What Senator Clinton May Do After March 4

I posted this diary as a comment in dmsilev's "Clinton Superdelegates 'Wavering'" diary, and with the encouragement of one kind soul I'm making a whole stinking diary out of it.  I too felt the keen absence of candidate diaries tonight.

If you care, keep reading!

The question arose whether any March 4 results might lead Senator Clinton to abandon her quest for the nomination.  Here's what I think.

There's obviously a huge amount of open space between March 4 and April 22, and I think we can all guess how a fighter like Senator Clinton would react immediately to anything less than strong victories in Ohio and Texas.  If she loses or draws in both, she'll say at first that of course she's continuing.  If she ekes out any kind of small win in one or the other, her campaign will try to declare that the momentum is hers.  But at that point people will be looking at pledged delegate counts (and perhaps at the increasing numbers of superdelegates endorsing Obama).  Currently, people are rightly declaring that OH and TX could turn her recent fortunes around and stop Obama's momentum cold, but if Clinton doesn't get a significant delegate boost out of March 4, I don't think any spin from the Clinton campaign will stem the dual perception of Obama's momentum and eventual lock on a majority of pledged delegates.

There will be the March 8 caucus in Wyoming and the March 11 primary in Mississippi, two more contests where Obama ought to win by big margins, to remind people immediately of how well he wins.  And then, nothing until April 22 in PA.  If polls there are showing him close or in the lead, if superdelegates begin defecting from her and/or finally turning to him, if the media are offering daily reports of women, Latinos, and working-class voters turning to Obama, if national polls are showing him pulling away from her and outperforming her in head-to-heads with McCain, then the writing will be on the wall.  

Some have said that John Edwards' endorsement wouldn't count for much, but if he endorses Obama, then if I understand these things correctly, Edwards' 26 delegates might presumptively move into Obama's column, and his 14% in the FL beauty contest, coupled with Obama's 33%, would effectively blunt any argument that the seating of FL's delegates would boost Clinton's cause.  

How long would Clinton hold out in the face of all or most of these possibilities?  Who knows?  I think we all know her to be a fighter -- she wasn't kidding when she declared she was "in it to win it."  But I also believe her to be pragmatic; some have called her March 4 firewall a rebooting of the Guiliani strategy, but she surely shares none of his delusions of grandeur.  If all the possibilities I outline above come to pass, I think she would withdraw from the race before PA.  If Obama wins TX and OH outright, I think she would withdraw pretty quickly--perhaps within a few days.  And that's all the more reason to work our tails off for those victories.  

Some posters have opined that Clinton feels entitled to the nomination, possibly to the extent that she would "go nuclear" (nukular?) and force a bloody convention fight.  I don't believe it.  She may or may not believe that she deserves the nomination; it has often been said that, every morning, every senator looks in the mirror and says, "Good morning, Mr. (or Madam) President!"  But I believe Clinton's run for the Senate and subsequent performance seriously belie any claims of Guilianiesque entitlement.  She worked for her Senate victory, just as she has worked hard all her life.  I greatly admire her work ethic, her broad and deep expertise, and her accomplishments.

At the same time, I do believe that she and Bill believe that politics ain't beanbag--and that they are and would be prepared to try just about any rational avenue that would deliver her the nomination.  But I return to what I perceive to be her practical nature: She knows she isn't a gifted natural politician like her husband and others and therefore worked to make herself a formidable candidate.  She knows what it takes to win, to build a formidable political machine, and to wield political power.  But she also knows how to read the writing on the wall, and I expect that even now she is reading everything--from votes to polls to demographics to graffiti--very carefully.

Years ago I read a telling profile of Senator Clinton.  One person interviewed was the owner of a woman's clothing store in Little Rock who said that Hillary Clinton was the only customer she ever had who never looked in the mirror and complained about what she saw.  She didn't regret "having her mother's thighs" or lamented the fact that she wasn't statuesque or slender.  She worked to make herself look presentable and professional, but she was what she was, and she chose clothes that helped her package that reality as effectively as possible.  I believe that absence of vanity is palpable, and I admire it.  I think it says a lot about how Senator Clinton views herself and her possibilities.  If she wins neither Ohio or Texas, or if she earns no better than an effective stalemate on March 4, I believe she will look in the mirror, read the writing on the wall next to the mirror, consider a few other awkwardly juxtaposed metaphors, and withdraw from the nomination battle.

What do you think?