They met in the Market-of-the-Land. Enkidu barred the gate with his foot, not allowing Gilgamesh to enter. They grappled each other like bulls. They shattered the doorpost, and the walls shook. Gilgamesh and Enkidu grappled each other, holding fast like bulls; they shattered the doorpost, as the walls shook.
(Epic of Gilgamesh vi:10-23, trans. by E.A. Speiser. In James B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: an anthology of texts and pictures (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958), p. 50.)
Barack Obama will come into the convention ahead in pledged delegates, and having won more states than Hillary Clinton. He will likely also have a small lead in the popular vote. Neither candidate will have the 2k+ votes necessary to secure the nomination without securing superdelegate votes. This much we all know.
If Hillary wins the nomination, it will be because she has convinced enough superdelegates from states that Obama won to vote for her. Likewise, if Obama secures the nomination, it will because he has made the case that his razor-thin lead in delegates, many of whom are from states that will almost certainly go "red" in the fall counts as a mandate from the Democratic party.
Superdelegates are, of course, free to vote as they see best: their charge (nominally at least) is to vote on behalf of the party as a whole. There are doubtless some who are using this power to secure advantage for themselves, but all of them have a shared interest in seeing a Democrat win the election this fall. So whoever they vote for it will be because they believe that the nominee will do better against John McCain than Barack Obama, not because they like her.
All of this would be mere trivia if it weren't for the fact that the Hillary-Barack divide is quickly becoming more than just a matter of policy. The Presidential nominee is the standard bearer for the Party: our "brand." So it is the differences between the two candidates that might seem the most superficial that are actually the most crucial: style, character, and the vision that they articulate for the future of our country. And now, it seems to me, things have taken a turn for the ugly.
I will not articulate these differences at length, partially because it has been done elsewhere, but more because, as an Obama supporter, I do not trust myself, at this moment, to be very objective about it.
I do want to point to one, however: Hillary is a candidate who believes in the power of the Center, and Barack is a candidate who believes in the power of the Long Tail. Hillary's nomination strategy has been, and continues to be, one that stresses her ability to harness the power of big states with well-entrenched Democratic political structures (CA, NY, OH), while Barack's is more about building up a widely distributed network of small donors and local voters. And while technically speaking both candidates come "from the establishment," Hillary is leveraging her establishmental ties as proof that she has the political experience to succeed, while Barack is portraying himself as an outsider who will seek to actively reform the established system.
Really, however, the Center cannot exist without the Periphery; nor is there a Periphery without a Center.
Obama will not win the election without the support of the establishment. He may not win at all, if his network fails to overcome the advantage the Republican party has in most "purple" states. Likewise, Hillary will not win the election without the support of independents and younger voters, and she can't win it by taking only the big Democratic states.
And moving beyond arguments for electability to the bigger question of leadership: Obama will not succeed as President if he cannot work around and with the Powers That Be. And Hillary will not succeed as president if she has alienated the grass roots of her party.
So it worries me and I have no good answers. Negativity is taking over. There are enough narratives floating around to kneecap whoever the nominee ends up being. Worse, rank-and-file Democrats are finding themselves pitted against each other in such a way that there may be no possibility of rapprochement and closing ranks ahead of November. Clearly neither side is going to bend the knee in this struggle, but what can the rest of us do while they threaten to shatter the doorposts and bring down the walls of the Democratic party?