As the Dust Settles

I wanted to take a couple of days to let the belligerent, post-primary spew calm before I weighed in on the state of the democratic primaries.

Although it was pretty obvious before last Tuesday that Hillary was done, and the whispering of not if but how she was going to lose began, most pundits were reluctant to come out and say unequivocally that this race was effectively over. Last Tuesday changed that dynamic and most people are calling it a wrap and doing so much more openly than before. This is because before NC and IN there was a chance that Hillary could catch Obama in the popular vote if she somehow was able to get the MI and FL votes to count towards the total. Now it is obvious that even if you did include those currently disqualified states, Obama still has her beat in this metric.

The fact that Hillary is continuing to pursue the nomination suggests to me the following. Like I mentioned before, she really doesn’t think that 'such numeric metrics' as popular vote and pledged delegates earned via the primaries should prevent her from being the nominee. Because she cannot secure either of those Hillary must believe that she has proven that she is the best candidate through other means (what those are, who knows...) and that the undecided superdelegates should select her over the "elected" nominee. She must think this even if she doesn’t say it publicly because that is the only option remaining for her.

One of the arguments she will use (and has been using) in trying to make her case is that she is more electable than Obama. The problem with this strategy is that it’s difficult to claim that you are more electable when you are essentially asking to be appointed over your opponent who was elected. That is, the greatest demonstration of one's electability is to be elected. But so far it’s been Obama who has seemed to posses a better understanding of how the game works. His whole campaign strategy was based upon the rules of the game and therefore the accumulation of delegates.

Conversely, Hillary's campaign strategy has been to find every possible way to rout the rules (MI and FL) and change the means by which we determine the winner (popular vote vs. delegate count). The problem with this strategy is that most know this is not how the game works. We know this because the sting of the 2000 presidential election remains. We all know that Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but that is not the means by which we determine our president. For better or for worse the electoral college is the means by which we select our president and by that metric George Bush won, and you can see (albeit painfully) that he indeed was our president.

So why should the remaining superdelegates take a chance with someone who is trying to change the rules when we all know that we won't be able to do that in November? The truth is, they won't. They know better. And so, for better or for worse (although I strongly believe it’s for the better), Obama will be our nominee.

Now, given the reality of this race being over for her, I see Hillary as having two distinct paths she can take if she remains obstinately 'in this.' She either attempts to do irreparable damage to Obama so he loses come November and she can have another go in 2012, or she begins calling for democrats to be united while staying in so as not to upset her supporters. I personally think she knows this is over and is going to ride this out just like Huckabee did - active but not forceful. Then once all the votes have been counted (mid June) she will bow out. We'll see.