Obama’s Emerging
Democratic Victory

How many more states does Barack Obama have to win by two-to-one margins before it becomes obvious to all that his candidacy is a phenomenon unstoppable by Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat?

How many auditoriums jammed with 17,000 people, like the one in Wisconsin Tuesday night must Obama inspire to tears before people understand that here is a human and political force unlike anything the United States has seen in decades?

Saturday, the young Illinois senator swept Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana, all by margins at or approaching two-to-one. Sunday, he prevailed 60% to 40% in Maine. Tuesday he triumphed in a different part of the country, winning big—very big—in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia (75% to 25%).

At Tuesday’s end, his delegate total moved ahead of Clinton's despite her Super Tuesday wins in delegate-rich California, New York, and Massachusetts. Next week, he's a favorite in Wisconsin, where Clinton is hardly competing. He’s won in primaries but has run even more strongly in the caucuses where people get to talk to each other about their choices—forums virtually ignored by Clinton since Obama triumphed in the Iowa caucuses.

Among delegates who were actually chosen in primaries and caucuses, Obama has a 200-delegate lead—a statistic that doesn’t count the phony unelected "super delegates," many of whom originally tended to Clinton.

How many more polls must be taken demonstrating the obvious fact that the struggle to deliver our national government from the grip of George W. Bushism can best be led by the optimistic and generous Obama rather than Clinton? Whatever her strengths, and they are many, she would enter the general election encumbered by a mountain of baggage left over from past political and policy wars-negative baggage that she mostly doesn't deserve but which she will never, ever be able to escape.

How long before those "super delegates," who bought into the "inevitability" of a Clinton victory and helped give her an early lead, recognize that they've put their money on the wrong horse and start to change their bets?

And finally—if this moment of promise is not grasped, how long will it be in American politics before we see its like again?