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The Democratic Nomination Race Ended on Tuesday, The Question is When the Clintons Will Realize It |
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Tuesday night was, for all intents and purposes, the sign that the race to the Democratic nomination has ended. Barack Obama’s strong victory throughout North Carolina and Hillary Clinton’s narrow margin of victory in Indiana are enough to presume that there is no real chance for Clinton to wrest the nomination away from the front runner. The popular vote is against her. The math is against her. Soon, the Superdelegates will start aligning with Obama. The rationale for her campaign — electability, momentum, key wins — have dissipated with the numbers from North Carolina. Now the Clintons are fierce campaigners. Since Bill Clinton was elected as Attorney General of Arkansas in 1976, the Clintons collectively have lost just one election — the Governorship in 1980, which he promptly regained two years later. I can understand it will be difficult for them to concede the nomination, but the reality is that there is no reasonable scenario left in which she gets the Democratic nod.
Some thoughts and observations in the aftermath of the NC and IN primary results:
- Hillary Clinton should not drop out if she does not want to, at least not yet – She has run a “formidable” campaign as Barack Obama often explains. While her campaign made several mistakes, there is no question she has a large and deep base of support that she may wish to keep energized and working on her behalf. Plus, having the nomination contest continue in the remaining states is good for energizing party voters and developing a good Get Out The Vote operation for November.
- However, Clinton must stop directly attacking Obama– Before now, no matter how egregious the barbs may have been, she could at least argue that she was putting up a good fight for the nomination and whatever attacks she was making against Obama, the Republicans would be much harsher and more intense in the Fall campaign. Those arguments are gone, if they were even valid in the first place. Now, with Obama almost the presumed nominee, she should fight the “good fight” and raise her issues, attack McCain, but emphasize, like she did in her speech Tuesday night, that the party needs to unite.
- The Gas Tax Holiday Scheme Backfired as an issue– While it looked like this cynical, politically-motivated campaign proposal was smart politics, Obama was also very effective in countering it. With ads citing economists opposing the proposal, the quote from a Clinton staffer in the Washington Post that admits it is a political ploy, and Obama’s rhetoric about how the proposal is another Washington gimmick, the Obama campaign was able to turn the tables on the issue and have Obama appear to be above the cynical, inside the Beltway politics that he has campaigned against. In North Carolina Obama won 60% of voters whose family incomes are under $50,000 a year, while in Indiana, Clinton and Obama split that group 50-50 according to exit polls. The gas tax holiday was aimed at that demographic. He also split IN voters with her who said that the economy was the most important issue.Â
- Campaign Money is an issue– It was revealed Tuesday morning that the Clinton loaned $6.4 million to her campaign in April. This is a campaign in debt, and with the recent results, it is doubtful that a lot of contributions will be coming in to her coffers in the near future. Campaigning is what the Clintons do — and since they both spent most of their lives without a lot of money — and he can certainly reline the bank accounts with a few speeches — I doubt that they would hesitate all that much to keep self-funding. However, they have to believe that she still has a shot at the nomination, and again, a realistic scenario for victory now seems obtuse at best, and finances will also determine her ability to compete in remaining contests. Obama almost certainly will offer to help retire her campaign debt when she finally leaves — but this should include her leaving gracefully.
- Superdelegates are now the game– With there being more undeclared superdelegates left than pledged delegates available in the remaining contests, the superdelegate race is going to get more attention. If Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri was correct a couple weeks ago when she said that most elected superdelegates have already made up their minds, they are just being deferential in terms of when to declare, well it is time to declare. Since the next contest is West Virginia, where Clinton will probably win easily, Obama needs a steady stream of superdelegate endorsements in order to maintain the momentum both in terms of delegates and the media narrative.
My hope is that the remaining weeks of the primary campaign will be civil and allow for a reconciliation of the Democratic Party’s factions well before Denver. But then again, there is always the concern that Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I’m with Chris Bowers in not understanding what exactly we know now that we didn’t know weeks ago. It’s true that it looks like Clinton is finished now, but as far as I can tell that’s just because the media for some reason decided to stop pretending she still had a chance. The race ended a long time ago, and now the media are realizing it.
they have realized it, just not ready to accept it!