She’s walked the walk, but Hillary still hasn’t learnt to talk the talk

THE Clintons are not losing. That’s the first important point coming out of the latest primary. Yes, of course, Hillary lost South Carolina. In fact, not to sugar-coat the truth, she was routed in South Carolina.

Obama’s vote exceeded hers almost two to one. But — thanks to the oddity of the primary system — a rout in one state can eventually prove to have been irrelevant.

The system gives each state a set number of delegates, related to population. In Ireland, if the same system applied to our presidential elections, while a candidate routing their opponent in Leitrim might be thrilled, and while the Leitrim victory could give their campaign a huge morale boost, Leitrim couldn’t deliver a tenth of the delegates delivered by winning, say, Cork or Dublin. Because of that statistical reality, candidates on the Republican side, like Rudi Giuliani, haven’t even gone near some of the early primaries, concentrating on those with the capacity to deliver density of delegate numbers.