[Marxism] NYT: Clinton's road to nomination grows more difficult

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This article indicates that, given how he handled it, it has become more
difficult to block his nomination as a result of the conflict over Rev.
Wright.

Of course, the problems Obama faces will be faced by any Black candidate who
does not come from the overt right wing.  In the Black community, for aqny
but those who live at the say-so of the Heritage Foundation, National Legal
Council, Right to Life Association and so on, association with views that
are much less likely to be expressed today in the mainstream of the white
community are simply part of the normal business day of a politician. If it
is impossible for a candidate to be elected who has no family,
church-attendance, or other association with such radical views, then there
can never be a Black president under capitalism.

That may be true, as Ruthless Critic is clearly suggesting, whether he
ruthlessly knows it or not, but I doubt it. In fact, it is partly this
association with these aspects of Black community life and history that
gives a bourgeois, imperialist candidate like Obama credibility as
representing "change," so timely at a time when the old bourgeois order --
but not capitalist rule itself as yet -- is showing signs of truly coming
apart.
Fred Feldman



March 20, 2008
Political Memo
Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination 
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
WASHINGTON - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton needs three breaks to wrest the
Democratic presidential nomination from Senator Barack Obama in the view of
her advisers.

She has to defeat Mr. Obama soundly in Pennsylvania next month to buttress
her argument that she holds an advantage in big general election states. 

She needs to lead in the total popular vote after the primaries end in June.


And Mrs. Clinton is looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr.
Obama so that superdelegates, Democratic Party leaders and elected officials
who are free to decide which candidate to support overturn his lead among
the pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses.

For Mrs. Clinton, all this has seemed something of a long shot since her
defeats in February. But that shot seems to have grown a little longer. 

Despite Mrs. Clinton's last-minute trip to Michigan on Wednesday, Democrats
there signaled that they are unlikely to hold a new primary. That apparently
dashed Mrs. Clinton's hopes of a new showdown in a state she feels she could
win, and it left the state's delegates in limbo.

The inaction in Michigan followed a similar collapse of her effort to seek
another matchup with Mr. Obama in Florida, where, as in Michigan, she won an
earlier primary held in violation of party rules. 

Without new votes in Florida and Michigan, it will be that much more
difficult for Mrs. Clinton to achieve a majority in the total popular vote
in the primary season, narrow Mr. Obama's lead among pledged delegates or
build a new wave of momentum. 

Mrs. Clinton's advisers had hoped that the uproar over inflammatory remarks
made by Mr. Obama's longtime pastor that has rocked his campaign for a week
might lead voters and superdelegates to question whether they really know
enough about Mr. Obama to back him. Although it is still early to judge his
success, the speech Mr. Obama delivered on race in Philadelphia to address
the controversy was well received and praised even by some Clinton
supporters.

Tad Devine, a Democratic consultant who is not supporting a candidate, said
Mrs. Clinton faced a challenge that although hardly insurmountable was
growing tougher almost by the day. Mr. Devine said it was critical for her
to come out ahead in popular votes, cut into Mr. Obama's lead and raise
questions about Mr. Obama's electability to win over superdelegates. 

"They are going to have to be flawless in executing the strategy, which
achieves the goal of taking away the advantage Obama has in pledged
delegates and the popular vote," he added. "Any major setback could undercut
that goal. Obama is in the advantageous position."

The race is certainly not over. With 10 contests remaining, Mrs. Clinton
trails Mr. Obama by about 150 delegates out of the 2,025 needed to secure
the nomination. 

If there is a road to victory for Mrs. Clinton, it is a fairly narrow one.
Her chief strategist, Mark Penn, said the campaign believed that when the
primary voting was done, Mrs. Clinton would have a lead in the overall
popular vote, that Mr. Obama's lead in delegates would be relatively narrow
and that polls would show her in a stronger position than Mr. Obama. 

Victories in contests where she is strong or competitive like Pennsylvania,
West Virginia, Puerto Rico and, perhaps, Oregon and Indiana could give her a
burst of energy.

No less important, the campaign hopes that Mr. Obama will have been battered
by five rough weeks that raise questions about his past, including the
pastor's incendiary comments, that would underscore Mrs. Clinton's warning
to Democrats that they were rallying around someone who was untested and
unvetted.

"The superdelegates are not going to really decide until June," Mr. Penn
said. "He's just going through a vetting and testing process that didn't
happen a year ago and is now happening. The whole vetting and testing
process will make a big difference." 

It is in the interest of Mrs. Clinton's campaign to portray the contest as
being highly competitive. Her campaign is intent on combating Mr. Obama's
efforts to pick off superdelegates. And it is increasingly concerned that
any sign that the window is closing could lead a Democrat like Al Gore or
Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step in and urge Democrats to back Mr. Obama in the
interest of unity.

In truth, in interviews, Mrs. Clinton's advisers said that task was tough
and growing tougher and that the critical questions were what would happen
with Florida and Michigan and the possibility of developments involving Mr.
Obama's relationship with his spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright
Jr.

The fight over Florida and Michigan is just partly about delegates.
Victories in new primaries in those states are among the only realistic ways
for Mrs. Clinton to erase Mr. Obama's advantage in the total popular vote.

Mr. Obama's edge over Mrs. Clinton is 700,000 votes out of 26 million cast,
excluding caucuses and the disputed Florida and Michigan results. About 12
million people are eligible to vote in the remaining contests. 

Aides to the two candidates said even with the best possible showing for
Mrs. Clinton in the states ahead, it was hard to see how she could pass Mr.
Obama without Michigan and Florida. 

She received 300,000 more votes than Mr. Obama in Florida in January. In
Michigan, where none of her major opponents were on the ballot, she drew
62,220 more votes than the rest of the opponents. Mrs. Clinton's advisers
said that absent some deal to seat the delegates from those states, the
campaign would still argue that the popular vote in Michigan and Florida be
counted. 

"The popular vote is the popular vote for all to see," said Harold Ickes, a
senior adviser to Mrs. Clinton. "For people to claim that because the
delegates weren't seated you can't count the popular vote seems somewhat
goofy."

Yet that could be a tough argument to make. None of the candidates
campaigned in Michigan or Florida, and Mr. Obama's name did not appear on
the Michigan ballot.

Finally, Mrs. Clinton's aides hope that disclosures about Mr. Obama's past
like the one involving Mr. Wright could give superdelegates' pause. Mr.
Devine said he thought that at least in terms of Democratic primary voters
Mr. Obama had turned the furor to his advantage with his speech on race. 

"Obama, confronted by an issue that was boiling, seemed to wade into it with
a speech that was in many ways profound," Mr. Devine said. "As a result, now
these people who were so interested and awakened by his candidacy are back
with him again. Instead of this being a setback, it becomes an opportunity."

But the audience now is as much the Democratic superdelegates, who are
especially attuned to politics and questions of electability in the fall, as
it is rank-and-file voters. 

Mrs. Clinton's advisers said they had spent recent days making the case to
wavering superdelegates that Mr. Obama's association with Mr. Wright would
doom their party in the general election. 

That argument could be Mrs. Clinton's last hope for winning this


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