Catching The Gazelle

By Marc-Yves Tumin

As the 'Endless Campaign' scrapes away from the northeastern edge of the Rust Belt and forges ahead to Indiana, North Carolina, and beyond, a simple but interesting question illustrates why - against all odds - Senator Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for president. Which of the following can be outrun by a human being? (A) A horse (B) A dog (C) A gazelle (D) None of the above.

Now, although Senator Obama is ahead in states won, pledged delegates, and the popular vote, Mrs. Clinton recently bested him in Pennsylvania, regained her momentum, and narrowed the gap in the polls.

Her indefatigable political machine has painted Mr. Obama as inexperienced, unpatriotic, a certain loser, a slumlord, a drug user, a homosexual, a spinner of civil rights fairy tales, and an elitist who can't close the deal with the regular people.

Her relentless 'Kitchen Sink Strategy' has portrayed him as an unqualified out-of-touch amateur, a "Manchurian Candidate," the creature of an Indonesian madrassa (i.e., an Islamic religious school), whose mentor was the jack-in-the-box goblin, the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

The tenacious 'Beer Track Candidate' has tarred Mr. Obama as aloof, anti-Blue Collar, an Ivy League Brahmin who misrepresented his academic credentials, hostile to downscale white church-goers and gun-owners, and a naïve latte liberal who won his pledged delegates in small and Red States (i.e., places that won't help him or that he hasn't a prayer of capturing in the general election).

Her remorseless 'Scorched Earth Policy' has reminded folks of Mr. Obama's Muslim roots, his refusal to wear Old Glory on his lapel, his mixed racial heritage (by dredging up a picture of him in traditional African garb), and his links to the unrepentant Weather Underground anarchists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

The Comeback Kid has rehashed Mr. Obama's wife's comments about her lack of pride in America, and, in advertisements, associated the senator from Illinois with arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden, the 1929 Stock Market crash, and Great Depression breadlines.

Meanwhile, the 'Inevitable Candidate' has maintained that she's a populist with working-class support who won her pledged delegates in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida, Texas, and California - large states crucial to Democratic success in November.

Indeed, the senator from New York bested Mr. Obama in their 21st and last debate and challenged him to a series of Lincoln-Douglas-style colloquies - lengthy, unmoderated tussles - in which Mr. Obama has declined to participate. (N.B. This was a hint at the quote-unquote Civil War that could erupt if he wins the presidency.)

Superdelegates (i.e., politicians and Party big-wigs) will balk at backing a surefire loser. Their mandate is to prevent mob rule, one-day wonders, and runaway mavericks from taking the Democrats over a cliff. Their job is not merely to reflect the pledged delegates, it's to use their judgment, else why have supers in the first place?

There will be a brokered Democratic National Convention, the superdelegates will reluctantly hand Mrs. Clinton the nomination, and, just as reluctantly, attempt to placate disaffected African Americans (as did, historically, the leaders of Planned Parenthood) by insisting that, all in all, any Democrat is better for blacks than a Republican.

Mr. Obama has had a free ride as the Left's poster child for its nostalgia tour to 1968. CNN and NBC have been in the tank for him. He's been the press and broadcast industry's Wunderkind, but, remember, you heard it here: He will not be the Democratic nominee, at least not this time around.

As to the question above, the answer is off the charts, actually. It should be (E) All of the above. Yes, 50,000 election cycles ago - in the African genesis of humankind - exiguous bands of hunter-gatherers found a vital source of protein in the form of wild horses, dogs, and members of the gazelle family.

True, the quadrupeds could run rings around human beings, but only for brief periods of time. Even then, bipedal Homo sapiens - struggling against extinction - was relatively devoid of hair and blessed with copious amounts of sweat glands, giving him endurance in the blaze of noon.

Early man - jogging doggedly across the savannah in pursuit of a meal - would eventually find his quarry succumbed to heat exhaustion, making it a simple matter to serve fresh red meat for supper.

The race is not to the swift, it's to the tireless. Mr. Obama's personal magnetism, verbal dexterity, and turn of cerebral speed will prove inadequate to the plain, hard task at hand - winning the mainstream - and, as he withers in the oppressive conditions of the protracted campaign, Mrs. Clinton will prevail in the grinding long run as the Democratic nominee.