How much do primary and caucus wins portend for November?
The debate has been joined -- and will continue -- over the relative merits of the primary and caucus scorecards for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The Clinton camp has been the most aggressive -- in part because she trails Obama in the delegate count -- in arguing that her wins have been more meaningful.
Her aides note that she's won the lion's share of the most populous states that have held nominating contests, including the two essential building blocks for any Democratic presidential candidate -- California and New York -- and one of the most crucial swing states -- Ohio. They also have been dismissive of many of Obama's triumphs in small states that are a virtual lock to vote Republican in November, such as Idaho, Utah and North Dakota.
Obama and his staffers, understandably, scoff at such reasoning. First off, they note, a win is a win is a win; a convention delegate from Boise counts at the party's national convention just as much as one from Los Angeles. Secondly, they point with pride to his successes in states Democrats have struggled to hold in recent elections -- such as Wisconsin -- and in two states the party would love snatch from the GOP column -- Missouri and Virginia.
Catching up on our reading over the weekend, we came across a recent column that had this to say about fixating over the relative merits of carrying this state or that one at this stage of the campaign:
"Winning states in primaries and caucuses has little to do with winning them in general elections."
That pithy reminder came from ...
veteran Democratic pollster Mark Mellman in his column for the Hill (a publication that specializes in covering Congress). Mellman went on to buttress his case thusly:
"John Kerry began his march to the nomination with a come-from-behind victory in Iowa, only to lose the state to George Bush. In 2000, the loser of New Hampshire’s Republican primary (Bush) beat the winner of the Democratic primary (Al Gore) in that state’s general election.
Bill Clinton lost 1992 primaries in New Hampshire, Colorado and Maryland before winning those states in the general election, and primary victories in Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi and Oklahoma failed to foretell general election wins.
In 1988, Mike Dukakis won general election victories in only eight of the 25 states in which he won primary or caucus battles."
You can read Mellman's persuasive case in its entirety here.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
Subscribe to this Blog
Do maths. Hillary needs 60/40 in the remaining primaries and 60/40 in the revote states to be a contender in the nomination. Unsurmoutable task that she will never overcome. Winning PA alone would not help much.
The primary reason to stay in the race is to use people to repay her loan and pay back wages to the unpaid staff. Running is a big source of money. Bless the former first lady for canning attitude. She does not care what it would cost MI &FL to re-vote.
Bill is talking about popular vote versas pledged delegates. Suggesting that whoever has the most popular vote is to be considered. It is for this belief that she is running! Bill, not everyone was born yesterday.
Posted by: jesse | March 17, 2008 at 02:14 PM