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Walls closing in on Hillary Clinton?

— PHOTO: AFP

TOUGH TIMES: Democratic presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton.

Remember the common scene from old spy movies, in which the hero is trapped in a small room or an elevator and suddenly the walls start closing in on him? That is where Hillary Clinton is today.

The New York Senator is not yet gasping for air as the walls begin to press against her rib cage. But she has noticed that they are moving, and she needs to think fast.

Can she come back from Tuesday night’s monumental drubbing? Sure she can. But the size and scope of Barack Obama’s victories did something crucial: it gave him a small but clear lead among delegates awarded according to vote totals. It is virtually guaranteed that Ms Clinton cannot reach 2,025 delegates — the number needed to secure the nomination — by getting votes. She would practically have to win two-thirds of the vote in every remaining State to get that many delegates.

However, it will be nearly as hard for Mr. Obama to reach 2,025 this way, too. He could if he had a few more blowouts like Tuesday’s, but there are not that many States left that hit his demographic sweet spot in quite the way Maryland and Virginia do.

And it is this condition that leaves Ms Clinton her one legitimate opening. If she were to sweep Ohio and Texas (both March 4) and Pennsylvania (April 22), and possibly regain a narrow delegate lead even though she is well short of 2,025, then she and her husband and her whole mythic machine can start leaning on super-delegates to back her.

Super-delegates are party and elected officials from around the country who have an automatic vote by dint of their position. There are 794 of them. Most have not yet committed to Ms Clinton or Mr. Obama. Ms Clinton racked up most of her super-delegate commitments — from fellow Senators, members of the House of Representatives and so on — early on when she was way ahead in the polls. Lately, Mr. Obama has been catching up.

But if Ms Clinton recaptures a slight lead in vote-based delegates after Pennsylvania, she stands a good chance of being able to argue to super-delegates that she is again in the box seat and swing some of them back in her direction. And that is her legitimate path to the nomination.

I stress “legitimate” because there is an illegitimate path, which involves re-seating the delegates from the votes held in Florida and Michigan. This is a long, long story, but the gist of it is that Florida and Michigan broke party rules by holding their primaries before February 5. The Democratic National Committee decreed that those primaries would not count. All the candidates agreed and did not campaign there. The States held their votes anyway. Ms Clinton won them, and now, of course, she wants them to count.

It would be very dirty tactics, and it is not at all clear she could win the titanic battle, which would take place at the Democratic convention in Denver in August, that would be required to make those votes count. Every Democrat in the country who is following this is just praying it does not come to that.

So Ms Clinton is a long way from finished. But she now has to sweep Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania for any of this to happen. And she pretty much needs to win all of them decisively. And how likely is that?

Ten days ago, I would have said pretty likely. But now it looks far less certain. What happened on Tuesday could start to convince Democrats in those three States and elsewhere that Mr. Obama is the choice. Mr. Obama’s friend here, interestingly enough, is John McCain.

Now that it is settled that Mr. McCain will be the Republican nominee, Democrats will start thinking more about electability. I suspect that consideration helps Mr. Obama more than it helps Ms Clinton.

Mr. Obama can say, and has said, that he can better compete with Mr. McCain for independent voters. This has always been a strong card for Mr. Obama and is even stronger after Virginia, where independents — who were permitted to vote in either party’s primary — voted overwhelmingly in the Democratic primary, and overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama.

Some months ago, when they were asked which of their candidates was the most electable, Democrats said Ms Clinton by large margins. Two weeks ago they started saying Mr. Obama. After Tuesday they will start saying it by larger margins. It is just one of many staggering accomplishments of a brilliantly managed campaign that week by week, keeps closing in the walls around the candidate who just six weeks ago was the inevitable nominee. — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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