The media was quick to state that this race was over when Barack Obama whipped Hillary Clinton in North Carolina and came within 20,000 votes in Indiana of pulling off a victory there. Speculation began that Obama would shift his focus to John McCain, his general election opponent, and the tenor and message might shift along with it.
But Clinton is still very much in this race, despite a disturbing report in the New York Times that her campaign debt may be greater than anyone imagined. Recognizing that she’ll have to dip into her personal wealth for the third time, Clinton seems to have amplified her rhetoric.
Today she released a letter from members of Congress to other members declaring that Clinton is the best person to be at the top of the ticket. She continued to discuss matters of race when she declared that “whites in both states who had not completed college are supporting me.” Despite almost insurmountable deficits in the pledged delegate and popular vote count (Obama now leads among declared superdelegates) Clinton continues to state that she has a “much broader based to build a winning coalition on.” She has also requested private support from remaining undeclared superdelegates.
Yesterday, super surrogate Bill Clinton exchanged some tense words with a voter in West Virginia about healthcare. Clinton leads by more than 40 points in the Mountain State.
Late last night I received a personal e-mail from a loyal Clinton supporter in California. It read, in part, “Hillary has won every important state for the Democrats in the fall contest (with the exception of Illinois, Obama’s home state). She is ahead of John McCain in nationwide polls and in the current electoral college map; Obama is behind in both. And I just got off a phone call during which President Clinton indicated that Hillary will likely pull ahead in the popular vote by the time the primaries are over. Hillary has proven that she is the strongest candidate from either party in this race. She has the smarts, the grit, and the unfailing dedication to do what it takes to reverse the direction this country has taken for the past eight years.”
Most reasonable people can agree that Clinton has every right to stay in this race as long as there are primaries to be had. Furthermore, she stands to do quite well in West Virginia and Kentucky where she also leads by a substantial sum. If she does pull of 30 or 40-point victories, overtaking Obama in the popular vote might be possible.
And if Clinton wants to make the final weeks of this race about ideas and votes and the things that actually matter to Democrats, that would be fine. But rumors about a “nuclear option” at the May 31st meeting of the DNC rules committee and questionable rhetoric, particularly about race, on the campaign trail have prompted a series of concerns, mostly negative, from Jimmy Carter to Dianne Feinstein.
Even her home state newspaper jumped into the mix: “. . . we believe just as strongly that Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake — for herself, her party and for the nation — if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones.”
On May 20th Obama is likely to “win” the pledged delegate fight. At that point, he’ll own more pledged delegates than Clinton. It will not be enough to win the nomination, but it will be mathematically impossible for her to overtake his lead. On May 31st the DNC rules committee will meet to officially determine the fate of the Florida and Michigan delegations (assuming one doesn’t come before then). On June 3rd the final two states, Montana and South Dakota, vote. And on June 7th, Puerto Rico, a territory with no vote in November, holds a winner-take-all primary with 63 delegates at stake. Any one of these dates could serve as an end to this campaign.
But it would be futile to speculate as to which one makes the most sense; we don’t have a say. And we shouldn’t. While it seems likely, based on the things necessary to win the nomination, that Obama will be the nominee, I agree that it’s unfair to push Clinton out of the race. That is, unless her rhetoric becomes so negative and destructive that it harms the Democratic Party’s chances in November.
Over the last two days, I don’t like what I’ve heard.
UPDATE: Over the last few hours e-mails have come in that indicate that Clinton still very much believes she can win this race. I’m told that polls are trending very favorably in Oregon and South Dakota, and that they think they’ll clean up in West Virginia and Kentucky. This seems to put the popular vote back into play.
UPDATE II: This ABC News report from West Virginia confirms my last update. Bill Clinton is aggressively making the case for how she can win the popular vote. Said Clinton, “She can win the popular vote, she is clearly the most electable according to all the national polls, and between now and August, the superdelegates are gonna have to think long and hard about how badly they want to win. If she is clearly the most electable with positions that people have finally focused on, the real difference I think is, I think she has got a real shot at this and let me just tell you something, all those folks who are telling you on television that she can’t win – they weren’t for her in the beginning.”
UPDATE III – Rasmussen Reports stated today that it will stop polling the Democratic primary because “the race is over.” Wrote Michael Boniello, “while Senator Clinton has remained close and competitive in every meaningful measure, she is a close second and the race is over. It has become clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee.” In Rasmussen’s tracking report today, Obama led McCain 47% – 44%.