So evidently Tim Russert is explaining that we're approaching the endgame, that superdelegates are going to close the books on Hillary's campaign within a week or so.
Do not believe it. It depends on what the meaning of "over" is.
And if you have been listening to Hillary Clinton and her people at all over the past few months, you know that she has been defining "over" differently from how you probably do.
Her position is that it's over when she says it's over. That's an overstatement -- but no more of one than the contention that it's over once Obama goes over 50% of the delegates, including whatever of them are counted of Florida and Michigan.
Listen, please. Listen to what Hillary and her people are saying. Listen to what Terry McAuliffe said last weekend on the Sunday shows. They are saying that she will not at this point rule out contesting the convention. That means that, even if the outcome may appear to be essentially settled, it is not over, no more than the War of 1812 was "over" before the Battle of New Orleans, no more than the cases of Death Row inmates were "over" before being sprung by evidence from "The Innocence Project," no more than the winner of the 2006 Tour de France was determined when Floyd Landis crossed the finish line. Maybe she will concede, but maybe she'll contest, and everything she's saying is consistent with the latter.
Listen to what Hillary is telling you.
Politics ain't beanbag, as they say, and it also ain't baseball. You don't mathematically eliminate people from the standings ahead of the end.
It is "over" when one of two things happen:
(1) Barack Obama receives a majority of the votes of the convention delegates in late August.
(2) Hillary concedes.
Until Hillary concedes, she can state that she is going to do what happened at the three out of the first four conventions of the modern, post-1968 nomination era: she can contest the convention.
She can contest the convention by arguing for changes in the rules for already completed contests, as happened in 1972. (This is what the Florida and Michigan fight, which she probably won't win entirely, is all about.)
She can contest the convention by continuing to try to change the votes of superdelegates who have already announced their commitment to a candidate -- which she just did yesterday, in fact -- as happened in 1984.
She can, most worrisomely, contest the convention by saying that she will try to convince regular old pledged delegates to switch and vote for her, as happened in 1980.
She would attempt the last two procedures by arguing right through until the end of August that only she can avert disaster for the party, because she is more electable than Obama. And, if you are listening, you will recognize that that is exactly what she is doing.
But, you may say, she has already said, at the ABC debate, that Barack Obama "can" win. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
She's not bound to that, any more than (at least almost) any of the delegates are bound to their pledged commitments. She can say that the poll numbers today tell a different story than they told back then, and so she no longer thinks Obama will win. It's inconsistent, yes. It's untruthful, most likely. But when have either of those stopped her?
One approach Obama could take is to ignore the prospect of her conceding and simply roll on towards the convention, where Obama would almost certainly win. I think you'd have to go out several places past the decimal listing his probability before you find a numeral other than "9."
But that doesn't make it "over" before then, and it doesn't make it a good resolution even after then.
Hillary is holding two cards, even right up to the convention and beyond: (1) her ability to be a peevish and destructive loser of the contest, even as she professes to support party unity, and (2) her ability to sour her supporters on the prospects of voting for Obama. Until the convention, of course, she holds the card of denying Obama some or all of the bump he would get -- in polls and in fundraising -- from a united party, until she agrees to concede.
Is she really willing to play those cards? Maybe, maybe not. The best explanation is that she, fittingly for "Our Nixon", may be pursuing a "Madwoman Strategy" similar to that Richard Nixon told confidants that he would pursue against Communists to end the Vietnam War: make them think that he was so unhinged and desperate to win that he might stop and nothing, even nuclear war. Given how destructive the 1972 and 1980 conventional challenges were to the party -- only Gary Hart in 1984 eventually conceded with much grace -- she has a plausible claim that she can deny him victory, which in this context may be the equivalent of a nuclear attack. Her campaign's offering an escalating series of examples of how he is winning unfairly -- with regard to Florida and Michigan, by virtue of sexism, by virtue of leaning on superdelegates (or whatever it is that Bill Clinton is trying to say) -- either, depending on your perspective, escalate the stakes by showing how she might be able to keep her supporters out of his camp (even as she may, obviously pained in the attempt, say that they should do otherwise) or by simply showing how mad a madwoman she is.
