Adam Nagourney, Carl Hulse, and Jeff Zeleny team up for a most interesting piece in today's (Sunday's) New York Times, entitled: "No Road Map for Democrats as Race Ends."
There are some very insightful observations in this piece, including the realities that:
--The expectation is that enough Superdelegates will rally around Obama for him to declare an overall victory on Tuesday. But Nagourney, Hulse and Zeleny couch that in a variety of unknowns and questions (in terms of actions of others, i.e.: Hillary, the Superdelegates, etc.);
Her associates said the most likely outcome was that she would end her bid with a speech, probably back home in New York, in which she would endorse Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton herself suggested on Friday that the contest would end sometime next week.
But that is not a certainty; Mr. Obama's announcement on Saturday that he would leave his church was just another reminder of how events continue to unfold in the race. She has signaled her ambivalence about the outcome, continuing to urge superdelegates to keep an open mind and consider, for example, the number of popular votes she has won. Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a superdelegate who has been at the forefront of calling for uncommitted Democrats to make a choice soon after the last vote, said in an interview that Mrs. Clinton called him last week and urged him to "keep an open mind until the convention."
My emphasis added in bold, here.
--Clinton's actually done significantly better than Obama since the beginning of March, to the point where the piece notes that Obama's "wheezing across the finish line;"
In many ways, Mr. Obama is wheezing across the finish line after making a strong start: He has won only 6 of the 13 Democratic contests held since March 4, drawing 6.1 million votes, compared with 6.6 million for Mrs. Clinton.
--Heavy pressure's being applied by the Obama campaign to get SuperDelegates to come out before Tuesday, and it doesn't appear to be working, as is evident to anyone following the dearth of these newly-announced endorsements in the past couple of days;
"A number of people have reported that various members intend to endorse AFTER the last primary," said one e-mail message to wavering delegates from Mr. Obama's supporters, its warning barely couched. "Those members need to understand that they won't get any visibility from that."
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who endorsed Mr. Obama nearly two months ago, recently called Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, who has yet to endorse a candidate. "Hey, Ritter!" Mr. Richardson said. "After June 3, it means nothing. Those who take a little bit of a risk, he'll remember you."
On the other end of the line, Mr. Ritter demurred, saying he had pledged to remain neutral until the primary season ends.
--The race may be a bit more uncertain on the Superdelegate side of the field than some have been led to believe; Nagourney & Co. count a little over a dozen of the 150, or so, remaining undecided Superdelegates as being in Obama's camp;
At least a dozen uncommitted delegates are viewed by both camps as almost certain to side with Mr. Obama once the primary season ends. But there are dozens of uncommitted superdelegates who resisted endorsements for reasons that are personal, political and pragmatic -- ranging from a fear of alienating contributors to reluctance among lawmakers from relatively conservative districts to be identified with either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton.
My emphasis added again in bold, here.
--Clinton has three options at this point, and it's not certain which of the three choices she'll actually make:
a.) stay in the race until the convention--highly unlikely but still on the table;
b.) suspend her campaign and not endorse Obama--not the top pick but not the bottom pick either;
c.) drop out and endorse Obama--likely but by no means definite.
I'm still of the opinion that Senator Clinton is going to choose "b," above. I believe she'll suspend her campaign and not do anything else. Especially after Saturday's events, and based upon the tone of Maggie Williams' email this past evening.
It does appear she will do something within a couple of days after this coming Tuesday. Exactly what she'll do is not really known. If you saw Ickes tonight, and read the email that Maggie Williams sent to supporters this evening, at face value, the Clinton folks are quite pissed-off right now.
Despite what all the pundits are saying, there really is a great deal of uncertainty as to what Senator Clinton intends to do--if anything--later in the week.
This does not surprise me. The fact that this really could end up at the Convention is not as outrageous today as it was 48 hours ago.
We're not in Senator Clinton's shoes, so who are we to judge?
There's more...