To listen to the talking heads on television and their colleagues in the print media, the House of Clinton has already fallen. All that is left is for them to go into exile like the Kaiser or be taken to the guillotine like Marie Antoinette. Hillary Clinton has been the recipient of an unusual amount of vitriolic hostility. The poison pen of The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd has been disproportionably cruel in her attacks. If you believe these people, all that remains is for the Democratic super-delegates to put their fingers on the political scale and tip it in favor of the young crown prince from the Second City, Barack Obama, Oprah’s favorite son.

But in the world of rough and tumble politics, where the stakes are so high, political obituaries are often premature. One of the most remembered is the “Dewey Wins” newspaper headline held by a smiling Harry Truman in 1948. No one can deny that Obama is an attractive candidate, a fresh face loved by the pundits who helped give him traction. They have fallen in love with this Kennedy-esque, silken-tongued senator who promises “change” before adoring crowds who respond, “Yes, we can.” One is reminded of an old-fashioned revivalist meeting, the faces of people with that transcendent look in expectation of the coming of a messiah.

How quickly people have forgotten that Clinton took California (population 36.1 million), New York (19.3 million), and New Jersey (8.7 million). While Ted Kennedy and the daughter of the fallen president stood at Obama’s side in California, she took the bastion of Kennedy power on the other side of the nation. This is not to say that Obama has not had a hefty share of victories, most recently along the Potomac River (District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland), Wisconsin, and Hawaii. His traction has turned into momentum and we have heard much about his eating away at her core constituencies. Whether this is true has yet to be revealed. The nation will have a better picture after the Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania primaries. 

If Obama gets the nod, Clinton will fall into line. She is a party person and herein lies a major difference between the two aspirants. She knows from experience and Political Science 101 that the aim of a party is to get itself elected and she will support the ticket however painful.

While it is conjecture for the moment, one is less certain about Obama. After all, we know very little about Obama while we know nearly everything about the very public former First Lady.  Obama sees himself as leading a “political movement” and through him change will occur.  Political parties want to get their leader elected; movements also want to do this but a movement that sees itself as transcendent carries with it an agenda that often works outside the political process. America has a history of competing parties, not movements, a word usually confined to social and economic change that exerts pressure on the political process as evidenced by the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s. As we have seen with the debate over the disposition of the delegates, his movement wants to change the rules. In other words, generate external pressure based on voting patterns not committed delegates.

The top people in the Democratic Party are clearly worried. A chaotic convention would not bode well for them in a national election and give McCain ample ammunition to argue that his party is one of stability and continuity at a time when the nation is a t risk overseas and in an economic downturn at home. We can only hope both candidates fall into line. 

If you believe the bookies in Vegas and forget the pundits, Clinton will emerge as the party leader and win come November. She has been humbled before and re-emerged even stronger.  Obama is riding a wave of popularity and for some appears too presidential before his day, his mettle yet to be tested by the very pundits who helped create him. The House of Clinton survived relentless attacks in the last decade of the century past. They are as tough as Krupp steel. The House of Obama may turn out to be part of the Second City as it continues to face the woman who represents the First City of the Empire State. She, too, is from Chicago but as the old song says about New York City, “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

-- Sander A. Diamond, professor of history