The End of the Road

With today's primaries in Montana and South Dakota, a long, winding, and tortuous road finally ends for the Democratic Party. No matter what Hillary Clinton's people say about waiting, her scheduled speech in New York tonight could well be the last one we hear from her as a candidate. And make no mistake, she's been a flawed candidate.

Her run against Barack Obama has stained her legacy, and that of her husband with a constituency the Democrats can't afford to alienate, black voters. Ironically, it wasn't that she was determined to see the race to the finish that bothered people, it was the way she conducted her campaign. When her people finally realized that Super Tuesday wouldn't be the coronation they thought, there was no back-up plan worth talking about.

That's when the Clintons, both of them, decided to pull out all the stops. Changing staff, flogging the media, and in the end, naked appeals to white working class voters and demands to the DNC rules committee all failed to stop Barack Obama. Even her late season victories did little more than provide a road map to the Obama campaign as to the work they still need to do.

It was all so strange, and so unnecessary. Still to be determined is how Hillary exits, and how hard she and her husband work to get a fellow Democrat elected in November.

Time will tell.