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Obama to "Declare Victory" May 20

After losing West Virginia and Kentucky, but winning Oregon handily, Obama plans to "declare victory" on May 20th.

Obama will not reach the 2,025 magic number on May 20. Rather, on that date he is all but certain to hit a different threshold?1,627 pledged delegates, which would constitute a winning majority among the 3,253 total pledged delegates if Florida and Michigan are not included.

...

While the nature of that declaration of victory is ?still developing,? in the advisor?s words, the Obama campaign contends that the winner of a majority of pledged delegates should be the party nominee.

Let's leave Florida and Michigan out of it for a second.

Winning a majority of the available pledged delegates is a great accomplishment. And indeed, it's a persuasive argument to a good deal of superdelegates who don't think they should overturn the winner of the pledged delegate counts.

But by no means is it "victory," in the sense of "winning" the nomination of the Democratic party. Superdelegate votes are the mathematical equivalent of pledged delegates, and the pledged delegate winner does not always win the nomination (see 1968).

There's no getting around it. To win the nomination, you need 2,025. Not a different number, that you then use to argue to superdelegates they should vote for you.

Sure, maybe it's politically useful to declare victory, and to continue noting that you hold an insurmountable pledged delegate lead, but the statement itself is misleading. It indicates that you've clinched the nomination, when you haven't.

And declaring something that isn't true is sad and embarrassing. I hope the story is wrong.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).