Salon.com is running an election strategy piece about what Obama has to do to beat McCain in November. It's written with the assumption that Obama will get the nomination, but it unwittingly serves as a potent demonstration of why the super-delegates would serve their country better by backing Clinton.

To get to 270 delegates, the piece says Obama absolutely, positively has to win the following battleground states (electoral votes in parentheses):

Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Jersey (15), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), and Washington (11).

Clinton and Obama will likely have split those states between them, but Clinton's wins were worth 53 electors, versus 28 for Obama. That emphasizes the way Clinton's popularity is more optimally distributed to win a winner-take-all electoral system like the general election. She'll likely lock up nearly twice as many of those votes easily as Obama will, leaving her more time to focus elsewhere.

The article goes on to list the states that aren't "must haves" individually, but among which the nominee will need to compile a number of wins to beat McCain. Of those, the big prizes are Ohio and Florida, with 20 and 27 electors respectively. It's possible to win without either of them, but to do so a candidate needs to collect a lot of smaller states.

The columnist ultimately decides on 4 scenarios for Obama to win the election:

1) Win Ohio.

2) Win Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado

3) Win Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire plus one other small battleground.

4) Win two out of three of those "N"s, plus either Colorado or Virginia.

Of those scenarios, most suggest that Clinton would have a better shot, based on primary results.

She won Ohio by double digits. She won Nevada by six points, despite it being a caucus state, which favors Obama, and despite him winning the key union endorsements, which should have given him a big advantage in a caucus, where union members can intimidate fellow members into compliance. Clinton also won New Mexico and New Hampshire (the latter at a time when her political obituary was running in all the papers).

Colorado was a win for Obama -- but should be taken with a grain of salt since it was a closed caucus system, so the general election will certainly look a lot different. As for Virginia (which went to Obama), it is for Obama what Florida is for Clinton -- the ace-in-the-hole big state that will probably break Republican but has a chance of breaking Democrat and changing the whole game.

Obama can definitely win the general election -- but the risks are higher than with Clinton. Among battleground states, Clinton likely would have more electoral votes locked up pretty easily (freeing her to concentrate elsewhere), and have an easier route to more electoral votes in the toss-up states. And let's not forget that the last two elections came down to Florida and Ohio, which both favor Clinton over Obama by double digits. For Clinton, winning Ohio is very likely against McCain, and if she does so, the election is all but won. If she doesn't take Ohio, taking Nevada, New Hampshire, and New Mexico plus one other small state is a pretty realistic outcome.

So, I see two relatively smooth paths to her victory. With Obama, I see Democrats having to bet more heavily on peeling off traditional red states like North Carolina and Colorado... and I see greater risk of McCain peeling off traditional blue states like Pennsylvania. Obama can win it, but the math is a lot tougher for him.

It's a question of popularity distribution. Clinton and Obama are statistically identical in terms of overall popularity, but Clinton's generally less popular in the blue-lock and red-lock states, meaning she's got more optimal distribution of the same amount of popularity in places it might actually matter.

Also remember that there will be no caucuses in November. Obama did a terrific job inflating his delegate totals by winning 13 out of 14 caucuses, where his more "enthused" supporters could buffalo people into backing their candidate. But he lost most of the regular balloting states, including nearly all the big ones. He doesn't get to use his caucus advantage against McCain. It's kind of like betting on the Super Bowl when one of the teams was nearly unbeatable at home, on artificial turf, with the surface favoring its team strengths, but which lost most of its games on grass. If the Super Bowl is played on natural grass, that's cause for concern.

Finally, remember that battleground demographics also favor Clinton. Sure, Obama will handily win the youth vote and the black vote and the liberal vote. But what Democrat doesn't? The real question is what happens when you offer swing voters their second-favorite Democrat, and then offer them the alternative of McCain? Hispanics, older people, centrist Dems, and the white working class all have an unsettling risk of breaking for McCain, so I'd think we'd be in a stronger position if we offered them their first choice nominee, not a consolation prize.

or the American public to be confused by facts would you Arkady? I'm so tired of my party hamstringing itself that I could cry. I wrote several emails last night to various party officials demanding the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegates. I'm doing everything I can. Hell, I've written nasty-grams to both Kerry and Kennedy. But short of another fiasco, I think a group mind-think has taken over and they can't recognize what is right in front of them.

