Cross-posted at Daily Kos 

I was doing a bit of research for handicapping the state of North Carolina, which lead me to Hillary Clinton’s website in order to do some research on state organization (which, incidentally, leads me to believe that Hillary Clinton has absolutely no chance of victory in North Carolina). I’ll be doing a post on that later, but for right now, I wanted to look at something which the Clinton campaign has deemed to be “debunking myths” (to the Clinton campaign, a myth is something which is unfavorable to Hillary Clinton and her campaign, regardless of the facts). My two favorite things are these:

MYTH: The delegate “math” works decisively against Hillary.

FACT: The delegate math reflects an extremely close race that either candidate can win.

“The Math” is actually very simple: with hundreds of delegates still uncommitted, NEITHER candidate has reached the number of delegates required to secure the nomination. And EITHER candidate can reach the required number in the coming weeks and months. That is indisputable. No amount of editorials, articles, blog posts, charts, graphs, calculations, formulas, or projections will change the basic fact that either candidate can win. Pundits who confidently proclaim that Hillary has no hope of winning because of “the math,” have counted Hillary out of this race three times before. Each time they based their sober assessments on ‘facts’ and ‘realities’ — and each time they were wrong.

In a campaign with dozens of unexpected twists and turns, bold prognostications should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Look no further than Sen. Obama’s “full assault” on Hillary’s character to judge whether he thinks this election is over. The fact is this: Hillary and Sen. Obama are locked in a very close, hard-fought campaign and Hillary is demonstrating precisely the strength of character required of a president. Her resilience in the face of adversity, her faith in the voters, her capacity to rise to every challenge, are part of the reason she is the best general election candidate for Democrats. And it is why she is increasingly strong against John McCain in the polls at the same time that Sen. Obama is dropping against Sen. McCain.

Hillary Clinton is trying to impose winner-take-all rules upon a race which is proportional representation, to be clear, while it is true that there are still over 560 pledged delegates left, thanks to the proportional allocation of delegates by the Democratic party, there is no realistic way in which Barack Obama does not maintain at least a 100 pledged delegates lead. In fact, by my own calculations, I believe that Hillary Clinton may manage to net a paltry 20 delegates (this, by the way, is being generous towards Clinton). Assuming that no new Superdelegates endorse, Barack Obama will be ahead of Hillary Clinton by about 100 delegates. That means that, in order to get the nomination, Hillary Clinton will have to win over a full 100 more superdelegates than Obama in order to win the Democratic nomination (when you work out the math, you learn that Hillary Clinton would need to beat Obama among superdelegates by a 2-to-1 margin, and considering that most of the uncommitted superdelegates live in places which Obama has already won, that number seems really far-fetched.

This leads me to my second point, Hillary Clinton has benefited from ridiculously low expectations. Fundamentally speaking, Hillary Clinton should’ve always been considered a favorite to win California, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Ohio. Hillary Clinton continues to play the expectations game, while Obama’s people have been playing, and winning the delegate game. There have really been only two things in this campaign which have geniunely shocked me, and those are New Hampshire and Maine (which was almost tailor made for a Clinton victory). The only other modest surprises happened were actually in favor Obama (his victories in Delaware and Connecticut).

By the way, since the Clinton campaign doesn’t seem to care about the numbers, the fact remains that Obama still match-up better against McCain in many key battlegrounds (this after what was likely the worst news week in the history of the Obama campaign).

MYTH: For Hillary to win, super delegates must “overturn the will of the people.”

FACT: The race is virtually tied, the “will of the people” is split, and both candidates need super delegates to win.

The Obama campaign and Sen. Obama’s surrogates have engaged in a sustained public relations effort to convince people that the election is over and that if super delegates perform their established role of choosing a candidate who they believe will make the best nominee and president, they are somehow “overturning the will of the people.” They have the audacity to make this argument while quietly and systematically courting those very same super delegates. They are courting them because they know that Sen. Obama needs super delegates to win. The Obama spin is being parroted daily by pundits, but it is patently false. The race is virtually tied; the “will of the people” is split. By virtually every measure, Hillary and Sen. Obama are neck and neck — separated by less than 130 of the more than 3,100 delegates committed thus far and less than 1% of the 27 million+ votes cast, including Florida and Michigan. Less than 1%.

An incremental advantage for one candidate or the other is hardly a reason for super delegates to change the rules mid-game. Despite the Obama campaign’s aggressive spin and pressure, the RULES require super delegates to exercise their best independent judgment, and that is what they will do. Even Sen. Obama’s top strategist agrees they should. If not, then why don’t prominent Obama endorsers like Senators Kerry (MA) and Kennedy (MA), and Governors Patrick (MA), Napolitano (AZ)  and Richardson (NM) follow the will of their constituents and switch their support to Hillary? After all, she won their states. And if this is truly about the “will of the people,” then Sen. Obama’s short-sighted tactic to run out the clock on a revote in Florida and Michigan accomplishes exactly two things: it disenfranchises Florida and Michigan’s voters; and it hurts Democrats in a general election. Apparently, for the Obama campaign, the “will of the people” is just words.

Of the first paragraph, the thing which strikes me as funny is “including Michigan and Florida”. Ignoring the fact that Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan (incidentally, to Senator Clinton, to count the vote there would be blatenly disenfranchising Obama’s voters in Michigan), the fact remains that both states effectively held straw polls. Granted, they were elaborate and expensive state-run straw polls, but straw polls nonetheless. By that logic, since Mitt Romney won the Iowa straw-poll held last year, we should count those results and give Romney a victory in Iowa.

Incidentally, if Hillary Clinton wants to get the votes of Ted Kennedy, Janet Napalitano, John Kerry, Deval Patrick, and Bill Richardson then she should get them. Of course, in exchange, the Obama campaign should get the votes of:

Joe Reed, Randy Kelley, Yvonne Kennedy (AL); Patti Higgins (AK); Rep. Diane Degette, Manny Rodriguez, Ramona Martinez (CO); Ellen Cahmi (CT); Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, Rhett Ruggerio, Karen Valentine (DE); Michael Thurmond, Carol Dabbs, Lonnie Plott (GA); Sen. Daniel Inouye, Richard Port (HI); Rep. Leonard Boswell, Sandy Opstvedt, Mike Gronstal (IA); Teresa Krusor (KS); Patsy Arcenaux, Renee Gill-Pratt, Mary Lou Winters (LA); Gov. John Baldacci (ME); Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Gov. Martin O’Malley, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Nancy Kopp, Glenard Middleton, Alvaro Cifuentes, Richard Michalski, Michael Steed, Maria Cordone, Carol Pensky (MD); fmr. VP Walter Mondale, Jackie Stevenson, Rick Stafford (MN); Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, fmr. Rep. Richard Gephardt, Doug Brooks, Sandy Querry (MO); Don Fowler, Marva Smalls (SC); Karen Hale, Helen Langan (UT); Billi Gosh (VT); Terry McAuliffe, Lionel Spruill Sr., Jennifer McClellan, Mame Reiley, Susan Swecker, Barbara Easterling (VA); Sen. Maria Cantwell, Sen. Patty Murray, Rep. Jay Inslee, fmr. Speaker Tom Foley, Rep. Norm Dicks, Ron Sims (WA); and Rep. Tammy Baldwin, Tim Sullivan (WI)