Thursday, May 8, 2008

Is Hillary Toast? Yeah. Almost Certainly. Probably. Without (Much) Doubt.

If Hillary Clinton had won Indiana by a double digit margin on Tuesday and made North Carolina a close fight the talk now would be about whether Barack Obama's candidacy was on the verge of going under.  But although the overall winner in each of those states was the same as in that Hillary-triumphant hypothetical, in the wake of Hillary's narrow win in Indiana and decisive loss in Carolina the punditocracy has pronounced Obama the winner of the Democratic nomination.  So what's Hillary's strategy in pushing onward?  Simply put, to rack up landslide victories among the very white and rather conservative Democratic voters in West Virginia and Kentucky and hope that some massive new Obama scandal emeges.  Thus, the thinking of her adherents must go, to avoid the nomination of a clearly unelectable Obama Democratic power brokers would allow Hillary's delegates from Michigan and Florida to be seated at the convention and the superdelegates would shift in mass to her camp.

The chances of that series of events happening?  Very low, of course.  Still, it appears that the first prong of her strategy may well bear fruit: a recent poll taken in regard to the May 13th primary  shows her ahead by a two to one margin among West Virginia Democrats.  Hillary's chances are now very long indeed, but still it will still be quite interesting to see what the media buzz is on Wednesday (especially regarding Obama's continuingly poor performance among non-highly educated whites) if Obama loses West Virginia by 30 points on Tuesday.

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