After the Democratic primary in Puerto Rico

Added on June 2, 2008 at 21:15 Swiss time
According to CNN online, Barack Obama has now the support of 1,741 pledged delegates and 331 superdelegates. With a total of 2,072 delegates behind him, his is just 46 votes below the 2,118 bar to win the Democratic nomination. Hillary Clinton is in a desperate situation because she has only a total of 1,916 delegates behind her.

Article added on June 2, 2008 at 13:05 Swiss time
  
With 100% of precincts reporting, Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary in Puerto Rico of June 1, 2008 with an impressive 68% of the vote, whereas Barack Obama got only meager 32%.

Despite this success, the American presidential election is over for Hillary Clinton, at least regarding her run for the highest office the United States can offer to a politician.

Hillary Clinton's win in Puerto Rico brought her additional 38 pledged delegates. Barack Obama got 17 pledged delegates.

The more important news already broke on Saturday when the Democratic rules panel decided what to do with the electoral results in Florida and Michigan. The Rules Committee overturned its earlier decision not to count the votes in the two states because the Democratic leadership in the two states had moved their primaries to to early a date. Instead, the committee agreed on May 31, 2008 to seat the pledged delegates from both states, but cut their votes in half.

The compromise suits Barack Obama. Although the number of delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination increased to 2,118 votes, he is certain to be the nominee.



The Democratic leadership's decisions are unconvincing. If you break the rules, you should not get any votes. That is what the DNC and rules panel decided earlier. Only pressure from the Clinton camp pushed them to revise their earlier ruling.

In Michigan, Barack Obama now got delegates, although his name was not even on the ballot. The compromise offered by the Michigan Democratic Party and adopted by the Democratic Rules Committee awarded Clinton 69 delegates and Obama 59, with each delegate getting half a vote at the Democratic Convention at the end of August. The compromise was adopted by a 19:8 vote.

In Florida, Clinton was awarded 105 pledged delegates and Obama received 67 although, respecting the rules, neither candidate had campaigned in the state.

The Obama camp had the majority in the rules panel to impose a 50:50 split of the votes, but instead decided to compromise. However, it was not enough to calm the fanatic Clinton followers.

The whole nomination risks to get out of control if, after the last two primaries on Tuesday June 3, Hillary Clinton does not come forward and tells her supporters to support Barack Obama as the party's nominee.

If the still uncommitted superdelegates are reasonable, directly after the two remaining primaries in Montana and South Dakota, a majority of them will step forward and endorse Barack Obama, pushing him over the 2,118 bar.



The Clinton camp still hopes to win a majority of the popular vote in order to convince the superdelegates to vote for her as the better candidate; any superdelegate can change his endorsement at any time. The popular vote as such is irrelevant. It is all about delegates.

Barack Obama is expected to carry both South Dakota and Montana [correction added on June 3, 2008 at 22:17 Swiss time: the polls show Obama leading Clinton in Montana, but of course trailing her in South Dakota where Clinton will probably beat Obama by a double digit margin]. In South Dakota, where native Americans make up some 9% of the population, Barack Obama was endorsed by the entire tribal leadership. In Montana, he was adopted as a son of the Crow tribe.

Despite all the positive news, the longer the weaker Barack Obama looks as a Democratic candidate. After reverend Michael Pfleger, an invited white preacher, mocked Hillary Clinton in an insulting sermon in which he mimicked the New York senator weeping, Barack Obama was forced to leave the Trinity United Church of Christ.

Barack Obama went a long way since February 25, 2008 when he downplayed reverend Jeremiah Wright's divisiveness. Later he had to distance himself from his pastor of twenty years. At the end of May 2008, he decided to leave his beloved church, not because “it's the right thing to do for the church and for our family”, as he claimed in a statement, but in order to keep his presidential ambitions alive.

Barack Obama will need the remaining months until November to convince the American voters that he is very different from the nuts preaching at his former church. At Trinity United Church of Christ we can see no “change we can believe in”.

Barack Obama remains a fortune cookie.

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