Very early Wednesday morning, after many voters had already gone to sleep, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate.
The moment came shortly after midnight Eastern time, captured in a devastatingly declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” he said on MSNBC. “Those closest to her will give her a hard-headed analysis, and if they lay it all out, they’ll say: ‘What is the rationale? What do we say to the undeclared super delegates tomorrow? Why do we tell them you’re staying in the race?’ And tonight, there’s no good answer for that.”
It was not exactly Walter Cronkite declaring that the Vietnam War would end in stalemate. But the impact was apparent almost immediately, starting with The Drudge Report, the online news billboard that is the home page to many political reporters in Washington and news producers in New York. It had as its lead story a link to a YouTube clip of Russert’s comments, accompanied by a photograph of a beaming Obama with his wife, Michelle, and the headline, “The Nominee.”
The thought echoed throughout the world of instant political analysis, steamrolling the Clinton campaign’s attempts to promote the idea that her victory in Indiana was nonetheless an upset in the face of Obama’s heavy spending and his campaign’s predictions that he would win there, or that she could still come back if delegates in Florida and Michigan are seated.
“We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it.”
That’s like saying, “We know who the winner of this football game will be. It will be impossible for the other team to score 3 touchdowns in order to win it, so lets end the game right now.” No, the game counts down to the end of the 4th Quarter.
I’m no Hillary Clinton fan, but Barak Obama has to earn his win, not be given it on a silver platter. I don’t blame her for staying in the race. However, if earns the magic number of delegates that would automatically make his his party’s nominee, then Hillary should drop out. That hasn’t happened yet. Mike Huckabee stayed in until John McCain earned the required number. Only then did Huckabee drop out.
I find the pundits’ tardiness on this question so telling. Look, we’ve known for much longer that Hillary is out, because the Democrat superdelegates don’t have the nerve to say no to their black constituencies. Very few pundits – certainly not the liberal ones – have had the nerve to say so publicly. The fear of racial tension still goes deep.
I’m sure it has been said elsewhere but if the DNC had not kicked MI and FL out of the circuit they might have had some votes they sorely need right now. And I don’t blame either state for refusing to recount unless the DNC shells out the multimillions needed to repeat the counting process.
“It ain’t over until the Clinton Lady sings”.