Three weeks ago, in a thread about the chance of a brokered convention, I posted :
On the Democratic side, I see a very small chance of a brokered convention. At this point, it’s a two person race, and it comes down to mega-Tuesday. If Clinton is perceived (i.e. anointed by the media) as having scored a fairly clear win, Obama is out. If Obama is perceived as having won or tied, he’ll been seen as having broken the front-running Clinton in the big game, and should be able to leverage that into wins in most of the remaining states. Yes, there is some gray area between the two, but the perception should solidify shortly after the results are counted.
Well, no matter how you counted it, by almost any measure last Tuesday was a flat-out dead even tie between Clinton and Obama. That, to my mind, was a big win for Obama. First, it made him undeniably credible as a candidate (and not someone who whites would be afraid to vote for), and second, it broke Clinton’s aura of inevitability.
Before that, he had announce that he had raised $32 million in January, to resounding silence from the Clinton camp. On Super Tuesday it broke that Clinton had loaned $5 million to her campaign, and then Obama raised $7 million on the internet. Shortly thereafter Clinton said that she had raised another $5 million, but one thing that never really came up was the question of whether those were primary-eligible funds, or just general election funds that must be returned if she loses the primary. That is highly significant as she is maxed out on primary funds for many of her donors, and she might have been able to ask for general election funds that would have to be returned, but those would be useless now. Over the last few days, she started shaking up her campaign staff (the whiff of desperation).
Before today, she announced her strategy of ignoring all of the “little” states coming up, and staking everything on Texas and Ohio. The last candidate to do that was Giulani who waited for Florida, and look how that did for him.
Now comes today’s results. To me, the significant thing is not just the three convincing wins, it’s the fact that Obama won virtually every demographic category, according to the exit polls (Virginia Maryland ). Clinton’s lead among women, older voters, and Hispanics is crumbling.
As Clinton has essentially conceded the next few states, it will be a string of wins for Obama. With the dreaded “momentum” on his side, I doubt that she’ll be able to do anything at her last stand at the Alamo.
Sorry, Clintonistas, she’s done. (Huckabee, too, but we knew that already).
