Which is basically impossible to calculate because of caucuses, how some are tallied, and systems like Washington and Texas. It's meaningless. Also Hillary's superdelegate lead is mostly because of bandwagon jumpers who endorsed her back when she was "inevitable". Will that last now?
Hence the "primary popular vote" in quotations. But in the event of Clinton winning the primary (not the caucus) votes, I'm sure they could come up with some skewed formula that indicates more people voted for her than Obama. But that's tenuous at best. So what is their strategy then? Clinton's team knows they can't overtake Obama in terms of pledged delegates. They know that the nomination will be decided by the Super Delegates, who will already be reluctant to overturn the pledged delegate counts. They obviously can't claim that Clinton is the most electable candidate.
Apparently, Mark Penn must know something we don't.
Like I said, narrow wins in the big three states won't be enough for Hillary to take the lead in the overall popular vote. She would need big wins in those states to do that. She just doesn't have any leverage to get the super delegates to break to her.
Yes, obviously they would need double-digit wins in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to take the lead. Which could then translate into momentum and perhaps Hillary taking the lead in the national polls among Democrats. Or they might be counting on an Obama screwup at a debate or maybe hoping for some sort of scandal to hit him. Who knows?