Ellen,I took your advice and did the same. I also had many friends do the same thing.

In other articles I have read Hillary has 291 electorals locked up.Obama is running even with McCain, 268 to 268.

The DNC is the bain of the Democratic party. They meddle and cause problems for the candidates.

The group think is in the Leaders of the DNC,not the voters.The voters have spoken loud and clear.

Obama won strictly controlled Caucuses. Hillary won Primaries,where the voter can vote privately.Move On sent me a plea for donations.You can imagine what I told them.The far left is as bad as the far right.

While your logic is unassailable, I think you're missing part of the dynamic to this year's race. The left wing of the Dem Party is hopping mad at eight years of Bush, and is choosing the nominee--as they chose it in 1972 and perhaps 1988. McCain is a weaker candidate than either pre-Watergate Nixon running for re-election or Vice President GHW Bush running against Dukakis. McCain resembles Bob Dole, and I think there is a fair chance Obama wins big--which he'll need to do to effect the type of "change" he's been talking about.

Moderates are angry too,but they are not saying," My Way Or the Highway!"

Move On and that group should not be in charge. Democrats like Moderates, not Left Wing Kooks!

This is really just beginning to sink in on voters!

As I've said before, I see it as a roll of the dice. I'd submit that Clinton has a better chance of winning against McCain than Obama has (maybe 75% vs. 60% for Obama). But I'd also submit than Obama has a better chance of winning in a landslide against McCain than Clinton has (maybe 30% for Obama vs. 15% for Clinton). If things play out right, Obama could take red states that have large black populations, which could make for an overwhelming victory for him.

So, you can roll the dice betting on the big win with Obama, and if it pays off, you look brilliant. Not only will you be able to claim a compelling liberal mandate, for the first time in decades, but you'll probably help to sweep in strong majorities in both houses of Congress, with those long coat-tails, clearing the way for dramatic legislative action. But if you roll those dice and it doesn't come up right, you'll look idiotically reckless. We'll have four years of "McSame," and we will have squandered an historical opportunity to start ondoing the damage of the Bush years.

As a conservative, in the old fashioned sense of the word, I'd go for the higher probability of a narrow win, rather than the longshot chance of the big jackpot. I'm a gradualist, and I'll take a 75% chance of a repeat of the Clinton years over a 30% chance of a repeat of the FDR years.

I don't have a dog in this fight. So I don't care. America survived Presidents Grant, Harding, Nixon, Carter, and Clinton. It will survive either Obama or McCain no matter what they try.

I say give the black guy a shot. What's the worst thing that can happen?

CBK

comebackkid:

I don't have a dog in this fight. So I don't care. America survived Presidents Grant, Harding, Nixon, Carter, and Clinton. It will survive either Obama or McCain no matter what they try.

I say give the black guy a shot. What's the worst thing that can happen?

CBK

Did you forget about Bush? To answer your question.The Country could sink more than we already have?

We need a strong person to clean up this mess.

It's hilarious to see Clinton's name in that list of presidents. The nation didn't just "survive" under Clinton, it had arguably the best eight years in its history.

Before Clinton came to office, things were looking pretty grim. Poverty had been rising fitfully for two decades. Incomes for the middle class had been long stagnant. We had a record budget deficit. Violent crime rates were at an all-time high, and so were other social problems like teen pregnancy and divorce. The AIDS epidemic was expanding in the US at an exponential pace. We'd come through a long era of sub-par GDP growth. America seemed at risk of losing its position of global economic leadership to countries like Germany and Japan.

Then, in eight wonderful years from 1993 through 2000, all that changed. Poverty plummted, with poverty for blacks hitting an all time low. Incomes rose right across the board, including robust growth for the middle class. Not only did we eliminate the budget deficit for the first time in many decades, but we even ran up a record budget surplus. VIolent crime rates plummeted steadily, reaching levels last seen in the early-to-mid 1960s. Teen pregnancy hit an all-time low. The divorce rate dipped a bit. The AIDS epidemic continued at a slower pace. GDP growth rates were exceptionally good. The prospect of losing our leadership to Germany and Japan came to seem likely a quaintly antiquated notion. And so on.

