Following last night's surprise results in the Democratic Primaries in Indiana and North Carolina (Clinton by an inch, Obama by a mile, respectively), the pundits and other dolts are jumping up and down, trying to be the first one to call "BINGO" on the end of this race.
But although she pledged to "support the nominee" (the first time she's made a victory speech that hinted at any sort of chance she might not win), we didn't see any indication last night that Hillary Clinton will give up any time soon...
Here are her options:
1) Drop out after about a week or so, to save face. Very few insiders are predicting this one. Clinton has just loaned herself another $6 million, making it highly unlikely she'll bail now.
2) Drop out following her upcoming "triumphs" in West Virginia and other Clinton strongholds in the next few weeks. This will give her leverage of some kind for a) 2012, which she is clearly gearing up for already, much as she did in 2004 by letting John Kerry run his awful campaign without interference or b) a possible VP nod or c) some other sort of leverage (majority leader, perhaps?) that we have not thought about.
3) Use her continued presence in the race to solidify herself for any of the above-mentioned reasons, taking it all the way to the convention. At that point, she could go for any of the above options or, if nothing else, ask Obama to help retire her campaign debt.
4) Seize on Obama's inability to crush her outright in hotly contested states like Indiana and Ohio and persuade undecided superdelegates that Obama will lose the blue collar vote to McCain in Novemeber. It's highly unlikely this could secure her the nomination-- for the first time, Barack Obama is within sight of winning the nomination outright; with a presumed victory in Oregon and a handful of superdelegates publicly backing him, it's possible Obama could pass the magic 2,025 threshold before the convention. However, if she's able to hammer this talking point home over the next few days, she could steal the spotlight away from those delegates who are rumored to be ready to announce for Obama in droves.
5) ?. That's just it: "?" No one knows what Hillary Clinton could do, really. Tim Russert claimed Clinton canceled all public engagements and television appearances today, although that has been denied by the campaign. Meanwhile, rumor has it she'll be meeting with superdelegates to see what they want her to do: stay in till when? Or drop out and then what? Or demand the VP slot? Or what? They've stuck by her this long, she knows they deserve a say in this major decision.
Meanwhile, continued swell news for the Democrats: GOP leaders warn of election disaster.