Pandering vs. Presidential

Whether your heart lies with Clinton or Obama your head has to know tonight was a night for the junior senator from Illinois. Tonight, Monday Night Football's Dandy Don Meredith returned for a one night performance: "Turn out the lights, the party's over, they all say good things must end."

After enduring the worst period of his presidential campaign, Obama gave uncommitted superdelegates who have been sitting on the fence at least a strong reason to inch toward his direction.

By increasing his delegate and popular vote lead, tomorrow morning brings with it a pressure on Clinton to give some consideration for what is best for the Democratic Party beyond making her nom du famille synonymous with the donkey.

She can pledge to the Indiana faithful to press on, but the numbers don't lie. Though she has vowed to take her campaign to West Virginia and Kentucky, the body language of Clinton, her husband, and daughter Chelsea suggests tonight was a campaign eulogy.

The epitaph on the Indiana and North Carolina primaries could very simply read: "Pandering versus Presidential."

The Jeremiah Wright fiasco clearly knocked Obama off of his white charger of change. But its quite possible Clinton herself came to his rescue by pandering to the public.

Seizing on astronomical gas prices that have caused pain for many Americans, she offered a policy that no reputable economist in the country could support. Moreover, it was a policy that had no feasible way of passing this summer. She did not have the votes in Congress nor a president waiting to sign it. So it was nothing more than rhetorical pandering of the highest order.

Obama took the principled stand by opposing it. It was a substantive issue, offering the road less traveled. It was manna from heaven. Obama was presented with an opportunity to talk about something other than Jeremiah Wright, look presidential, while giving the American people a glance at his leadership style.

Maybe we just became privy to the change that has been promised throughout his campaign -- to disagree with your opponent's ideas while always affirming their humanity.

Meanwhile, Clinton surrogates, in particular James Carville, have reminded many that the win-at-all-cost style, even if it includes crass invectives toward a member of your own party and most likely the presidential nominee, is not beyond the pale.

But other than a farewell tour through West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon and Montana, the race is over. There is no longer any rationale to hammer Obama with negative ads that ultimately benefit McCain.

The person most likely happiest about tonight's outcome is Democratic Party chair, Howard Dean. The results from Indiana and North Carolina primaries lessen the importance of Michigan and Florida thereby making a compromise more likely and less acrimonious.

But it's time for primary redemption within the Democratic Party -- to put aside intramural rivalries in order to prepare for the major intercollegiate event in the fall.

It is not the time for Obama supporters put on the suit of arrogance, demanding Clinton's immediate withdrawal. Magnanimity is as important for the winner, if not more so, as it is for the loser.

An "October surprise" in May notwithstanding, we now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, but it is still a long way from November. Tonight, in the words of Winston Churchill, "is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

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