Fri, May 09, 2008 - 2:14 PM

WASHINGTON – What’s delegates got to do with it?

Hillary Clinton's camp has come up with yet another reason she should top the Democrat ticket this fall.

They argue her candidacy would be far more competitive in some key U.S. House districts than would Barack Obama's, and thus far more beneficial to Democrats running for Congress.

Her campaign team made that case to reporters gathered at a breakfast her today. Essentially, they said 20 freshmen Democratic members of the House are in districts that voted for President Bush in 2004 need her.

“These freshmen need a nominee who can compete in their tough districts,” says a handout given to the reporters.

Here’s their logic. (Warning! It’s headache producing, perhaps even outright dubious in parts.)

1) Of those 20 districts, they say, Clinton has outpolled Obama in 16 of them. The Clinton team includes Rep. Heath Shuler’s district in North Carolina in that group. But then, they also included Tim Mahoney’s district in Florida, a state where the Democratic primary was not supposed to count and where the candidates did not really campaign.

2) Thirteen of those 20 districts, they say, have more than the national average of seniors over the age of 65. (The Shuler and Mahoney districts are among them.) And nationally, they note Clinton has won seniors by 24 points.

3) Half of these districts are more than 40 percent rural, and Hillary has won rural voters nationally by 8 points. (But then, wouldn’t a Devil’s Advocate point out that means they are 60 percent non-rural?)

4.) Hispanics make up more than 10 percent of the voters in 6 of the districts (count Mahoney’s district again.) And nationally, Clinton has won Hispanic voters by 30 percentage points over Obama.

5) But then – the Clinton team's argument suddenly diverges from focusing on districts being held by freshmen Democrats. The note she has won 10 of the 15 districts rated as “toss-up” races this fall by one non-partisan political newsletter, The Cook Political Report, while Obama has just one 4. Many of those districts are toss-ups because the incumbent has retired or will at the end of this year, not because an incumbent Democrat is in trouble. They include Alabama’s fifth congressional district and Mississippi’s first congressional district in that mix.

Put all of this information together and the Clinton team says it paints a clear picture -- she is the candidate best suited to help Democrats increase their majority in the U.S. House.

“Hillary is the candidate who will win in tough districts,” they say.

Even, their argument must add, if she has apparently lost the tough battle for delegates.

-- Billy House

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