With a pencil-thin margin of victory in Indiana on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign lives for another day.
But her drubbing in North Carolina on the same day made her long- shot bid for the presidency almost impossible.
By virtue of a big win in Pennsylvania two weeks ago and a whirl of bad press around Barack Obama regarding his former pastor, Clinton had forged a credible strategy: Woo superdelegates by convincing them Obama can’t win the big, important states in November and that she, not he, was gaining momentum with voters.
It was a plausible strategy Monday. It’s much harder to make that same claim today with a straight face.
Clinton, looking for a groundswell, a change in momentum, has basically run out of time.
Interestingly enough, we’re no further along today, in terms of delegate dynamics, than we were after Super Tuesday in February. Obama holds a slight edge in delegates, and neither will garner enough to clinch outright before the Denver convention in August. So now, just as then, all eyes are on the superdelegates, those party bosses and insiders who will ultimately decide this election.
If Clinton decides to run all the way to the convention, the lobbying of superdelegates will be intense. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the campaigns spend as much time and money wooing superdelegates as trying to sway voters.
We can understand why Democratic insiders would prefer that the nomination be a done deal by the time the delegates gather in Denver to don silly hats and celebrate the nominee. Conventional wisdom suggests a protracted fight would damage the ultimate Democratic victor and give Republican nominee John McCain a chance to idle in the wings, raising money and selling himself to general election voters.
But the decision very well may be made here on the convention floor.
From a public policy perspective, the race is a wonderful thing. Voters are coming out in record numbers. And the public is getting to know the Democratic candidates better, which may end up being a benefit for Obama.
The first-term senator from Illinois is getting the opportunity to show the country who he is and what he stands for. He seems to have distanced himself from the Wright controversy, and was very credible this past week in dismissing both Clinton and McCain’s ridiculous gas tax “holiday” as the gimmicks that they really are.
It seems this close race will go on for the time being, and why not?
As political junkies, we’re enthralled by the daily drama in this historic campaign and think it’s good for the republic to get a full airing of each candidates’ policy platforms.
We’ve played the game this long; why not finish it out?
On to West Virginia.
