Washington Bureau

Not dead yet, Clinton campaign says

Everybody says it’s over – except that Hillary Clinton keeps campaigning, running ads and raising money.

This rainy morning, her chief strategist and communications director told reporters that she can -- and will -- win the Democratic nomination, thanks to Florida, Michigan, the states yet to vote and the superdelegates.

“We move forward with a sense of continuing enthusiasm,” Geoff Garin, the strategist and pollster, said. Really.

The news media have been chastised in the past for calling elections too soon, he said, arguing that's happening now.

He and Howard Wolfson, the communications director, laid out the campaign’s rosy scenario for an hour at a breakfast with more than 50 journalists sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

They reiterated that all Florida and Michigan delegates should be seated at the national convention in August, and they should be allocated by the way they were voted on primary day, even though Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan. The campaign would consider ceding the “uncommitted” vote in Michigan to Obama.

They also reasserted that:
 The superdelegates’s function is to consider the long sweep of the primaries and then decide who’s the better nominee for the party and the better president;
 Clinton has a better chance of beating John McCain than does Barack Obama;
 Clinton is clearly the stronger candidate among seniors, Latinos and blue-collar women who don’t have a college education – voters who will be important in the general election.

Garin’s analysis, based on the most-recent state polls, shows Clinton beating McCain in the Electoral College by 42 electoral votes. Obama lags McCain by eight.

He repeatedly said it’s hard to imagine winning the 270 votes needed to win in the Electoral College without Ohio or Florida or both, and Clinton can win those states and Missouri in the fall, he said.

But the pair also struck a conciliatory tone, saying that they believe Obama also could beat McCain.

And while the Clinton-Obama fight may seem like warfare, Garin likened it to a tennis match.

“We are not oblivious to the environment in which we are operating. But this is very much like a tennis match. When you watch them on TV and somebody is in a men’s match down a few games in the third set, I think you would be disappointed if a person walked off the court, and you ought to be disappointed if a person walked off the court.

“That is not the way the game is played and sometimes even when people are down two sets to love, and down a couple of games in the third set, they end up winning by the fifth set. So Senator Clinton goes on with the same energy and commitment she has throughout the process,” he said.

And, if Obama does win the nomination, “We will do everything we can to see him elected,” Wolfson declared.

-- Marsha Mercer
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