Even if Hillary wins today, math in Obama's favor
CAMPAIGN 2008 | What's at stake in Indiana, North Carolina
INDIANAPOLIS -- "It's sort of like Ground Hog Day," said Kevin Griffis, an Obama campaign spokesman who Tuesday will celebrate his fifth election day since January in this long march toward the Democratic presidential nomination, having served in South Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Mississippi and now Indiana.
We're talking in an old school converted to an office building, the Indiana headquarters for Obama, on Monday, the day before elections in the Hoosier State and North Carolina that could help clinch the Democratic presidential nomination for Sen. Barack Obama and/or reduce the rationale for Sen. Hillary Clinton for staying in the contest.
(AP)
Today, Clinton needs a game changer and Obama needs a closer.
It's a few hours before Obama's latest election-eve rally where Obama fan and music legend Stevie Wonder -- last seen at an Obama rally in Los Angeles before the California February primary -- performed "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," one of the tunes that often is played at the end of Obama events. Wonder sang out Barack Obama's name to a musical scale.
About 21,000 people filled the American Legion Mall to see Obama. The backdrop -- that is the iconic visual of the night -- is the Indiana War Memorial Building, a fitting suggestion of patriotism in a race where Obama's not wearing a flag pin actually became cause to question his loyalty to the United States.
Today's voting can yield several possible outcomes.
If Obama wins North Carolina and Indiana --even by a slim margin -- he gains momentum that will lock in uncommitted superdelegates -- the party leaders and elected officials who hold the critical balance of votes. Twin wins will deny Clinton the ability to raise money off a victory as she did in Pennsylvania and leaves no big state left for another comeback
If Obama and Clinton each have wins, that means today "is inconclusive and that benefits Obama," said Simon Rosenberg, the president of NDN, a progressive Democratic think tank.
The staus quo helps Obama because he has been steadily picking up superdelegates and just needs to get past the last primary on June 3.
And if Clinton wins both, the math is still in Obama's favor -- and superdelegates will have an even more important role in picking the winner.
