http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3033
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2984
By Thomas Lifson and Richard Baehr
Super delegates will determine the next nominee of the Democrats, and a happy ending for the Party looks unlikely. Mathematically, the Democratic Party is nearly locked in to Barack Obama entering the convention with a significant delegate lead. Taking the nomination away from him via the super delegate mechanism would alienate the Party’s African-American base and potentially turn off a swath of the younger generation enthusiasts for Obama’s multi-cultural charisma.
Yet there are signs that the Obama bubble may be bursting, his support peaking, while serious press scrutiny is beginning to fire buyer’s remorse in certain quarters. The potentially seriously embarrassing Rezko trial gathers steam in a Chicago federal court and will build as the weeks unfold.
But unless Hillary Clinton is able to win over large numbers of super delegates (in the process infuriating many Obama enthusiasts, including many African-Americans), she cannot win the nomination. Obama will enter the convention with more delegates than she has. Fear of the inevitable backlash, should Party insiders be perceived to be stealing the nomination from the front-runner who is also the first serious black contender, could be a trump card in Obama’s hands.Genuine tragedy — protagonists undone by their flaws — rarely is found in the news. Tornadoes may be devastating, but usually they are not tragic. The story arc of this year’s Democratic Party nomination is heading in a Sophoclean direction. The Party’s predicament is anchored in its own hubris and that of its major power players.
Barack Obama has been able to accumulate more delegates, and will continue to hold his own, even as momentum shifts to Hillary Clinton, thanks to the often convoluted weighting process used by the Democratic Party, which this year has disproportionately rewarded Barack Obama for his big victories in small states and in majority African-American congressional districts. Team Obama’s organizing and going after the caucus states was a brilliant exploitation of the wave of idealistic enthusiasm his campaign rode. Hillary Clinton’s own hubris led her to believe in her own inevitability and devote insufficient resources to the caucus states.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/the_tragedy_of_the_democratic.html