Is Hillary Clinton Trying to Steal the Democratic Nomination?

Last summer, before the primaries had even begun, Hillary Clinton called her candidacy for the democratic nomination "inevitable." In fact, the Clinton camp was so confident, her chief campaign strategist and primary advisor, Mark Penn sent a letter to Ben Smith at Politico.com. Following are excerpts from that letter:

"With two quarters of 2007 behind us and just 6 months to go until the Iowa caucuses it is a good time to see where Hillary stands and why.

The bottom line? Hillary’s electoral strength has grown in the last quarter and she is better positioned today than ever before to become the next President of the United Sates. Recent polls have her at or near 40% with leads of 15-20 points over her nearest competitors. Voters yearn for change and they say that Hillary has the strength and experience to actually bring about that change. Hillary’s message: that her strength and experience will bring real change that America needs, is resonating strongly with voters.

Despite unprecedented early publicity for all the candidates, Hillary’s support in the last few months has strengthened nationally, in key states and in the general election. This improvement has occurred as voters have learned more about all of the candidates. In other words, as all the candidates’ name ID’s have increased, so has Hillary’s lead.

So far the debates have been the key moments where the voters get to see all the candidates side by side and they have shown just how ready Hillary is to be president and how she has the strength and experience to make change happen. She won the debates overwhelmingly and they are a key indicator of how this race will play out in the next 6 months and in the general election. There will be another debate every month from now until the end of the year, and each debate provides Hillary with another opportunity to demonstrate her experience, talk about her record on the issues, and show voters why she is the person best qualified to be president." (Source: Politico.com)

Well, today is March 6th, 2008 and Hillary's campaign of inevitability has turned into a fight for survival. Don't be fooled by her recent wins in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island. The fact of the matter is Hillary Clinton is in real trouble and she knows it. In fact, Hillary Clinton is desperate. How desperate? Desperate enough to try and steal the democratic nomination.

Case in point: Barack Obama has won 27 states to Clinton's 14. That's nearly a 2-1 margin. And those numbers don't include upcoming states, Wyoming and Mississippi, both of which Obama is heavily favored to win. And while it's true Clinton has posted more victories in large states like New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas and California, she only broke 60 percent in one state, Arkansas. Obama has not only won more states, he's racked up victories over 60 percent in seven states. More importantly, he won independents by large margins in most regions, including states that Clinton won, such as Arizona and New Jersey, where one out of five primary voters were independents. He won them by 15 points in Clinton's home state of New York, and by 30 points in California. In the swing state of Missouri which Obama won, independents supported Obama by a decisive 37 points.

Also, Barack Obama has racked up more pledged delegates than Clinton - 1,386 to 1,230. In addition, Obama leads Clinton in the popular vote by more than 600,000.

So what does all of this mean? It means that mathematically Hillary Clinton cannot win the democratic nomination unless she steals it, and that's exactly what she's trying to do. For example, All the candidates, including Clinton agreed beforehand that the delegates in Florida and Michigan would not be seated. So what does Hillary do after she wins those states? She promises the voters in those states that she would do everything in her power to make sure that their votes counted.

But she didn't just stop there. Even though she can't possibly win, she plans to stay in the race until the democratic convention in August , where she plans to argue that she should be the democratic nominee, because she won more big states. Can you believe that? Obama has won nearly twice as many states as Clinton, leads in pledged delegates and leads in the popular vote. But Hillary believes that the Democratic National Committee should break the rules and override the will of the people and make her the nominee.

Well, before I wrote this article, I took a little survey of my own. I surveyed 387 African American democrats and asked them if they would vote for Hillary Clinton if she became the nominee. Nearly 90% said they would not vote for Hillary, because they would feel like she stole the nomination from Obama.

I also surveyed 317 young, white democrats between the ages of 18 and 24, and asked them the same question. Over 60% of them said they would not vote for Clinton, because they would feel disillusioned about the voting process and that their vote didn't matter.

And what about the so-called superdelegates? Hillary would have to convince the uncommitted superdelegates to reverse the will of the people. But few if any superdelegates will be inclined to do that. For politicians to go against what the voters have already decided would be political suicide.

DNC, I urge you to do the right thing, or else you're going to disenfranchise millions of voters. The democratic nominee should be the strongest candidate - period. The candidate who has won the most states. Has the most pledged delegates and the most votes. Not the candidate who won the mostlarge states.

Don't buy into the Clinton's campaign spin about how Obama can't carry any large states, besides Illinois. How he can't close the deal.That argument just doesn't hold any water. The voters of America have spoken. Please don't steal that away.

Dale King is a free-lance writer, and the owner of GuruKnowledge.org

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