Endgame for Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency is nearly over. With Tuesday's results in Indiana and North Carolina, Clinton would need to win something like 85% of the vote in the remaining Democratic primaries/caucuses to remain competitive: not a very likely scenario.

Further complicating things for Clinton is the fact that defections from her super delegate base have already begun, including one from Richmond, Virginia: State Delegate and DNC member Jennifer McClellan. Even as Clinton looks for a winning formula, the target will recede from her as more and more super delegates see the writing on the wall and transfer their allegiance: 85%, 86%, 87% and so on.

Clinton is now effectively checkmated in the race for elected delegates. There are six remaining primaries or caucuses. Delegates will be awarded proportionately from these contests based on congressional districts (or their equivalent, in the case of territories like Puerto Rico). There are 37 of these districts or district equivalents, each with between 3-to-6 delegates to award. In order to receive at least one delegate, a candidate need only show that they are "viable" by winning a mere 15% of the vote in a district. Barack Obama is viable in all these districts, and much more than viable in many of them. As a result, we can predict with absolute certainty that Obama will receive more than 37 delegates from the remaining contests (in fact, he will probably win about one hundred). If Obama wins 38 more delegates, he will have won more than half of the available elected delegates. There are several super delegates that have pledged to cast their vote for whichever candidate has won the majority of the elected delegates. We can now say with absolute certainty that that person will be Barack Obama.

Obama is busy meeting with super delegates today and there are rumors that a large block of super delegates will come out for Obama in the near future, erasing Clinton's lead among super delegates. There is little or no chance that the super delegates will overturn the will of the voters at this point by supporting Hillary Clinton.

So what will Hillary Clinton's endgame be? How will she exit the race? The key for Democrats is to not so much end the race by forcing Clinton to concede, but rather to convince Clinton that she should suspend negative campaigning. If Clinton stops attacking Obama, her continued participation in the race could help Obama and the Democratic Party by bring more voters out in the remaining primary states.

The down side is that Clinton has run such a profoundly negative campaign against Obama, that many of her supporters will be difficult to win over. Many Clinton supporters have voiced visceral dislike of Obama and his supporters (labeling them Obamatrons). It remains to be seen if Clinton can heal the breach she created in the course of her pursuit of the nomination.