Flying Pink Unicorns

Hillary's in trouble. At least that what it seems like, though during this campaign season many things which seemed to be true (Rooody the GOP front runner, Hillary inevitable) sure didn't turn out to be true.

Nevertheless, the margins of victory for Obama in yesterday's DC area (Obama got 60% of the vote in Maryland and a stunning 64% in Virginia, a state democrats have their eye on flipping in November, as well as an expected 75% of the vote in DC itself tells us that he is on a serious roll. Hillary's hoping to win in both Texas and Ohio on March 4, which would again make this a total toss up race. But if Obama wins both of those states (difficult but not impossible) the race will probably be over. Theoretically Hillary can do better with the superdelegates (important democrats like congressman, governors, etc, who can go with whoever they want regardless of the delegates voted by the states), and these could push her over the top, but if Obama wins noticeably more delegates than Clinton and the superdelegates flip the nomination to Clinton there would be holy hell to pay within the democratic party. Think the fiasco of 1968, which led to a narrow Nixon victory (and the 72 landslide that followed). An awful lot of people do NOT want to see that happen. Hill's not a quitter, to be damn sure, but I could forsee a scenario where Obama is up by enough of the pledged delegates (the ones won in the state primaries and caucuses) that a movement ensues among the superdelegates to ratify the voters' choice and nominate Obama.

Among pledged delegates (those won in state contests and NOT counting the superdelegates) Obama is now up about 1104-979. 2,025 are needed for nomination.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Hardly insurmountable, but it is a clear lead. There is also the matter of Michigan and Florida, which as of now will not be sending ANY delegates to the dem convention in Colorado. This is of course completely intolerable, and it is entirely possible that there will be fresh elections in both states, which should, in theory, favor Hillary strongly.

So its all a bit of a mess still. Dick Morris has predicted for nearly 4 years now that Hillary would be the nominee and next president. Yesterday for the first time he predicted Obama would win the nomination. Its easy to see why. He probably will. I sure as heck hope he's ready. A lot will depend on him if he's the nominee.