Quote:
Originally Posted by albionmoonlight
And IIRC, part of the way the President beat Clinton in the 2008 primaries was through superior organizing. His campaign was able to translate his support into a tangible delegate lead though getting people to the polls and through understanding the arcane delegate distribution systems that some state caucuses use.
Trump, I would assume, has none of that. His team lacks the ability to maximize his delegate count. Even if (as I doubt) he "wins" in Iowa, NH, and/or South Carolina, he will not have the ground game to transition that into a delegate win at the convention.
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Nothing arcane about understanding that in a close race, the superdelegates decide it. Early, they declared for Hillary. Later, when they saw the reaction Obama was receiving at campaign events, they re-declared for Obama.
You could even argue that based on Obama withdrawing from Michigan (though he did campaign for an anti-Hillary vote to embarrass her) and Florida not being counted, that she had more popular votes. Nothing arcane about the national committee refusing to seat delegates from states that broke their rules.
She had enough organization to win. What she lacked was enthusiastic crowds. The Democrats got the right candidate out there, and that's exactly what the superdelegates are supposed to do.
You're right that Trump will have an impossible time convincing Republican superdelegates. But the Republicans have a far lower proportion of superdelegates (and higher proportion of those are bound to the state vote), so that won't be as big a hurdle. More likely, as the extras drop out, someone will emerge with a higher ceiling than Trump's. And he'll (sorry Carly) start winning those bigger winner-take-alls.