It’s almost over.
Well, not quite. But the Democratic
presidential primaries taking place on
Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana
have more delegates up for grabs than
any of the remaining contests. For
political, demographic and mathematical
reasons, those states have the potential
to reshape the competition between
Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and
Barack Obama.
It will be
an opportunity for Mrs. Clinton to make
the case that Democratic sentiment is
swinging in her favor, and to slice into
Mr. Obama’s lead in pledged delegates
and in the popular vote (putting aside
the disputed contests in Florida and
Michigan). For Mr. Obama, it is a chance
to tamp down talk that Mrs. Clinton has
exposed him as a flawed general election
candidate.
You can
tell where Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama
think they have their best shot by where
they will be on Tuesday night: Mrs.
Clinton has a hotel ballroom in
Indianapolis, and Mr. Obama, after some
last-minute debate, finally decided on a
rally at a coliseum in Raleigh, N.C. But
to say that both sides are anxious would
be an understatement, and with that in
mind, here are three possible outcomes
to watch for Tuesday, in no particular
order: Mrs. Clinton wins both states,
Mr. Obama does, or they split:
1) Mrs.
Clinton wins Indiana and North Carolina.
Given the
obstacles that face her, a sweep by Mrs.
Clinton on Tuesday is one outcome that
could, to borrow a phrase from Mr.
Obama, change the world, or at least
begin to.
“That’s a
sign that she is gaining momentum in the
race,” said Ron Klain, a Democratic
consultant who has not taken sides. How
much such a result would change the race
would depend on the contours of her
victories.
A month
ago, Indiana was considered relatively
even, with perhaps a slight edge to Mr.
Obama, of Illinois.
“Indiana
is the first state that borders
Illinois, and 25 percent of our primary
electorate get their television news out
of Chicago,” said Dan Parker, the
Indiana Democratic chairman, who is
backing Mrs. Clinton.
By
contrast, Mr. Obama seemed to hold such
an advantage in North Carolina that Mrs.
Clinton’s aides debated making only a
token effort there.
Now,
though, both campaigns see both states
as highly competitive, as evidenced by
the amount of time Mrs. Clinton and Mr.
Obama have spent there in recent days.
Mrs. Clinton has said she expects to win
in Indiana; candidates do not normally
do that.
If Mr.
Obama loses in Indiana because of white
blue-collar support for Mrs. Clinton it
would be the third time in a row, after
Ohio and Pennsylvania, that he has lost
a big state because of an inability to
win over enough of those kinds of
voters.
Mrs.
Clinton has argued that those losses in
a primary augur poorly for Mr. Obama in
the fall; historically that is
debatable, but another defeat at the
hands of middle-class white voters in
Indiana would add to the perception that
he could lose in the general election.
And should
Mrs. Clinton win North Carolina, or come
close, with white support for her
overwhelming Mr. Obama’s presumed
strength among blacks there, that would
fuel the argument that he has been hurt
by his ties to his former pastor, the
Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
Steve
Jarding, a Democratic consultant who has
not taken sides in the race, said, “If
he loses both — and don’t forget he had
a 25-point lead in North Carolina — then
you’ve got to look at what has happened
over the past four weeks, and Reverend
Wright comes to the fore.”
The race
at this point is at least as much about
superdelegates as it is about voters in
the remaining primary states, and a
double Clinton victory could bolster her
argument to superdelegates that Mr.
Obama may struggle in November against
Senator John McCain, the likely
Republican nominee.
Whether
that is enough to get them to make the
leap of voting for Mrs. Clinton if Mr.
Obama leads her after June 3 in the
overall popular vote and pledged
delegates is another question, which is
why her campaign has renewed efforts to
get Florida and Michigan delegates,
elected in primaries carried out in
defiance of the Democratic Party rules,
seated at the convention.
One thing
to keep in mind: the next contest is a
week from Tuesday in West Virginia,
another state where the demographics
would seem to favor Mrs. Clinton.
2) Mr.
Obama wins North Carolina and Indiana.
A double
Obama victory would almost certainly
mean lights out for the Clinton
campaign.
“That
would signal the end of the Clinton
campaign,” said Jerry Meek, the chairman
of the North Carolina Democratic Party,
who has not endorsed anyone in the race.
“I don’t see how she could continue.” He
added, “She’d be fighting a losing
battle.”
The
ever-tenacious Mrs. Clinton has proven
so eager to keep fighting that she might
try to soldier on. It could be a tough,
lonely road. Several of her advisers
have said they would counsel her to quit
the race if she lost both.
Even if
she resisted, twin victories by Mr.
Obama would go a long way to addressing
concerns about the damage Mr. Wright
inflicted on him, as well as his ability
to “close the deal,” as Mrs. Clinton
likes to say.
It is
difficult to envision what her argument
would be to stay in the race should that
happen. More than that, Mr. Obama would
no doubt encourage superdelegates, many
of whom have been holding back to see
how the voting plays out, to rally
around him and bring the race to a
close. And if there ever was a moment
for the party’s big leaders to step
forward, this would be it.
Matthew
Dowd, the senior strategist for
President Bush’s campaign in 2004, said,
“It makes it almost impossible for her
to win the Democratic nomination.”
3) A split
decision.
The most
likely split would be Mrs. Clinton
winning Indiana and Mr. Obama winning
North Carolina. That would almost surely
mean the race would go on.
But it
would not be easy for Mrs. Clinton to
fight on if she cannot use Tuesday to
make some progress in the battle for
pledged delegates and the popular vote.
Her own advisers say her best hope of
getting superdelegates to vote against
pledged delegates is if, after the final
primaries on June 3, she is close to Mr.
Obama in pledged delegates and ahead in
the popular vote.
Mrs.
Clinton now has 1,338 pledged delegates,
according to a count and projection by
The New York Times, compared with 1,493
for Mr. Obama. On Tuesday, another 187
delegates will be chosen, and after
that, there are only 217 left. Under
Democratic delegate allocation rules,
Mrs. Clinton would have to win most of
the remaining states by huge margins in
order to chip into Mr. Obama’s delegate
lead.
Mr.
Obama’s total popular vote, including
projections from the caucuses, is 14.8
million, compared with 14.2 million to
Mrs. Clinton, not counting the votes in
Florida or Michigan (his lead is
slightly smaller if the caucus states
are excluded).
It is not
impossible for Mrs. Clinton to catch up,
but it would require a series of
lopsided victories — or a successful
effort by the Clinton campaign to
convince superdelegates and the party at
large that the popular vote totals in
Florida and Michigan should count in
determining the will of the people, even
though Mr. Obama’s name did not appear
on the ballot in Michigan and neither
candidate actively campaigned in either
state. (If Florida and Michigan are
counted, Mrs. Clinton has a slim lead in
the popular vote by some calculations.)
“The math
still favors Senator Obama, no matter
what happens Tuesday,” Mr. Klain said.
But then
he offered a caveat that could work in
Mrs. Clinton’s favor. ‘This is the
ultimate
what-have-you-done-for-me-lately
business,” he said, “and the more recent
victories are going to count in people’s
mind more than those older victories.”