Clinton may not have a winning strategy, then, but she certainly has a negotiating strategy, and so long as she is negotiating the race is not almost over. As long as she is negotiating, in fact, than saying that the race is over -- when she is contensting the convention, as (she will remind us) has happened many times before! -- will be used as further evidence of (sexist!) bias against her.
No, this doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to do for her what she wants it to do. I don't know if she actually has a particular result in mind. As I've argued before, I think it's less about a particular prize -- the Vice Presidency, the Supreme Court, the Majority Leadership, position for 2012 or 2016 -- rather than the equivalent of money that can be used to purchase whatever prize she later decides she wants: leverage.
I well understand, by the way, why those in the Clinton camp so hate the invocation of Glenn Close's character in Fatal Attraction as a model for Hillary. It's sexist, they say. The movie certainly is, but it also presents what could well be the motto of Hillary's campaign for the next three months: "I will not be ignored!" This statement could just as well come from a man as from a woman; I just can't remember an incident where any actor has expressed it so well. The sexism, as I see it, is coming from Hillary rather than most of her critics: it is Hillary who hurts the cause of women in politics by seeming too much like an irrational sexist stereotype of privileging her injured feelings over the cold facts. The saving grace that may render it non-sexist is that Bill is doing the same.
Ted Kennedy in 1980 offered a middle position between capitulation and tearing down the temple (as Democratic party leaders in effect did in 1972). He spoke the words and made some of the motions of unity, but the text was drowned out by the subtext -- "I'm the one that you should have nominated, you imbeciles!" -- and the motion that everyone remembers is his striding around the stage with his back to a desperately following Jimmy Carter so that he could avoid the "hypocrisy" of having to shake his hand. (Hillary and Bill’s subtext would probably refer to "ingrates" rather than "imbelciles.")
That is what party leaders are afraid of: that her actions at the convention will damage the Obama campaign -- although not likely fatally. That is what we are waiting to see resolved. That is why even when Obama has 50%+1 of the final number of delegates, it’s still not "almost over."
I don’t know what Obama should do in this situation. He is a man inclined to compromise within the bounds of his dignity and his interests; she is a woman who will attempt to engulf as much of the difference between them as she can. I don’t believe he will offer her the Vice-Presidency, though I could see it going to someone from her camp (the prominent and qualified ones of whom are, unfortunately, all white males.) I don’t think he’ll offer her the Supreme Court. I could imagine him stating that he will direct a certain number of his Florida and Michigan delegates to support her on the first ballot, to bring her up to the margin she thinks is fair, so long as she gives up her bid. But I don’t think any of this will satisfy her.
Ultimately, I don’t think that he can get her to concede until it is clear to her, clear to everyone, that she has absolutely nothing to gain by staying in. That will mean superdelegates – Clinton superdelegates – and pledged Clinton delegates will have to be moved to abandon her. If they do, then maybe she will eventually be prevailed upon to suspend – probably not end – her campaign. If not, then unless and until Hillary decides otherwise we are in for a long, unpleasant summer, whether Obama’s final lead by the time the last add-on delegates are chosen on June 21 is 100 delegates or 400.
That is why, if you wonder, I and others are going to keep up the heat on Hillary. Obama has to be nice: he wants people to vote for him. I don’t have to be nice – I’m not looking for votes. I view her as taking hostage our party’s convention, our nominee, and with it the future of our country. If her appetite for concessions seems likely to be sated, I would consider it: but until she says she will not contest the convention, I have to consider her desire for power insatiable. I actually look forward to a time when, in the interest of party unity, I have to be polite – even positive – to her. She will tell me when that time has come – when she pledges not to contest the convention.
So, I’m sorry to say, it may well get uglier and uglier as we move to and past June 3. You and Tim Russert may say that, even so, in any meaningful sense, the contest is "over." But, like Hillary, I won’t.
Listen to what she is telling you.