Hillary Clinton Writes A Letter To The Superdelegates

Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to the superdelegates making her argument that she has a better chance of winning the November presidential election against John Mccain than Barack Obama does. She repeats that argument to a crowd in Montana. (Video above)

First lets start with the relevant excerpts of Hillary Clinton's letter to the superdelegates:

At this point, we do not yet have a nominee – and when the last votes are cast on June 3, neither Senator Obama nor I will have secured the nomination. It will be up to automatic delegates like you to help choose our party’s nominee, and I would like to tell you why I believe I am the stronger candidate against Senator McCain and would be the best President and Commander in Chief.

[...]

We simply cannot afford another four – or eight – years in the wilderness. That is why, everywhere I go, people come up to me, grip my hand or arm, and urge me to keep on running. That is why I continue in this race: because I believe I am best prepared to lead this country as President – and best prepared to put together a broad coalition of voters to break the lock Republicans have had on the electoral map and beat Senator McCain in November.

Recent polls and election results show a clear trend: I am ahead in states that have been critical to victory in the past two elections. From Ohio, to Pennsylvania, to West Virginia and beyond, the results of recent primaries in battleground states show that I have strong support from the regions and demographics Democrats need to take back the White House. I am also currently ahead of Senator McCain in Gallup national tracking polls, while Senator Obama is behind him. And nearly all independent analyses show that I am in a stronger position to win the Electoral College, primarily because I lead Senator McCain in Florida and Ohio. I’ve enclosed a detailed analysis of recent electoral and polling information, and I hope you will take some time to review it carefully.

Electoral votes don't count until the November election but she has a point that according to the electoral map, she is doing much better in states with more electoral votes that Obama is, then again, after a Democratic nominee is finally chosen once and for all, those numbers will be more accurate. The meat and potatoes of her argument though about the polling, is represented in the latest Gallup poll which shows that she is correct, she does better against McCain in the polls for the 20 states that she has won the primaries.

Courtesy of Gallup

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In the 28 states that Obama has won in the primaries against Clinton, they both are matched up evenly with McCain. This is all information that the superdelegates should be taking into consideration but seem not to be.

(Note that the findings with Michigan and Florida data removed are virtually identical to those shown above. Clinton performs five percentage points better than Obama versus McCain in the states she has won (51% vs. 46%), excluding Michigan and Florida; Obama has virtually no advantage over Clinton versus McCain in the states he has won.)

The ultimate question, even though Obama supporters do not like it, is, who do the superdelegates think can win the election against McCain and the bottom line, even though unpopular, is that recent polling evidence supports her argument when she says she is the stronger candidate against John McCain. The problem for the Democratic party at this point, is that the realization is much too late to do anything about it. Read the whole Gallup poll, then reread Clinton's letter to the superdelegates.... it seems that despite the fact that Clinton holds almost no chance of winning the Democratic nod to become the candidate to go up against McCain, she also might be the only candidate who could win. Other findings in another Gallup Daily polling report shows " John McCain and Barack Obama are now virtually tied at 46% to 45% when registered voters nationally are asked for whom they would vote next November if these were the two presidential nominees, while Hillary Clinton maintains a 48% to 44% margin over McCain in a hypothetical Clinton-McCain matchup." Clinton vs McCain:

Courtesy of Gallup

Latest Gallup Graph shows Clinton against McCain

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Obama vs McCain:

Courtesy of Gallup

Latest Gallup Graph showing Obama vs McCain

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Obama will undoubtedly win the Democratic nomination and come November, if John McCain wins the presidential election, Hillary Clinton will spend the next four years saying "I told you so".