Obama's Victories and Where We Go From Here by Norman Markowitz

You could see it in the faces of the media men and women as they tried
to say that the primaries were a draw yesterday. You could see it
most of all in Bill Clinton's tired sad face as he stood behind his
wife in Indiana and she claimed victory. Yesterday was a major defeat
for Hillary Clinton, one the pundits and the pollsters didn't expect.
First, she suffered a decisive defeat in North Carolina, one that was
well above what the pollsters were predicting as the polls opened.
Then she suffered a "victory" in Indiana that was well below what the
pollsters predicted.

The Reverend Wright propaganda ploy didn't work or, if it had any
effect, didn't work enough in Indiana. Even the media pundits were
saying that Clinton's argument to the Super Delegates that she had won
the popular vote in the primaries, an argument based on a significant
popular vote gain over Obama today and popular vote victories in the
few remaining primaries, was now virtually impossible to make. Obama
increased his popular vote lead over Clinton yesterday by 200,000. He
will increase his lead in delegates so that the combined Pennsylvania,
Indiana, North Carolina delegate count will show a net gain for Obama,
by my simple math calculations.

Barring some really unforeseen turn of events, Clinton is at
checkmate. She has no more serious moves to win. She has become in
effect an opportunist without opportunities.

The best way to end this for those who want to see the Republican
Right go down to a crushing defeat, I think, would be for John Edwards
to step forward and endorse Barack Obama right now. John Edwards'
state, North Carolina, gave Barack Obama a landslide victory(political
scientists called landslides when I was in school elections with
margins above 10% and media pundits early yesterday were alluding to
that when they said it was important for Clinton to got Obama's North
Carolina margin at or below 10%, which she never did)

John Edwards campaigned as a pro labor progressive, calling for a new
war against poverty,taking positions much closer to Barack Obama than
to Hillary Clinton. John Edwards is a white Southerner who by joining
with Barack Obama can do what another white Southerner, Lyndon
Johnson, who launched the old war against poverty, did, trike a
historic blow against racism in what will be a watershed election.
Whatever his other large failings, Johnson grasped his historic moment
and understood that a war against poverty for both whites and blacks
could only be fought as part of a two front war with civil rights as
the second front.

Hopefully, Clinton will not down with a new barrage of ugly attacks on
Obama, which will only hurt the presidential campaign and not help
her. Hopefully also, enough Super Delegates will now come forward to
endorse Obama to give him the nomination and to concentrate all
resources on the presidential campaign
Norman Markowitz