Robert Novak reports that a political burial detail had already been organized at the top levels of the Democratic party to force the corpse of the Clinton campaign into the ground. That detail hastily backed off when the staggering campaign managed the wins in Tuesday's primaries.
The scope of Hillary Clinton's latest resurrection can be appreciated only in light of the elaborate preparations that had been made for her expeditious burial. That she is very much alive can be attributed to her true grit but also to the revelation that Barack Obama is not a miraculously perfect candidate after all.
Assuming that Clinton would at best eke out a victory in Ohio on Tuesday to end her long losing streak, prominent Democrats were organizing a major private intervention. A posse of party leaders would plead with her to end her campaign and recognize Obama as the Democratic standard-bearer. To buttress this argument, several elite unelected superdelegates (including previous Clinton supporters) were ready to come out for Obama. Those plans went on hold Tuesday night.
Clinton's transformation of the political climate with her decisive victory in Ohio and unexpected narrow win in Texas coincided with Obama facing adversity for the first time in his magical candidacy, and he did not handle it well. The result is not only the prospect of seven weeks of fierce campaigning by the two candidates, stretching out to the next primary showdown April 22 in Pennsylvania, but also perhaps what Democratic leaders feared but never really thought possible until now: a contested national convention in Denver the last week of August.
Hey, I was surprised by the resurgence of the Clinton camp. I guess I shouldn't have been. After all, I once pointed out that Clinton apparently had Baron Samedi on staff. Go read all of Novak's column. He points out the major flubs (and they were major) of the Obama campaign and the hideous prospects the Democrats face as a result. They have a real problem and a very real political train wreck coming.
