Pursuing the Prize

I hear the question asked over and over, sometimes phrased differently but essentially seeking the same information.

Is Hillary Clinton finished? Has Barack Obama all but wrapped up the Democratic nomination?

I don't know, but I will say this -- 11 straight wins is impressive, whether it's in sports or politics. And Obama deserves credit for accomplishing something that few expected him to do a few months ago. But, as the New England Patriots so clearly demonstrated less than a month ago, you've got to finish the job.

You don't get a Super Bowl victory or a presidential nomination because you came close. Nor do you get them because you feel you are entitled.

Before he won his party's nomination and went on to win the general election, Ronald Reagan knew about coming up short in convention delegates. He took his battle with Gerald Ford to the 1976 convention in Kansas City. President Ford won the fight and, ultimately, the nomination. He lost the election, setting the stage for Reagan in 1980.

You have to apply a certain amount of mathematical knowledge to this kind of judgment. In the football game they eventually lost, the Patriots were leading by four points with less than a minute to play. That made it appear the Patriots would win, but they gave up a touchdown in that final minute and lost by three points.

Were the Patriots too tired at the end of the game? Did they just run out of gas? Did they lose their focus? Or were they simply outplayed?

In the race for the nomination, the person who becomes the Democratic nominee will need to receive the support of 2,025 delegates. Based on the latest count that I've seen (which includes the "super-delegates" who are not bound to vote the way their states' voters did in the primaries or caucuses), Obama has 1,319 votes he can count on and Clinton has 1,250.

To me, that looks like the political equivalent of that four-point lead in the Super Bowl a few weeks ago.

Now, Obama can still stumble in coverage, or Clinton can be like Eli Manning, who led the Giants (from Clinton's adopted state) to one of the most dramatic comebacks in recent memory.

Clinton, incidentally, has even more in common with Eli than a New York address. Eli has spent his professional career toiling in the shadow of his more famous (and, frankly, more popular) brother, who won his first Super Bowl a year ago. It can be argued that Hillary has been in much the same position with her husband, who is only the fourth Democrat in the nation's history to be elected president twice.

Football analogies aside, I'm not the only one who argues that this race needs to be allowed more time to play itself out.

John J. DiIulio Jr., a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says "It ain't over 'til it's over" in a column in The Weekly Standard.

"[W]ith big Latino turnouts expected in Texas, older working-class Ohio voters sticking to her like rust, and friends in Pennsylvania ... Clinton can still nab the nomination," Dilulio writes. "Fence-sitting super-delegates would quickly warm to a three-state sweep."

Not everyone, of course, thinks the campaign is still in nomination mode. There are those, like political guru Michael Barone, who has been the co-author of The Almanac of American Politics (published in every even-numbered year since 1972), who saw a change in tone in the media coverage earlier this week when Obama was declared the winner in Wisconsin.

Barone may be right. Perception often is reality in politics, and the perception may well be, as he suggests in National Review, that Obama's nomination is becoming inevitable.

If it isn't already.

But there are potential pitfalls, as Barone says. "Obama’s cut-and-paste job does respond to the complaint that he is without substance. But it’s hard to mix poetry and prose and come up with an appealing product. Particularly when, as columnist Robert Samuelson points out, there’s not much that’s interesting about the substance."

And Barone also makes note of Michelle Obama's recent statement: "Hope is making a comeback, and let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but because I think people are hungry for change."

To which Barone says, "Coming from the realm in which Michelle Obama has lived her adult life -- Princeton, Harvard Law, a top law firm, a $342,000-a-year job doing community relations for the University of Chicago hospital system -- this may not sound out of the ordinary. As Samuel Huntington has pointed out, people in this stratum tend to have transnational attitudes -- all nations are morally equal, except maybe for ours, which is worse."

Speaking only for myself, I don't occupy that "stratum." And I'll admit that, with Vietnam and Watergate serving as the backdrop for my childhood and adolescence, my pride in my country isn't at the level of people in my parents' generation, who came of age during World War II.

But there have been many times when I've felt proud of my country. As a 9-year-old boy, for example, I felt proud when I watched Americans walk on the moon in the summer of 1969. A few weeks later, I was walking near a lake with my grandfather, and we walked out on a pier and looked up into the early evening sky. The full moon was clearly visible. My grandfather looked up at the moon and said quietly, "Our flag is flying up there now."

I've never needed a president -- or a presidential candidate or his/her spouse -- to validate those feelings of pride for me.

"Barack Obama has explained that his wife was just saying that she was proud for the first time of her country’s politics," Barone writes. "But that’s not what she said, and said with considerable emphasis. Tuesday night seemed to be the beginning of the general-election campaign. But what was said on Monday may prove to be just as important."

The St. Petersburg Times wasn't pleased with Michelle Obama's remarks, either. The Times quoted her husband's spokesman's efforts to clarify her statements, then said, "That may be what she meant, but that is not what she said and that is not what people heard. As her husband can tell her, words do matter, and Michelle Obama ... needs to choose hers more carefully."

Yes, words do matter.

