"Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that." — Steve Earle.
I’m big fan of Townes Van Zandt. Unlike Steve Earle, I never had the opportunity to know or play music with him. Anyhoo, I had to work late last night to meet a report deadline, so I did what I often do: dialed my iPod to the TVZ collection and put it on shuffle. For hours, many of Townes’ best tunes pumped through my headphones while I wrote the narrative sections of my scientific report and formatted table after table.
Remember the question: Is she planning to sabotage Obama to prepare herself for a 2012 run. We now know the answer. Is there anything about her or her serogates behavior over the past few months that would lead us to believe anything other than that. NO!! In fact we've been played, and played quite well I might add.
Tim Russert Discusses Deal seating some delegates from MI/FL, giving Obama a 40 Delegate Hurdle, with 40 Identified already.
The Obama campaign will claim a mathematical lock on the nomination one week from tonight [after South Dakota and Montana], Wednesday morning at the latest...and then Hillary Clinton will have to, I believe, acknowledge that reality and make some very difficult decisions for her campaign.
We have here glimpses of the Endgame! All the pieces of the puzzle are below.
The endgame scenario for Clinton has been the subject of much speculation by the MSM pundits since the Indiana and NC primaries.
The lone voice consistently saying that Clinton "will take this to the Convention" has been Rachel Maddow of Air America Radio & MSNBC. Yesterday, in hour 2 of her radio show, and today, in the Huffington Post, Rachel laid out the endgame that Clinton will play in the days ahead.
Rachel is a very smart political analyst. Her position on HRC's endgame is contrary to the MSM pundits. Having listened to her argument I have to agree that the Democratic nomination process now has the potential to play out all the way to the convention.
For those of you who may have missed it. Hillary just threw down the gauntlet in her Kentucky victory speech. She clearly and unambiguously stated that this battle is going to the convention.
From Politico.com (Thanks to Terre):
Still, Clinton made it clear during her victory speech in Louisville, Ky., that she intended to stay in the race through the last primaries on June 3 and "until we have a nominee, whoever she may be."
Later, she told several hundred supporters in Maysville, Ky., "None of us is gong to have the number of delegates we’re going to need to get to the nomination, although I understand my opponent and his supporters are going to claim that."
Again, she vowed to push on "until we have a nominee." But she declared, "We’re not going to have one today, and we’re not going to have one tomorrow, and we’re not going to have one the next day."
All the hand-wringing about Barrack's supposed inability to connect with white working-class voters is making me macadamian. Maca-friggin-damian. The predominant meme seems to be, how in hell will our black candidate win over those pesky racist Reagan dems?
What I don't understand is why no one from Obama's campaign, the MSM, or even here seems to be making this fairly obvious point: Two very well liked candidates have lasted almost to the end of the primary. When has that happened in recent memory? Much less in the 24-hour-news-youtube-netroots era?
It's just not about racism all that much--I honestly believe that. It's about loyalty and the uniquely competitive primary we had this year. They both have deeply loyal bases of support; they both enjoy the extra-passionate devotion of identity blocks (blacks, youth, progressives for him; women and Clintonistas for her).
Believe me--the Hillbots will come around, even if she never does...
I believe that Hillary will win West Virginia and Kentucky by at least 20% each.
So what ?
She will most likely be gone by May 21st.
It is over. You know it, I know it, Obama knows it, and the press knows it.
She has gotten the snot knocked out of her in the school yard. We don't have to take her lunch money. It has been said that our success in the Fall depends on how she losses. What has not been said is that it also depends on how we win.
Two days after Barack Obama's impressive victory in North Carolina and amazing close run in Indiana, Hillary Clinton has resisted all calls including from loyal supporters to step aside so the party can now rally behind a nominee and finally engage in the general election battle against John McCain.
In light of Hillary's campaign performance thus far in this election year, her continuance is not unexpected, but it is become increasing unwelcome to the party as a whole. On every possible measurement, it is clear now that Barack Obama has an insurmountable lead in the race for the nomination and despite the best attempts at character assassination, he still commands a exceptionally strong movement of supporters. For Hillary to have an ability to clinch the nomination now, Barack Obama would either have to become physically unable to continue or be politically destroyed in a fashion that would lead the party away from him.
