Looking back on 2008: how Democrats elected McCain

Rats don’t swim toward sinking ships, and pols don’t back no losers, and this is why Hillary Clinton is in such trouble.

In a relatively short amount of time, Clinton has gone from being the inevitable winner to being the underdog to being a dead woman walking.

She needs superdelegates to win the nomination, but what is her argument to superdelegates?

Can she promise them she will win a majority of the pledged delegates that voters have chosen in primaries and caucuses? No.

Can she promise them she can take the lead in the popular vote? No.

Can she promise them she can win a majority of the primary and caucus states? No.

But can she get the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters, slap African-Americans and young voters in the face and shatter the party? Well, yeah, she can try for that Death Star option.

... “I didn’t get into this race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics,” [Obama] said, “but I am running for president because this is the time to end it.”  ... Roger Simon at Politico ...

***

After the Tuesday primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton now has maybe a 2 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination. But if she pursues her losing battle, she has perhaps a 20 percent chance of costing the Democrats the presidency in the fall.

So should she soldier on if continued campaigning is 10 times more likely to benefit John McCain than herself?

My percentages are, of course, wild estimates, but they suggest the orders of magnitude. With Mrs. Clinton trailing by 700,000 votes in the cumulative popular vote, and also behind in pledged delegates and number of states won, she just doesn’t have a plausible route to the nomination. Even if you include Florida, she’s more than 400,000 votes behind.

In contrast, Mrs. Clinton does have a plausible route to winning the election for Mr. McCain.

The most terrifying numbers for Democrats in Tuesday’s exit polls should be those showing how many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters are planning to vote for Mr. McCain in November. ... Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times ...