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Clinton nearly toast, so why is she still in race?

Dan Janison | dan.janison@newsday.com

May 8, 2008

In political races, toast is a relative term.

To qualify, the bread might be just barely singed. Or it could be burned into crumbs of carbon.

Either way, the Clinton campaign does seem to be well on the way to getting crispy.

So today's question is why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - whose effort is widely seen in the wake of Tuesday's primaries as eligible for use in a BLT - remains in the race.

Her New York faithful continue to spout the line of how the people, and not the pundits, will decide the Democratic nomination. But the mathematics of the delegates and popular votes will mean that in the next three weeks, only an incredible outside-the-box choke by Barack Obama can keep him from the finish line.

Of course, Clinton has been elected from this state long enough now to know that amazing chokes can happen.

As a New Yorker, she's had the chance to see close-up the Yankees in 2004, Alan Hevesi in 2006, the Mets in 2007, and Eliot Spitzer in 2008. We can't know what lurks in her heart of hearts, but perhaps she clings to the dream of becoming this season's Red Sox, or Tom DiNapoli, or the Phillies, or David Paterson.

OK, maybe the comparison leaves something to be desired. Especially, because it is difficult - his "bitter" remarks notwithstanding - to imagine Obama becoming fully Spitzerized (defined as a spontaneous, self-inflicted political implosion). Still, the performance of her best public-relations asset of recent weeks, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., may have prompted her strategists to at least start praying in that direction.

Dreams die hard for the "comeback" Clintons - even if you heard her signaling in her Indiana victory speech that the winner of the nomination will have the support of the other candidate. Maybe Bill and Hillary are suddenly heeding the advice of Jesse Jackson and forcing themselves to keep hope alive.

Closer to the ground, her loyalists' strongest argument for waiting a few more weeks is that she has won a significant chunk of the party electorate and owes her supporters effort, particularly to women, to tough it out - and that she'd save face by going out on a high note with wins in West Virginia and Kentucky.

One fount of speculation suggests she wants to be asked to take the vice-presidential slot - even if it's to turn it down. And the rejection of the results from Michigan and Florida do still pose a legitimate question for the party.

Or, maybe Fort Clinton is truly convinced that Obama cannot win the general election, and so refuses to let go, with the rationale that the risk of further division will do the Democratic Party no harm.

But by yesterday morning, George McGovern, the former South Dakota senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, urged her to drop out. He had endorsed Clinton and describes himself as a close friend.

"Hillary, of course, will make the decision as to if and when she ends her campaign. But I hope that she reaches that decision soon so that we can concentrate on a unified party" - behind Obama in November, said McGovern, now 85.

That's coming from a man who learned the hard way what toast looks like.