Let Her Run

I've changed my mind: I believe Hillary Clinton should continue to run through the last primary on June 3.

It drives me crazy to say that, of course. What's the point? Mathematically, there is no scenario in which she can overtake Barack Obama. As of today, he's even passed her in superdelegates. Go ahead, throw in Michigan and Florida, as completely inappropriate and underhanded as that is. It won't change the outcome. And oh, the wasted money. I mean, you look at the tragedy in Myanmar and then consider that we're continuing to spend millions of dollars prolonging a contest that's clearly over and it makes your heart sick.

Still, I think there's a good reason for her to stay in the race and, believe it or not, that has to do with party unity.

Yes, the long, dragged out fight is raising tensions and sharpening the divide between the fans of the two candidates. However, I think there's a chance that some healing could come from letting the primaries run their course. If Hillary continues to campaign, she will go ahead and pick up her predicted wins in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Barack probably has Montana and South Dakota sewn up, and Oregon's in the bag. In fact, according to the anticipated math, it's Oregon that will put him over the 2,025 total delegates needed and give him the nomination on May 20.* There is nothing, truly, that Hillary can do to change that. (And she can't even claim that our 1.9% black population somehow skewed the results in his favor in a manner that can't be reproduced on a national scale.)

If we let her do her thing, collect her Pyrrhic victories, she still comes up short, but then her supporters will be able to see that she lost the primary fair and square. If we force her out now -- even, admittedly, as she has no chance -- that's going to leave a bitter taste in some mouths and make it just that much harder to move forward together against McCain.

* LawFairy corrected me in the comments. On May 20, the number of delegates remaining to be awarded will be fewer than the difference between Obama and Clinton. So, not 2025, but still, end-game.