The End is Near
I, like so many road weary reporters I’ve been watching today, can barely believe it. The primary race is very nearly over. In a matter of hours, not days, the final primaries will be finished, and it looks like the magic number will actually be reached. Obama is planning a big rally in Minnesota, and Clinton another in New York. Speculation abounds as to the content of those events, but everyone seems to agree they will have very different tones.
Hillary Clinton and her team are either sending mixed messages, or the reporters are suffering from schizophrenia from exhaustion. Every 10 minutes or so throughout the day the narrative changed. At one point the Huffington Post front page literally had one huge headline saying something to the effect of AP: HILLARY READY TO CONCEDE IF OBAMA WINS and right under it CNN: THE AP IS WRONG. Good times…
From the Obama campaign things have been much more sedate, a clear sign of confidence. They haven’t come right out and said they would win tonight, but they said that there was a good possibility it could happen. The superdelegate flow to Obama has continued througout the day with many coming out for Obama outright, including former President Carter, and a couple dozen that are reported to being “upcoming”. The AP is reporting that Obama ALREADY has won the nomination, based on private communications with superdelegates.
Even if you don’t believe the AP, the fact remains that Obama needs, around 25 more delegates to reach the magic number. Even if he only got half of the remaining 31 pledged delegates out of Montana and South Dakota (let’s say 15) that’d leave him with only 10 to go, assuming NO OTHER superdelegates come out before the count, and there are strong signs many will come out just after the polls close. Even discounting that, 7 uncommitted superdelegates, including Nancy Pelosi, are on record saying they will support the delegate leader at the end of the primaries.
Obviously, he’s won the nomination. In a matter of hours he will become the very first African American to become the nominee for a major party in this country’s history. Quite a moment.
And if Hillary would have won, she would have been the very first woman to become the nominee for a major party in US history. That too would have been quite a moment.
To be honest though, I think that racism and sexism will be truly gone, at the moment that we don’t mention things like that anymore, because we consider race and gender to be completely and utterly irrelevant.
I sometimes wonder when that moment will come. Perhaps it will come after blacks and women have broken through some serious glass ceilings, but perhaps it will never come, also because we all continue to focus on it.
Anyway, congratulations to Obama and his supporters. This race was about delegates and they won. Well done.
To be honest I think Clinton has already made history (as has Obama) by being the first woman to be a really viable candidate. I do not take this for granted, today we could easily have been looking at the nomination of the first female candidate. I happen to be glad that it’s Obama, though I admit that I’ll be trilled the day I can get behind a woman who I believe in (I know it’s silly to be excited just because she also has ovaries, but symbols aren’t always logical).
In any event the glass ceiling has pretty much been broken by Clinton. The next time a serious woman comes along, it’ll be historic if and when she wins of course, but part of that road will have been run already. The same is true of Obama should he not win the presidency. The next African American will be historic, but Obama, like Clinton, will stand as the first real chance.
If you felt like that Michael, why did you do posts headlining so-called sexism? You are correct that it’ll happen when people cease talking about it, that includes everywhere.