Does Clinton Have the Edge in the Democratic Race?

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Despite Obama’s recent wins in Wyoming and Mississippi, Rick Klein at ABC News suggests that with six weeks to go in the run-up to Pennsylvania’s primary, Hillary Clinton might have the edge.

Klein reports:

“The Clinton campaign plans to use the coming six-week gap in primary voting to aggressively push its case that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., lacks the necessary experience to be president as the superdelegates loom by far as the most important voters in the race.

After Obama's Tuesday win in Mississippi, the strategy of defining the Illinois senator while the delegate count stays essentially frozen reflects a belief by Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign advisers after withstanding perhaps the roughest month of Clinton's presidential campaign that the New York senator now has a powerful ally on her side: time.”

Klein reminds us that “Clinton's campaign has proved more adept at seizing control of the race when no one is voting.

Just in the past few weeks, Clinton has kept pressure on Obama with a stinging TV ad suggesting he's unprepared to serve as commander in chief; left him on the defensive over NAFTA and controversial comments made by a high-level foreign-policy adviser; and made headlines by suggesting publicly that Obama could be considering as her running mate.”

Adding up Clinton’s advantages, Klein continues:

“The lull in the voting action is likely to include several debates in Pennsylvania, a format in which Clinton has typically excelled.
“It will also allow the Clinton campaign to work to find a way for Florida and Michigan to have their votes count; both states favor Clinton demographically, and a solution that allows those state delegations to be seated at the convention is likely to cut into Obama's delegate lead.

“And the next primary on the calendar -- Pennsylvania, April 22 -- is in a large, diverse state that's similar to others that have leaned toward Clinton.

“Clinton has maintained a solid lead in Pennsylvania polls, and Obama's advisers acknowledge that their candidate is the underdog in the Keystone State.

“A win there would add to Clinton's delegate count, pull her close in the overall popular vote and strengthen her campaign's argument that she's best suited to carry the important states on the presidential map.

“‘It could be, to some extent, a split decision,’ said Steve Grossman, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who is backing Clinton. "There should be no rush to judgment now, since we have a lot more evidence to gather."’

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Obama and Clinton: The Countdown for Delegates and Superdelegates

Obama and Clinton split the delegates from Obama’s win in yesterday’s Wyoming caucus 7-5, netting Obama just two delegates. The two Democratic candidates will face off again in Tuesday’s primary in Mississippi, which Obama is also expected to win. Both candidates are looking ahead to delegate-rich Pennsylvania on April 22, where polls show Clinton with a solid, double-digit lead.

Obama now has a total of 1,578 pledged delegates compared to 1,468 delegates for Clinton, according to the Associated Press. Of the 719 known superdelegates, Clinton has the support of 242, and Obama has the backing of 210. A group of 77 “add-ons” will be named later by state party leaders.

Dan Balz reports in today’s Washington Post: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's trio of victories over Sen. Barack Obama last week appears to have convinced a sizable number of uncommitted Democratic superdelegates to wait until the end of the primaries and caucuses before picking a candidate, according to a survey by The Washington Post.”

Balz desribes the superdelegates as “a cross-section of the party, young and old, women and men, of all races and creeds, famous and obscure. They approach the role with more caution than gusto -- and they are now among the most closely monitored Americans on the planet, the focus of elaborate courting and tracking inside the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

“By one analysis provided to The Post, half of the uncommitted delegates are elected officials, almost a third come from states that have not yet held primaries or caucuses, a third are women, and about a fifth are black or Hispanic. Others say there is no real pattern to who has taken sides and who remains on the fence.”
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