Deadwards

We had such a lovely time in West Virginia, it’s too bad we have to get back to the reality of the painful, doomed continuation of the Clinton Campaign.

It wasn’t Al Gore, but dragging John Edwards off the fence while Hillary basked in the firefly glow of her landslide victory in West Virginia was no small notch in the Obama belt today. Obama picked up 2.5 superdelegates today in addition to how many of Edwards’ 19 delegates who were freed up today by the Edwards endorsement. Depending upon their movement in the next few days, Hillary could easily end the week with a net loss of delegates in spite of her walloping of Obama in a state where even the flies are white and they’re barely an offramp to an arterial to a plank road removed from the Information Superhighway, though one of their connected bretheren surely shared the oral history version of the “Obama is a Muslim” email with them.

Hillary had a meeting at her home today to woo donors and superdelegates, and left no group uncourted, quietly encouraging pledged delegates that there would be a seat the Hillary dinner table if they didn’t like the accomodations at Chez Barack. He’s got the spiciest dish and the kind of hospitality they haven’t had before, but Hillary thinks she’s got the meat, potatoes, and gravy that will be more palatable to all comers, and that she can promise a lot more dinners for the next four years, no matter how many lies and distortions she has perpetuated in her mission to prove herself the hostess with the mostess.

To no one’s surprise, she was defiant in every venue today. She’s in it to win it, and she’s not going to give up the nomination until the delegates pry it from her cold, dead hands. She’s lost in states won, lost in pledged delegates, and Obama has surpassed her once-mighty lead in superdelegates and she’s getting tinier in his rearview. She stands a chance of beating him in the popular vote with the inclusion of Florida and Michigan, and Puerto Rico–which can’t vote in the general election–but

And to no one’s surprise, the avalanche in the Mountain State was arrested then and there. There was some hope that this might end today with her meeting with he r sugar daddies and mamas. No time like the present to bow out on a huge winning note on a shout-out to the party that, “I know you love me, but I’m big enough to concede that you love my opponent and colleague from Illinois just a little more.” Well, we could have hoped.

The John Edwards endorsement of Barack Obama is another line in the Clinton Presidential eulogy that so many are hoping for but it seems clearer isn’t forthcoming. No matter. She’s dying whether she is going to admit it or not. Hillary is not going to come to a tipping point herself. It’s going to be the superdelegates and the other Democratic powerhouses who are going to have to force the issue. Edwards’ 19 delegates might not dutifully go to Barack just on their man’s say-so, but the math and the movement of the delegates are going to continue to lament the late Hillary and how we once knew her, before she became a slave to the rotten advice of Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson and the delusional enthusiasm of the rabidly loyal Terry McAuliffe and James Carville.

She’ll get her victory in Kentucky, and one more in Puerto Rico, but the superdelegate green room is going to keep getting emptier and emptier, and a Gillooly-Eckhardt-Stant-like kneecapping in Tonya Harding Country on Tuesday is going to remind her that she’s losing and the superdelegate momentum pledged to Obama long ago. Unfortunately it won’t be enough to sober her into leaving the race, thus denying me the opportunity to entitle Wednesday morning’s blog, “Oregone!” Oh well. I’ll find some way to use it in 2012 hopefully.

So there she’ll be still standing. If anyone doubts how desperate and serious she is, simply compare all of her pre-February speeches when she spoke of 2,025 delegates for the nomination. Now it’s 2,209, which includes the Florida and Michigan delegates. It’s starting to get a little spooky that her ambition is so naked that she might dip her foot in the water for an independent bid this wall. Hilleiberman ’08? God help us, everyone, but she’s in a full-blown hostage situation right now, and this awful end game could very well happen.

On the other hand…

BOB-BARR-DIER: No joy in the McCain campaign this week as erstwhile GOP bomb-thrower, former Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, announced his bid for the Libertarian nomination for President Of The United States.

I don’t think that Barack needs this, because once the media focus turns to a one-on-one, even the reporters who have been smitten by John McCain and his barbecue invitations are going to buckle under the pressure to start treating him with the bare-knuckles that he deserves. But an insurgent conservative can’t help but shake up the mix.