Originally Posted by Katczinsky

I'm afraid this is where you're dead wrong, garysher. If there is an illusion in this equation it is the illusion of Clinton 'coming back'. In reality, the only come back kid on March 4th was Obama. Clinton had 20-point leads in Texas and Ohio just a few weeks before the election, and Obama was able to close the gap to about 10 in Ohio and create a tie in Texas (actually, Obama will get the most delegates out of Texas because the delegates from the primary will be split 50-50, and he'll win the caucus). So in reality, Obama's delegate lead remains virtually untouched.

Clinton needed to win both Ohio and Texas by wide margins for her to be able to have enough delegates by the convention. She failed at that and now it seems as if the only way she can win the nomination is by the virtue of superdelegates and good negotiation skills at the national convention. Obama only needs to retain his lead until he passes the delegate majority mark.

If Clinton is the nominee, it will be like when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. It's a dramatic analogy but I believe it's an accurate one. Hope and enthusiasm on the left will die or live with the fate of the Obama campaign.

The very bad thing for Clinton is that she's been running her entire campaign on illusions. The illusion of inevitability, the illusion of experience, and the illusion of trust. In reality she doesn't have all that much more experience than Obama, and probably less in actually getting things passed in the Senate. Obama frequently is able to reach across the isle to Republicans, whilst Clinton promised hundreds of thousands of jobs in New York but instead upstate New Yorkers received an unemployment increase. She likes to create the illusion that she'd be the most qualified one to make an important decision on her toes when 'that phone rings at 3 am', when in actuality it was Clinton who supported the war authorization and supported NAFTA. It was Obama that was opposed to both at the beginning.

Also, one of the biggest illusions that Clinton seems to be running on, and what you seem to buy into, is her electability. I have no idea where Clinton supporters got that idea; but they seem to be completely ignorant of the large Clinton-hate machine the Republicans have built up. Poll after poll where McCain is up against the Democratic candidates, Obama does better. Clinton likes to cite her victories of big states as evidence of electability; what does that mean? We don't need a Democratic candidate that can win states like New York and California, we need a candidate that can win the mid/western and southern states; states that may have otherwise gone Republican. If Clinton is elected to the Presidency, and that's a large if, then we could see the resurgance of the Republican Party and the death of any Democratic popularity gained during the disastrous Bush administration; possibly causing Republicans to win the house and/or senate. It won't be too far off from the Bill Clinton years.