Obama's Lead Will Hold, But Will It Be Good Enough For November?

Sen. Barack Obama should win the Mississippi primary tomorrow night quite handily, after putting littly Wyoming in his win column over the weekend.

Mississippi polls generally have Obama up by 15+ points: Rasmussen has Obama leading 53%-39%; ARG has him up 58%-34%; and Insider Advantage gives him the nod by 54%-37%. Most likely, this one will be called for Obama tomorrow night the moment the polls close, based on exit poll projections.

Mississippi and Wyoming going for Obama are no surprises, of course. Mississippi, with it's large African-American population concentrated on the Democratic side certainly favors the Illinois Senator. Wyoming, which is the opposite demographically, shows the other end of Obama's strength--being well-organized in caucuses and attracting the upscale Democrats who like to attend them.

With the Wyoming and Mississippi wins, Obama will likely have pretty much cancelled out of Hillary's hard fought and highly publicized gains from a week before, at least on the critical delegate side.

So why all the hand-wringing from the Obama campaign over the losses in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and the split in Texas (Obama did win step two--the caucuses--of Texas's silly two-step process)?

Yes, it's true that if Obama had won both Ohio and Texas, it would clearly be all over. Even if he had won the Texas primary, it would have severely crippled Hillary. Yet, the likelihood of him overtaking Hillary in either of those states was small given her demographic advantages in both. As it is, he made Texas a real race and actually won more delegates than Clinton there.

By the same token, Hillary's wins didn't change the fundamental dynamic of the race--Obama is still winning where he's expected to win; and Hillary will likely win in Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico and a couple other primary states. When it's all over, Obama will still have a small, but significant, lead in pledged delegates.

Even if we have a do-over in Florida and Michigan, Obama is likely to maintain his delegate lead, but it will become a very tight affair. Yet, if this thing goes until late August, without a nominee, it's likely to harm whoever gets the nod. What good is the nomination going to be if you can't seal the deal in November?

So what are Democrats to do? A Hillama ticket, or Obillary (Obamillary?) would be terrific, but who's going to be on top?

There's six weeks between tomorrow's primary and the next one--Pennsylvania. That's a lot of time. Perhaps the candidates, along with a couple top advisers, Howard Dean and maybe a couple of other party leaders should go off on a very private retreat and talk it over. This could be one "back-room" deal that everyone could get behind.