RezkoWatch FactChecker: Developing Story: Obama to declare victory May 20th (Updated 2x)

UPDATE: Blogger Wonkette has a cache save of the May 19, 2008, TIME cover with the headline "And The Winner* Is ..." and bearing the picture of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).





The TIME magazine's May 19, 2008, dummy cover bears only the title "And The Winner* Is..." and there is no story. When you click on the red x to open the picture, you get the following error message:

We're sorry, the page you have requested has not yet been published or does not exist. If you have been directed here by a bad link, please email us the below information: Incorrect URL: /time/magazine/0,9263,7601080519,00.html

Howard Fineman headlined May 7, 2008, at Newsweek with "'The Die Is Cast'. Obama's plan to end the race in Oregon."

Mark the date: May 20. That night, Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is planning to declare victory. At his campaign headquarters here, the number crunchers figure—with pretty solid justification—that, on that date, after the returns come in from the Oregon Democratic primary, their man will have won an outright majority of the pledged delegates to the 2008 convention in Denver.

"The die is cast," campaign manager David Plouffe told me after the early returns came in Tuesday night, revealing that Obama had won a big victory in North Carolina. According to Plouffe's math, Sen. Hillary Clinton still could win big in West Virginia and Kentucky. But even with those victories, Obama pickups in those states, plus a likely big win in Oregon, would be enough to reach the magic number: 1,627, a clear majority of the pledged delegates.

Others, like TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt would beg to differ: 2209 is the Delegate Number, Not 2025.

Fineman wrote:

Clinton's argument, of course, is that winning a majority of "pledged" delegates isn't the real test: to her, it is the total number of delegates won, pledged and "super." More than that, Hillary argues that the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch should more properly be 2,209, if you count, as she does, the Florida and Michigan primaries. (Both states moved the date of their votes up on the calendar in defiance of the national party, and were stripped of their delegates as a result).

Clinton plans to take her case to the party's rules committee on May 31 in Washington. Obama's plan is to make it all seem moot by then, or at least by Oregon.

However, the breakdown in delegate numbers can be found at GreenPages.com:

Need to Nominate 2,209.0

B Obama 1,921.5

H Clinton 1,889.0

(available) 519.5

Uncommitted 55.0

J Edwards 32.0

No Preference 0.0

Total 4,417.0

Update #1: Additionally, Todd Beeton at MyDD points out that the Obama campaign's claim that he would have the majority of pledged delegates after West Virginia, Oregon, and Kentucky vote depends on how Florida and Michigan delegates are counted.

Either way, though, there's no getting around the fact that declaring victory with simply a majority of pledged delegates qualifies as moving the goal posts and changing the rules in the middle of the game, something Obama supporters have long chided the Clinton campaign for doing. So, while the Obama campaign will try to end it after Oregon and Kentucky vote on May 20, I suspect this thing will only end when Senator Clinton says it does.

Update #2: Sen. Obama told NBC's Brian Williams in an interview to be broadcast May 8, 2008, on NBC Nightly News, when asked "if he was already the presumptive nominee" that "he 'will be' the Democratic nominee, but was not there yet.


Obama: 'It's not yet settled'

By the way, how many recall having heard about this famous November 3, 1948, chestnut with Harry Truman holding up a copy of the Chicago Tribune bearing the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman!"?

"The lesson statisticians drew from their failure to accurately forecast the 1948 election was that it is crucial to choose a sample that accurately reflects the population. Dewey won among households that had telephones in 1948. Unfortunately for Dewey, in 1948, not all households had phones." [Source]

Or how about this one from more recent memory? President George W. Bush declaring "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq was a done deal, right?


Stay posted for updates below.

Also see related articles

Poll Analysis: Obama Down to 10% Against McCain, Hominid Views, May 5, 2008.

J Brown, The New American Disenfranchiesment. Democratic Elitists And Their Role In Hijacking The Democratic Party!, Politically Drunk, May 5, 2008.

litigatormom, Do You Believe In Magic?, Riverdaughter, May 7, 2008.

Jeralyn Merritt, Why Did Obama Do Worse in N.C. Than Virginia?, TalkLeft, May 7, 2008.

David Paul Kuhn, Obama plans to declare victory May 20, The Politico, May 8, 2008.

James Joyner, Obama to Declare Victory on May 20th?, Outside the Beltway, May 8, 2008.

Rick Moran, Democratic Train Wreck Approaching; Due to Occur May 20, American Thinker, May 8, 2008.

TexasDarlin, Desperate for Victory, MyDD, May 8, 2008.

katiebird, 48 + 2 = Legitimacy, Riverdaughter, May 8, 2008.