Is it Obama? Clinton? Patience, the Wheel Is Still Spinning

Susan Estrich has an interesting opinion piece on the status of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination -- If You Have to Ask, It Isn 't Over:

Races end when a candidate puts down his hand, or her hand, or when the people who would never endorse while there was still a contest endorse, when all the money is flowing in one direction, and the only question is when and not if.

That is, plainly, what is happening on the Republican side. The first President Bush is endorsing. All the former candidates have endorsed. The arithmetic works only one way. The fat lady is singing, whether former Governor Huckabee chooses to listen or not.

The Democratic side is another story. Has Obama got momentum? Yes. But this is a race that has been curiously immune to moment, and downright perverse when it comes to predictions.

Could Hillary still win? She could. The delegate count as of the weekend stood at 1280 for Obama and 1218 for Clinton. By most people's logic, that looks like a tie. Add in Florida and Michigan, and one way or another, there will be delegates from those states at the National Convention, and Hillary is actually ahead. So how can it be over?

Once you declare a firewall, it needs to hold. Hillary has named the Big Three. She has to win Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania - and win them in a commanding enough way to give her credibility with the still-unpledged superdelegates and spread some doubt among opinionmakers and media types who are itching to crown Obama.

IF she does that, and, of course, that's an "if," the rest is doable. The battle for superdelegates is the kind of fight the Clintons excel at -- not only because Bill Clinton may be the hardest man in the world to say no to (politically, I mean), but also because this is where 35 years of favors and chicken dinners and contributions get paid off.

Sure, loyalty won't lead many people to back a loser. If Hillary loses Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, all the rubber chicken in the world won't bring her the votes of the people who have to run with her in the fall. But so long as the contest is as even as it is now, there will be plenty of Clinton people arguing that the lesser-known candidate is a bigger risk than the better-known one, that experience is what it takes to take on John McCain, and yes, that debts must be paid.

The fact that Harold Ickes, Hillary's chief delegate counter and one of the Democratic Party's long-time rules junkies (he got me hooked back in 1980), has now changed his tune on seating delegations from Florida and Michigan should tell you how the Clinton people see this playing out. One way or another, every state ends up with delegates on the floor, no matter what the party threatens in advance.

The question is how they get there, or in this case, according to what vote they get apportioned. The Clinton people will argue that the only fair thing is to apportion them based on the votes that were actually cast in the admittedly verboten primaries. The Obama people, who are specialists in caucuses, will argue that they should be picked by the state parties, or by caucuses, or by some other procedure that Hillary hasn't already won.

Larry Kudlow begs to differ.  It Is Over, he writes:

Please allow me a dose of hardened market realism concerning Obama's landslide victory in Wisconsin. The race is over. Hillary is finished. The Clinton Restoration is over. President Bill Clinton's political invincibility is over. Hillary's electability is over.

. . . .  A 15-point margin in Wisconsin is incredible. Wisconsin is a lot like Ohio except for the wacko ultra-Left Madison college population, which is even worse that Columbus's Ohio State.  . . . . As goes Wisconsin, so goes Ohio.

Not even Hillary's last-minute bashing of business and free-market capitalism, which is a complete repudiation of her husband's presidency, could save her. Obama got there first, with a style and elegance that Hillary simply cannot match.

. . . . Going super-negative over the next two weeks? It'll kill her. Obama will beat her by 35 points instead of twenty. Lift the sanctions on Michigan and Florida? It's an Obama trump card. Bribe or rent the super-delegates? Make my day, Obama is thinking.

Hillary's best bet to preserve her career as a professional politician? Pull back significantly in Texas and Ohio, as a prelude to withdrawal. Bill will say no, 'cause his career is even deader than hers. But Hillary has more class than he does. She still has some vague sense of reality, of the difference between right and wrong, even if he does not.

The Intrade pay-to-play prediction market shows Obama with a 7.5-point gain tonight, giving him a 78 to 20 lead. That's right, 78 to 20. Hillary has suddenly become an incredibly steep inverted yield curve, with a rapidly declining credit rating and a complete drying up of liquidity. She won't be able to raise two wooden nickels, and not even Bill can raise enough money in Dubai to keep her out of bankruptcy.

As of tonight, the market has officially pulled the plug, terminating her campaign. The only thing left for her is to muster some grace, humility and character to begin the process of pulling out. To do otherwise will destroy the Democratic party and what's left of the Clintons' badly tarred and tattered reputation.

The real winner tonight? That chap from Arizona. Captain John McCain.

There's no denying Obama's momentum, but the wheel is still in spin.  I don't see Hillary Clinton walking away from her lifetime ambition just yet.

Comments

[Sweating Through Fog]

"I don't see Hillary Clinton walking away from her lifetime ambition just yet."

I don't either. As I said on my blog, history shows that the Clintons will stop at nothing to win.