Hillary Clinton's Ohio Argument

Democrats may well have a real dilemma after the March 4 primaries.

Those closest to Hillary Clinton's campaign--Bill Clinton and James Carville among them--have said that if she doesn’t win the Ohio and Texas primaries she will be out of the race. The idea being, I guess, that she would find it nearly impossible to overtake Obama in pledged delegates in the rest of the primaries and would have no real claim to the superdelegates.

What happens, though, if Clinton were to win Ohio, a state in which polls show her consistently ahead, and lose in Texas?

Texas has little meaning in terms of the general election as Democrats haven’t won the state since 1976 when Carter beat Ford, and are as likely to win it in November as they are Idaho or Utah.

But Ohio? This has been a swing state for the last several elections with the Democrats having to win this or Florida in addition to the blue states they are certain to win. If Obama cannot win in Ohio, a state that has chosen the President in the last 11 elections (1964-2004), the likelihood of him winning the general election is not good.

If she wins in Ohio, though, Clinton has a good argument that she is the Democrat with the best chance of being elected in November even if Obama ends up with the more pledged delegates. Although there was no campaigning there, she won handily in Florida, the other key swing state. Many of Obama’s delegates have come from states like Idaho, Kansas, or Utah, states that will not vote for a Democrat in November. And Clinton, despite her string of losses, has actually won in the smaller swing states of New Mexico and Nevada, albeit by narrow margins.

Even if she loses in Texas, should she win in Ohio, the question will then be whether Clinton will dare to take the battle forward--not just to Pennsylvania but to seat the delegates in Florida and Michigan and fight for the superdelegates--based on the argument that she is more electible.

It is an argument that is certain to be divisive but if Clinton wins in Ohio it is one that Democrats probably owe it to the country to have.