About two
months ago it seemed apparent that Sen. Hillary Clinton’s run for the
Democratic nomination was finished. Sen. Barack Obama led in elected delegates,
races won, and popular vote. But, as the pundits called it, she moved the goal
post further and further back. By the time the Pennsylvania primary rolled around the goal
post was in the parking lot.
So last
night, as Obama took a decisive
victory in North Carolina and Clinton squeaked by in Indiana, her refusal
to quit and face reality has a certain Bush-like quality of schizophrenia. The
Daily News’ front page today has the headline ‘Hil Needs A Miracle’ and the NY
Post proclaims ‘Toast!’ Even the entire MSNBC
crew and Matt Drudge
says it’s over, but if her speech last night was anyclue to her future plans, Clinton remains committed to seeing this thing out to
what will undoubtedly be the bitter end, pleading with her supporters to send
her more money to top off her second
self-loan of 6.4 million dollars.
Regardless,
last night seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. With six more primaries
to go, all of which are much smaller than North Carolina
(I believe Puerto Rico is the largest in the rest of the season, with around 50
delegates to be decided), Clinton
has zero shot of over taking Obama in elected delegates and popular vote under
the Democratic rules of delegates by proportion. Not only that but it seems
that now Super delegates are rallying to Obama who, according to George
Stephanopoulos, are ready to come over ‘three, four, five at a time’.
Really
though the story of last night, and ultimately, this Democratic nominating
season is that, as Andrew Sullivan pointed
out, the end of the Clintons
came at the hands of black voters. While Hillary just narrowly picked up Indiana, Obama’s huge
victory in NC is what shut the door for his opponent and that couldn’t have
been possible save for the commanding turn out of black voters there. By the
numbers blacks routed Clinton, giving Obama 91
percent of their vote compared to 6 percent for Clinton. Add that to the fact that whites
voted by a much smaller margin for Clinton—59 to 36—and what you get is blacks,
in a rare, rare event actually deciding on the Democratic nominee for President
and maybe the President of the United States.
Obviously,
Obama historically had black support, but I think that Hillary’s complete lack
of respect for blacks as shown in her interview with
O’Reilly really brought out the black vote for Obama and on this end she
tactically shot herself in the foot. Among all of the mistakes that a person
makes, it’s always the last one that hurts the most and this time she’s going
to look back and realize that when she gave away the black vote to Obama in NC,
when she completely ignored that part of the Democratic constituency, she set
herself up to lose. It’s a poetic end to what has been a miserably racially
polarizing race. Hopefully we’ll get something of more substance in the general
election…but then again, don’t bet on it.
Things to
look forward to: Hillary may not exit the race but she will begin to dissolve
into obscurity as the media looks forward to the McCain-Obama match up and she
hemorrhages money. She might attempt to stay in till the convention but Obama
should take the remaining primaries simply because he’ll be able to outspend
her. By the end of next week Obama will take the lead in Super delegates.Here’s a look at how some of your favorite entertainers view the primary race
The Wolf
runs a blog on political matters at www.wordofthepeople.blogspot.com.
His first novel, The Intellectual
Prostitute, will be dropping this fall.
