No Nonsense
Obama the presumptive nominee
After his Tuesday, May 6 decisive 14% margin of victory in the North Carolina primary and a near win in Indiana (lost by only a 2% spread), Senator Barack Obama, according to almost all columnists and commentators, has become the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party, and the clock is ticking for Senator Clinton to wind up her bid for the presidential nomination.
Senator Clinton failed to capitalise on Barack Obama's recent troubles, said Adam Nagourney in The New York Times. Splitting presidential primaries in Indiana and North Carolina "was not a draw." Obama "can certainly breathe easier now," said The Wall Street Journal.
The only way she can win the nomination is by finding Obama fatally damaged by some earth shattering development that will sway superdelegates toward her en bloc, and having "barred delegates" of both Michigan and Florida reinstated and their votes counted in the total popular vote count.
She's already played that card and she failed, said Steve Kornacki in The New York Observer's Politicker blog. No one believes that the superdelegates would "overturn 'the will of the people,'" and Clinton would overtake Obama in either the delegate count or the popular vote. Thwe outcome of the remaining six primaries is obvious -- Obama winning three, Clinton taking the other three. With nothing to change and if she keeps running now, it will be "for show," only.
Look at the reality: The arithmetic is now so firmly against Senator Clinton (1,422 pledged delegates + 273 superdelegates = 1,695) that Senator Obama's lead (1,588 + 266 =1,848 short of 177 to reach 2025 delegates needed) in total delegates is almost insuperable.
Ger this: There are only six contests remaining for 217 (7%) pledged delegates and the number of uncommitted superdelegates remaining are 260 -- the two added equals 477 delegates to be awarded.
After Tuesday's primary outcome, Senator Obama needs 177 (37%) delegates and conversely Senator Clinton needs 330 (69%) delegates to clinch the nomination.
"We now know who the Democratic nominee will be," said NBC's most widely respected "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert.
One now wonders, why then she is vowing to continue her bid for the presidency and end running until no more states and delegates there to run for. Her rationality is all about her-- divorced from what reality would tell her to do. Even after her debilitating loss on Tuesday, she continues to argue: - I'm the most qualified candidate
- I believe, I'll be the best president among the three of us (Obama, McCain, and herself);
- My base will (women, Catholics, and Hispanics) will decide the presidential election touting herself as indispensable (some commentators interpret this claim as a remote signal that she may consider being Obama's running mate).
Her federal gasoline tax relief (18.4 cents per gallon) for the three summer months was rebuffed by Senator Obama as old politics of vote chasing gimmick and voter peddling. Her touting that if she becomes the president she will obliterate Iran (and its 71 million people) from the face of the earth if Iran attacks Israel are considered too bellicose and pandering for Jewish votes.
Clinton's argument, as Obama is tiptoeing closer to the 2,025 critical nomination clinching number, is that the real target for winning the nomination is 2,209 (Her newly concocted number, counting both Florida and Michigan delegates). This is a tantamount to shifting the goal post once the game is on play and you're losing. That's an absolutely no-win case to sell -- a selffulfilling prophecy -- one that is driven and concocted to penalise Obama for the mis-steps of Democratic officials in the two states that broke the primary election scheduling rules.
Once again, everyone but the Clinton surrogates is saying "the Clintons" will do and make up anything to winbut not this time.
"The Clintons are like a cat that gets run over but refuses to die. It crawls off the road and makes it to a backyard, hiding under the deck, in the shadows, eyes like slits, panting for days, stubbornly refusing to give it up" said John Kass in the Chicagotribune.com
"But no matter what she does, she can't stop Obama, the gentle faun of American politics, supported for years by a compliant, yearning media eager to portray him as a reformer and by the Chicago Democratic machine that has nurtured and protected him for years" added John Kass.
Beleaguered Senator Clinton not only took a beating on Tuesday primary, she also became bankrupt in the process she loaned $6.4 million of their own money to her campaign in addition to the $5 million already loaned weeks earlier. Raising campaign funds is becoming stingier as her candidacy is becoming bleaker. However, her political life doesn't need to end with her presidential bid.
With her hopes of winning the nomination now "a fond wish wrapped in a desperate hope," said Roger Simon in Politico.com, Clinton might want to consider her 'endgame.' She has "options" still--if Obama loses, he won't get a second chance in 2012, but she might also run for Senate majority leader or New York governor--but she needs to plan carefully and astutely. She'll ruin her "political future" if she "becomes known as the candidate who was willing to destroy her party in order to gain the nomination."
There're on-going predictions that Senator Clinton may wind up presidential bid any day now, but Obama's winning the presidency is not all that guaranteed.
The Wall Street Journal in an editorial argues that Obama's "giant step" toward the Democratic party nomination ironically comes "just when Hillary Clinton has finally exposed his potential weaknesses as a general election candidate." He relied heavily on African-American voters, lost among white Democrats, fared poorly among rural voters, and split the independents with Clinton. Democrats are choosing their latest in a string of "unknown and untested" candidates, and we'll find out in November if Obama is "more like the Jimmy Carter of 1976."
Even with all the tainted weaknesses, Obama's stature has already become larger than life -- unthinkable only a few months ago that a man of African-American origin would come so close to securing the Democratic party's presidential nominee, let alone winning the presidency. Believe it or not -- that is only possible in this land of opportunity. As Obama in his victory speech last week laid out succinctly: "I know the promise of America because I have lived it."
Dr. Abdullah A. Dewan is Professor of Economics at Eastern Michigan University.
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