On March 5th Howard Dean will decide for us

I have now become convinced that on March 5, the day after Super Tuesday II: Electric Boogaloo, Howard Dean will pick the Democratic nominee for president.  This diary will explain how and why.

I will start with this quote:

"Here's the math. There are 3,253 pledged delegates, those doled out based on actual voting in primaries and caucuses. And you need 2,025 to win the nomination. To date, about 55% of those 3,253 delegates have been pledged in the voting process -- with Clinton and Obama roughly splitting them at about 900 delegates a piece. That means there are now only about 1,400 delegates left up for grabs in the remaining states and territories voting.

"So, do the math. If they both have about 900 pledged delegates so far, they need to win more than 1,100 of the remaining 1,400 delegates to win the nomination through actual voting."

This was frontpaged and it’s not news to us.  Barring something radical happening like a Macaca level gaffe occurring, this will not be determined by pledged delegates.  It’s just mathematically impossible.  Obama is looking to have a very good next two weeks in states like Virginia where polls have him up between 15 and 20, and Maryland and DC where the demographics favor him.  Of the next 9 primaries, the only one I think he has a decent chance of losing is Maine.

Hillary, on the other hand, will almost certainly take Texas and I think the odds favor her in Ohio as well.  Texas is a sure win for her due to demographics, since she does very well amongst Hispanic voters, and we should not forget that Bill’s political origins started in the lone star state.  While I think her win in Ohio will be more narrow, I think it will nevertheless occur since I expect her to dominate most of the state expect for a few urban areas.

So we have Obama doing well in February and Hillary doing well in the beginning of March.  Maybe one will do slightly better or worse than expected, but given the proportional doling out of pledged delegates it will still amount to a virtual tie.

And now we get to Howard Dean.  This is another quote we’ve all seen:

"I think we will have a nominee sometime in the middle of March or April," Mr. Dean said Wednesday on the NY1 cable news channel, "but if we don’t, then we’re going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement. Because I don’t think we can afford to have a brokered convention; that would not be good news for either party."

Dean isn’t throwing this out there to tell us what might happen.  The Chairman is telling us what will happen.  Simply put, a prolonged fight to the convention would be terrible for us.  It gives McCain months of uncontested general election campaigning.  It divides our party.  It will escalate the clashes between the Clinton and Obama camps and their surrogates and that will simply turn voters off to our party in a year where by all rights we should sweep the GOP away for their corruption and failed neo-conservative exploits in the Middle East.  The party and this country cannot accept that, and Dean most certainly will not accept it either.  So on March 5 Dean will decide who are nominee is.

After Texas and Ohio (and let’s not forget Vermont and Rhode Island), Dean will take stock of the race.  He will see who has the most pledged delegates.  He will see who has the "momentum" (whatever the hell that is).  He will assess who is best prepared to defeat the GOP.  Then he will make his choice.  

He will do two things.  First, once he has decided he will contact all undecided superdelegates and all superdelegates supporting the candidate he has decided against, and urge them to support the party-determined frontrunner.  Some won’t follow his wishes, but many will.

Then he will throw down the Michigan and Florida card.  If he has decided that the party should rally around Clinton, he will simply seat those delegates from MI and FL, giving Clinton the edge.  If he has decided that Obama should be our candidate, he will hold caucuses for MI and FL, and given Obama’s performance in the Midwest it is likely that Obama would dominate a Michigan caucus.  And like that we will have our nominee.  

If I am right, this will irk quite a few of us.  Understandably so, but we have to see that this is for the best.  Some of us are Obama supporters such as myself, and some of us are Clinton supporters.  But before that we’re Democrats.  And before that, we’re Americans goddammit and we need to take this country back.  A McCain presidency will not take us out of Iraq, fight poverty, put us on the road to universal healthcare, or address the Constitutional nightmare that was the Bush administration.  For the sake of our children a Democrat must win next November and there’s no two ways around that.

I’ll end with some stratergery.  If I am right, Obama and Clinton’s paths to the nomination are clear.  For Obama to be crowned the front runner after March 4, he has to win the February primaries and win big, and then beat Hillary in Ohio and tie in Texas.  For Hillary to win, she needs to have a few upsets in February, perhaps in Maine and Louisiana, and then dominate in Ohio and Texas.  This is going to be a photo finish people.

Peace.