The two races

There are currently two races going on for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. One of the races is over, it has been for some time now. And the other is wide open.

The completed race, of course, is the one that actually matters, the one that will determine who will be the Democratic nominee for President. After Obama's string of February victories, the Clinton camp pointed to Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania as big states that would essentially even them out from a mathematical standpoint with Obama. As predicted, these races are over and Clinton won each of them. And as predicted, she is nowhere near mathematically even with Obama. She cannot catch up to him in pledged delegates. She is losing in the popular vote count and the only way she can make a case that she has received more votes is if she discounts all the caucuses and pretends that Florida AND Michigan count. Obama will finish this race with more states won, more votes and more pledged delegates. Clinton will need a sizable majority of superdelegates to overturn these metrics, effectively unleashing a maelstrom of criticism and alienating inspired youths and African-Americans. To repeat, none of this information is new. It was known two months ago.

A large chunk of American though, specifically the media, seems caught up on a different contest--we can call this a contest for the hearts and minds of the American people. In this race, Clinton and Obama are virtually in a dead heat, each drawing on different coalitions, battling to knock each other of their respective pedestals. This race is decided not by votes but rather by exit polls, gaffes and whatever the punditry decides to obsess about on any particular day to milk a viewer-drawing story. In this race, the public seeks some kind of closure. They know the nomination is "Obama's to lose," but they need him to knock some kind of decisive knockout blow on Clinton. As long as she's still around, this race remains wide open.

Here is what is so silly about the second race: it doesn't matter. In fact, so little has changed in the Democratic race since two months ago that it's almost shocking. Bittergate, the Reverend Wright controversy, Bosnia and sniper fire have all had a relatively negligible impact on where the race stands. Each candidate has different coalitions built from varying demographics and how well they do in a state is largely dictated by these measurements: age, race, income level and education. It's quite possible that Obama will never land a knockout blow on Clinton. But it's because she has always enjoyed a quite firm base of support in the Democratic party and that has not wavered one bit. Obama's support is just a little bit stronger and in the end that makes him the winner. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, all of this was known 2 months ago.