Kicking the can down the road toward Denver
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s third political comeback so far this year brings to mind Winston Churchill’s observation, “Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.”
Despite having her political obituary written on a weekly basis by various cable pundits, Clinton has seemingly defied the odds and kept the race for the nomination alive. Where does it go from here? Let’s be honest – all the way to the party convention in Denver in August. And as far as presidential nomination contests are concerned, we are now very much in uncharted territory.

With the exception of the two upcoming contests in March [Wyoming on March 8th and Mississippi on March 11th] there isn’t another one until the Pennsylvania primary on April 22nd. That will be followed by four contests in May and two in June, the last scheduled primary being in Puerto Rico on June 7th. Odds are that come the morning of June 8th, neither Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama will have the necessary number of delegates to claim their party’s nomination. What then?
Talk is already growing in Democratic Party circles about what to do concerning Florida and Michigan. Because both state parties jumped the gun to schedule their primaries early in January, their delegates are not being recognized by the national party. But with an unsettled nomination race, something will have to be done to make those states count. Right now that most probably means a do over of both primaries sometime in July. There is already a scheduled party meeting early in July that was going to have to address this issue prior to the August convention.
So what’s it all mean? Quite simply we have never [in modern history] had a prolonged nomination fight that has left a major party without a defined nominee this late in the game. The closest we’ve come was Ronald Reagan’s failed attempt to cause a delegate revolt against Vice President Gerald Ford on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976. But that’s ancient history to a generation raised on instant gratification and well known for its impatience.
Given all of the above, the next seven weeks will see this campaign move into a completely different phase. First, there are no more debates scheduled, so candidate cordiality may be a thing of the past. Instead, expect the Clinton campaign to follow the three lessons it learned in Ohio – 1) Hitting Obama on experience works, 2) Primary voters like the image of a “fighter,” not happy talk about bipartisanship, and 3) “It’s the economy stupid!” And given Clinton’s edge in Pennsylvania, there’ll be another big momentum boost waiting to usher her into the May contest schedule.
Likewise, expect the Obama camp to stop talking about the delegate “math” that makes his nomination “inevitable” and begin to take on Clinton as a candidate. The last six months have disproved the validity of political inevitability in 2008 (ask Mitt Romney and Hillary about that) and most folks don’t want their party’s contest to be reduced to an algebra problem. Of course there is a lot of danger for the Obama camp going negative in a big way at this point in the race, and, should that happen, there’ll be a very bored and hungry political press corps very anxious to ask him about that.
As for the GOP side of the race, newly minted nominee Sen. John McCain will have to fight long and hard to avoid falling into a political black hole during this period. One is reminded of then-Sen. Bob Dole’s problems with maintaining press attention in the 1996 race once he had the nomination sewed up. By June of that year he had to dramatically retire from the U.S. Senate in a vain attempt to jump-start interest in his quest. With the Democratic race still in full swing, press attention to McCain is reduced to “How much money have you raised?” and “Who’s going to be your Vice President?”
As always, time is the great leveler in American politics. Considering the old adage that “a week is a long time in politics,” seven weeks can be an eternity.

Political Observations of the Week:
“I assume there’s some chance this will go all the way to the afternoon of August 20-something, and if that’s the case, I’ll have to swallow hard and make a judgment.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Oregon), on being a Superdelegate.

“The battle is between populist demagoguery and economic reality. Democrats are trying to establish a second New Deal – more regulations, progressive taxation – Is there pressure to say we’re doing something? Yes. But no situation is so bad that Congress can’t make it worse.”
Rep. Tom Feeney (R., Florida), urging fellow republicans to oppose the developing Democratic Congressional agenda.

“All Republicans learned the lesson from the [Bob] Dole campaign that there is no break between when the nominees are decided and the general election [contest begins]. The lesson is: you need to mobilize immediately.”
Steve Duprey, adviser to the McCain campaign

“When you look at issues – taxes, spending, judges, health care and national security – there is a divide as deep and wide on those issues as the Grand Canyon.”
Steve Schmidt, adviser to the McCain campaign, on how they plan to contrast themselves with Sen. Barack Obama, if he is the Democratic nominee.

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John J. Kohut is an independent political analyst in Washington, D.C. He has been writing about national politics for more than a decade, including stints as an editor at the Cook Political Report and as senior editor at the Rothenberg Political Report.