Certainly this result didn’t do much to help Hillary’s cause, but it did enough to allow her to continue.

I don’t think Obama wants Hillary as VP, but I also don’t think she wants to be VP. My guess is her pride couldn’t handle that, and I expect that she would rather remain a Senator then take that course. I also don’t think she is terribly interested in the Supreme Court. Bill maybe, it would help his legacy, but I don’t think it offers anything to Hillary.

It will be interesting to see what happens, but I am pretty sure that it won’t be decided until after June 3, but I also don’t think it will be undecided much longer then that. I expect that by late June the nominee will be official.

Endgame still seems to be Hillary holding on until the convention. This seems irrational of her, because polling shows her polarized fans would crossover to vote for McCain. Traditionally (e.g., 1972) a candidate could deliver their bloc to the eventual nominee at the convention, trading it for influence. This tactic seems unavailable to Hillary because of the crossover.

I’m DAMN sure Obama doesn’t want her as VP, because it would be “two for the price of one” again, and Bill Clinton would be uncontrollable. But this situation might be forced upon him by the Superdelegates, in order for the DNC Convention to be a Festival of Healing, where much gas could be expelled about Healing and Unity and other feelgood atmospherics. If the DNC is calling the shots, however, this is my expectation.

If Hillary concedes before the convention, yeah, she might get a few accolades about what a statesmanlike action she just made, but she will lose relevance as this will give the Obamamaniacs the opportunity to visualize world peace for a few months and visualize Hillary right out of the picture. So Hillary won’t likely do this, unless she’s angling for some other prize by now, like a nomination to the Supreme Court in an Obama administration. However, in considering what Hillary “wants” I find it impossible to exclude Bill, and Bill wants back into the White House.

So, oddly, I find that Obama is the least powerful of all the above players. I rank the DNC Superdelegates as the most powerful, then Billary, lastly Obama. It’s the Clintons’ call.

That said, I don’t think all of the differences between black and white voting preferences can be simply put into the category of ‘race hate.’ I would imagine, for example, that Blacks, who have not had as much representation, would overwhelming chose a black person over a white person if everything else about the two candidates was equal. This wouldn’t be because they hate whites, but just because the prefer someone they identify more strongly with. There are numerous other factors as well. With the Wright controversy, I don’t think that whites have moved away from Obama because they hate blacks, but because they worry that Obama doesn’t like them. Now, the difference is subtle in some ways, but it is different. Also I think that a lot of the attraction for Obama amoung whites was his promise of moving away from racial divides, his longtime friendship with Wright has made people doubt that promise, but that reason, i.e. I no longer support Obama because I don’t think anylonger he can help us move toward a colorblind society, would not be an example of ‘race hate.’

Lastly of course, our racial demographics also match up with other demographic differences. Blacks are highly represented amoung the urban poor, while urban whites are more likely to be well off and it is rural whites who are more likely to be economically disadvantaged. A candidate who addresses the concerns of the rural poor, for example, might be strong in that group and weaker amoung blacks (whose concerns they have not as successfully addressed) without it really having a lot to do with race.