Hillary's Game Plan -- A Path To Victory?
Here is Hillary's long-shot best-case-scenario game plan, as best as I can understand it:
1) Make North Carolina unexpectedly close, showing that she can compete on his turf and using this to try to make the "Obama is weak" argument stick -- and use any future revelations about Obama or gaffes by him to feed that argument as aggressively as possible
2) Eke out a win in Indiana, partly offsetting Obama's popular vote gain from North Carolina, and making it possible to continue arguing that he can't win over blue-collar whites in big industrial states
3) Rack up huge popular-vote gains in Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, and keep it unexpectedly close in Oregon -- making it not completely out of the question that she wins the popular vote, or that she gets within one percent of Obama, when you include Florida
4) Push hard for Michigan to be included in the popular vote count, so that including just Florida in the tally looks like a reasonable fall-back position
5) Turn the argument over who won into a two-front spin war
6) The first spin war: Get into an argument over whether Florida should count in the popular vote tally, making the case that not including the state disenfranchises its voters and that Obama's refusal to count those votes is imperiling his general-election chances there
7) The second spin war: Argue that the fact that she "won" the popular vote with Florida "included," or basically tied it, shows that the Democratic primary electorate didn't really deliver a clear verdict on its choice as nominee -- and that the "will of the people" has not been clearly established
8) Argue that the fact that the electorate allegedly didn't deliver a clear verdict frees the super-delegates to use their own judgment -- and that if they do, they will not be bucking the "will of the people"
9) Argue that the fact that she kept it close in the popular vote, despite having been counted out multiple times, shows that she has the tenacity and staying power to take on the GOP -- and that Obama lacks the toughness and killer instinct necessary to finish off a tough opponent for good
So there you have it.
Is this likely? Of course not. Is it absolutely impossible? Of course not.
Outstanding question: If Obama emerges as the clear victor in the pledged del count and the popular vote even with Florida included -- which is far and away the most likely conclusion -- will she continue to press the case to the super-dels that they should follow her, even though not one, but two metrics showed him to be the Dem primary electorate's clear choice?
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