If you saw Thursday night's debate, I'm sure you heard Clinton's line that alluded to charges of plagiarism that have been leveled against Obama lately. Clinton called it "change you can Xerox." Many in the audience booed.

David Lightman, writing for McClatchy Newspapers, observed that the reaction was further evidence that "2008, at least so far, is the year that negative campaigning just doesn't work as it once did."

That may not be good news for Clinton, at this stage of the campaign and with time running out, but signs that the politics of negativism are losing their effect is welcome news for many voters.

In state after state, Lightman observes, "voters said they moved from Clinton to Obama -- or, on the Republican side, from Mitt Romney to John McCain or Mike Huckabee -- partly because they were tired of what seemed like politics as usual."

As Lightman points out, in large part due to Clinton's husband's scandal involving a White House intern, the public's tolerance for misbehavior is much higher than it once was. "So when Romney questions McCain's tax-cut votes or Clinton hurls a plagiarism charge at Obama, the public often shrugs," Lightman says.

We may be witnessing the birth of a new paradigm in American politics.

Many in the media seem to believe that the momentum has truly turned against Clinton, and many of them are offering advice for what she should do to get her campaign on track again. CNN's Roland Martin says Clinton needs to settle on a single message.

"There has been one constant about Obama's presidential campaign," Martin says. "Ask anyone, and it has boiled down to the best bumper sticker you can find: Change. Simple. Direct. To the point."

Martin's complaint about Clinton's message is "we keep getting so many versions. In order for Clinton to right this ship, she should make this campaign about one issue, and that is the state of the American economy."

I think Martin is probably right about Clinton needing to focus on one area where she can draw a large distinction between herself and her opponent. And I think he may be right that focusing on the economy has the potential to do for her what it did 16 years ago when her husband was elected president, although I have to quibble about some of Martin's logic.

"Texas ranks third behind California and Florida when it comes to home foreclosures," he says. Well, that would be impressive except for one thing. Texas is the second-largest state in population, but it's third in foreclosures. And Florida, which is second in foreclosures, is fourth in population. California, of course, is first in both categories.

I'm certainly no economist. Neither am I a home owner. But doesn't logic suggest that voters in Florida would find more to worry about in Martin's statement than voters in Texas would? After all, those figures say that the state with fewer people has more home foreclosures.

Michael Cohen writes, in the Wall Street Journal, that, even though populism has been a part of the American political landscape for a long time, "Obama is crafting a new style of populism -- an affirmative and unifying message that offers a stark contrast to the divisive messages of the past."

If Obama continues to ride this populist campaign to the nomination and beyond, Cohen writes, it "could lead to a redefinition of presidential campaign rhetoric."

Oh, one other thing, for my readers in Texas who have asked me about this.

Whether you vote in the Democratic or Republican primary here in Texas, there are a couple of things I've learned in my somewhat limited research.

One, both parties have what appears to be complete lists of the original candidates for both nominations on the ballot. So, if you vote in the Republican primary and you think Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson would be the best nominee, you can vote for the one you want.

By the same token, if you vote on the Democratic side, you don't have to vote for Obama or Clinton if you don't want to. You can vote for John Edwards or Joe Biden or Bill Richardson.

Two, when you go to vote and declare in which primary you want to participate, the people who are working at your polling place will give you some sort of documentation that will authorize you to participate in the caucuses that are held the night of March 4 -- right after the polls close.

I believe, but I don't know for sure, that the caucuses are the method that will be used to assign delegates.

So, if you vote in the primary for someone who is no longer an active candidate, you've effectively said "None of the above." And it probably won't be worth your time to go to the caucus.

But if you vote in the Democratic primary and you choose Obama or Clinton, you probably need to go to the caucus.

Because it's the delegates that matter when the nomination is decided.

The latest polls show a tight race in Texas. On the Democratic side, both IVR Polls and Survey USA have Clinton leading here, 50% to 45%. Rasmussen Reports has Clinton ahead, 47% to 44%. ABC News/Washington Post reports a virtual dead heat, with Clinton barely in front, 48% to 47%.

Among Texas' Republicans, McCain seems to have a solid lead over Huckabee. Decision Analyst says McCain is in front, 59% to 35%. IVR Polls has McCain in front, 54% to 29%. Survey USA reports McCain is in front, 50% to 37%.

The other big prize on March 4 is Ohio.

Among Democrats, Clinton seems to be enjoying a lead that is a little larger than she appears to have in Texas. Rasmussen Reports says Clinton leads in Ohio, 48% to 40%. According to Decision Analyst, Clinton has a 54% to 46% lead in Ohio. Survey USA sees Clinton in front, 52% to 43%. And ABC News/Washington Post reports a 50-43 lead for Clinton. So the margin has been consistently in the 8-point range for more than a week.

Ohio's Republicans are solidly behind McCain. Rasmussen Reports says McCain leads, 57% to 30%. Decision Analyst says McCain's margin is 57% to 37%. Survey USA found that McCain leads Huckabee by more than a 2-to-1 margin, 61% to 29%.

Vermont and Rhode Island will hold their primaries on March 4 as well.