And the fight continues...

Well Hillary managed to stave off defeat with wins in Ohio and Rhode Island as well as a very close squeaker in Texas. The delegates will end up practically the same as they were going into the day and while Hillary has reason to hang on for at least another seven weeks you can start to see the beginning of the tuning of the Republican Machine's engine today when Bush has a ceremony endorsing McCain as the nominee in the Rose Garden at the White House.

There's now a very good chance that neither will even approach the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch and that this will end up a battle that was decided by Superdelegates which is a concept that should have never been conceived. It gives power to party hacks and not the voters and to me that is a treacherous way to run a Democracy.

Now unlike my guest blogging friend Samer who is young, probably a bit overconfident about the guarantee of victory that Obama has in either primary contests or the general election and who sees Hillary as worse than McCain (a point I disagree with) I think things are still cloudy for Obama.

Don't get me wrong my support for Obama is not wavering in the least but working on other campaigns in both official and volunteer capacities has given me the foresight to see the challenges ahead.

Hillary managed to show what I had worried about and what John Edwards had privately worried about... that Barack Obama's positive message can be countered by uber-negative campaigning and that it's hard to overcome the appearance of naivety that is imposed on him by older, more experienced candidates.

It's not a positive that Hillary Clinton has nothing positive to offer herself in that she has to resort to such low and dirty tactics. It's even worse that she is so willing to torch the party and its nominees for her own self interests. The problem though was that her fear mongering worked. It worked in Ohio where her support for NAFTA that killed so many of their careers by destroying manufacturing jobs with outsourcing was overshadowed by fear. It worked in Texas where older hispanics rose up in large numbers to vote for Hillary rather than hope.

That doesn't bode well for the last truly big prize left... Pennsylvania. It could be even worse if Florida (practically a retirement home) and Michigan (suffering from auto industry death and a place where Obama gave a tough speech on going green, getting better MPG and emissions reduction) get new primaries in June.

If you look at it from that perspective and even give Obama the Mississippi, Wyoming and Indiana primaries (which are not gimmies) she could make up ground and be in this thing until the Convention in Denver. And if you're looking at this from Hillary's perspective it would be foolish to leave if you think you have that great of a shot.

When I was asked personally how I thought last night would go I pretty much predicted the outcome. I thought She'd win Ohio and Rhode Island, he'd win Vermont and Texas would be a negligible split that wouldn't do any serious delegate damage to either candidate.

The problem for Obama is now that Hillary has chosen to go negative she has exposed how soft his campaign has been at times. Sure they put out a rebuttal ad but they never strike first and while he's able to parry most of her attacks, some are sticking and will begin to become more of the dialogue that is included when people speak of Obama. The media will listen to two campaigns slamming Obama in unison and they will start to repeat the memes and challenge the Obama campaign more often.

This is where it gets really tough.

We haven't had a brokered convention since 1984 and only two other times prior to that. In all three occasions we lost by landslides.

Now we have much stronger candidates and stronger personalities running than we did when it was Hubert Humphrey or Walter Mondale but spending another 7 weeks having to fundraise and attack other Democrats while McCain has 7 weeks to fundraise and build up a war chest while being able to sit back as these two destroy each other is a ridiculous advantage that hurts our nominee in November.

I dislike Hillary Clinton. I hate her tactics. I disagree with her on practically every policy. I will continue to post reasons why not to vote for her.

But it is her right to continue on considering the circumstances and when you look at her position, as much as I'd prefer her to go so my candidate can win, it would be foolish for her to do so.

And frankly Obama needs this fight. He needs to learn to sharpen his claws and fight back against Hillary. The Clinton Machine is well oiled and sleazy for sure but they don't even compare to the Republican Attack Dogs and the 527s they will use to smear Obama every second of the general election.

They had Americans questioning the heroic nature of John Kerry's distinguished military career and even questioning his patriotism altogether while George W. Bush who went AWOL was considered a better judge of military and wartime affairs.

If they can do that to a genuine hero, think what they can do to a relative national stage political novice.

He can continue to play the good guy who is above the fray and lose ground in tough battleground states or he can, to steal a phrase from the Basketball game he loves so much, post up on Hillary and bang down low until he tires her out and he can take it to the hoop at will.

The longer he plays the nice guy game, the worse his chances at being the nominee or the winner of the general election.

That's the problem with us progressives. We're thinkers and think our ideas will win the day. Unfortunately too many Americans loathe thinking. It's too hard for them. So they want a fight.

And that's what we have now.

-Rp