I had three columns in May in which I compared the Democratic primary battle to a basketball game where Hillary was not that far behind, but there was no time to catch up. Last night, Obama was still up by 10 points or so in my metaphor, but now the clock has hit triple zero. It hit triple zero yesterday as we had the final two primaries and Obama reached the magic number of delegates needed to secure the nomination. Either way, the clock has hit zero and it is time for her to walk off the court since we need it now for the Finals and Obama vs. McCain. The semi-finals are over.
Was it right for Hillary to play the game hard and fight to the bitter end of the primary calendar in spite of long odds? Of course. There were still primaries to be fought, pledged delegates and super delegates to be earned. I compare Hillary staying in the race with my guy, Mike Huckabee, staying in the Republican race until John McCain clinched it mathematically March 4. McCain won the nomination on January 19 when he won South Carolina. However, he did not clinch it until March 4. As soon as McCain did clinch the nomination mathematically, Huckabee graciously stepped aside and endorsed McCain. (That does not mean I have to.) Huckabee, like Clinton, got to taste victories and big ones between January 19 and March 4. He won the SEC (Southeastern conference) primary as I call it on Super Tuesday winning Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and his home state of Arkansas. On February 9, a few days later, he won Kansas by over 30 points. He showed that he belonged in the race, but left when the race was over. Hillary lost the nomination when Obama won eleven contests in a row from mid-February till early March. Hillary has had some big victories since then. They included Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania (big states) and Kentucky and West Virginia (big margins).
Hillary will lose credibility and “bargaining power” the longer she withholds conceding and endorsing Obama. She teased us last night in her speech and asked “What do I want?” and then she never answered the question. Is she trying to “save face” or does she want another job, like Supreme Court or vice-president? I can understand if she wants to be Obama's running mate. I don't think she does, but if she does, she needs to talk to him about it. If she really wants to make a stink about it, she could take her fight to be the Vice President to the convention. However, she is not going to be the nominee for President, at least not this year. She essentially has had almost a month for this to sink in. She needs to start the healing process on this that she will not need to call her drape person to fit drapes for the Oval Office.
The Democratic race was largely about identity politics (race and gender) and personality (experience versus change), but it was not about issues. Simply put, this is so because Hillary and Obama were almost identical on every issue. I am looking forward to the campaign of Obama vs. McCain as there are differences on almost all of the issues. We will look at these issues from the war on terror, foreign policy in general, taxes and other things for the next five months. Fasten your seatbelts. It is going to be another long ride!
