Math Versus Spin on the Democratic Presidential Race

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Paul Hogarth

Everyone wants the Democratic presidential nomination to end, but the media momentum myth that has kept Hillary Clinton alive makes the movie “Groundhog Day” look benign. Here’s what we’ve seen at least three times so far: Clinton wins a primary that cuts off Barack Obama’s winning streak – and regardless of the raw delegate count that she needs to get nominated, gets legitimized as a “comeback.” We saw this most recently in Ohio and Texas, but it also happened after New Hampshire, Nevada and Super Tuesday – only to later realize that she did not make the gains that the media exclaimed. Obama won the Wyoming caucus on Saturday, and is expected to win Mississippi tonight – paving the way for another Clinton “comeback” in Pennsylvania. But Obama should win most of the subsequent primaries, making the whole myth of a “tight race” slightly exasperating and dishonest. Unlike Mike Huckabee, Clinton does not get ridiculed for believing in miracles – rather than math.

The front page of the March 4th San Francisco Chronicle (“Momentum vs. Mathematics”) pretty much summed up the Clinton campaign strategy, and how she’s gotten away with a media narrative that has driven the primary season. In what is ultimately a race for delegates to the National Convention, how does an abstract concept like “momentum” trump basic arithmetic? While George Bush denounces his skeptics as living in the “reality-based community,” Clinton seems to think she can hoodwink Democrats into thinking there may be a chance that she’ll be the next presidential nominee.

But her bluster does not live up to scrutiny ...

After Clinton ended Obama’s 11-state winning streak on March 4th, the media spun it as a sudden burst of “momentum” that would re-ignite the nomination fight. Never mind that the delegate count proved it was closer than the media coverage implied. After the votes were tabulated, Clinton only scored a net gain of four delegates last week – in a race where she’s still behind by 160 delegates.

Add the fact that Los Angeles County finally counted the phantom ballots from undeclared voters, and Obama picked up eight more California delegates – erasing all the gains that Clinton has made. “I know math is hard and everything,” said David Dayen on the delegate count, “but get out your calculators, people.”