It Will End Next Week

All signs now point to an end to the Democratic nomination fight a week from now, or maybe a week and two days, with Barack Obama becoming the Democratic Party nominee for President.

Saturday the party Rules committee meets to resolve the Michigan and Florida situations. There are signs that the Hillary campaign is ready to deal, and although the formula may be different for each state, there will be a resolution, and it will not affect the outcome. These deals may be negotiated this week, but it may take the reality of the meeting--I read somewhere that the more Hillary has talked about this, the angrier committee members have gotten. The Hillaryites may have to see that anger before they go for the best deal they can get.

This should be a pretty dramatic Saturday. First the Rules meeting, with a Hillaryite demo outside, reminicent of the thugs who scared the vote-counters in Florida in 2000 (those of you with HBO can see it all dramatized again.) Then a big party fundraiser with both Obama and Hillary people, hosted by Al Gore.

Then Sunday the Puerto Rico primary. Hillary is expected to win--mostly because she's familiar and backed by key unions--but nobody really knows. Depending on how these two events go, Hillary may have her last news day on Monday. Then Tuesday, June 3, Montana and South Dakota end the primaries. Montana is a lock for Obama, SD is probable.

Then the super-d's end it. Marc Ambinder reports that "as many as three dozen Democratic superdelegates have privately pledged to announce their support for Obama on June 4 or 5. The campaign is determined that Obama not end the first week in June without securing the support of delegates numbering 2026 -- or 2210, as the case may be. " Last week President Carter predicted this will happen, and it sounds like he will be one of them.

Others are agreeing that something like this will happen, and the race will be over.

Or it could end a bit sooner, if Hillary decides to concede before her last two likely primary defeats on June 3. But I don't expect that.

Today's Obamagic Number is 48.5