The Presumptive Nominee?

“There are times in politics when you must be on the right side, and lose” – John Kenneth Galbraith, economist, liberal and U.S. Ambassador to India 1961- 1963

In the race for the Democratic nomination for President, the political obituaries are being written for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her blowout loss by 15 points and razor thin victory (by 14,000 votes) to Senator Obama in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries respectively on May 6th, will likely prove to be the last battleground where the former First Lady had an opportunity to, in her words, create a “game-changer” and reverse the momentum towards Obama.

In the words of Thomas Edsall of The Huffington Post, “…Hillary Clinton, who for seven weeks has crawled, kicked and bitten her way back into contention, suffered a blow on Tuesday, halting the momentum behind her bid for the nomination just when she had begun to regain credibility. In the universe of political clichés, she is on life support, her oxygen choked off, her knees buckling, unable to stanch the bleeding, down for an eight count, on the ropes, praying for the bell to ring, desperate to get her wind back”.

Having won an impressive 9.5% victory in Pennsylvania on March 22nd, and having finally found her voice on the campaign trail (in the view of many commentators), hopes were high in the Clinton camp that they could engineer a set of results in North Carolina and Indiana that would blow open the race for the nomination. And, in the weeks leading up to election-day in both states, Hillary Clinton had every reason to feel optimistic. After months of struggling to find her message, Clinton had recently been connecting with voters in a way not seen before on the campaign trail, she was energized and in her zone, running on adrenalin and drawing sharp contrasts with her Democratic opponent. Clinton knew that she had to radically change the dynamic in order the stop the steady drip-drip of super-delegates declaring for Obama. The only way to do that was to win a landslide in Indiana and come very close to causing an upset in North Carolina.

Obama, on the other hand, had just come out of the worst three weeks of his campaign. 24/7 cable news coverage of the comments made by his former pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright, called into doubt Obama’s judgment in some quarters, forcing him to spend big chunks of time managing the Wright crisis, time he would much preferred to have devoted to substantive policy discussions.

Throw into the mix the call by conservative Republican talk show host Rush Limbaugh to hijack the Indiana primary by encouraging white voters who are registered as Republicans (and who more than likely will vote for McCain in November) to cast their primary vote for Clinton (Indiana is an open state allowing any registered voter, regardless of party, to vote in the Democratic primary). The logic of Limbaugh’s argument is that he believes Clinton is the preferred Democratic nominee for Republicans in November as they feel they would have a far better chance of beating Hillary than Barack. Limbaugh called his campaign “Operation Chaos”.

When the dust settled the night of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, it was clear that Obama had won a landslide victory in North Carolina. The Indiana results showed that 11% of the people who cast a ballot were actually Republicans who came over to vote in the Democratic primary. Of those, 52% voted for Clinton. When you study the numbers it shows that 1.275 million people voted in the Indiana primary. 11% of that number is approximately 140,000. Clinton won 52% of the Republican cross over vote, guaranteeing roughly 72,000 votes. When you crunch the final numbers and see that Clinton won Indiana by a little over 14,000 votes, the Limbaugh “Operation Chaos” strategy may well have played a significant part in Clinton’s narrow victory.

In the days since the May 6th primaries the steady drip-drip of super-delegates to Obama has increased in speed to the point where as I write Obama has passed Clinton for the first time in pledged super-delegate support. Baring a catastrophic scandal of some kind that would derail the Obama candidacy or an act of GOD, nearly every commentator, and more ominously for Clinton, politicians that have been previously silent, have started to refer to Obama as the presumptive nominee. Clinton is ignoring calls for her to drop out of the race and it is very likely that both candidates will keenly contest the six remaining primaries in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota between now and the end of the election cycle on June 3rd. In these states, Clinton is favored in 3 and Obama in 3, the most likely result being a fairly even split of the remaining delegates.

In the media, much is being made of the fact that Clinton may be hedging her bets for a place on the ticket with Obama as his VP running mate. While a joint Obama-Clinton ticket would be formidable there seems little appetite for the idea in the Obama camp and also among the Democratic leadership. In recent weeks Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House) and senior senators Chris Dodd and Ted Kennedy have vetoed the idea, citing irreconcilable differences (among other reasons) caused by the bad blood in the primary season.

Regardless of how the remaining primaries play out, the most important thing for Democrats to do in the coming weeks is to unite quickly and strongly behind the eventual nominee. A vote for John McCain in November is akin to a third Bush term. There is no doubt that the Republican attack machine will kick into overdrive once the Democratic nominee is confirmed and the general election campaign is likely to be bitter and bloody. I am confident however that if Obama is the Democratic nominee, Americans will seize this moment in history to make history.

For the latest delegate numbers (both elected delegates and super-delegates) go to http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/scorecard/