Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Politics: The Obama-Hillary Show Will Continue!

Results from last night's Democratic Pennsylvania primary:

Hillary Rodham Clinton

1,259,842

54.7%

Barack Obama

1,044,676

45.3%

99% reporting

Ms. Clinton's supporters can breath a sigh of relief today not simply because she won a single primary last night. More importantly, and remarkably, she isn't yet seen as having lost the nomination.

But a few inconvenient facts remain, chief among them: Mr. Obama has more delegates and more popular votes than Ms. Clinton has. Since delegates are the agreed upon measure of who 'wins' and who 'loses' this contest, it is worth asking: what could possibly happen to make Ms. Clinton the nominee?

The answer is -- scandal. In these current times, with round-the-clock media willingly dedicated to picking up dirt, even the most die-hard Obama supporter has to admit that Mr. Obama, with one more radical, anti-American pastor in his past, or with one more "bitter" comment in his present, would be on the edge of losing this race. The Clinton campaign's best friend right now might be FOX News, perhaps the country's one organization that combines the infrastructure, the influence, and the will it would take to change this race at this late date.

Obama supporters are paying attention. Markos Moulitsas, at the popular Democratic blog/internet community DailyKos, had this to say today.

Remember, this is no longer a normal race. We're no longer talking delegate counts since bizarrely, the measure of victory in this primary has been discarded. We're no longer talking popular vote, since Clinton can't win that without throwing in a bunch of hypothetical "ifs" -- as in, "IF you count Michigan, and IF you count Florida, and IF you don't count the caucuses, and IF you don't count weekend contests, and IF you don't count black people..." You get the idea.

So what are we talking about? "Electability." That's the only argument left for the Clinton crowd as they seek to spark civil war by having the super delegates overturn the will of the primary voter.

The only question left in the primary season is, does Obama have anything else in his past that could destroy him by making him look like a friend of terrorists, a radical, a communist, anything remotely socially unacceptable? If so, the Clintons and her supporters, or FOX News and the conservative media, are bound to find it and use it to further their interests.

Bottom line: For Obama to lose the nomination, he will have to be taken down by a media-driven scandal.

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