It's the delegates, stupid
BY THE LOGIC of the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Boston Celtics shouldn't be playing the Los Angeles Lakers tonight for the NBA championship. The Detroit Pistons should. The Celtics beat the Pistons in the conference finals, but some would say Detroit is more experienced, tougher, and more used to pressure.
But that's not how it works in pro basketball or in the presidential nominating system. It's the delegates, stupid. It's not popular votes or polls, big blue states or white voters. Whoever has the most delegates wins.
Other things the Clintons didn't understand or refused to accept:
The war was decisive. Clinton took her first step toward defeat on Oct. 10, 2002, when she voted in the US Senate to authorize President Bush to go to war against Iraq.
Thing is, Democrats don't like wars, and they really, really don't like Bush. In one vote, Clinton alienated a huge chunk of Democrats and opened the door to an antiwar challenge. Barack Obama became the challenger.
Dance with the one who brung you. Obama's campaign was cohesive and consistent, never deviating from the message of "change." His operation experienced no bloody infighting or damaging leaks. The Clinton campaign went through several top strategists and even more messages. In the final 24 hours of her campaign, there were more leaks than in the Big Dig tunnels.
Caucuses are like field goals. The Clinton campaign decided not to contest caucus states. Consequently, Obama won 14 caucuses and lost two (Nevada and American Samoa). Like three-point field goals, caucuses added up and were part of Obama's remarkable 11 straight wins that lifted him from contender to front-runner.
Race matters; otherwise the Clintons wouldn't have talked about it so much. It's why Bill Clinton disastrously compared Obama to Jesse Jackson. It's what the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was all about. It's why Geraldine Ferraro declared that, if Obama were white, he wouldn't be leading.
Moreover, it's why superdelegates wouldn't dare deny the nomination to a legitimate winner who is black. Superdelegates who are officeholders didn't want to alienate African-Americans or white liberals in their electorates.
Superdelegates have got to go. This 797-member House of Lords and Ladies was designed to prevent the rabble from nominating someone who was a sure loser or not to the taste of the party establishment. Instead, their holding back only prolonged the inevitable. Superdelegates have long known whom they support and should have been forced by feckless party chairman Howard Dean to announce their choice months ago.
Rules is rules. The Democratic Party decided to space out the primaries and adopted rules to create order. Michigan and Florida jumped the line. Both states had to be punished. Otherwise, why have rules? Ironically, an architect of those rules was Harold Ickes, the Clinton aide who angrily told the rules committee on Saturday that the rules were unjust to voters in those states.
Bill Clinton has developed a tin ear. I'm not buying that he secretly wanted Hillary to lose or felt his legacy was at stake or desperately needed attention. It was the same thing that happened to his namesake in Secret Service code, Elvis: He lost the magic.
Sexism didn't defeat Clinton. Yes, we heard about her laugh, pantsuits, tearing up, being cold, the "iron my shirt" heckler. But Obama had nothing to do with those insults. Besides, he had to endure Clinton's charge that he couldn't attract hard-working white people, the suggestion that he's a Muslim (false), that he's unpatriotic, and elitist; that he did business with a sleazy developer and rubbed elbows with a violent radical from the 1960s. He took his share of personal abuse. But never cried racism.
YouTube is always here. Everything is on video. Hillary's sniper fire delusion, the controversy over Obama's comments on the bitterness of rural Americans, McCain's 100 years of war - they're all still on YouTube. The website is bound to affect the general election.
Obama won fair and square. He didn't lie, cheat, or steal. He won more delegates. He's earned the right to face McCain. Just as the Celtics earned the right to face the Lakers. Go Celts, beat LA!
Dan Payne is a Boston-area media consultant who has worked for Democratic candidates around the country. He does political analysis for WBUR radio. 