Of course right-wingers like to try to invent reasons none of this can be attributed to Clinton's strong leadership. They used to like to attribute it to Greenspan (except Greenspan stayed in office after 2000, and the economy sank). Or they'd attribute it to the Republican Congress (except the good times went from 1993-2000, while the Republican Congress went from 1996-2006). Or they'd attribute it to the dotcom bubble (except the real estate bubble from 2000-2007 didn't produce anything like that kind of across-the-board improvement). Ultimately all their clever excuses are self-defeating, and it becomes increasingly clear that the Clinton adminsitration itself was the X-factor that explains that incredible era.

Arkady:

Ultimately all their clever excuses are self-defeating, and it becomes increasingly clear that the Clinton adminsitration itself was the X-factor that explains that incredible era.

Is that why so many Clinton Administration insiders (Richardson, Reich, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry) and other Democrats have endorsed Barack Obama?

Obama Supporters

Maybe pardoning all those terrorists and felons wasn't the smartest move a president ever made. Or maybe it was losing control of Congress after 40 years that did it.

CBK

A President usually loses seats in Congress when he has to make the hard decisions. Clinton did the ahrd thing to try and syraighten out the mess Reagan and Bush made.

Then along comes Junior after the prosperous Clinton years and Bam! Down the tube we go! With Republicans giggling all the way. That is,until 2004 and 2006.

Losses predicted this year at 60 to 70 seats. And for once,it is not the smart decisions the President made. This time it is the ignorant ones.

MaryAnne, you're an intellectual mediocrity who simply posts too much. I'm getting tired of it. First you cut and paste, and now it's these non-arguments of yours, like "left wing kooks".

Why don't you go join Rainman and his bunch and stop pretending to be a Democrat.

It was folks like you that gave the Dems a bad name in the 60s. I bet you were an 'America, love it or leave it' sort of person--a real Midwestern stick in the mud. You're the one practicing My way or the highway.

and also a good encapsulation of the differences between us.

You can roll the dice betting on the big win with Obama, and if it pays off, you look brilliant. Not only will you be able to claim a compelling liberal mandate, for the first time in decades, but you'll probably help to sweep in strong majorities in both houses of Congress, with those long coat-tails, clearing the way for dramatic legislative action. But if you roll those dice and it doesn't come up right, you'll look idiotically reckless. We'll have four years of "McSame," and we will have squandered an historical opportunity to start ondoing the damage of the Bush years.

I would rather get four more years of McSame, have the country go further down the road to ruin, and finally have the GOP be repudiated as they were in 1932 than get McCain-lite (Clinton). The corporate wing of the DLC won't cut it for me any longer, as the criminal acts of the Bush admin. call for more radical steps. Even so, Obama is more of a fiscal conservative than Clinton, with her 'no new taxes', her 'gas tax holiday', and her universal health insurance plan.

On your planet, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry were Clinton administration insiders? How interesting. But right now I'm more interested in discussing the real world right now.

Yep. It's a fundamental difference that tends to split progressives into two camps. I know I'm overstating this a bit, but I tend to think of your camp as the "Leninist" camp -- not in the sense that you advocate communism, but in the sense that you are impatient with half measures, and you are comfortable with letting things get worse if you think it "heightens the contradictions" enough to fuel an eventual revolutionary change. In that sense, I guess I'm more of a Kerenskyist. I like slow and steady improvement because I think it tends to be a safer way to get where we want to go than more dramatic but less secure improvement. That's why I'm such a big fan of Bill Clinton, even though he was far more conservative than me (deep down I'm a socialist). I think he was a good-sized step in the right direction, and that attempting to step farther would have risked making less progress.

Things improved a whole lot on Clinton's watch for everyday Americans. Even after years of reversal under Bush, we're STILL better off in most ways than we were before Clinton came to office. Poverty's lower, and so is unemployment, incomes are higher, violent crime is lower and so is teen pregnancy, deficits are lower as a share of GDP, and so on. I wouldn't give that up for some outside chance of getting even more. I realize that the Clinton era improvement "lessened the contradictions," making the Republican comeback under Bush possible, but I'll take that.