So as Sen. Hillary Clinton delivered her non-concession concession speech at Baruch College last night (as Keith Olbermann pointed out, in an underground meeting hall with no TVs, no cell signal and no wireless, so the faithful couldn’t hear when Sen. Barack Obama won the final primary – talk about your siege mentality), there was a reiteration of what can generously be called an exaggeration. Clinton and her increasingly eccentric campaign chair/proxy/reality denial expert Terry McAuliffe (voted “Campaign operative most likely to get his own E! reality show” here at Newsdesk) keep telling the world, they won Texas. Which, well, she didn’t.
To go over that again: yes, Clinton won the primary in the day, but she lost in the caucuses and in the overall process. Which she knew was going to happen (cf. Bill Clinton telling the UT campus days before the primary that the shadowy “they” would steal it away from her in the precinct caucuses.) But 94 pledged delegates for Clinton does not beat 99 pledged delegates for Obama. 28 of the 32 named superdelegates have already declared and split 14-14 for each candidate. The remaining four (plus three left to be named at this weekend’s convention) are unlikely to break for a dead candidacy.
This article appears in May 30 • 2008.
