Obama's Back On The Right Track
Hillary Clinton needed a twofer (not a split-decision) last night to send a message to the uncommitted delegates she was the strongest candidate to beat John McCain and return the party of ``Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion'' back to the White House.
It didn’t happen, despite ``bitter gate’’, despite Rev Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory comments casting a cloud of suspicion over Barack Obama’s candidacy, which gave the Illinois senator arguably the most nightmarish two weeks of the campaign thus far. Despite all the damage inflicted on Obama, Clinton was beaten decisively in North Carolina last night 56 to 42 percent, and was holding to a razor-thin lead in Indiana most of the night, until finally outdistancing Mr. Obama 51 to 49 percent with 99 percent of the precincts reporting.
With Obama having endured the blitzkrieg, Clinton’s argument that her opponent can’t win in big states is losing credibility, now that the Illinois senator won the Tar Heel state convincingly and just barely lost in Indiana.
Margie Hershey was stunned Obama did as well as he did in the Hoosier state. The professor of Political Science at Indiana University was expecting Senator Clinton to win by about 5 percentage points. ``The demographics of our state looks a lot more like Ohio and Pennsylvania than they do like states that have given a majority of their votes to Obama’’, Hershey wrote through an email
The math is beginning to work against Clinton with Obama clinging to a 1808.5 to 1,665 delegate lead, according to The Associated Press count, with 2,025 needed to secure the nomination.
The most convincing argument for remaining in the race rests with Clinton’s ``fuzzy math’’, in hoping recounts or do-over’s in Florida and Michigan, two outlaw states who violated party rules by moving the dates of their primaries, will be approved when the Democratic National Committee's Rules Committee meets on May 31st.
While the New York senator may still be putting up the good fight, saying she is planning to go`` full steam ahead to the White House’’ as she did last night during her victory speech in Indiana, the reality is beginning to set in that barring a miracle with recounts in Michigan and Florida, and assuming there’s no ``October Surprise’’ as Carl Bernstein said last night on CNN, meaning, there isn’t more damaging news about Obama that hasn’t come out yet, the Democratic primary is all but settled.
Now it’s only a question whether Hillary will be a uniter or a divider, whether she’ll lay down her arms, put her Annie Oakley days behind her, and throw her support behind Obama in such a stirring manner, that it propels her to the new leader of the Democratic party, a lofty position once held by Senator Ted Kennedy as ambassador to Catholic voters, the working class, the down-and-out and disaffected middle class.
If Clinton continues to forge ahead and carries this fight all the way to the convention floor, all she does is risk stripping a candidate of the nomination, the first African-American candidate of a major party, with more delegates than her, all based on some persuasive arm-twisting with the uncommitted superdelagates.
It would be a bloodbath not worth fighting, for the simple reason it would rupture the Democratic Party beyond repair.
-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net
It didn’t happen, despite ``bitter gate’’, despite Rev Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory comments casting a cloud of suspicion over Barack Obama’s candidacy, which gave the Illinois senator arguably the most nightmarish two weeks of the campaign thus far. Despite all the damage inflicted on Obama, Clinton was beaten decisively in North Carolina last night 56 to 42 percent, and was holding to a razor-thin lead in Indiana most of the night, until finally outdistancing Mr. Obama 51 to 49 percent with 99 percent of the precincts reporting.
With Obama having endured the blitzkrieg, Clinton’s argument that her opponent can’t win in big states is losing credibility, now that the Illinois senator won the Tar Heel state convincingly and just barely lost in Indiana.
Margie Hershey was stunned Obama did as well as he did in the Hoosier state. The professor of Political Science at Indiana University was expecting Senator Clinton to win by about 5 percentage points. ``The demographics of our state looks a lot more like Ohio and Pennsylvania than they do like states that have given a majority of their votes to Obama’’, Hershey wrote through an email
The math is beginning to work against Clinton with Obama clinging to a 1808.5 to 1,665 delegate lead, according to The Associated Press count, with 2,025 needed to secure the nomination.
The most convincing argument for remaining in the race rests with Clinton’s ``fuzzy math’’, in hoping recounts or do-over’s in Florida and Michigan, two outlaw states who violated party rules by moving the dates of their primaries, will be approved when the Democratic National Committee's Rules Committee meets on May 31st.
While the New York senator may still be putting up the good fight, saying she is planning to go`` full steam ahead to the White House’’ as she did last night during her victory speech in Indiana, the reality is beginning to set in that barring a miracle with recounts in Michigan and Florida, and assuming there’s no ``October Surprise’’ as Carl Bernstein said last night on CNN, meaning, there isn’t more damaging news about Obama that hasn’t come out yet, the Democratic primary is all but settled.
Now it’s only a question whether Hillary will be a uniter or a divider, whether she’ll lay down her arms, put her Annie Oakley days behind her, and throw her support behind Obama in such a stirring manner, that it propels her to the new leader of the Democratic party, a lofty position once held by Senator Ted Kennedy as ambassador to Catholic voters, the working class, the down-and-out and disaffected middle class.
If Clinton continues to forge ahead and carries this fight all the way to the convention floor, all she does is risk stripping a candidate of the nomination, the first African-American candidate of a major party, with more delegates than her, all based on some persuasive arm-twisting with the uncommitted superdelagates.
It would be a bloodbath not worth fighting, for the simple reason it would rupture the Democratic Party beyond repair.
-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net
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