The Clinton
campaign held a press call Monday with spokesman Howard
Wolfson and senior adviser Mark Penn to specifically
highlight why they say Sen. Hillary Clinton is a
better bet to win a general election race against Sen.
John McCain.
The call was the
beginning of a conversation to win over so-called
superdelegates, who make up about 20% of the total
Democratic delegate count and may very well help
decide the Democratic presidential nominee if neither
Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama can meet the 2,025 delegate
threshold necessary to secure the nomination. Superdelegates
are Democratic Party officials, leaders, and members
of Congress who are unpledged delegates and are free
to declare their allegiance and change their
allegiance to a candidate as they see fit at the national
convention.
"We
don't think either candidate will be able to get
2,025 delegates without the superdelegates,"
Wolfson said during Monday's briefing, a
prediction that may come down to whether Clinton can stem
Obama's February momentum by taking the
majority of Texas's and Ohio's 389 delegates on
March 4 (Vermont and Rhode Island also hold contests that
day).
Of the nearly 800
superdelegates, 21 are LGBT, 12 of whom have declared
their support for Clinton, two for Obama, and seven
uncommitted. (A full list of LGBT superdelegates can
be found at the end of this article.)
Though news
outlets and the campaigns themselves differ on the delegate
count to date, the Associated Press's latest
calculation shows Obama with a slim lead over Clinton
at about 1,223 to 1,198 delegates (numbers that
include superdelegates who have declared their preference to
date). Obama, pulled ahead of Clinton after winning
all three of Tuesday's contests in Maryland, Virginia,
and D.C.
During the press
call, Penn made the case for why Clinton would fare
better against McCain by saying that Republicans
"redefine candidates" to the point where
what originally made them attractive -- especially to
independents -- gets turned around. Winning independent
voters and cross-over Republicans has been a strong
suit for Obama.
"As soon
as the Democratic nominee is selected, the entire force of
the GOP attack machine will bear down on that
nominee," said Penn in a follow-up memo
released to reporters. "This attack machine has been
built and honed over decades; it is formidable and
employs all forms of media, from talk radio to major
newspaper columns to television, email, blogs,
websites, direct mail, and extensive ground
networks."
Penn and Wolfson
pointed to Idaho, where Democrats and independents
handed Clinton a crushing 17% to 80% defeat on Super
Tuesday, giving Obama 15 of the 18 delegates allotted
by the state's caucus (Idaho has another five
superdelegates). Trying to reframe that convincing victory
in general election terms, Wolfson noted that Obama has
backed different forms of gun control, including a
bill in the Illinois state legislature that limited
people to buying one handgun a month.
Wolfson predicted
the GOP would go at these positions "full
tilt" and "independent support in places
like Idaho would quickly evaporate."
The Clinton camp
is focusing on Idaho with good reason. Obama spent about
three precious campaign hours in Boise the Saturday
before Super Tuesday making a speech to a captivated
crowd of 14,000 supporters. "So they told me
there weren't any Democrats in Idaho," Obama
said, prodding cheers from the crowd.
"That's what they told me."
Idaho, a
predominately red state with two Republican U.S. senators
and two Republicans holding its only two congressional
seats, was part of a stunning effort by the Obama
campaign to redraw the political map, racking up wins
in smaller states and red states to counteract
Clinton's advantage in big states like
California (441 delegates) and New York (281
delegates). Obama is now reaping the benefits of that
strategy, winning the Super Tuesday state tally with
13 to Clinton's eight (New Mexico is still in
question), racking up a string of eight straight wins since
then and leaving pundits to predict that he
might sweep every February contest.
One point Wolfson
returned to several times was something Obama's chief
strategist, David Axelrod, said regarding superdelegates
during an NBC Today interview Monday.
"I think
that the role of the superdelegate is to act as, sort of, a
party elder," Axelrod told Matt Lauer during the
Monday morning interview. "These are elected
officials from across the country and they're supposed
to exercise their judgment as to what would be best for
the party. And as they look at this, they need to decide who
would be the strongest candidate for the
party.... I think they and all the superdelegates
should vote according to what they think is best for the
party and the country. And I think that we need the
strongest possible candidate against John
McCain."
What would be
best for the party is clearly an argument the Clinton
campaign thinks it can win, and Axelrod's comments
mark a mild departure from what Obama himself stressed
in a recent interview with reporters in Seattle.
"My strong
belief is that if we end up with the most states and the
most pledged delegates from the most voters in the
country, that it would be problematic for the
political insiders to overturn the judgment of the
voters," Obama said, but added, "I think it is
also important for superdelegates to think about who
will be in the strongest position to defeat John
McCain in November and who will be in the strongest position
to ensure that we are broadening the base, bringing people
who historically have not gotten involved in politics
into the fold."
If the Clinton
campaign can successfully "redefine"
Obama's independent draw as tenuous and easily
undercut, Clinton just might look good to the 800-some
superdelegates who will make their final decision at the
Democratic National Convention in August. But Obama's
success with independent voters has set the
framework for the debate.
Whatever the
result of the remaining primaries and caucuses, the
most likely outcome is that superdelegates will only make
up a percentage of the total delegates needed to
become the Democratic nominee.
To prove that
point, the National Stonewall Democrats laid out the
following three scenarios during a press briefing:
-If a
candidate were to win 55% of delegates at the state level,
she or he would need to garner 42% of the
superdelegates in order to win; -If a candidate won 60% of the
state-level delegates, 31% superdelegate support would
tip the balance; -If a candidate gets 65% of the state
delegates, he or she need only win 25% of the
superdelegates.
"A lot of people
are saying that the superdelegates will be the sole
deciding factor," said Jon Hoadley, executive director of
National Stonewall Democrats. "Based on all those
scenarios, you would need significantly less than half
of the superdelegates, or unpledged delegates, in
order to win the nomination."
---------------------
LGBT
Superdelegates (Source: National Stonewall
Democrats)
Members of the
U.S. Congress: -Congresswoman Tammy
Baldwin (D-WI) Declared for Clinton
-Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) Declared
for Clinton
Members of the
Democratic National Committee: -Jeremy
Bernard (CA - At Large Member) Declared
for Obama
-Hon.
Raymond Buckley (NH - Chair of the NH Democratic
Party) Undeclared
-Tonio
Burgos (NJ) Declared for Clinton
-Hon.
David Cicilline* (RI - Vice Chair of Democratic
Mayors Conference) Undeclared
-Frank
Dixon (OR) Undeclared
-Emily
Giske (NY) Declared for Clinton
-Eric
Kleinfeld (DC - At Large Member) Declared
for Clinton
-Hon. Sue
Lovell (TX) Declared for Clinton
-Hon.
Carol Migden (CA) Undeclared
-Hon.
Heather Mizeur (MD)
Declared for Clinton
-Maria
Chapel Nadal* (MO - At Large Member) Undeclared
-John
Perez (CA) Declared for Clinton
-Jason Rae
(WI)
Undeclared
-Jeffrey
Richardson (DC - Vice Chair of DC Democratic State
Committee) Declared for Obama
-Mirian
Saez (CA - At Large Member) Declared for
Clinton
-Garry
Shay (CA) Declared for Clinton
-Rick
Stafford (MN) Declared for Clinton
-Andrew
Tobias (Treasurer of the DNC) Undeclared -
Will Remain Undeclared
-Randi
Weingarten* (NY - At Large Member)
Declared for Clinton
*Not a member of
the DNC LGBT Americans Caucus