The Next President

The headline of the day (next to the BBC's GREAT TITS COPE WELL WITH WARMING--it's about the birds, of course, coping with global warming--what did you think it meant? ) is this one from Politico: CLINTON WON'T QUIT; OBAMA DOESN'T CARE.

While Clinton is off getting heckled in West Virginia and playing shock jock with her overtly racist analyses, Obama is mobbed by members of Congress of both parties on the House floor. With every day that passes, the Clinton candidacy recedes. She won Indiana by less than 1%, which means that Rush Limbaugh was her margin of victory.

She has no path to the nomination within the rules, let alone the rules of decency. Today there is still talk about her wanting and even demanding the v.p. spot, but that too will soon fade. The Clintons are yesterday. If they hadn't run such a mean-spirited campaign--and especially if they weren't still at it--there might be cause for some sadness in that. But not from me. By the time she wins West Virginia Tuesday, Hillary will be lucky if a cable network other than Fox carries her victory speech. Even the chair of the Democratic party in West Virginia suggested she might drop out before then.

Obama has turned his attention to the general election, while still showing respect for the voters in the remaining states with contests by campaigning there. His next victory is likely to be on May 20 in Oregon, when he almost certainly will have obtained the majority of total pledged delegates available from all the primaries and caucuses. If not by then, then soon after, party leaders in Michigan and Florida will have made deals to have delegations seated at the Convention, even if Hillary doesn't approve. Obama doesn't have to mollify the Clintons or figure out what he has to give them in order for Hillary to drop out. He needs only to show her voters and supporters respect by allowing her to continue until the contests are over--respect that in many cases they didn't show him. And if she doesn't concede by mid June, the super-delegates will move en masse to Obama.

The Democrats are in great position to win the presidency and gain greater majorities in Congress. They aren't going to let that be messed up. The longer the Clintons stay in, the more obvious it becomes to Democrats that they've picked the right candidate, not only to run for President, but to be President.

George McGovern, who switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama, says of him, "We may have a second Lincoln."

So on August 28, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech, Barack Obama will accept the nomination of the Democratic Party for the presidency of the United States.