look out, ill informed observations from a non-pundit.
despite the near hysterical noise to signal ratio emanating from the democratic primary punditocracy and their conservative brothers and sisters in arms ranting across the blogosphere and polluting the nation's consciousness with minute by minute campaign horserace nonsense, i venture the following forecast.

1. hillary clinton cannot beat barack obama for the democratic nomination except by creating turmoil within the party that will fatally compromise her own potential candidacy
2. if hillary clinton uses this turmoil strategy to steal the democratic nomination, john mccain will beat her decisively in the general election
   
3. if obama takes the democratic nomination before the democratic convention, he is unbeatable against mccain
4. many superdelegates who endorsed clinton early in the race have "buyer's remorse" and will switch to obama, but are respectfully waiting the end of the primaries until they switch
5. the best outcome for the democrats is for obama to conclude the primary season on June 3rd with a simple majority in pledged delegates and popular vote, and for the remaining superdelegates who are not obligated to be neutral until the convention to endorse clinton or obama, leading to an obama trifecta: a majority of superdelegates, pledged delegates and popular vote and a lock on the nomination
   

clinton cannot win the democratic nomination, she can only "steal" it.
the delegate math is against clinton. she cannot win the pledged delegates and she cannot win the popular vote, even with michigan and florida. of the remaining 10 states obama will take north carolina, oregon and montana, and will remain close enough in the popular vote in the rest of them (and may even win some) to finish the campaign in first place for both pledged delegates and popular vote. adding in michigan and florida may close the delegate and vote gap somewhat for clinton, but not by enough to get her into first place. with obama blocking her path to a delegate or popular vote victory, her only route to the nomination is to overwhelm obama among the remaining superdelegates and to also seize pledged delegates from obama. but obama has the momentum to fight to the finish for at least a draw if not an outright victory on the superdelegates, which will give him the nomination as a stone cold fact, regardless of the clinton spin. this will all be apparent by the middle of june.

btw, clinton surrogates who plead the "big state/electoral college" case are living in a parallel universe where basic logic does not apply.
just because clinton ekes out narrow primary wins in a few big states does not mean those states are automatic "clinton or mccain but not obama" victories in the general election. what are these people smoking? do they really think voters are that stupid? (sadly, yes, they do.) the two issues are unrelated, and the only people trying to connect them are pundits and partisans desperately spinning tall tales to justify the clinton candidacy.

compare clinton and obama on campaign management skills.
clinton -- relieved original campaign manager in february when obama blew past her after super tuesday, had to float an emergency personal loan of $5 million to her campaign to cover a cashflow crisis, recurring problems keeping bill clinton on a short leash and her chief strategist had to step down due to a conflict of interest.
obama -- same campaign management team for 15 months, with no cashflow problems.

if clinton steals the nomination, mccain will crush her.
clinton may think she's a fighter, but a hillary v. mccain election will have negative liberal excitement (due to the theft of the nomination from obama, which can only be accomplished with a chaotic and mano a mano land war among democratic delegates). clinton's presence at the top of the ticket will energize the conservative base, which will mobilize to defeat her, while the democrats will lack an energized liberal base due to the clinton carjacking of the nomination. against this national backdrop of chaos and disunity on the left and apparent stability on the right, the broad mass of "undecideds" (i.e., the people who believe -- wrongly -- that there is no difference between republicans and democrats) will break to the right of center candidate based on a last minute "lesser of evils" decision.

the real story of this election is shown by obama's fundraising superiority.
it is not the total dollars that matter, it is how they are gathered. obama has perfected the web 2.0 strategy (first hinted at by howard dean in 2004), which speaks directly to the emerging ipod/youtube majority. it's not just old media that is smashed, it is old patronage systems. obama is broadcasting from a new bully pulpit that disintermediates old media and old fundraising. listen to the clinton bundlers complain about how they should be allowed to make back room deals to force their candidate on the party. they remind me of the music titans (the riaa) suing their customers. obama doesn't need campaign bundlers. and that's just the campaign finance side of the question. neither clinton nor mccain can touch obama on the social networking side. visit the three websites and you'll see mccain and clinton broadcasting top down messages from a 1990s paradigm while the obama website orchestrates a nationwide community movement based on agile, modern social networking principles.

