden State).
Momentum Turns toward Obama in South Carolina
http://www.suntimes.com/news/h...
Obama continues to rise in South Carolina
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Hillary and Bill are turning off staunch supporters everywhere and alienating millions with their Karl Rove tactics.
Please don't make the mistake of assuming that just because there are a few positive signs to point to, you don't actually have to do anything but sit back and blog.