Clinton would win, to answer your question. Period.
I'm continually amazed at the relative quietness from those who advocate all voices being in the process being perfectly OK with the groups Carter points out who get shut out from a caucus.
Finally someone has made a good case (locally) why the caucus and delegate allocation system is jacked.
That Clinton wins a ONLY dozen more delegates in a big population state like PA. with a ten point wipeout...and make no mistake, in political terms, 10 points is a wipeout...is lunacy. Same for his points on ID., TX., etc.
I agree with Carter. Those three things need to go before 2012.
If the primary process featured winner take all in every state, Obama would have run has campaign very differently. He strategized this race to take advantage of the parameters that govern it, and planned for the long term.
The Clinton campaign, on the other hand, focused almost entirely on Iowa and NH and a few other big states, thinking she wouldn't need more than that. Thus her campaign was caught flat-footed when it became apparent she wasn't really the unassailable frontrunner.
I like a mix of caucuses and primaries. It gives insurgent candidates a chance if they organize incredibly well and attrack support within the Party's grassroots. I think there should definitely be some states where dedicated Dems have the upper hand. After all, there are also a significant number of states where the primaries are entirely open to all, with same day registration. To me, a balance of different kinds of contests provides an excellent test of candidate and campaign strength.
Ah, the hypothetical. If the rules had been this way or that way or maybe even this way...
...If we just suspend all reality and re-imagine HISTORY....
You're right on here, Barb...even if you're trying to disprove or prove...i dunno...the supposed.
My favorite part of the those in the media swallowing these hypothetical spin games:
The Clintons were part of making the rules of the primaries. Too funny.
It's important to remember that winning delegates (be they primary or caucus) is as much a function of population as of margin of victory. Which is to say, it's not just about how many voters you get, it's where those voters come from. Obama wins the urban centers, where the population is higher, so his 12% wins in the bigger cities net him (relatively) more than her 30% wins in the rural areas. She may be winning the overall vote in big states, but he's winning the votes where the people are, and that keeps him close in those big states. Whether or not that reality is a good thing depends alot on your point of view in my opinion.
Ironically, Carter is essentially pushing for one of two solutions: One is a statewide winner-take-all allocation, which is the way the republican party in many states allocate their delegates and which would have handed Hillary (who continues to trail in the overall popular vote) the nomination 2 months ago. And it must be statewide winner-take-all, because even allocating winner-take-all by county would still favor Obama (again, because he wins the counties where the people are). Either that, or Carter wants delegates allocated by voting population rather than general population, which for better or worse just isn't how we've decided to do things over the last 230 years.
I should also point out that while I admire Carter and consider him a friend, I think he overstates how effective Hillary is among some of the groups he lists as disenfranchised by the caucus system. I know this is a passionate subject for him because caucuses have long be seen as disenfranchising union voters, which they do. I just think that Obama has done much better with unions than Carter and by extension AFSCME (or vice versa) would like to admit. AFSCME endorsed Clinton very very early, and since that time a slew of large unions have endorsed Obama. Why is this relevant? Because Obama's biggest unions (service industry and hotel workers) work largely at night, whereas most federal-city-state employees work during the day. As we know, caucuses are held at night...
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