One should drink with smart people.

A while back, I had the opportunity to drink with a very smart woman who said, “Hillay will have an almost impossible time dropping out of this race unless Obama actually wins enough delegates.  She is a good second wave feminist and it is her turn.  She’s waited.  She’s earned her turn to be president.”

I’ve been thinking about that this week.  For Hillary Clinton - who is smart and qualified - the nomination should have been a lock but she’s had to fight tooth and nail to lose.  From her perspective, the fight to win this race is a slap in the face - she’s done everything every said she should do and she’s losing.  I’ve said before the Hillary is a transitional figure for the Democratic party the way Richard Nixon was for Republicans.  Like Nixon, she represents yesterday’s Democratic party and its way of doing things.  Hillary represents the party of the 1970s - still somehow trying to recreate the New Deal was it cracks around her.  Yet she has articulated in many ways the values of tomorrow’s Democratic party - a party she can never live in (reminds me of the Operative in Serenity).  Obama is tomorrow’s democratic party - young, pragmatic, organized, its ideals shaped in the crucible of the 90s, rejecting the venomous politics mastered by the baby boomers; Obama, the community organizer, has out-organized Clinton at every turn.  She’s being crushed by the future she helped create.

For Hillary to justify staying in the race, she had to post a win this week that would finally and conclusively prove she could win.  She didn’t.  She eeked out a tiny win in Indiana and was crushed in North Carolina.  She needed to win both and needed to win decisively.  The dynamics of the Dem race changed this week - it wasn’t a major turning point like Super Tuesday, it was the accumulation of smaller factors that finally pushed Obama over the top.

In an insightful article at the American Prospect, Thomas Schaller writes:

. . .though the results technically split, the margins tilted toward Obama. And the results helped answer a variety of new questions dogging his campaign, including whether he could recover from the damage the Wright episodes created, his ability to post a significant (i.e., non-Vermont victory) on the scoreboard, whether he could stay competitive enough among working-class white voters and, overall, whether he and his campaign could steady the ship. His decisive, 15-point win in the Tar Heel State accomplished all of that: His 230,000-plus net popular vote margin and estimated 20-delegate haul neutralized Clinton’s gains from Pennsylvania two weeks ago and Indiana yesterday, combined.

A new narrative has emerged - it’s no longer a horse race, it’s over and Obama won.  For Clinton that’s a multi-faceted disaster.  As the media repeat the new accepted, common wisdom that Obama has won, Clinton will face increasing pressure to get out.  In response, her personal history will no let her get out - she’s a person who digs in when she feels she’s being attacked.  She will fight back by refusing to bow out.  It’s not as simple as saying she’s lost perspective.  It’s a larger issue than that.  On every front, as her campaign falters (fundraising is down, super-delegates are defecting, staff defections can’t be far in the future), she will dig in her heels and resist getting out.  Appeals will start coming in to get out for the good of the party - which she’s always done in the past and she will resist since it is supposed to be her turn at last.

Obama is the future of the Democratic party - not in his person, but in his politics, in his strategy and organizing and his ideals, his policy plans and ideas.  Barack Obama could very well be the president Bill Clinton hoped to be.

For Hillary, the timing is terrible.  It was supposed to be her turn.  Barack Obama is skilled enough that he could create aenues for her to bow out with her dignity intact.  I think he will do so.  But for now, it’s not easy, but after decades of waiting for her turn, history didn’t deliver Hillary Clinton her turn.  And if I were her, I know it would hurt like hell and I’d rather not deal with it.