A Pilgrim’s Digression

In terms of the primaries yesterday, I will keep my comments brief. I feel a little depressed this morning about Obama’s losses, and about the fact that he couldn’t wrap up the nomination last night. Not only that, the next major primary is more than a month away, when Pennsylvania votes. That seems like an eternity in which Clinton can only gain momentum while chipping away at Obama’s lead. Anyway, I don’t have much hope for Obama in Pennsylvania, either. I know my Pennsylvania relatives are probably going to vote for Clinton.

I don’t want to be pessimistic, but I think that by not scoring the knock out he needed yesterday, Obama may have lost the nomination. As the Washington Post points out, he now has to fight a two-front campaign against both Clinton and McCain through the summer. It’s going to be costly, and I only see things getting tougher for him because of it.

Whether Clinton can catch up to him in the delegate count seems like a moot point since Super Delegates are going to decide the nomination anyway. The question now is whether Clinton’s victories staunches the flow of Super Delegates to Obama. If she retains her lead in Super Delegates, it won’t matter how many more states Obama wins.

I know party insiders say that the Super Delegates will vote according to the “will” of the voters, but that will is entirely open to their individual interpretation. Some Super Delegates may decide that because Clinton has won the “important” states, such as New York, Ohio, California, then the will of the voters is that she be the nominee.

I don’t like the nomination being in the hands of a few hundred party insiders. I think that is un-democratic and a nineteenth-century, back-room politics way of choosing a nominee.

To be optimistic, if Obama can increase his lead in smaller, upcoming primaries caucuses, such as in Mississippi and Wyoming, I think he makes it harder and harder for the Super Delegates to choose Clinton. He has already won more primaries, more of the popular vote, and more of the regular delegate count than Clinton. But that isn’t enough. Any other year and any other candidate but Clinton, and Obama would be the de facto nominee at this point.

I really can’t predict how this is going to end. However, my gut feeling is that Clinton is going to be the nominee now, and that prospect really puts a damper on my mood. It may be true that Democrats don’t really care who is the nominee, and if it is Clinton they will coalesce around her in the general campaign. I’m not there yet, and I may never get there.

The best news for Obama may be that whenever Clinton starts to feel like she has a strong hand, she overplays it. She has a strong hand now, and she is feeling confident enough to suggest that she and Obama split the ticket (with her as the Presidential nominee, of course). Hopefully that suggestion will come across to voters as unbridled arrogance, coming from someone who has won only three contests since January, compared to Obama’s twelve.

One thing is for certain, if Obama by some miracle manages to pull this off and becomes the party’s nominee, he is going to be much stronger and battle-hardened when he goes up against McCain in the fall.