The State Of The Race

Marc:

As the primary goes on, the opportunities for Clinton backers to feel slighted is magnified -- hence Geraldine Ferraro's opinion still mattering. Well, Clinton sees herself as the representative for the party's white working class voters and women and wants to do their interests justice. She has concluded that, the longer she stays in (until June 4), the more options she has.

Though she has banned her staff from speculating about the vice presidency, people close to her -- people who know her -- believe that she would want to be asked to serve and would want to serve, if the situation presented itself. Does Clinton believe that she's going to force Obama's negatives up so high that he loses the election in November and Clinton comes back in 2012? No -- if that was her intention, she'd have gotten out when the getting out was good -- when Rev. Wright was hurting Obama and Obama needed a victory, like North Carolina, to regain some footing. (The depth of worry in the Obama campaign during the Rev. Wright affair can not be overestimated -- they were very afraid.) The Obama campaign is much less dismissive of Clinton than they were two weeks ago. That's in part because Clinton is no longer a threat to them. They're taking cues from their boss -- John Edwards's endorsement was really the first time in a few months that Obama himself could allow himself a real smile, and a real sense of accomplishment, and a real sense that the competition was over.