A clinton victory scenario that could be bruising for democrats

To listen to some of the treatment about the Democratic presidential competition these days, one would think that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton should have spent Easter weekend in Chappaqua, writing her backdown speech and preparing for her tax return to the Senate.

Make no error about it; Bill Clinton's task in trying to overtake Senator Barack Obama of Prairie State is daunting. And it grew even tougher last week, when the collapse of attempt to redo the Sunshine State and Wolverine State primaries about certainly ended her hope of narrowing Obama's lead in pledged delegates and of being able to claim a bulk of the popular vote when the vote is done.

But it's still not impossible. There remains at least one scenario where Bill Clinton could win. It is an progressively unlikely one and one that could traumatize the Democratic Party. Still, it gives relief to her protagonist, and presumptively Clinton herself, and is something to keep in mind observation the two of them head toward the end game of their competition.

The electorate that substance most now are not the voters waiting to go to the polls in the 10 nominating contests that remain between now and June. Alternatively, it is the superdelegates, — the elected officials and party leaders who have automatic rifle status as uncommitted delegates and whose votes are needed to put either Obama or Bill Clinton over the top. There are about 800 of them, and they are going be deliberation two main statement: Obama's contention that the Democratic rank-and-file has expressed its will and superdelegates shouldn't upset it, and Bill Clinton's brief that she offering the party the best opportunity to licking Senator John McCain, the Grand Canyon State Republican, this fall.

Obama's side of the statement has become almost unassailable, while Bill Clinton's is, at the least, open to argument. Clinton's best hope now is that Obama, as a candidate, suffers a political collapse akin to what has happened to the subprime mortgage market, a view shared by aides in both campaigns.

How could that happen? First of all, Clinton not only has to win Pennsylvania on April 22, she has to swamp Obama there. And she has to go on and post a convincing win against Obama in Indiana, a state where the two appear evenly matched. Results like those would serve to underscore concerns among some Democrats that arose after Clinton had beaten Obama in Ohio, suggesting he was having trouble getting blue-collar white voters into his column. It is one constituency that aides to McCain see very much in play this fall.

Along the same lines, Clinton would get some wind if she trounces Obama in the June 3 contest in Puerto Rico. Obama has had trouble in competing for Latino voters. And that has been duly noted by McCain's aides who said they are beginning to see a general election upside — among Hispanic voters in a contest against Obama — to the problems that McCain's support of immigration legislation caused him in the primaries. (That is one reason why the endorsement that Obama won last week from Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is one of the country's leading elected Hispanic officials, had significance going far beyond the Democratic nominating contest).

But neither of those two factors would be enough. What Clinton is going to need is for Obama to suffer a collapse in polls by the time superdelegates are being pressed to make up their minds.

Could that happen? The most pressing question now is the extent to which Obama has succeeded in dealing with the incendiary statements made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., which rocked his candidacy last week.

Obama won huge praise for the speech he gave addressing his relationship Wright and the state of racial relations in the country. But in this case, as a political matter, the audience that counts is general election voters — not Democratic primary voters, party leaders, editorial writers or television commentators. Two months is a long time, and it is simply too soon to say if the political imprint of an acclaimed speech by Obama will begin to fade, overcome by the potent images of Wright at the pulpit.

Superdelegates are, by nature, political animals. They appreciate the potential political price if they are perceived as overturning the will of voters, and blocking what so many Democrats view as a historic candidate. They are also hungry to win the White House and, in many cases, more committed to the success of the Democratic Party than to the fortunes of any specific candidate. They surely will pause if polls two months from now show McCain with a sudden and sizable lead over Obama.

All of which is to say that while all this could happen, it is going to take a near-perfect confluence of forces in Clinton's favor, a turn of luck that has evaded her this year.