Looking for the escape hatch

As reported in my previous entry, the extended primary season is making the Democratic party elite more than a bit nervous. Now it looks like they are more and more prepared to do something about it -- and Hillary Clinton is not happy.

With her delegate count far behind Obama's (even if one factors in her excepted Pennsylvania victory) Clinton badly needs as much time as possible to make the case that she is the stronger candidate in the fall. If the superdelegates pick in June or July, they are likely to go with the candidate in the lead: and that's Obama. However, chances are they would go with him even if things went on until the convention. It would just be much more contentious and damaging to the party.

The Dems are walking a fine line here. On the one hand, letting the primary continue for nearly four more months would be suicidal. On the other, Hillary Clinton has made it clear that she considers any attempts to end the election before the primaries are over to be equivalent to disenfranchising voters. Her message when asked about the issue has been to say that Obama and the party insiders are trying to take away peoples' right to vote.

The argument is a bit inaccurate, as Obama has already said that Hillary can stay in "as long as she wants." And most Democratic leaders have only backed an early end to the race which takes place after all the primaries have occurred, which contradicts Hillary's claim that they are trying to take away people's votes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced today that he supported a July 1st superdelegate deadline, by which all delegates would be required to make their choice known.

Yet even that may not be enough to stop Clinton, who clearly wants to keep going until August. Speaking in Philadelphia today, the candidate compared herself to Rocky Balboa, the famous movie boxer (and Philly native) who is renowned for never giving up. Like Rocky, Hillary has been declared knocked out several times before: after Iowa, after Super Tuesday, after the Potomac Primary. Yet she has gotten back up again, and refuses to stop swinging. Whether that is admirable or foolish is a matter of opinion.