DUCKPOND

The North Carolina Democratic primary was a clear cut win by Obama by 14%. In a two candidate contest that seems very decisive. Some in the Clinton camp thought they had a chance of doing significantly better, and even winning. It is interesting to speculate as to how that misperception can occur. Good polling can be the necessary antidote to seen enthusiasm of the crowds. While, in my opinion, Clinton was phony, her play acting was good enough to work with the target audience who presumably identified with that persona.

In retrospect, commentators are saying that Clinton would have been effective by applying more time, energy and resources to Indiana. Before polling closed, some of the press (the NYT, I believe) were saying that the margins were going to be critical, and Clinton was expected to do well if she won by over 8%. As it was Clinton’s victory in Indiana was one or two percentage points. These primary voting outcomes have not been kind to her.

By contrast, Obama campaign in the wake of the Reverend Wright story has moved from the doldrums to the trade winds. The results have been very positive for him. He has maintained his relative position with respect to the pledged delegates, and no doubt gained electoral credibility with the superdelegates. He looks now to be the nominee.

People who know more than I do point to other races for the nomination as precedents, but I suspect that this contest has unique qualities in terms of “race” and gender. The nomination process, if it is not finessed, could go very wrong, and for that reason, and I may be proved wrong, that the delegates from Michigan and Florida will be counted.

One possibility is that the Democratic Party could be torn apart if the bulk of the essential coalition is not keep together, and those new voters who have been attracted are not kept within the tent. In that case, despite their handicaps, the Republicans would cruise to victory in a two-party electoral winner take all electoral system.

True to her invented self, it is likely that Clinton will keep on going, and by necessity resorting to attack campaigning. In other words playing the Republican surrogate to the Democrat nominee. The critical question will be whether she has the money to keep going, which is the difference between her success in Pennsylvania and very marginal victory in Indiana. In fact, looking at these events from November, I think this is the time for Clinton to bail out. I know by doing so she will be contradicting her narrative and disappointing her supporters, and some will lost to the Republicans. Yet she should recognize what she has achieved. If there was a glass ceiling that stopped a woman from becoming president, she has smashed it completely, and that is no small achievement.

I suppose that all politicians have to play to the crowd and be an advocate for different interests, yet I am inclined to believe that authenticity is important and democratic. Gabor Steingat for Speigel Online gives an account of the falsity of the Clinton persona.

It is, of course, extremely unlikely that the contested primaries will draw to a close, by one or other remaining candidate withdrawing. I think it is highly unlikely that Obama will stumble or fall from here on, as Clinton appears to hope will happen. The problem for the power brokers in the Democratic Party is to manage the less worse outcome, and I expected the hard headed decision will be allow that some Reagan Democrats and Clinton supporters will vote for McCain rather than cause a deeper ruction in the Party.

In all of these contentions, I may well prove to be wrong.

ELSEWHERE:

Robert Scheer comments on Clinton’s bellicosity at Truthdig:

I do not think this a matter of a female candidate having to prove that she is capable of being a macho commander in chief, although there is a whiff of Margaret Thatcher here, so proud of taking her nation to unneeded war. With Clinton, as with Thatcher, quite apart from gender, there seems to be a more basic philosophical commitment to using military force before other options have been seriously explored.

That the force cited by Clinton portends the “total obliteration” of another people raises the prospect of the United States, the only nation that has ever used nuclear weapons, doing so again. It suggests that such weapons of mass destruction are not heinous inventions but rather instruments of rational policy when in the hands of the virtuous. That is a message that we dare not deliver to the world.

Juan Cole considers the polls and the primary outcomes and concludes that Obama is a credible, and likely successful, presidential candidate.

Terry Mancour sees Obama’s victory North Carolina as especially significant. Clinton, and in the immediately future presumably McCain and the Noise Machine, experienced blowback from energized Afro-American voters.(via Nan at Public Opinion)