The Race For The White House
Superdelegates Must End This Race Now
It is just before midnight and the results from Lake County, Indiana are the only remaining ballots that can determine the outcome of the Indiana Primary. Hillary Clinton is clinging to a 20,000 vote lead, but Lake County is practically a suburb of Chicago, which is Barack Obama Country. This is not as tense as I was back in 2000 when I was up until 3 or 4 a.m., waiting to find out the results in Florida. Yet there is a strong sense of anticipation here that something big is going to happen. CNN has been holding out calling this race for hours, saying it was too close to call. In the end, whether Hillary Clinton wins or loses by a point, it's not going to amount to much in the broad scheme of things. Barack Obama still leads the pledged delegates by about 150. He still leads the popular vote (not that that means anything at all, unless you're Hillary and you want to throw in the results from Michigan and Florida where the votes didn't count).
Barack has just won North Carolina by about 200,000 votes statewide, which will only add to his margin in the popular vote that everyone except Clinton supporters agree should be counted. In short, Hillary is running out of amunition to convince superdelegates that she - not Barack - should be the nominee of the Democratic party this year.
Now that Indiana and North Carolina are out of the way, we've got less than a handful of states remaining to vote. I suspect at this point that the single largest bloc of votes remaining to be had is held by the infamous superdelegates. At present, Clinton holds a small lead over Obama in pledged superdelegates, though those folks can change their mind on the floor of the convention. Hillary Clinton could be finished tomorrow if the superdelegates decided en masse to throw their support behind Barack Obama.
This is what they need to do. Sooner than later, these party officials have got to say that enough is enough and tell Hillary that for the sake of the Democratic party, she's got to face reality that 2008 just wasn't her year. Let's remember that this race was hers from the beginning. She was the 800 pound gorilla and now she's playing catch up.
Make no mistake - I loved Bill Clinton. I believe he would have been one of the greatest American Presidents, had he not screwed up so massively on the family values front. At the outset of this campaign, I was predisposed to at least feel good about Hillary, and if it turns out that she can win the nomination, I'll be proud to vote for her in November.
But that shouldn't happen. Barack Obama has won more states. He's won more delegates. He's got more Americans voting for him than she does. The only thing she can hang her hat on is that Michigan and Florida should be seated at the convention.
Here's the problem with that. Florida and Michigan voters knew, from day one, that their votes would not count. They knew because the DNC told them that if they changed their primary dates, they would not count, Democrats did not campaign in these states. Who knows what the outcome would have been if there had been a real election in either state? We'll never know.
Barack Obama has inspired millions of Americans who have never voted in an election before to cast their votes in support of his candidacy. Democrats know that they cannot win the national election if they only win the states on the east and west coasts. Hillary Clinton is winning the states that Democrats are going to win in November, regardless of who the candidate is. Barack Obama is winning states that we need to add to our column in order to win in November.
Do the Democratic Party a great big favor Superdelegates. Decide who you're going to vote for, get it over with, and let's move on to John McCain.
