It’s hard to look at Clinton’s ten-point victory in Pennsylvania and not see something. But at the same time, as the Obama campaign was quick to point out, that margin doesn’t do anything to change the delegate fundamentals.
While counting and allocation still need to be done, it looks like Clinton emerged from Tuesday night with six to thirteen more delegates than she had going in. Sure, every bit helps. But that number’s nearly insignificant when you look at Obama’s large lead in pledged delegates, and the meager number of delegates left to be won in remaining contests.
Clinton’s only path to the nomination rests on winning over the vast majority of the remaining superdelegates through a combination of tactics, the foremost of which is running up big victories in the remaining states as a demonstration of late-breaking electability. For that, the margin of victory matters. And not only because Clinton would like to close the popular-vote gap (last night she gained over 200,000 on that front), but because an argument based on symbolism requires powerful symbols.
So, confronted with essentially impossible odds, and a press corps that occasionally points them out, what does the Clinton campaign ask its supporters and other media to do? Ignore them. Take this excerpt from the campaign’s election-night spin memo:
Senator Obama’s supporters—and many pundits—have argued that the delegate “math” makes him the prohibitive frontrunner. They have argued that Senator Clinton’s chances are slim to none.
Don’t worry about the numbers, folks: it’s only “math.” (That should play well to the swath of anti-intellectualism surging in the country in recent years.) And don’t worry about the odd pundit who would actually throw cold water on the press’s need for a stirring, down-to-the-wire narrative by pointing out the mathematical impossibility of it all. I mean, those jokers are just one emdash short of being Obama partisans.
A similar note was struck at last night’s victory rally, held in a two-story, chandeliered ballroom in downtown Philadelphia. Three Pennsylvania pols took the stage to warm up the crowd and build up an optimistic narrative—by spinning and tearing down the math-watching press.
Here’s Congresswoman Allyson Schwarz:
Let me be absolutely clear, in case you didn’t get the message yet: this was a huge, transformative victory for Hillary Clinton, for Pennsylvania, and for this nation.
Well. It’s hard to look at the raw numbers (that pesky “math” again!) and see it as anything approaching transformative. But Schwarz could yet be right: if Clinton secures the nomination, last night will certainly be a milestone, since something on a “transformative” scale would have had to happen to convince the quiet supers. And there’s no better way to make people—including a ballroom full of reporters and supporters—believe that than by insisting it’s so.
Next up was Micheal Nutter, the mayor of Philadelphia, who took the stage alongside Ed Rendell, the state’s governor. He, too, sought to play up the night’s tally, and to discourage analysis of what a nine- or ten-point margin—in a state where Clinton never trailed, and where the demographics always favored her—actually means.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is back! All I can say is you know, tomorrow, tonight, and tomorrow, they’ll be all this discussion about how much margin and over and under [here the crowd loudly booed and murmured]. And all I can tell you is where I grew up in West Philadelphia they say a win is a win.
Rendell, Clinton’s most prominent surrogate in the state, was the last to speak before the candidate took the stage. He pointed out that the pundit class had been wrong before about Clinton’s campaign being on death’s doorstep.
Hillary Clinton was counted out after Iowa…Not only that, the day before Super Tuesday, the media said it was over—and we won super Tuesday. Before Ohio and Texas, they were writing her political obituary, and she came roaring back. For all we’ve heard in Pennsylvania the last few weeks about our shrinking margins, well I want to say to all those people who talked about our shrinking margins, it’s 10:15 and our margin is growing!
Rendell’s facts are a little shaky—I don’t remember anyone counting Clinton out on the eve of Super Tuesday, nor did she clearly win that night—Obama took more delegates. Did she really “roar back” after Texas and Ohio, or just hang in the game for another six weeks? And while pointing out that the campaign’s margin grew as returns trickled in from places where Clinton did well is a fun election-night talking point, what does that mean? Only that that some results were reported later than others.
The point of that litany, is, of course, to ridicule the talkers who made mistakes earlier in the election, and by watering a healthy seed of doubt, suggest any hard looks at the logic of her candidacy taken today are similarly flawed.
After the Rocky theme song had been played through, Clinton took the stage with her husband, daughter, and mother. She spoke of wanting to make health care available to all, of lowering gas prices, of creating new jobs. And she said that she would “end the war on science.”
But what about the war on “math”?
Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.