Clinton's Claim

Senator Clinton's resounding victory in the Kentucky primary last night left the Democratic race as unresolved as before. Senator Obama was again left unable to boast he had conclusively clinched the nomination, while Mrs. Clinton lives to fight another day.

But if Kentucky confirmed that, notwithstanding his position as the frontrunner, Mr. Obama remains unable to attract support from key elements of the Democratic coalition — white blue collar workers, women, older voters — what hope does the result offer Mrs. Clinton?

What can be in her mind as she approaches the contests in Puerto Rico on June 1 and in South Dakota and Montana on June 3, when she has such little prospect of winning the nomination? Why does she not simply throw in the towel and save her party and her bank balance further injury?

Her claim rests on arguments vociferously and passionately put forward by Democrats when Vice President Gore lost the general election to George W. Bush by a whisker in 2000. The lesson of Gore 2000, Mrs. Clinton suggests, is that in a true democracy it is winning a majority of the popular vote that should be paramount.

Any other way of gauging public opinion, such as the disproportionate system of allocating electoral college votes that doomed Mr. Gore in 2000, must come second to the simple Jeffersonian notion that the person who wins the most votes should be the victor.

She has a point. Although Mr. Obama has won more states and more elected delegates by far, the system by which he won is deeply flawed. The system of caucuses not only discriminates against those who cannot afford to spend hours engaging in internecine arguments, such as working class voters, shift workers, mothers, and old people — the very voters that have overwhelmingly backed Mrs. Clinton — but caucus states award delegates out of proportion to the numbers who voted.

In addition, closed primaries which only allow registered Democrats to vote have, except for Illinois, voted for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama has tended to win states that allow independents and Republicans to vote for the Democratic nominee. Who should pick the Democrats' champion, she might ask, Democrats or Republicans?

The Democratic voting system is plainly out of kilter, but that is a fight for another day. Mrs. Clinton must work with the conditions as they exist, which means laying a moral claim to the nomination through numbers of votes rather than delegates. Her problem is that by most measures she has so far been unable to beat Mr. Obama on the plurality of votes.

Unless, that is, you count votes cast in the renegade states of Michigan and Florida. According to the number crunchers at Real Clear Politics, only if the votes in those partial elections are tallied can Mrs. Clinton claim to be the winner. And even then Mr. Obama loses in a photo finish, 16,684,752 votes, or 47.6%, to Mrs. Clinton's 16,711,719, or 47.7%.

Still, a win is a win. And the Democrats cannot afford to offend voters in Michigan and Florida, states which make up a twelfth of the electoral college. After Gore 2000, the Democrats would be rash indeed to risk losing the goodwill of the voters of Florida. Which is why the meeting of the Democratic rules committee on May 31 that will decide what to do about the discounted primaries is so important not only to Mrs. Clinton but to whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee.

A little more than 200 remaining undeclared super delegates are left with a wretched choice: disappointing the young, the African-Americans, and the affluent liberal Democrats who have voted for Mr. Obama, or disappointing the women, the older voters, and the blue-collar voters who backed Mrs. Clinton. Their principle concern, and the sole reason they have been enfranchised, is to pick the most likely winner in November.

What Kentucky confirmed is that Mrs. Clinton's legions have a profound reluctance to vote for Mr. Obama. Last night's exit polls showed that a full half of Mrs. Clinton's support in Kentucky would not vote for Mr. Obama. A third even said they would rather vote for John McCain. The same awkward truth emerged from exit polls throughout the Appalachians.

Women appear to be most adamant in their opposition to switching to Mr. Obama. They feel that once again a woman is being asked to step aside to allow a man to take the top slot. And their temper was not improved by Mr. Obama's recent slip in addressing a woman reporter as "sweetie," nor his apology in which he admitted that he has a habit of using the term, which many women find patronizing and demeaning.

When asked in a debate whether Mr. Obama could win the general election, Mrs. Clinton said, "Yes, yes, yes." She could hardly say anything else lest her words be used against her by Republicans in November. But her private view, as with so many Democrats, is surely, "No, no, no."

Perhaps Mrs. Clinton is looking beyond 2008 to 2012. If Mr. McCain becomes president, she will have proved her point. And if Mr. Obama wins she will be waiting like a sentinel cat at a mousehole.

If he trips. If he stumbles. If he fails to deliver on his promises to unify the country, to introduce universal health care, to withdraw all troops from Iraq, to make the world safer by negotiating with our enemies, Mrs. Clinton will be there, ready to pounce.

nwapshott@nysun.com