Save Us Superdelegates!

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has vowed to continue in the race even if she loses both Texas and Ohio tonight. Now, this could be what candidates do--it always looks weak to concede that their campaign is in trouble. However, the campaign has been tamping expectation, arguing that a win in either big state provides a reason to continue.

However, it looks all but impossible for Hillary Clinton to have the most pledged delegates going into the Convention. Unless she has unexpectedly large wins tonight in both states and in Pennsylvania (on the order of some number around 65%), she cannot possibly catch Barack Obama in the share of pledged delegates.

And don't forget that Obama has favorable contests yet to come on the calendar as well. Besides Mississippi, North Carolina--the 10th largest state in the country--has yet to vote and polls indicate it will go to the Senator from Illinois.

The worst scenario is that Hillary Clinton narrowly wins Texas and Ohio. Winning both states would give her campaign a psychological reason to continue even though she would probably gain few if any net delegates over Barack Obama. Indeed, due to the vagaries of the Texas "two-step" system, Clinton could even be further down in the delegate count even if she narrowly wins both states.

Assuming she doesn't achieve massive surprise victories, the only way Hillary Clinton could be become the nominee other than massive victories in the remaining states is by: (1) overturning the rules to which she specifically agreed by seating the delegations from Michigan and Florida even though there was no real campaign there and Obama's name wasn't even on the Michigan ballot, and (2) getting the superdelegates to overturn the popular result.

The Clinton campaign has shown a decided interest in overturning rules which don't benefit its campaign. In addition to pushing for the seating of the delegations from Florida and Michigan, Bill Clinton vilified the Nevada Caucus rules and demanded that the system for allocating delegates be changed--until his wife actually won those disputed Caucuses on the Strip.

The Clintons have similarly attacked rules in Texas--rules which have been in place since Bill Clinton sought the presidency. However, they have been mighty quiet on the fact that Clinton won more delegates than Obama in Alabama even though he trounced her in the state due to the quirks of the system of awarding relatively small numbers of delegates proportionally within congressional districts.

While Hillary Clinton would probably gladly take the nomination no matter how it comes, it is unacceptable for a party committed to fairness and equality to deny the clear popular vote winner the nomination unless he or she is completely unacceptable--and neither Clinton nor Obama come close to meeting that requirement. The thought that the Democrats would deny Obama--the first African-American nominee--the nomination even if he wins the pledged delegates is unthinkable.

The superdelegates can bring the contest to an effective close by moving en masse to Barack Obama. If Obama wins Texas and Ohio--or wins Texas but loses Ohio by a relatively narrow margin--the superdelegates will probably move quite quickly. If Clinton wins, it will be harder for them to do even if she has no greater chance of victory.

Clinton certainly has the right to continue her campaign. After all, if Mike Huckabee can continue his obviously hopeless cause to make a point, Hillary Clinton surely has the right to stay in a much closer race in which she has far greater support. However. she shouldn't split the party by attempting to overturn the result or the rules--rules to which she agreed and were designed in many cases to benefit her campaign by former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe.

It is time for the superdelegates to perform a useful role--not nullifying the popular choice but ratifying it and rallying behind the nominee.