connect the dots.
once he has the nomination, obama's organizational supremacy will unleash on the general population a 50 state voter registration drive. the old list of "battleground" states will be swept away by the ruthless demographics of democratic party access to large pools of previously inactive voters. the good news is that in many districts the intolerant and hate-baiting anti-immigrant conservatives will be buried by the unification of tolerant middle americans with millions of new voters. the obama voter surge will bury mccain, and the obama coattails will be long and broad and deep, reaching deep into previously republican precincts. obama's insurgent strategy, if well executed, will bury the old electoral college map with a new reality. obama is the only candidate poised to make this victory sweep across the electorate; neither mccain nor clinton are viable modern brands because they are burdened with the baggage of old politics. this is the magical, once in a lifetime opportunity presented to the democrats by the obama candidacy. nominate obama and the reagan southern strategy is dead and buried. nominate obama and a new generation is handed the reins of power. nominate clinton and blow off the opportunity for a paradigm shift to a new democratic majority by running blindly after clinton's second wave feminist stunt, a mirage and a cul-de-sac that changes none of the social power paradigms.

if clinton seizes the nomination, the obama web 2.0 strategy is dead for this election cycle.
this kind of momentum is not fungible. the new voters who are energized by obama are not energized by clinton, who is dogged by old negatives, who is not multi-racial, who is not young and who has conspicuous truthiness troubles. clinton seizing the nomination by what is essentially a back room deal will be momentum killing. combined with the high negatives of clinton, this will hand the election to mccain. the broad middle of americans, given a choice between mccain or clinton, will break for mccain -- they have seen the clinton brand in action before and it was not pretty. mccain will bask in the anti-clinton glow, it will be a gift to the conservatives, it will energize their base, and clinton and the democrats will lose.

the long nomination fight is good for the party.
there is no emergency to make a snap decision before the last ten democratic primaries are held. the intense and historic battle is necessary to stress test obama's candidacy in order to effectively annihilate the old political order (i.e., major donors dictate who gets to be a candidate). letting obama waltz to the nomination without a fierce fight would be like teaching your teenager to drive by never leaving the parking lot, by never practicing in real traffic. for the democrats to be unified, the losing side (clinton and her second wave feminists) has to be soundly and fairly beaten. this is being accomplished by the shock and awe phase of the new paradigm, demonstrating its ability to mobilize voters and to overwhelm the old fundraising patronage system. and second wave feminists, by definition, are stuck in a paradigm that expired in the 1980s. this is an excellent wake up call for all the old white ladies who mistakenly think it is now "their" turn, as if the universe is fair and balanced on this point. the best candidate for the democrats is obama, because he unifies all the democratic themes, while clinton uses identity politics to divide democrats.

in june the majority of superdelegates will break for obama.
obama is the stronger organizer with the wider network. obama has ridden an insurgent candidacy built on a grass roots base. superdelegates are keenly aware of the value of this approach to each local democratic contest. in general, the pursuit of superdelegates is more like a caucus event than a primary event, which favors the obama organizing superiority. after the last primaries in the first week of june, gore and carter will lead the torrent of superdelegate endorsements for obama. dozens of clinton superdelegates with "buyer's remorse" will switch to obama. the final superdelegate tally will not be close. bill clinton will throw more private tantrums, but that will just be the final nail in the coffin. and hillary clinton will be left with her promise to fight all the way to the convention while obama secures more than enough delegates to convincingly clinch the nomination. clinton will have to concede by july 1 for the good of the party. she will have no choice, because her followers will tell her to stand down for the good of the party.

mccain cannot beat obama.
this is a classic mismatch, like clinton v. dole in 1996. it will not be close. mccain's lobbyist led effort will lack the social networking agility and fundraising prowess of obama's modern grassroots machine. despite his sensible approach to foreign and immigration policy, mccain's anti-woman and anti-science pandering to the religious right will lose him credibility with middle americans, and his conservative nonsense on the economy will scare both main street and wall street. and mccain will struggle to fill 5,000 seat venues, while obama will be greeted like a rock star in 20,000 seat stadiums. after his drubbing, mccain will return to the senate with honor, while the democratic majority will grow in both houses.

the obama presidency will be the beginning of a new century for the american dream. that's my uninformed mark in the sand. now let's watch things unfold.

posted by Will Ross at 10:46