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So here we are. Hillary Clinton has thrown the kitchen sink at Barack Obama, and managed to scrape together two solid wins and one nail-biter.
The damage done to Obama, who as of now is only guilty of having an aide who sought to clarify his position on NAFTA unwittingly get himself into trouble, and having a past relationship with a shady real estate developer whom he has disavowed, so far hasn't been that bad, but it's been enough to make people take a harder look and think twice.
Meanwhile, the delegate math hasn't changed much.
For Hillary Clinton to win the nomination at this point, one of three things needs to happen.
Either Obama has to run afoul of a scandal that makes him completely unacceptable as a nominee, Hillary has to win by margins consistently for the rest of the primary calendar that simply do not seem possible, or Hillary has to convince the superdelegates to overturn the will of the Democratic electorate.
The middle option seems possible only in some combination with the first. Ditto for the third option.
In order to win, Hillary has to continue the scortched earth campaign that won for her tonight. She must continue to attack, to use negative ads that we used to think only Republicans ran, to smear and degrade a man who has overall run a decent campaign, avoided running overtly negative ads, and never once uttered the word Whitewater or any other number of obvious potential baseless smears that could make voters think twice, despite being dared to on numerous occasions. It's a destructive strategy that will damage a rising star in the Party while at the same time ensuring the most contentious Convention since at least 72, and quite possibly ever.
The most likely scenario is that the Clinton campaign continues to smear, continues to fight, gets a few more wins, a couple more losses, maybe even a second shot at Florida and Michigan.
At which point, the Clinton campaign, short of a complete Obama meltdown, will still lack a lead in pledged delegates.
At that time, she will ask the Democratic National Convention to overrule the closely-contested, but ultimate choice of the Democratic voting public.
Judging by how I feel tonight, I can't imagine what Obama supporters will feel like should that happen, and that's exactly what the Clinton campaign is promising.
Her campaign's only other hope is the total meltdown of Obama, if it turns out that Rezko has pictures of him in some kind of compromising position or something, which doesn't seem likely at this point. After the kitchen sink, you'd really think it would have happened by now if it were going to.
On the other hand, if she is ultimately unsuccessful in this strategy, she will have seriously roughed up the eventual nominee and done the dirty work that John McCain's campaign seems as yet unwilling to be a part of. While we know 527 smear attacks are inevitable, McCain and Obama sounds like a reasonable race, much less likely to devolve as this Democratic primary has, than a McCain/Clinton match-up, which promises the mud will fly both ways, with Clinton's pork and McCain's disdain for it, and Hillary's clear willingness to drag her opponent into the mud. It won't be pretty.
In a race about issues, with significant choices regarding the role of the American people in their government, the American people win. That is a race that McCain/Obama might reasonably offer.
In the race promised by the Clinton campaign, if this primary battle is any guide, the best we can hope for is that she will beat John McCain. It will be ugly, and the best we can hope for is the kind of 50-50 situation that welcomed President Bush at the beginning of his term.
It'll be better than it is now, but I don't know if the Party can handle the kind of out-and-out war that would get her there. It could very well fracture the Democratic coalition if the Democratic establishment is seen as judging the first African-American likely nominee unsuitable. That is a dealbreaker to a lot of people.
Worse yet, with a Clinton administration, lobbyists will still run Capitol Hill and we won't get the kind of open government that Obama has pledged to run, and will be able to implement as chief executive. We'll get the person whose last health care proposal was so shrouded in secrecy that our own congressional leaders wouldn't touch it, whose large-amount donor base ensures that her loyalty will be to corporations with deep pockets, not small donors and grassroots organizers.
It's clear that Hillary believes that the end justifies the means.
The question that remains for this party is whether that means is something we want to be a part of, something we want to be associated with. It's not too late.
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