Obama as the Front Runner?

Barack Obama swept three more states last night, by bigger margins than expected.

Obama's winning margins ranged from substantial to crushing.

He won roughly two-thirds of the vote in Washington state and Nebraska, and almost 90 percent in the Virgin Islands.

With returns counted from nearly two-thirds of the Louisiana precincts, he was gaining 53 percent of the vote, to 39 percent for the former first lady. As in his earlier Southern triumphs in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, Obama, a black man, rode a wave of African-American support to victory in Louisiana.

The interesting twist of late is that Clinton is casting herself as the underdog. Huh? How did the presumptive nominee a few weeks ago suddenly become the underdog?

That sound you hear is all the whinging and spinning going on at the Hillary Clinton pity party.

Negative spin — which is to say lowering expectations — has become an integral part of any smart political campaign, but the hankie wringing on behalf of a candidate who supposedly had the nomination wrapped up before the first primary vote was cast is extraordinary.

This is because she is so not out of the race at this point that it’s sheer folly to suggest that she is.

Clinton’s handlers said that she expected to lose the caucuses in Washington state and Nebraska, as well as the Louisiana primary, to Barack Obama yesterday, which she indeed did although by larger margins than expected, as Obama further closed the delegate gap.

But now those handlers are saying that the rest of the February primaries — including the 238-delegate Potomac Primary on Tuesday involving Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia — all favor Obama.

There could actually be a scenario where Obama wins a slim margin in the delegate count and loses to Hillary because of Super Delegates.

Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, says flatly about the Super Delegates, “If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party. I feel very strongly about this.”

Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, a Clinton supporter, predicts a “potential train wreck” over disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan, states that were stripped of them by the Democratic Party for scheduling their primaries too early.

Candidates were honor-bound not to stump in the states, but the Clinton campaign did not stop operating in Florida, according to the Obama people, and while Obama withdrew his name from the Michigan ballot, Clinton did not. She won the outlaw vote in both and immediately began efforts to seat their 366 delegates.

If one or the other candidates had a clear lead before the late August convention, none of this would matter. But that is not going to happen.

As a result, generations of younger Americans who think of political conventions as boring talkathons that the networks refuse to cover in full may get a taste of what they used to be like–with floor fights, accusations, recriminations, walkouts, parliamentary maneuvering and lots of overheated language.

The TV networks and the Republicans will love it.

It's also possible Obama will win the popular vote and lose to Clinton in the delegate race. Something like this will destroy the youth vote that is showing up for the first time, thinking that their voice actually means something. Such a scenario would confirm for many of us that our votes do not really matter.

That would be a shame.

Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, Super Delegates, convention, front runner, primaries