What a race, huh?
It's hard to believe that after, what, 35 debates Kucinich is starting to look good. At least with Dennis you knew what he believed in. A bit naïve in analysis maybe, but if any of the remaining candidates had that kind of clear picture of where they were going to take us, it would be a runaway.
The debate to end all debates, the one-on-on-one Hillary vs. Obama on MSNBC Tuesday night, was as confusing as usual. Too much about health care, and yet too little. Then Hillary made her snippy remarks about always getting the first question and how the media is overly kind to Obama, working in that product-placement commercial for Saturday Night Live. Obama won by a pillow. But Hillary looked like your old algebra teacher.
So now we go to the people again. The vote in Ohio and Texas on March 4, the pundits are all telling us, is a make or break deal for the candidates. When the votes in Ohio are counted -- or mislaid, miscounted or otherwise confabulated, this being Ohio -- and the even stranger Texas-style hybrid of mixing popular voting and caucus, we will know finally whether it's Obama or Hillary for president in 2008. Have we heard that before? My prediction is after Pennsylvania and whatever laggard states still missed the primary media coverage gold rush, there will be some delegates for Obama and some for Hillary. About one hundred will separate the two.
In other words, Obama and Hillary will still be neck and neck as they come down the home stretch this summer in Denver. It's a horse race, as TV news likes to see all presidential nominating races, even when the result has been predetermined in smoke-filled back rooms.
The way Hillary has lost 11 straight states, it may look bad. But her fans should not despair. If she is behind in the delegate count after Pennsylvania, she still won't pack up her pants suits and sulk off to her tent in Chappaqua.
So how is all of this going to play out?
I will tell you even though I am going to lose a lot of friends with this scenario.
Things haven't quite worked out exactly as the Clintonistas planned in the Clinton War Room, as the inner family circle is known. Originally, Obama was seen as a blocking back. He would knock out all the other candidates in the crowded field, while making the big hole enabling Hillary to run to daylight, as they say.
Now it's all coming down to superdelegates. How the SD's will be going has been studied by the punditocracy with the precision of cable news executives studying chicken entrails as a clue to what the public will watch.
Does anybody really expect the Clinton war machine to let victory slip through their hands just because a few hundred delegates appear to be having trouble making up their minds?
The undecideds in the superdelegation ranks are the key to victory, the pundits are telling us.
They are ignoring Plan B.
Hillary's people in the War Room have been holding maneuvers in preparation for this current war since 1992. The same people who destroyed Paula Jones and Genifer Flowers in the Great Clinton Media War of 1992 would be able to destroy any opposition today.
The War Room muscle man-in-chief, of course, is Harold Ickes, veteran of the 1992-6 Clintonian Wars and current assistant to the campaign manager. Harold the Enforcer and his minions are the vacuum cleaners who collect dirt on everybody in the game.
They happened to run into a year when nobody seems to want to read about it. Or the people have come to believe the world is so dirty, and everybody is so criminal anyway.
Nevertheless, we can assume the War Room warriors have finished their background checks on the superdelegates.
While some pundits may think superdelgates are starry-eyed idealists who have been designated to follow the dictates of their constituents or their own conscience, every superdelegate is basically a party hack, if not a fool. They will hear a knock on the door one day. "Mr. Ickes is here to see you."
"We've got one of three choices for you," the delegates will hear the visitor outline a proposal. "We can kill you. Or we can release all the stuff in your file to the press. Or we can give you $3,000. What sounds better?"
So don't be surprised if you see a hundred or so superdelegates having second thoughts about voting for Obama.
The reason Hillary will win the nomination, I predict, is because somebody dropped a file on somebody's desk.
That's why Harold Ickes was able to say earlier in the week: "We're closing in on the nomination." And maybe they are.
You have to go back to the early days of labor negotiations to understand the mechanics of this magical progression in thought process. A story is told about a worker named Louie who was violently anti-union. Came the vote for a union shop, and Louie vote for the union. Louie's friend, Max, said, "Louie, you were always so against the union. How come you voted for the union?"
"They never explained it to me before," the new union man said. "If you don't vote for the union, we will break your legs."