Game Over. (Now Who's Going to Tell Hillary)???

After a seemingly endless primary season, I think it is safe to declare today that Senator Barack Obama will be the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States. Obama absolutely crushed Senator Hillary Clinton in yesterday's North Carolina Primary, and nearly pulled out a victory in Indiana where she had been favored to win. For Clinton to continue the campaign with any degree of credibility (if not self-respect), she had to have a far more decisive win in Indiana, and a far less decisive loss in North Carolina.

For a short period of time late last night when it appeared that Obama might win both states, some of the communications from the Clinton Campaign seemed indicative of an impending withdrawal from the race. There was word that she would hold no public events today, and even an apparently erroneous report that she had canceled her morning news show appearances for today. Apparently, though, while flying back to Washington from Indiana (during which time she was declared the winner in Indiana), Hillary and/or her advisers had changed course, announcing a campaign stop today in West Virginia, site of the next primary on Tuesday, as well as fundraiser in Washington this evening. Early this morning, news broke that Clinton had loaned her campaign nearly $6.5 million recently. Even as I write, the Clinton Campaign has announced that Hillary will also appear in South Dakota on Thursday -- a state whose primary is not for another four weeks! None of this sounds like a candidate who is ready to quit.

Remaining in the race now as it certainly appears she intends to do is not only stubborn and ill-advised, it really borders on the delusional. Quite simply, without some catastrophic implosion of the Obama Campaign, there is no way Clinton can now win the nomination. The sheer mathematical hurdles she faces alone are insurmountable, but when you add those to an obvious shift in tone from the media and political pundits and what I expect will be an imminent and significant shift of superdelegate support to Obama, it becomes even more crystal clear that for Hillary Clinton, this game is over.

My personal opinion is that Hillary and her inner circle are well aware of the reality of the situation. They have seen the numbers, and undoubtedly have crunched them in every conceivable way in search of positive spin. After last night, there is no positive spin to be found. I suspect that the reason she sounds today like a candidate who intends to continue (and indeed who is backing her rhetoric up by making additional campaign appearances) is to attempt to increase her leverage when it comes to the customary bargaining that will take place between Hillary, Obama and their respective campaigns when she inevitably throws in the towel. Whether she wants the vice presidential slot on the ticket, a cabinet position or who knows what else -- the longer she stays in the race and effectively denies Obama the ability to officially claim the nomination, the more desperate he will be for her to withdraw, and the more inclined he might be to give her what she wants to make that happen. A good test of this theory will be to watch over the next few weeks -- assuming she does continue her campaign -- to see if she avoids negative attacks on Obama. If while continuing her run she hesitates to inflict further political damage on him, that could be a sign that her continuing campaign efforts are no longer about winning, but instead about improving her strategic position for an eventual exit.

Regardless of her motive for remaining in the race, I believe it is now time for Hillary to withdraw if she values her own political future. A graceful exit -- even after a fairly bruising campaign against Obama -- would almost certainly result in enough goodwill on the part of the Democratic electorate to give her a future -- whether it be running again for president in 2012 (if Obama loses this year), running for Governor of New York, or seeking the position of Majority Leader in the Senate. On the other hand, if she continues to campaign in earnest, attacking Obama and pulling out every conceivable stop despite reality of her situation, she risks diminishing Obama's chances in November, further dividing the Democratic Party, and earning (rightfully) the permanent anger and resentment of her fellow Democratic officeholders and the Democratic voters. The choice should be clear, and the route she chooses to take will tell us more about exactly who Hillary Clinton is than anything else she has ever done or said.