Clinton must bow out of race to preserve Democrats’ chances

Steve Keller Guest Columnist

I would like you to picture for a minute an alternate universe in which Hillary Clinton is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. In this universe, she has won 11 contests in a row, from Virginia to Louisiana to Washington, all by commanding margins. In Virginia she won over 65 percent of the vote, in Hawaii over 75 percent. Her smallest margin of victory was 17 percent in Wisconsin, where Senator Barack Obama was widely expected to at least make a competitive showing. And, to boot, she has a 150-delegate lead over Obama.

Were this scenario true, what would the Democratic party be doing? They would most certainly be pressuring Obama to drop out. They would be characterizing him as some troublemaker from Chicago, stirring up a Pandora’s box of hope and optimism, decreasing Democrats’ chances of reclaiming the White House in November by creating internal strife and repeating a battle cry for hope that was not catching on.

But the reality is, the Obama movement is catching on. In the real world, Obama is riding an unstoppable wave of momentum, even after minor setbacks in the March 4th primaries. He has galvanized the youth vote, captured a majority of the states and convinced party leaders such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson of his legitimacy as a candidate.

The Clintons tried playing the race card in South Carolina. That didn’t work. They tried framing Obama’s supporters as members of a personality cult. That didn’t work either. Then they tried pinning him on a phony plagiarism charge. That crashed and burned. They tried claiming that Obama was not tough enough to go head-to-head with Senator John McCain in November, only to have the latest round of polls reflect that Obama beat McCain in almost every match-up, while Clinton started out five to 10 points behind.

If Obama becomes the nominee, the Electoral College map will change in the Democrats’ favor. Suddenly, Ohio, Virginia and Iowa could go Democratic. Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and even Texas become competitive. For Democrats who are looking to make the map a little bluer this year, it seems that it would be better to start out with McCain on the defensive instead of the other way around.

Every day that Clinton continues to stay in the race further polarizes the Democrats and hurts Obama, the stronger candidate who has shown a clear aptitude for modern political campaigning, which Clinton lacks. In the past few weeks, her campaign has gone from inevitable to frantic, her attitude from borderline-racist to angry to sarcastic. Her run for the presidency is becoming pathetic.

Since Clinton says that she will take this fight all the way to convention, the Democratic party will not have a nominee until August. John McCain’s campaign will have had a six-month head start. In the past 10 presidential elections, the candidate who has been nominated first has won nine times.

The delegate math is getting impossible for Clinton as well. She will need to win 67 percent of the delegates in the remaining contests. For a little bit of perspective, she has won only one contest with a margin that large—Arkansas. Obama has won 10. Barring something unbelievable, she will not be able to do it. And the Democratic party is not going to hand over the nomination to someone who came in second.

There is only one explanation for what she’s doing. She’s throwing everything at Obama, hoping that McCain wins the election, paving the way for a new campaign: “Hillary Clinton for President 2012.”

What other explanation can there be for this quote: “I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.”

Clinton, please stop rooting for the Republican, bow down and get out of this race. We’ve got an election to win.