To accomplish such a task, Hillary sees only one avenue left: latent racism.
Unlike many who think Hillary Clinton's gone mad or is simply in denial, I think she's placing her bets now on allegiances and counting on racial tension to exploit them.
My predictions for the primary races yesterday were for Hillary Clinton to win Indiana by 3% while Barack Obama took North Carolina by 14%. My expectation was that a 3% victory would be enough for Hillary to claim Barack still can’t close her out and she would continue on this month until a steady stream of superdelegates threatened to ensure her defeat by raising Obama’s delegate count to the 2025 number needed to clinch the nomination.
North Carolina came home as expected, dead on 14%. Bow to the left. Bow to the right. Thank you, thank you.
But the real story last night is that by all measures, the people HAVE selected a nominee. The math is in and Hillary is publicly revealed to have no conclusive path to nomination.
The question everyone is wondering now is: When does the other shoe drop?
Tonight's expected split decision will effectively end the primary campaign. As our guy "Chucky T" has pointed out, there will be more undeclared superdelegates than elected delegates left. (As an aside, Chuck Todd is my favorite analyst because he doesn't look like he got into this to be on TV. It's like they had to drag him out in front of the camera because no one else could really explain what he had to say, but I digress)
In tonight's victory speach, Obama must wrest the narrative back from the Clinton's. He must be presidential and offer an alternative narrative to the Clinton talking points and ever shifting endgame the media so readily adopts in order to selfishly drag on the campaign.
Today is the last "major" day of reckoning left in the primary season. Some within the media may view it as Super Tuesday part III, others may look at it as Clinton's last stand, but all know there is some finality coming today.
The problem is no one truly knows what that finality looks like. The cable news shows which have been all over the place today prove that.
What we do know however, is that the Clinton campaign since the weekend has been hard at work trying to reset expectations. Hillary has been heard saying Obama's been the expected winner of Indiana and the campaign has suggested that an NC loss shouldn't be seen as a poor Hillary performance because Obama's always been strong there. The Clinton campaign has also publicly suggested that they intend to pursue a nuclear option to seat MI and FL as is to ensure a Clinton win. Even today, Hillary's message is that the nomination cannot be won without MI and FL being seated. What all of this suggests to me is one thing:
Hillary knows this thing is over and doesn't expect either IN or NC to save her.
And since predictions are both popular and plentiful on the day of elections, I'll present my own predictions here not only for today's primaries, but for the endgame these primaries are likely to influence.
When will the Democratic nomination battle end? Five possible times jump out: (1) Shortly after next Tuesday's (May 6) contests in Indiana and North Carolina, (2) Shortly after the May 20 contests in Oregon and Kentucky. (3) Shortly after the last primaries (June 3) in Montana and South Dakota. (4) Shortly after the last delegates are officially selected (June 22). (5) At the convention in Denver. In this diary I want to look at the delegate numbers to see how these scenarios might play out. I'll be using numbers from Obama's campaign results center but these actually tend to be more reliable than most media organizations.
It's fascinating to watch HRC's plans unfold: destroy Obama, confuse the media and public with fake vote metrics, and create the impression that this is a tied race. But, how does this lead to an endgame?
If you're on this board, you engaged enough to know that Obama will be the nominee and that it's a matter of when and not if Hillary will concede. It probably won't be tomorrow, but it won't be any later than after Indiana/NC.
With all due respect to the millworker's son, it's been clear for more than a year that the "Inevitable" Clinton and Obama the phenom were the top two candidates on the (D)side. A combo ticket was always a possiblity, we just thought it would be the other way around.
When Hillary exits the race, she will do so with grace and with an air of the ironic poetry with which this story will play out to reveal that Hillary Rodham Clinton will go down in history as a singular person -- the "First Lady of the United States of America'
It was Petraeus who, during the invasion, looked around at the chaos and said: "Tell me how this ends."
That is one line from a very interesting column by Eugene Robinson with the on-point title of The Surge Turns Into the Stall. It is worth your reading.
I am not going to do a full-blown analysis of the column, because I have to get ready for a conference in Richmond, and am thus limited for time.
But I invite you to go below the fold for an important extract.
