No One's Crossed The Finish Line Yet

As I read in some blog comment recently, "It aint over til the lady in the pantsuit sings." Tomorrow, June 3rd will mark the conclusion of the Democratic presidential primaries when South Dakota and Montana go to the polls. As I predicted, quite some time back, neither Clinton nor Obama will finish tomorrow with enough delegates to claim the nomination. Instead, the contest will be handed over in total to the superdelegates. By my math, Clinton would have to sway virtually every uncommitted delegate to her campaign in order to win. However, I wouldn't be quick to say it couldn't happen.

Say what you will about "party unity," but reading the news, the blogs and OpEds out there, it seems to me that the hostility between Clinton and Obama's supporters is just as rabid as it ever was. I believe it is fueled in part by Obama's dismissive treatment of the Democratic campaign; he has given only token effort to competing with Clinton in the last handful of contests, save Oregon where he aggressively campaigned. To some I'm sure this looks like confidence, to me it just looks like another hearty serving of Obama arrogance. Moving into "General Election Mode" before the nomination is decided is simply insulting. And to add injury, the DNC on Saturday voted to grant delegates from Michigan to Obama, a candidate who was not on the ballot. And, Obama's campaign has the audacity to say they are "giving delegates" to Clinton. News flash: first of all, the DNC and state parties give delegates, not candidates, and second, Clinton was denied delegates that should be allocated to her based on her win percentage. Let's also not forget that it was John Edwards who floated the "vote uncommitted" idea, so it seems to me those votes are more for Edwards than Obama. Who's "giving" delegates to who now?

I firmly believe, and have since the start, that Barack Obama cannot beat John McCain. Democratic leadership has said dozens of times, "We must have a Democratic president," and yet, in spite of all evidence, it appears Democrats are going to pick a candidate who shows dramatically weaker performance in the General Election. I believe this article by Jay Cost makes it abundantly clear that Clinton's argument that she is stronger in swing states and counties is spot on. Clinton consistently performs better in state level head-to-heads and save for a few days, outperforms Obama at the national level as well.

By Wednesday, we should have a very solid idea of what is really going to happen. We've come a long way from when Howard Dean was saying he expected the superdelegates to endorse by July. Now, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (who has a lower job approval rating than Bush, by the way) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who as far as I can tell is just barely hanging onto his job) are insisting that the decision should be made by the end of the week. While this isn't terribly unrealistic of a demand, it is certainly a pushy one. I'll say it again: if Democrats are so worried about a protracted race, how come they made up rules that infinitely allow it? All Clinton has to do is contest the Rules & Bylaws Committee ruling from Saturday, and there you go: we're going to the Convention. I don't think she will contest the decision, although she would certainly be fully within her rights to do so, considering she was stripped of delegates she fairly won.

The he-said she-said over MI & Fl "not counting" is little more than saber rattling anyway. Another thing we should not forget is that as soon as the Michigan primary was concluded, Obama couldn't get to Florida fast enough to re-submit himself to the ballot. If they "didn't matter" how come he also "broke the rules" and allowed his name on the Florida ballot? Couldn't be because he was afraid Hillary would win again was it? And guess what? She did. Before any of this started, we knew these two states would eventually get seated. It's all false drama and posturing.

As you can likely tell, by my tone here, and by my three week hiatus from campaign coverage, I am totally disgusted with Democrats in general. The Democratic campaign has turned into a freak show, near total control of the process has been handed over to the media, and the infighting is getting worse, not better, in spite of the pretty face they try to put on it. It's been one scandal after another, every single word spoken by everyone involved has been twisted beyond any reality. I could go on, but I'm just getting angrier by the second. All I can say at this point is, whatever happens, the Democratic party brought it on themselves.