Members give Clinton edge

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has nearly twice as many endorsements as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) from lawmakers representing districts that campaign strategists consider the most important on Super Tuesday, according to an analysis by The Hill.

Clinton has received endorsements from 29 lawmakers representing districts with an odd number of delegates, giving her an important organizational advantage in the most contested battlegrounds of the states holding elections Tuesday.  
Obama has received endorsements from 13 lawmakers representing districts with odd-numbered delegate totals.  

{mosads}Obama’s aides recognize that Clinton will have many advantages on Feb. 5, such as greater recognition among many Democratic voters, her affiliation with delegate-rich New York and neighboring New Jersey, as well her wider support from Democrats in districts with an odd number of delegates.

In a campaign memo issued Monday, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe played down expectations for Super Tuesday.

“Our path to the nomination never factored in a big day for us on February 5,” he wrote. “We fully expect Senator Clinton to earn more delegates on February 5 and also to win more states. If we were to be within 100 delegates on that day and win a number of states, we will have met our threshold for success and will be best positioned to win the nomination in the coming months.”

But the Clinton campaign on Monday also tried to set expectations, telling reporters on a conference call that the “proportional allocation” system means that many of Tuesday night’s results will be “close and inconclusive.”

“The nominating rules of our party are really designed to prolong a contest between two strong candidates,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said. “They system is really designed to avoid picking a nominee rather than picking one.”

Clinton and Obama are targeting districts with odd numbers of delegates because their campaigns are unlikely to gain an advantage in districts with an even number of delegates. Either candidate would have to win with an overwhelming percentage of the vote to win a delegate advantage in these places.

In districts with odd numbers of delegates, however, a razor-thin win would give the victor extra delegates.

The winner of the nomination would need 2,025 delegates. Nearly 1,700 delegates will be apportioned on the basis of Tuesday’s results.

Rep. Diane Watson (D), who has endorsed Clinton, represents California’s 33rd district, which has five delegates. If Clinton wins 51 percent of the vote in that district, she will take away three delegates, one more than Obama.

Watson said she is mobilizing her network of volunteers to help Clinton.

“We have people out today, we have people working at her headquarters,” said Watson, whose district received a visit from former President Bill Clinton Sunday.

Watson is telling voters that she knows she will able to pick up the phone and call Clinton regularly if she’s elected president.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D), who has endorsed Obama, represents an area on the eastern border of Watson’s district.

Becerra said he is “doing lots of campaigning in the Latino community” for Obama and “talking to as many people as possible to energize the volunteers.”

Becerra tells voters in his district that Obama is “a transformational leader who comes along once in a generation.”

But Becerra’s district has an even number of delegates: four. Under the formula that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has adopted for apportioning delegates, Obama would have to win with more than 62.5 percent of the vote to take away more delegates than Clinton from Becerra’s district.

In Missouri’s 3rd congressional district, represented by Rep. Russ Carnahan (D), another Obama supporter, the Illinois senator would have to win with at least 59 percent of the vote to pick up a majority of delegates. If Clinton captures at least 42 percent, she is ensured an even split of the district’s delegates.

Candidates can expect to gain ground in total delegates by winning odd-numbered districts and winning statewide. For example, Connecticut will give 48 delegates to the winner of Tuesday’s primary. Seventeen of those delegates will be divvied up according to the statewide percentages of support. If Obama won with 55 percent, he would receive nine of the state’s 17 at-large delegates.  

Delegate counts have begun to emerge as an obsession of Democratic strategists in recent weeks. In 2004, they received little attention because the party coalesced behind Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) after he won the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary in quick succession.

This year, the Democratic contest has become a slow war of attrition as Obama and Clinton have traded victories and defeats in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina and Florida. Six months ago, pundits predicted the nomination would be settled by the results of Tuesday’s elections. Now they are expecting it to grind on until March or later because the race has remained competitive and because party rules make it very difficult for one candidate to pile up a decisive number of delegates without landslide wins.  

Clinton can expect to gain her biggest delegate advantages over Obama by winning populous states where a narrow victory can net a significantly greater margin of delegates. For example, California will allocate 129 delegates proportionally based on statewide voting results. If Clinton wins with 55 percent of the vote, she would gain 13 more delegates than Obama. By contrast, a similar margin of victory would give her only one more delegate in Connecticut.
    
Michael Lemaire and Michael Sherry contributed to this report.