Hillary's Staying

So Hillary called The Washington Post recently to make sure they (and by extension, everyone else) knew she isn't planning on leaving the presidential race. More and more people have suggested that she withdraw, and I suppose she felt she needed to stem the groundswell. Despite the fact that a couple of weeks ago I suggested somebody needed to tell her to give it up, I'm having second thoughts. Although all the attention seems to be on Hillary to pull out, part of the problem is that Obama has not clinched the deal. Although he seems very likely to pull out a majority of elected delegates, he's not going to be able to finalize the nomination with just that. The winner is going to need superdelegates, and while I presume that they're going to go Obama's way, we're not really going to know who wins until a preponderance of superdelegates votes for or endorses one or the other.

As I was thinking this over, it occurred to me that lately that--even though I like Obama--I've been writing about what's wrong with Hillary, not why Obama deserves support. We need to be moving the discussion over to Obama winning more than Hillary losing. Obama may be able to gather a few more superdelegates (and he got another endorsement on Monday), but he's not going to do get another chance at gathering more elected delegates for three more weeks, and it seems like two weeks after that with the North Carolina primary before he actually starts expanding his lead. So therefore, Obama's campaign and supporters need to make the case for why Obama at all, not just why the math seems to be in Obama's favor.