Giving In

Hillary Clinton seems to be growing accustomed to the fact that she won’t be the main attraction at the next Democratic convention. Her legacy to women won’t be top tier as far as history is concerned, her impact on the social timeline will more likely be looked at as an extension of her husband’s legacy and not something that was created by her own thoughts or actions. Amusingly, in some ways, this is probably preferable from her husband’s perspective. A suggestion that he was ever more interested in strengthening his wife’s political career more than the memory of his own would catch just about anyone by surprise.

Like many others, she has seen her position as front-runner and seemingly inevitable choice become something that looks more like a delusional fashion trend that never should have happened in the first place. What were we thinking? Who knows.

The facts, though, make for an interesting discussion. Her argument for continuing a loosing candidacy has been strengthened by recent events. For a majority of the primary season she has been claiming that she is the strongest candidate, the person most likely to put the Democrats back in the White House. It seems unlikely that even she was able to believe these statements until she was able to stop the momentum of her opponent with a solid victory in another large swing state, Pennsylvania. Personal views aside, her arguments carry a lot of weight and the party’s chances in November could be damaged if they are ignored. The problem is that the party has no choice but to ignore them.

Clinton posted nearly double digit victories in nearly every big state. She lost Illinois, Virginia and North Carolina. Missouri was virtually a tie but Obama managed a victory there as well. Clinton managed to take California, New York, and Texas. More importantly, she wasn’t forced to concede in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

No one is arguing that Obama would lose California and New York in the general election. The argument for his viability against McCain, however, is seriously damaged by the fact that the Democrats won’t be able to use the candidate who was strongest in the states that matter most, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The situation becomes even muddier when we think about how Florida and Michigan could have factored into the equation had the delegates in those states materially effected the numerical outcome for both candidates in the earlier stages. No one could seriously suggest that Clinton would have lost Florida. Michigan has a heavier Black population but the numbers would have been skewed against Obama in terms of economic demographics. Clinton could have, quite feasibly, posted a win in both of those states and the momentum generated by these races would have undoubtedly cut into the long run of 12 state victories that Obama was surprisingly able to generate through the middle of the country (Kansas, South Dakota, Utah, etc). It is amazing that he was able to win at all in that region. A loss in Florida would have made those victories impossible.

So, it was a string of bad luck for Clinton in that it happened to be Florida that was again an issue in terms of voting irregularity. And what winds up being the outcome?

The Democrats, who generally seem to be their own worst enemy, have to put forward a candidate who is going to be weaker on a national level. At this point, it is up to the “superdelegates” to overturn what is a sure victory for the Obama campaign. There is no other way he can lose the nomination. The party knows it can’t overturn the outcome of the primary results. The will of these “superdelegates” is essentially useless, it’s amusing that they are factored into the outcome at all.

The die has been cast, as we say, and now it is up the the general voting public to see if the country is actually serious about electing a black man named Barak Obama to its highest office. When you look at the ways the Republicans will be able to use the Reverend Wright issue to its advantage and couple this with Obama’s weakness in the large swing states and the fact that he has very little experience on the national stage it is very easy to envision the ways the Democrats will manage to lose themselves another election.

For the record, I have been an Obama supporter from the beginning and have no doubt that he is the smartest and most reasonable person running. But I also think his chances are slim.