Wednesday, March 05, 2008

(I'm not sure if this is punditizing or spinification)

Just had another look at the Ohio returns, and it appears that the all-nighter in Cuyahoga County paid off: Obama won that one after it looked for a long time like he might not. The total popular vote for the state, with 99% of the vote counted, now shows a ten-point win for Clinton. Bad, but not as bad as it seemed while watching the ticker last night, when it was running at 20 for hours, and finally started creeping down to the mid-teens. The big population in the greater Cleveland area and their tardily reported but eminently sensible preferences probably mean a difference of about five or six delegates. Hard to believe that's important in the context of the 4000+ delegates up for grabs, but there it is.

I kept thinking last night, as it appeared that the delegate count from the four states would end up being a wash, of an old "West Wing" episode. The whole team was hanging out on Josh's stoop late Election Night after the mid-terms, and it turned out that after all the sturm und drang, the Dems had picked up exactly one new seat for every one old one that they had lost. All that time, all that effort, all that money spent just to be back where we started.

I now propose a new term: Pyrrhic stalemate.

No comments:

ShareThis