Running on Empty
In the end, the Democratic race has come down to money. Senator Obama is flush with cash. Having raised $40 million last month, he spent like a Wall Street trader on his stag night in the last seven weeks in Pennsylvania, an enormous $11 million, and he still boasts a war chest of $41 million. Senator Clinton's campaign says she has $9 million left, having spent $5 million in Pennsylvania. It may well be far less than that.
Mrs. Clinton failed to win Pennsylvania by the large double digit lead over Mr. Obama that she hoped for and that might have given her donors reason to continue to pour money into her campaign. But not enough traditional voters in yesterday's closed Democratic primary appeared to believe her contention that Mr. Obama is plainly unelectable, based upon the views of his mentor the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his lofty remarks about gun owners and people of faith, and so much else. So now, heading for North Carolina and Indiana on May 6, Mrs. Clinton is running on empty.
Her dream of eventually gaining a majority of the popular vote in the overall contest and thereby negating Mr. Obama's majority of the "elected" delegates now looks distant, if not forlorn. It is not impossible for her to win the nomination, but she has a lot of ground to make up. The missing votes in Michigan and Florida she believes are hers may never get counted.
But after Pennsylvania, she has a good case to make to the superdelegates. The complex and deeply flawed voting system the Democratic party leadership approved, in the belief it would never be put to the test, in which delegates are awarded by barely democratic caucuses and proportional representation which favors inner city districts made up of African American voters, does not provide an accurate reflection of registered Democratic voters.
Superdelegates, made up of elected Democrats, the good and the great of the party, and ex officio members, are sophisticated and unsentimental politicians. Their fate is riding on the coat tails of whoever is the Democratic nominee. They hoped that the Pennsylvania result would give them a clear steer about what to do next, but it was not to be.
The superdelegates realize that if Mr. Obama has failed to beat Mrs. Clinton in Pennsylvania and any of the large states that the Democrats need to win in November, he is unlikely to be able to beat Senator McCain in the general election, in which case they will find themselves in the minority in Congress or out of a job.
The sense of historical inevitability that appeared to be working in their favor after eight years of President Bush's unpopular presidency will prove to have been a chimera. Their hopes and ambitions will amount to nothing.
In the next two weeks, the anguished debate in the Democratic Party over who would be more likely to defeat Mr. McCain will continue with even more urgency and passion as the opportunities of altering the game fast run out. There is little chance that Mrs. Clinton can catch up with Mr. Obama in "elected" delegates by the end of the primary process, but she can continue to press her argument, if only she can raise the money to stay in the game.
The Democratic race has been, above all, based upon demographics. While there has been some ebb and flow as the contest has unfolded, Mr. Obama has assembled a steady coalition of African Americans, of young and first time voters, and of well-educated and idealistic Democrats. Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, has recruited older voters, blue-collar white men, women, in particular working women, and Hispanics.
What Mrs. Clinton will argue is that Mr. Obama's coalition will vote for her if she wins the nomination, but that if he becomes the party's standard bearer Mr. McCain will win enough of those who have supported her — what used to be called Reagan Democrats — to ensure that the Republicans retain the White House.
To those who suggest that superdelegates should not overturn the will of the Democratic electors, as measured by "elected" delegates, she can counter that the party rules specifically give superdelegates a vote so that they can override the "elected" delegates in the event that an unelectable candidate emerges as the "elected" winner.
It may not be strictly democratic, in the narrow sense of the term, but the system is so faulty, as shown by the fact that Mr. Obama has won delegates in open primaries with the help of independents and Republican voters, that no delegates, elected or not, should be bound by the narrow result.
However, Mrs. Clinton cannot make progress if she fails to raise money. There is some suggestion that her biggest and most loyal donors have already reached the maximum they are allowed to give. She must now appeal to small donors, through the Internet, if she is to succeed. Whether she can find enough of them to stay afloat will decide who wins the nomination, and, perhaps, who wins the White House in November.
nwapshott@nysun.com
