The end was never going to be determined by the final states voting or Obama securing the required number of delegates. It was always going to end when Clinton decided to end it.

The nominee is not officially the nominee until the convention. Like McCain, when Obama reaches the “magic number” he will simply become the “presumptive” nominee until the convention. Clinton could stay in it until then - fighting and appealing the whole way.

I honestly have a hard time believing it’s close to being over especially given how nasty Clinton’s people were over the weekend regarding the ultimately meaningless Florida and Michigan fight (as far as the nomination contest was concerned - that fight may be seen as much more important in the long-term on future Democratic nominations and helping to fix the broken system). Clinton surrogate Harold Ickes was particularly bastardly on the talk shows over the weekend - alleging that Obama was “hijacking” votes from the illegal Michigan and Florida primaries. And yes, those primaries were illegal according to the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee co-chair and a court decision backing the DNC’s ability to enforce its own rules. (The bastardly lawyer Ickes gets “double-bastard” marks for being a member of the committee which robbed Michigan and Florida of its votes in the first place and is now acting all indignant now when it gets in the way of his client/candidate).

Here are the realities Clinton has to face:

• She’s out of money and in big, big debt with no big significant opportunities like victory speeches between now and the convention to spur any additional fund raising
• When the votes come in tomorrow and with Obama likely to secure the needed delegates in the next 72 hours - she simply will not get any TV time outside of a) legal fights or b) her concession/endorsement speech. She’s about to enter post-campaign Mike Huckabee/John Edwards/Bill Richardson territory.
• The Florida and Michigan decisions were unanimous and a proposal from the state itself, respectively. Neither state is appealing the decision and they’re essentially satisfied. If Clinton wants to appeal it, she has to do it herself - and alone.
• Puerto Rico’s turnout was much lighter than expected. Team Clinton expected yesterday’s win in Puerto Rico would give her an empirical lead in the popular vote. It didn’t. If you don’t count the illegal (the DNC’s words) Florida and Michigan non-contests, Obama leads the popular vote.

The Huffington Post reports:

Hillary Clinton has summoned top donors and backers to attend her New York speech tomorrow night in an unusual move that is being widely interpreted to mean she plans to suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama - if not that night, within a day or two.

Obama and Clinton spoke Sunday night and agreed that their staffs should begin negotiations over post-primary activities, according to reliable sources. In addition to seeking Obama’s help in raising money to pay off some $20 million-plus in debts, Clinton is known to want Obama to assist black officials who endorsed her and who are now taking constituent heat, including, in some cases, primary challenges from pro-Obama politicians.

“This has never happened before,” one donor said, referring to the personalized request by email to attend the event in New York Tuesday night.

And The Washington Post reports:

The remaining Democratic senators who have yet to pick a side in the party’s presidential nomination fight will meet this afternoon at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s headquarters on Capitol Hill to plot strategy for the coming days, according to Democratic sources.

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.