More on the primaries:
As I write this, Clinton has won Ohio and it looks like she will win Texas. What we know now is that after tonight Clinton will be able to say that she has stopped Obama's momentum and that she is well positioned to go on. We also know that despite the wins, she will pick up few, if any delegates on Obama because of the way that delegates are distributed in Texas. Obama will maintain a lead of over 100 delegates.
We can also make be quite sure that even after the rest of the primaries are concluded, Obama will have a delegate lead over Clinton. It will be very difficult, if not close to impossible, for her to overtake him. We do not know who will have the popular vote margin. It looks like Obama will hold on to the lead that he has there. My guess is that Clinton is well aware that she can not catch up but wants to go to the convention and then argue that because she won the big states that the superdelegates (unpledged) should go to her. Obama will argue that they should support him because he has more pledged delegates. Who wins then? It could be really messy unless someone wises up. As I indicated in the last blog, that should be Clinton. Obama has the better argument and if things don't go his way, he walks and with him probably goes a large segment of the black vote and the Democrats are toast. If Obama gets the nomination,he is more likely to be able to get the Clinton supporters than Clinton would be to get the Obama supporters. The key then would be the Latino vote and white male conservative democratic vote. He would have a tough choice to make for V.P. Does he choose Senator Webb from Virginia or former Senator Nunn from Georgia to get the latter or Governor Bill Richardson from New Mexico to try to help with the Latino vote. If Clinton gets the nomination, she has only one choice and that is to beg Obama to be her running mate.
Right now, Obama would like to be focusing on McCain and, in fact, has been trying to do so. But, Clinton won't go away and she is providing McCain with a lot of material that he is sure to use against Obama should he become the nominee. Obama will have to begin to focus again on Clinton and may have to do what he has been trying to avoid doing and that is going on the attack. He has really been trying to stay away from that kind of junk but she is forcing his hand. While some pundits think that this fight between Clinton and Obama is democracy at work and is good for the party, I say that is a bunch of hogwash. Nothing good strategically comes from this for the Democrats. One could argue that it gets people enthused but it also gets them angry and that does not go away. One wouild think that the Democrats would learn from history, i.e the Carter-Kennedy squabble in 1980, but the Democrats prefer a fight rather than a display of common sense.