The Morning After the Tex-Oh-Ver-Island Primaries

Hillary wins the night by narrowing the gap in pledged delegates between her and Obama. It will take a while for election officials to come up with the final count in Texas, but it looks like she'll reduce Obama's lead in pledged delegates from 157 down to 150 or so. So that's good for her.

But even if she wins every other contest from here on out, she'll still be behind in pledged delegates when all the primaries are over, even under the most optimistic projections.

So what's her strategy?

In terms of delegates, she has to convince the supers that she has the momentum and for them to come to her instead of Obama. If I'm Hillary Clinton, I'll talk about him being a fatally weak candidate with ties to the corrupt Chicago political machine (the Rezko connection); I'll talk about his lack of experience at the highest levels of government (do you want him answering that 3 am phone call); I'll talk about his being just like all the other politicians (saying one thing about NAFTA while doing another). And so on and so forth. And, despite the ugly experience of South Carolina, Hillary will continue the whispering campaign about how Obama's race hurts him -- and, frankly, the numbers bear her out:

Per NBC’s AnaMaria Arumi, 18% of white Ohio voters in the exit polls said race was important to their vote, and 75% of those people voted for Clinton. Those numbers are comparable to what we saw in southern states. But they’re higher than in neighboring Missouri, where a comparable number (17%) said that the race of the candidate was important to their vote and the vote split was 10 points less -- 65% to Clinton. In Texas, 10% of whites said that race was a factor, and they went 65% for Clinton as well.

Actually the above analysis is wrong on two counts. First, the margin was 10% not 14%. But more importantly, 18 out of 100 white Democrats said race was important. To draw any conclusions, we'd have to know what percentage of Democratic voters were white; my numbers don't take that into account -- although I suspect the percentage is high enough that it probably accounted for most of Hillary's winning margin.

Nonetheless, it's clear that a significant number of white Democratic voters chose not to vote for the black Democrat. How many of them will vote for the white Republican if the black Democrat is the nominee? If you're Obama you better not be surprised by that have an answer for that question.

Hillary can also work the refs to demand that the Florida and Michigan delegations be seated and vote for her. I wouldn't want to be in Howard Dean's shoes right now.

If she can do all that -- win blowouts in every remaining contest, get the supers and seat Michigan/Florida -- she can still win this thing. Whether the nomination will be worth having remains to be seen. But she'll have to burn that bridge when she gets to it. For now, it's all about winning the delegate count.

If I'm Obama, what do I do?

In short, I just keep doing what I've been doing: talking about how Clinton (and McCain) are part of the old guard, the old politics, the failed policies of the past. I talk about how I'm the candidate of the future. And (through my surrogates) I remind people that the china shop will always chase the bull. In other words, I remind people that the reason Hillary is a fighter is because so many people hate her.

And, frankly, if I'm Obama, I can say it with some sadness and regret. Nonetheless -- it is what it is. The "cycle of violence" will continue as long as a Clinton is running for (or being) president. So if people want to spend the next four years reliving the past twenty, then Clinton -- and McCain -- are their candidates. But if people are ready to turn the page and start a new and better chapter in American history, then Obama is their candidate.

This isn't over yet, but if I'm Obama I'm feeling pretty good right now about my chances.