Hard to believe Hillary's still here

BY GLENN THRUSH | glenn.thrush@newsday.com

May 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - It's gone on for 16 months, longer than many jail sentences and most Hollywood marriages. Forty-seven states and territories with 30.7 million voters have cast ballots. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have collectively raised and spent nearly a half-billion dollars on TV ads, millionaire consultants, flowers, rental jets and doughnuts.

Amazingly enough, there's still no clear endgame to the Democratic presidential nominating process - even though Obama is on the precipice of victory with a 1738.5-1,606.5 lead in overall delegates, according to The Associated Press.

The candidates' fates are now in the hands of 218 undecided superdelegates who will be closely watching Tuesday's Indiana and North Carolina primaries. While Clinton's backers concede they have no clear statistical path to the nomination, the Illinois senator can't reach the 2,025-delegate threshold for victory for the nomination without those remaining superdelegates either.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean has told supers he wants them to make up their minds by the end of June but they cite a plethora of unresolved issues keeping them from choosing - the outcome of eight final contests, a decision on Florida and Michigan's outlawed delegations and continued questions about Obama's electability.

How will it all end? Here are four possible scenarios - from a quick knockout to a party-splintering convention brawl.

1. Obama wins Indiana, forcing Clinton out. Clinton's aides admit that she would seriously consider suspending her campaign if Obama wins Indiana Tuesday. "We lose our entire rationale for running, our momentum," said one senior Clinton aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.

An Obama win isn't out of the question but it's less likely since his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, resurfaced last week. Clinton has seized a 5-to-10 point lead, and the state's mostly white, heavily working-class demographics favor Clinton. Obama will be strong in Indianapolis, college towns and in the northwestern part of the state, which is part of the Chicago media market.

"A few days ago the race was narrowing to the point where he had closed the gap, but the Wright thing turned that around," said Robert Schmuhl, an American studies professor at the University of Notre Dame.

2. Clinton regains the upper hand with shocker win in North Carolina. It's a major long shot, but if Clinton pulls off an upset victory it would redefine the race - a "game changer," as she has said.

"It would be utterly astounding and a real blow to Obama," says University of North Carolina-Charlotte political science professor Theodore Arrington. Recent polls show Clinton cutting Obama's 15-to-20-point lead to 7 points. But her aides say the state's demographics are "awful" for them, with blacks representing 40 percent of primary voters and highly educated white Democrats in the north-central Research Triangle making up another big bloc.

Clinton's state director, Ace Smith, has said a win here would be the "biggest upset of the century." Arrington adds: "She'll need to get 70 percent of the white vote here - she's gotten 60-plus in some states - but that's just not going to happen."

3. Uncommitted superdelegates, eager to end the party bloodletting, flock to Obama. The cascade to Obama is already happening, quietly and slowly. The number of uncommitted superdelegates has shrunk from about 290 in April to 218 today - with most of the recent-deciders choosing Obama. Moreover, some Clinton supers, most notably former DNC chairman Joe Andrew, have defected to Obama, cutting Clinton's lead among supers from 100 in February to 23 now.

Clinton is playing for time, but if she splits Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday, some party insiders say the pressure is likely to build on undecided delegates to make up their minds sooner rather than later.

"I had been thinking I would wait till June but I'm so concerned about the tone of the campaign, the negativity, I'm going to make a decision by next week," said undecided Maryland superdelegate Gregory Pecoraro. "We have to get this over with. I pride myself on knowing stupidity when I see it, and we are headed down the stupid road."

Clinton has argued superdelegates need to sit tight until voting ends - but even that rationale is vanishing. There seem to be few potential surprises in the post-Tuesday races: Clinton and Obama are likely to split the six remaining contests, with Clinton favored in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico and Obama expected to win Montana, Oregon and South Dakota. And the 217 pledged delegates left to be apportioned represent less than 5 percent of the party's total.

But many uncommitted supers aren't in a hurry. "I was entrusted with being a superdelegate and I'm not going to waste it," says Nevada state Democratic chairman Sam Lieberman. "I won't do it until after all of America has had a chance to vote. I made that commitment and I'm going to stick to it."

4. It ends in a floor fight at the convention. Not likely, but oh-so-scary to Democrats. Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe recently said he feels in his "gut" that the race will be over by June. But she's never committed to dropping out before the convention - and a top aide told Newsday last month some senior staffers foresee no end before August, as the convention in Denver convenes.

What does that mean? If Obama doesn't reach the delegate threshold, Clinton could fight his nomination on the floor. But a more likely scenario, observers say, is that she would wage a floor fight to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations, stripped of their votes after flouting DNC rules by scheduling primaries before Feb. 5.

The former first lady won both states. Seating them would offer a net gain of a few dozen pledged delegates - and her campaign argues she would be ahead in the popular vote if they were counted. Two DNC committees will tackle the issue over the next two months but many Clinton supporters, including Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, have suggested she'd fight on if the delegations aren't seated.

"I think the floor fight is very unlikely. It's more likely supers will finally start slowly making their decision after this Tuesday and she'll read the writing on the wall," says UNC's Arrington.

At the end of the day, however, Clinton doesn't want to be cast as the woman who lost the White House for her party. Said a DNC member close to Dean, "I think she's a practical person and wants to protect her reputation, and if it comes down to it she'll quit the minute she knows she stands no chance."