There is no longer any question about it; Barack Obama has won the fight for delegates in the Democratic Primary.  According to the rules set up by The Party, and according to Hillary Clinton circa January 2008, this is a race for delegates and no matter how you slice it Barack Obama wins.

If you don't believe me, go talk to jwilkes, yesterday his post laid out a straight forward, clear and fun to read explanation of exactly why Clinton can not win this nomination by playing fair.

As we have learned, however, Hillary Clinton isn't a huge fan of the rules and her multiple personalities don't always agree with reality.  So when she said that this race was all about elected delegates what she really meant was it is about the superdelegates.  And when she said it was all about the superdelegates what she really meant was it's about the popular vote.  And then somehow it also came to be about Sen. Bayh's imaginary election.

Now, even in Hillary Clinton's delusional mind there is no path to victory with a delegate count, so the focus has shifted to the popular vote and the supposed battle for Electoral Votes between Obama and Clinton.

Clinton's Campaign has been making the case for several weeks that Obama is not capable of competing in traditional battle ground states, like Pennsylvania and Ohio.  Now, as the vote in West Virginia is only hours away, Team Clinton is making the case that Obama's supposed inability to capture the five Electoral Votes the Mountain State offers in November he is incapable of winning the election.

This is an absurd argument, but Team Clinton insists "The Mountain State is used to picking winners. Every nominee has carried the state's primary since 1976, and no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916."

This is a true statement, but it is emblematic of a campaign focused on maintaining the status quo and looking to the politics of the past in order to win an election.  In 2008 the Electoral Map is going to look a lot different than what we're used to. 

Barack Obama's politics of change means change in many facets of American politics, including the look of the Electoral Map.

More irritating than Clinton's imaginary Electoral Vote victory is her claim that she still has a chance to win the popular vote against Barack Obama.

The obvious problem with this argument is that the popular vote has absolutely nothing to do with the nominating process.  The less obvious problem is that the popular vote is almost impossible to count.

Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington all hold caucuses rather than primaries.  While some caucus states do count the number of people who have caucused for a particular candidate, these four do not.

Obama won three out of four of these states, and if actual votes total were to be released from these caucus states Real Clear Politics estimates Obama would add more than 110,000 votes to his current 737,000 vote lead.

Of course, Clinton's Campaign does not want to count these states, but they do want to count Michigan and Florida where both candidates agreed not to campaign.  In Michigan Clinton left her name on the ballot after agreeing not to and ran against "Uncommitted." She still only won by 17%. 

Barack Obama's name was not on the ballot and Team Clinton is claiming a victory against him.  They want to count those 300,000-plus popular votes for Clinton and zero for presumptive nominee Barack Obama.

Similarly in Florida, where Party Rules forbid either candidate to campaign Clinton ended up winning about 300,000 more votes than Obama.  While Clinton never officially campaigned in the state, she spent a lot of time there engaged in campaign-like activities which the other candidates avoided.

Even with both of the disputed elections counted, Hillary Clinton still needs to rely on votes from American Samoa, Guam and Puerto Rico to have a chance to beat Barack Obama's popular vote total.

What it boils down to is this:

Hillary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that she is more electable while she loses more and more elections.  In her popular vote victory scenario she wants to count two states in which her campaign broke the very same rules she agreed to and not count four states in which everyone played by the rules, but which she lost.

Furthermore, Clinton's argument that a popular vote victory makes her the more electable candidate in the fall is flawed by the fact that in order to achieve this supposed win she needs to count three U.S. territories that have absolutely nothing to do with Electoral Votes or the General Election.

The Superdelegates are not stupid people.  They understand that Clinton has childishly moved the goal posts into every conceivable position and has still failed to score in almost every case. 

Hillary Clinton is done no matter what happens in West Virginia tonight.  Even her own crazy standards only give her a chance to beat Sen. Obama.  The fact is Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee and McCain's advantage grows minute-by-minute as Hillary Clinton continues pursue the impossible.

Special Note: I will be hosting an election night conversation this evening at eyesonobama.com.  We had a lot of fun last Tuesday night and tonight will be the same.  We may even have a visit from a surprise guest.

To check it out just log onto eyesonobama.com, read some articles and then wander over to the forums section around 7:30 EST and find "Another Election Night Conversation with Stonecipher."  See you there.

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