Now that the fate of the Florida and Michigan delegations have been decided, with Hillary Clinton picking up 24 delegates but nowhere near enough to ever close the gap with Barack Obama, she will continue through the final primaries this Tuesday. Then, within a week, she will fold her tent and begin repairing her image with certain segments of the Democratic party.

I make this prediction for three reasons:

1. She must go on, because she has proclaimed her desire for the party of “count every vote.” (Even though her long-ago plan was to effectively seal up the nomination within the first six weeks, therefore rendering meaningless all the ensuing votes. Have I menioned “hubris” here in connection with the Clintons? I think I have.)
2. There is simply no scenario whereby she can gain enough delegates to take the nomination, even if a chunk of Mars were to crash through the atmosphere and cave in Obama’s skull. He’d still have more delegates.
3. To go further than a week after the final primary would truly anger the party and all its activists and foreshorten her political future.

So:  By June 10th, she’ll be out. Unless, that is, she’s crazy. Given that she’s running for president, that shouldn’t be ruled out.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.