the delegates are allotted on a proportional basis
rather than on a winner-take-all basis, Obama's lead
became insurmountable during his winning streak
The chorus of voices demanding that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton roll over and play dead comes from people who can't see beyond the ends of their noses. But Hillary can.
She is not just campaigning for this election, but for future elections as well. She can run in the next four elections and still be younger than John McCain is now.
Scenario #1: Obama gets the nomination, but McCain wins in November. Hillary can then say, "The wrong Democrat was nominated."
Scenario #2: Whoever wins the presidency makes big mistakes the first four years. She can run again in 2012, saying, "The wrong one was elected."
Scenario #3: The new president does well, getting elected for a second term, but can serve only two terms. She is still there, to run again in 2016, and not too old to run again in 2020, if need be.
Sometimes you have to tip your hat to people you don't necessarily like, and I feel that way these days about the Clintons. Bill and Hillary are smarter than the rest of us. They're playing chess while we're playing checkers.
That's because we're looking ahead a couple of months. Who will get the nomination? Or we're looking toward November. Who will win the election?
The Clintons are several moves ahead of us. They're looking toward 2012.
It became clear a couple of months ago that Barack Obama was going to get the nomination. Given the way the delegates are allotted on a proportional basis rather than on a winner-take-all basis, Obama's lead became insurmountable during his winning streak.
And there was never a realistic hope that the superdelegates would overrule the will of the voters. If they did, there would be chaos. The party would risk alienating its single most faithful bloc — African-Americans.
So let's play chess. Let's look ahead. Let's assume that Obama wins the nomination. If you are the Clintons, what then?
You've got to hope that he loses the general election. If he wins in 2008, he'll run for re-election in 2012. That means the next chance for Hillary would be 2016. She'll be 69 by the time that election comes around. (She'll be 61 in October of this year.) Chances are, her time will have passed.
Also, the odds will be against the Democrat in 2016. This is true no matter how Obama does in 2012.
If he were to win re-election, we would have had eight years of a Democrat in the White House. After eight years, people are usually ready for a change. Plus, there would be a vice president who might seek the nomination.
Things wouldn't be much better if Obama were to lose in 2012. That would mean that in 2016 the Democratic nominee would be facing an incumbent president, always a difficult task.
The following election would probably favor the Democrats, but even chess players can't plan that many moves ahead. Besides, Hillary would be 73 by November of 2020.
So once it became clear that Obama would win the nomination, the only move left was to work toward his defeat in the general election.
Which is exactly what the Clintons have been doing, and doing with great success. Obama has lost most of the luster he had just a couple of months ago.
Back then, he was a phenom, a force of nature. I remember when Caroline Kennedy personally handed him the crown once worn by her father. Obama inspires young people the way my father did, she said.
It was true, too. Young people were mesmerized. And not just young people. African-Americans and affluent whites. The well-educated flocked to the Obama banner.
How humiliating that must have been, how unfair that must have seemed. Hillary grew up in an affluent suburb. She went to Wellesley College, and in 1969 gave the commencement address, the first Wellesley student to do so. Then she went to Yale Law.
Now she was abandoned by her own kind and left with the working class. It's one thing to be the candidate of the working class if you're a Huey Long, somebody who has come from the masses himself.
But to be one of the Best and Brightest and suddenly you're dependent upon the proletariat? That would sink most people.
But not Hillary. She became pro-gun, anti-trade. Her husband worked a seamier side of the street. He compared Obama to Jesse Jackson, and when people complained, Bill said he'd been the victim of a "mugging."
When Obama supporters complained about the "racially charged language," Bill said they were playing the race card.
Whenever anybody complained about the Clinton campaign going negative — she and John McCain were ready for that 3 a.m. call, but not Obama, she said — Hillary said it was nothing compared to what the Republicans would do in the general election.
By going negative, the Clintons got Obama to go negative, further tarnishing him. His chances in November become dimmer by the day.
Perhaps it's better, really, to lose this nomination. The economy is a train wreck. The boomers are about to retire. Iraq is going to fall apart no matter who gets elected. So let John McCain inherit the mess. After four years, the country will be ready for a change.
The Democrats will look to Hillary. Why didn't we nominate her back in 2008? What made us think that Obama ever had a chance?
She'll take on McCain. He'll be 76. She'll seem youthful, competent. The comeback kids will have done it again.
Obama Paid a surprise visit to the House of Representatives, where congressman flocked around him, grasping for the hand of the man many believe is about to become their new leader.
Five more super-delegates pledged their support for Mr Obama yesterday, including one who had previously backed Mrs Clinton.
But if Mr Obama has his sights on a general election against John McCain, he has a more immediate and equally testing challenge: how to unite a party, and a Democratic electorate, where large, crucial swaths of voters – especially white, blue-collar and the elderly – remain passionately loyal to the Clintons, and openly hostile to him.
As Mr Clinton’s barnstorming performance in West Virginia proved, he is still a potent force, and Mr Obama is going to need him, his wife and their supporters on side if he harbours any hope of reaching the White House.
It will not be easy. Such is the hostility among many of their supporters, that nearly half of Mrs Clinton’s backers in Indiana said they would not vote for Mr Obama if he were nominated. More than a third in Pennsylvania said the same.
Not one Clinton supporter met by The Times in West Virginia said they would turn out for the Illinois senator.
“You’d have to twist my arm a long way,” said Lonnie Ward, 62, a retired miner queueing to see Mr Clinton next to Cowboy Dan’s Meathouse.
“Bill’s my main man.” Peggy Bland, 69, said: “She’s a strong, strong, strong lady.” And Mr Obama? “Oh no, I wouldn’t vote for him.”
Matthew Towsley, who has been selling Hillary and Obama badges, said: “It’s got real bad. Unless they can put them on the same ticket, there’s going to be trouble.”
Mr Obama’s big win in North Carolina last week, and Mrs Clinton’s narrow victory in Indiana, means the nomination is within his grasp.
He is planning to declare a victory of sorts on May 20, after the contests in Kentucky and Oregon, when he expects to have secured a majority among the pledged delegates on offer.
Yet Mrs Clinton and her husband passionately believe that she is a better candidate to take on Mr McCain.
She correctly pointed out on Thursday that she has a much broader base of support, even plunging into the minefield of racial politics by declaring that Mr Obama’s backing among “white Americans” was weakening.
In recent contests, she has won Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana with overwhelming backing from whites, blue-collar voters, women, and voters over 45.
Obama has been propelled toward the nomination mostly by African-Americans, the young, and the well educated. Paul Begala, a former Clinton strategist, inartfully summed up their case: “We can’t win just with African-Americans and egg-heads.”
Howard Dean, the Democratic party chairman, whose once-promising 2004 presidential bid collapsed in Iowa, said he spent months trying to persuade his supporters to rally behind John Kerry, the nominee.
And they did not even dislike Mr Kerry. Gary Hart said that after he lost his divisive primary battle against Walter Mondale in 1984, he worked tirelessly – and held more than 40 campaign events – imploring his supporters to back the nominee. “And I was not able to move [them],” he said.
Even if Mrs Clinton loses, she will return to the Senate one of the most powerful politicians in the US. Yet for now, she has tens of millions of supporters across America that believe the House of Clinton must not fall.