By Brendan Loy
The New York Times's election blog explains the stakes of tomorrow's big vote:
[F]our primary contests on Tuesday could extinguish Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton’s hope of overtaking Senator Barack Obama. ...
Yet the hinge could still swing either way. If Mrs. Clinton carries
the behemoths of Ohio and Texas — despite her opponent’s momentum and
financial advantage — Mr. Obama may rue this week as both an end and a
beginning.
Specifically, Tuesday could be the end of his coronation as
Democratic standard-bearer and the beginning of a wrenching springtime
struggle. With Clinton victories on Tuesday, neither political
realities nor “delegate math” would preclude it.
As an explanation of that last line, the Times goes on to note that "[u]nless Mrs. Clinton quits, either candidate will need votes from the so-called superdelegates." Although that's technically true, it should be noted that there's a huge difference between needing a handful of superdelegates to shore up a clear pledged-delegate majority, versus needing a large majority of superdelegates to overturn a clear pledged-delegate majority. For instance, if Obama continues winning delegates at his current pace, he'd finish with a lead of 1,718 to 1,498. Out of the 820 superdelegates and Edwards delegates*, Obama would need just 306 (37.3%) while Clinton would need 526 (64.1%). How she could possibly convince nearly two-thirds of the unpledged delegates to buck the popular will is beyond me. So I think the "delegate math" is still a major problem for her.
Nevertheless, the Times is right in the big picture: if Obama doesn't land a knockout blow tomorrow, or at least a punch that starts a slow bleed which would get Hillary out of the race within 3-10 days, then this race is going to continue well into the spring. There's nothing on the calendar (with the exception of various low-profile delegate selection events that won't generate any momentum) between next Tuesday (Mississippi) and April 22 (Pennsylvania), so if Hillary isn't out of the race by, say, next Thursday, I can't see what would convince her to get out before late April.
(Hat tip, sorta, on the headline, to C. Stephen Ludlow.)
*This assumes that Edwards gets his 14 Iowa delegates, which is unlikely, as I explained here. But since the fate of those delegates remains uncertain, it makes sense to count them in the non-Clinton/Obama category for now.
P.S. Interesting aside: tomorrow is the original "Super Tuesday." The reason such phrases as "Super Duper Tuesday" arose to describe February 5 was to differentiate it from the true "Super Tuesday," March 4. But as more and more states moved their primaries to February 5, people simply stopped using the "Super Tuesday" label to describe March 4 and started applying it, sans "Duper," to February 5 instead. Yet here we are, on the eve of the original Super Tuesday, and it's more "super" than ever: the entire Democratic race hangs in the balance.
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