The point is, Hillary Clinton has a couple of wins in decertified primaries. They mean a whole lot of nothing, because there won’t be any delegates awarded, and Obama is still sitting on more live delegates in hand – but inasmuch as they contribute to the sense that she will be X, they are valuable wins. But they will only contribute to that sense *IF* the results are presented in that matter.
I could be wrong, but I’m not.
Yes, delegates were actually awarded out of Florida and Michigan. In Florida they were apportioned according to the voting; in Michigan they were apportioned according to a deal cooked up by the Michigan Democratic Party which was subsequently endorsed by 2/3 of the DNC panel empowered to adjudicate the disposition of those delegates.
However, the net impact was, at most, a couple dozen delegates. Out of over 2000 needed to win. All the hue and cry over Michigan and Florida, at net, budged a hair over one percent of the totals. Ultimately, they do Hillary Clinton more harm than good, because back in January, everyone agreed that those were beauty contests rather than viable elections.
Now, with the brain trust of Wolfson and Davis and Penn and etc, they become the last link in a preposterous chain of events that says that if you count primary states only, assume no input from caucus states, count in Puerto Rico and other non-state entities, and assume that not one single person in Michigan would have voted for Obama, then you can almost show Team HRC with a larger popular vote count.
In our reality-based world, of course, you go for the nomination with the delegate-selection system you have, not the one you try to shat out halfway through the fifteenth round of the fight. Yes, caucuses were created to stimulate popular participation and build a base more inclined to activist participation, and superdelegates were created to counteract the influence of caucuses, and Iowa and New Hampshire get their special privileges because…because…shit, I got nothing. Nor does anyone else. At some point, the Dems will revert to a model like the GOPs, and the GOP will move closer to the Dem model to prevent what happened to them this year, and the lion will lie down with the porterhouse.
But until then, we have this, and Obama’s leading it fair and square. And aside from close personal friends and a few delusionals, Team HRC knows it. Even James Carville, the Clinton’s most loyal retainer, is talking about how Barack Obama “can and will” win in November.
Game over. Everything else is bookkeeping.