Carolina On My Mind

And it seems like it goes on like this forever.
You must forgive me.
If I'm up and gone to Carolina in my mind.

-James Taylor, Carolina on my Mind

Let's agree: Carolina decides: It's over or it has only just begun. It's already starting to get silly. Hillary's gone from Wall Street's favorite candidate to beer swigging working class champion on the late shift, from stern policy wonk to shameless serial panderer. Obama's been transformed from the son of a single mother, community organizer who can bring us together to a black nationalist, brie and arugula elitist who hates America. It can only get worse if it goes on.

We need a simple agreement. If Hillary sweeps tonight, she's not simply earned the right to go on; it's a brand new race. And if she wins out the remainder of the primaries, superdelegates would have every reason to see her has the best candidate and award her the nomination.

But if she loses North Carolina tonight, it's over. Done. And any super delegate who is sentient and truly not committed should bring this thing to an end, by endorsing Obama as quickly as possible. If Obama wins North Carolina, he'll not only have an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates and popular vote, he'll have staunched the bleeding suffered from the Wright wounds.

To date, the primaries have elevated Obama, exposed him and bloodied him. He'll bear the scars into the general. They've made Hillary a better, if less credible, candidate. She'll carry even higher negatives into the general. But the travails both have gone through have been merely a tea party compared to the scorched earth assaults Republicans are ready to launch. It's simply wrong to argue that Hillary is giving Republicans their attack lines. Republicans don't need lessons from anyone in slash and burn politics.

But even while dismissing the hand wringers decrying how divisive the primaries have been, we should still be clear. The free ride given McCain must end. It is time to put the spotlight on the truly destructive agenda that he is championing -- continuing the war, doubling the Bush top end tax cuts, unraveling employer based health care, starving investments vital to our future, from education and training to broadband and transit, and pursuing the unsustainable trade policies that ship jobs abroad, drive down wages at home, and force us to sell off assets or borrow $2 billion a day

So if Obama wins North Carolina, it's over. The superdelegates couldn't take the nomination from Obama without severely damaging the party. And it will serve no one -- neither Hillary nor Obama -- to continue a race in which she has no choice but to burlesque his positions to contrast them with her own in route to inevitable defeat. The Clinton campaign will want to fight on, no doubt. But it will be time for Dean, Reid, and Pelosi to shepherd the uncommitted superdelegates into getting off the fence in large numbers to bring this thing to a close.

So Carolina should decide: either game over or a brand new ballgame.

In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina.
Can't ya see the sunshine?
Can't ya just feel the moonshine?
Ain't it just like a friend of mine?
It hit me from behind
And I'm gone to Carolina in my mind.