Hillary won Indiana by a little bit (Lake County having eventually been heard from) and Obama won North Carolina by a substantial margin. As a result Obama now apparently leads the all-important delegate count by roughly 160 and is perhaps less than 200 from the nomination. The math for Hillary looks very difficult as she probably can’t win now assuming Obama avoids a serious ****-up or bombshell in the next few weeks. Which has all renewed calls for Clinton to quit the race now to allow the party to heal and spare it worse division. If she gets out I won’t mind but I still don’t see a rush to. Personally, once the race is down to two people I think the 2nd person should stay in until the leader clinches it. I still proceed under the assumption that Hillary people will back Obama in the fall against McCain and the Republicans. Certainly the actual Democrats voting for Hillary will.
Others are saying she should soft-land by staying in until she wins West Virginia next Tuesday and then get out. That makes no sense to me. Why would you quit after winning? I guess if it were a shockingly narrow win, and certainly if she gets beat in the Mountaineer State quitting might make sense. But a smashing win would bolster the reason for staying in, not getting out.
And some think she should stay in but ratchet down the rhetoric. In other words, don’t beat up on Obama anymore. That doesn’t make sense either. That’s like telling a golfer that is 3 down with 2 holes to play that he can finish his round but should purposefully avoid making birdies, but stay out there just in case Obama goes Jean Van de Velde on you. If you are going to do that you may as well suspend your campaign entirely but hold your committed delegates just in case Obama has a live boy/dead girl problem pop up in the next 3 months.
I would also caution the punditocracy that Obama is not as close to the nomination as your numbers make it look when you count superdelegates. They are not pledged to him. If something came along to cause an erosion in his support, those supers could flip to Hillary and change the math in a heartbeat, just like some supers have left Hillary for Obama (George McGovern today for example). While that is not likely either at this point, its certainly possible and I don’t think Hillary should be blamed for sticking around and plugging away and seeing what happens.
