The Clinton campaign has been trying to advance an argument that Barack Obama will be a weak general election candidate because he is not winning the states that “matter”. This has been relentlessly mocked by the bloggers and the media like the bloggers has dug into the numbers and found them wanting. So it begs the question, who exactly is responsible for this illogical strategy, the only way Clinton can argue she is “winning”. The answer is unsurprising. It is Mark Penn:

Here is what Penn said. . . .”Obama “really can’t win the general election.” As you’ll hear, he also says that “if Barack Obama can’t win” in Pennsylvania, “how could he win the general election?”

Later, a reporter asks what he meant. Clinton campaign communications chief Howard Wolfson jumps in to say that “Mark did not say that.” Then Penn says that if Obama doesn’t win the Pennsylvania primary, it “raises serious questions” about whether he can win the general election.

Penn was the one advancing this logic on the call, taking it one step past incorrect line of reasoning to batshit crazy. Wolfson made an attempt at damage control, but then Penn came right back around to it.

The results of the primaries have never lined up with the general election results. To determine potential performance we should look to general election polling. Consistently Obama expands the map. Clinton would go for the 50+1 strategy, which has worked out oooh so well the past two elections. He would be competitive in more states than Clinton period. Her only path to the nomination relies on the superdelegates overturning the results of the primaries and the caucuses. That and counting MI/FL as is, which is not fair or permissible under the rules of the DNC. The Democratic party needs it’s nominee determined in June. They need more than 2 months to put together a general election campaign. The party needs time to unify after a divisive nomination battle. That requires Clinton conceding unless she is ahead in pledged delegates after all of the primaries and caucuses have concluded. The fate of MI/FL will be determined by that point.

But I digress…

Mark Penn continues to drag Clinton down. How much you want to bet that he looked at his microtargeting data and figured out that there may be some benefit to letting Clinton’s supporters advance racist arguments?

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