Where Democrats stand: Does Clinton have a path to the nomination?

The series of nine general election polls that I chronicled today showed Barack Obama declining in general election numbers, but the first question we need to ask ourselves is the effect Obama's recent bad patch will have in the primaries.

The events of the past week, after all, are perfectly timed for Clinton. They are, after all, what Hillary had been arguing for many months now, that she is a vetted figure about which most everything is already known and that there is little Republicans can uncover about her, in contrast with Obama, whom the GOP would have a much easier time smearing. This line of attack led to the memorable slip-up of one Clinton official, but it remained a central part of the campaign's electablity appeal. And they will now take this case to superdelegates -- and they will do so more easily if Obama continues to show the vulnerability in polls he has been showing in recent days.

But is this too little, too late? Obama emerged as his party's front-runner in the days following Super Tuesday, and he increased his inevitability with every contest since then. Even the elections of March 4th were mathematically-speaking a victory for Obama, as Clinton did not get anything close to the delegate boost she needed to cut into her rival's lead. Can she now work her way to the nomination?

The morning after March 4th, I wrote the following recap of the Democratic situation in my analysis of Ohio and Texas's results:

The Democratic contest [has been made] into a paradox: Mathematically speaking, Obama is the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination. But how can he convince superdelegates to join him and the party to coronate him without winning important occasions such as this? And on the other side we have Clinton, a candidate who is very unlikely to get the nomination but who can now press ahead with new-found momentum.

Today, Obama is even more favored mathematically than when I wrote this. He increased his delegate lead first in Wyoming then in Mississippi. A few days later, Obama scored a major coup in Iowa by increasing his margin by 10 delegates that were not supposed to go to him at the state's county conventions. All together, these increased Obama's margin by 17 delegates
-- one less than what Clinton got in Rhode Island, Ohio and the Texas primary combined.

Any hope that Clinton had of catching up with Obama's pledged delegate lead was crushed this week with Florida's decision to not hold a re-vote and what is now the near certainty that Michigan will follow suit. The Obama campaign's refusal to approve the Michigan primary plans -- whether they were driven by genuine concerns or not -- has pushed Michigan Democrats to give up on attempts to pass any bill (as if they asked the campaigns what they thought of plans to put the primary on January 15th in the first place).

Pledged delegate-wise, then, Obama does not seem at risk. According to the Forbes delegate calculator (which has yet to give Obama some of the delegates he recently gained in Iowa, Texas and Mississippi) Obama would still be in front even if Clinton won every single remaining contest with 60% -- including places like Oregon and South Dakota where Obama is favored to win.

But the paradox remains: How can Obama win? He has gotten an impressive number of superdelegates in recent weeks, but he needs to get at least one impressive win in the two coming months to close the deal and convince enough to jump on board prior to the convention to avoid a floor flight. If Clinton triumphs in Pennsylvania as polls suggest she will as of now, and if she follows that up with a strong showing on May 6th, how will she forced out of the race and how can Obama suddenly present as the nominee?

She clearly has the potential of strong showings even in places where her chances are right now dismissed. A new PPP poll of North Carolina shows her dramatically improving her position and tying her rival, 44% to 43%. This is a 3 point improvement since the previous poll two weeks ago, and that was already an improvement from the poll before that. Clinton had been trailing by double-digits in this May 6th state not so long ago. Noteworthy also that Clinton is up 1% among registered Democrat (another strike against the Limbaugh voter storyline).

Clinton's hope, then, is to continue amassing momentum and to finish the primary season on June 3rd with a streak of very strong results throughout the month of May. Thus, Obama might claim the pledged delegate lead but Clinton can say that Democratic voters ended up siding with her -- and she can in that way hope to legitimize superdelegates siding with her and handing her the nomination. That is a very difficult argument to make, obviously, and the Obama campaign will be ready to ridicule the notion that earlier primaries should count for less than later ones (note that this could be an interesting reversal from almost all presidential cycle... for example from 2004 where Iowa by itself determined the Democratic nominee). But it is Clinton's only chance.

The probable nixing of Michigan and Florida re-votes strikes a terrible blow to this momentum strategy, for there just aren't that many contests left for Clinton to build such buzz. Pennsylvania votes on April 22nd, some six weeks before the end of primary season... And after North Carolina and Indiana on May 6th, there are small-to-middle states voting (Oregon, West Virginia, ...). The process will be closed off by South Dakota and Montana... Not the best way for Clinton to get a lot of coverage of any a series of wins (if she gets one), and even if she beats all expectations throughout May and early June she is unlikely to wake up on June 4th with two big earth-shattering victories. And this is why Obama did his best to throw obstacle on the path of Michigan and Florida: If those two states were voting on June 3rd, it would have dramatically changed the primary picture and given Clinton a huge opening to close the primary season with a gigantic splash and take her case to superdelegates armed with two big wins.

It is still quasi-impossible to imagine superdelegates not siding with Obama if he gets any sort of significant pledged-delegate lead, and it looks as difficult as ever for Hillary to break even in that margin. She did get her first March superdelegates yesterday when a West Virginia DNC member and Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania (a major get for Hillary) endorsed her candidacy, but superdelegates seem to conscious of the huge risk for the party if superdelegates were to decide the election against the candidate ahead in the pledged delegate count. And it will also be very difficult for Clinton to get a momentum strategy to work if Florida and Michigan are left out of the process. Naturally, a few more weeks of negative coverage for Obama and a continued plunge in general-election polls could provide Clinton all the momentum she needs to present herself as the candidate of the campaign's end, but we are still very far from any such dynamic even starting.

In fact, given how many ups and downs both candidates have taken since the night of the Iowa caucuses, we should not be surprised if Obama rebounds in the coming weeks and if he is the one to post a string of strong victories in May. After all, he should still be considered favored in North Carolina and there are a number of caucuses in that month as well. And don't forget that we have only reached the mid-point of primary season: There is roughly as much time between today and June 3rd as has passed since the Iowa caucuses!

But where does all of this leave us as of right now? Just where we were March 5th. It is hard to find any path Clinton could use to the nomination, but the question of how Obama can clinch the nomination is equally puzzling. And so the Democratic nomination goes on, with both candidates stuck in a race that probably neither wants to be fighting at this point.