My initial thought concerning the super-delegates, as expressed on this blog back in December or January, was “The Tie goes to Clinton.”  Indeed it does. I just am not sure what counts as a tie, seeing as how we are largely set in stone — Obama will end this primary season with more delegates than Clinton, probably more than 100.

A bit of wisdom tossed at me from the Pundit class which I picked up and accepted because it made sense, and good gravy a lot of pundit class words of wisdom make no sense, is that whoever gets to a 100 delegate lead, as paltry as that sum is in terms of percentiles, will have a nearly insurmountable lead. And that seems to be the case, as Jonathan Alter’s “Math Problem” explains.  Barack Obama is still on the trajectory to the nomination, and the Super-Delegates will be hard pressed to reverse what is a significant delegate lead. Further, Barack Obama has consistently lead in polls of “head to head” match-ups over Clinton, and while I am not unsympathetic to the argument that this does not factor what an actual campaign contest will serve the polls are what they are, an additional factor Clinton will have to overturn in order to make a convincing case to the Super-delegates to over-turn the delegate count.  The only other factor Clinton has in order to win is that she will have to do somewhat better than my imagined “Best Case Scenario” in the remaining contests to serve as a momentum argument about Obama’s campaign stamina.

So, here’s how I view this campaign. Obama has been on the trajectory toward nomination since his Iowa victory.  Hillary Clinton‘s victory in New Hampshire bought her the chance to change the trajectory on Super Tuesday, but she would have to win the night decisively. The results were sufficiently muddled that while she won the night in the Media — California and Massachusetts and New Jersey — the next month’s worth of primaries and causes were so tailor-made for Obama that she still had to change the trajectory in her favor. She clearly knew her peril, as evidenced by the age-old desperation tactic of calling for a long lineof Debates — always a sure sign of a candidate who needs to change the dynamics of a campaign race. Which is why even as she did as well as she possibly could have on Tuesday’s election — a “mini-Super Tuesday”– and carried the night in the media — “Hillary Back In” blared our local newspaper front page headline — at the end of the day, when the dust settled, the cold hard reality for her was she had reduced Obama’s delegate lead by about 10 — an amount that would be wiped out by Obama’s victories in Wyoming (um… 7 to 5?) and Mississippi. Once again,she clearly knows the perils of her situation, as her pitch now includes the hinting that Obama would serve as her running mate — a gambit served as much with super-delegates in mind and one that softens her “All hands on deck” attack on Obama as Inexperienced in suggesting that he will have his chance in eight year. It strikes me as a “Hail Mary” — a necessary “Hail Mary”, Hail Marys are necessary — down a touchdown and the seconds have ticked off the clock, GO! — and also a pretty well executed Hail Mary, but a Hail Mary nonetheless. We’ll just have to see if it hits the tallest and most athletic Receiver. It is why we cannot shut the book on Hillary Clinton’s campaign just yet.

Basically, I hope Obama wins Pennsylvania in a few weeks, which I gather will effectively close Hillary Clinton‘s narrow path toward nomination, stopping her pitch that she can better win the Rust Belt. Which is actually not a bad argument toward electibility, as set against Obama’s argument that he could better win the West — a frontier tantalizingly close for the Democrats, made harsher by the presence of John McCain. A long nomination precess has probably served Obama well — forcing him to explicate “Hope” and “Change” slightly, as well building up Democratic Parties in various states. But a nomination process any longer than Pennsylvania will be detrimental.

The Republicans’ perchance for “Winner Take All”s has served to truncate their process well. If the Republicans had the Democrats’ Proportional Representation System, I think McCain just now would become the Presumptive Nominee, with Romney just now bowing out. The good news is we would still have Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee to kick around. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton would now be the nominee for the Democrats — or close to it — off of her California victory more-so than anything else.

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