Obama crushes Hillary, for now. . .

From The Washington Post:

Sen. Barack Obama swamped Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Maryland, Virginia and the District yesterday, extending his post-Super Tuesday winning streak and forcing Clinton onto the defensive as the Democratic presidential race moves toward a showdown in Ohio and Texas on March 4.

On a day when there was huge turnout in the area, the senator from Illinois won Virginia with about 64 percent of the vote. In Maryland, where the polls were kept open an additional 90 minutes because of bad weather, he was winning with about 60 percent to Clinton's 37 percent. He was headed for an even bigger win in the District, where he was attracting about 75 percent of the vote.

The lopsided wins mean Obama will emerge with a clear majority of the 168 pledged delegates at stake in the area, as well as a widening lead overall among the more than 65 percent of pledged delegates who have now been accounted for nationally. When superdelegates are added to the calculations, Obama and Clinton are still in a highly competitive race, but Obama has seized the overall lead.

Obama's victories came after a weekend in which he decisively won primaries and caucuses in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state and Maine. Those states gave him a boost after he and Clinton split the nearly 1,700 delegates awarded on Feb. 5, when 22 states voted in Democratic contests.

Obama's win has depth as well. Here are the exit poll breakdowns from Drudge:

Latino Voters By Six Points: 53-47
All Religions (Including Catholics)
All Age Groups (Including Seniors)
All Regions
All Education Levels
And Women by TWENTY ONE POINTS...

Until now Mrs. Clinton has been depending on women and Latinos as her "firewall" but every group wants to be on the winning side. Obama is now clearly the frontrunner and has the momentum.

Clinton is retreating behind yet another set of "firewalls" in Texas and Ohio, apparently hoping that the Southern and Midwestern redneck won't vote for a black man, but given the way things are trending it is unlikely that she will receive any comfort there. She is in desperate trouble and she knows it. This is why she has refused to congratulate Obama or even acknowledge his victories in any public way (link).

Many people on the right, and left for that matter, still think that Mrs. Bill Clinton will be the Democrat nominee no matter how the voting goes. They note that she and her husband are utterly ruthless and control a large and powerful political machine which in turn controls the Democrat party. They believe that the fix is in somehow.

The so-called superdelegates who are not bound by the primary votes and can cast their ballots as they please at the convention are one way Hillary could still win. If she can bribe or blackmail enough of them even if she fails to win another primary before the convention. Another way for her to gain additional delegate votes would be for the DNC to reverse its decision to bar the delegates from Michigan and Florida. All the Democrat candidates agreed not to campaign in those states and all but Hillary kept their names off the ballot in Michigan.

However Hillary did keep her name on the Michigan ballot and she did campaign in Florida. And she won both primaries (in Michigan narrowly defeating "uncommitted"). If she needs those delegates votes to beat Obama the conventional wisdom is that the DNC will allow the delegates from those two states to be seated and cast their votes for Hillary. After all - the reasoning will go - it will have been wrong for the Party to have disenfranchised the good people of those two states.

This potentially sets up a court battle akin to Florida 2000 in which desperate and corrupt Democrats attempt to change the rules in the middle of the game in order to secure the outcome they desire.

This creates two very ugly and dangerous possibilities for the Democrats. One is a literal riot on the convention floor as Obama's supporters (many of whom approach the level of fanaticism in their devotion) sense the nomination being stolen from their candidate. The other is the potential for race riots in American cities as the black population sees the prize they have longed for for so long stolen from them by a political party which has not fundamentally changed since the days of Bull Connors and "Ax Handle" Maddox.

That Hillary and Bill Clinton would consider a repeat of the Los Angeles "Rodney King" riot taking place not only in LA but in Chicago, New York, Newark, Atlanta, Miami, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cincinnati and the District of Columbia and possibly Charlotte, Columbia, Dallas and Little Rock, as an acceptable price to pay for their return to power should surprise no one. A sociopath is incapable of being deterred by negative consequences to anyone other than him/her self.

The wild card in this is Barack Obama himself. Will he, when confronted with having the nomination which he has earned stolen from him, step up and concede with grace calming the emotions of his supporters and pledging to work for the election of Mrs. Clinton? And thereby save many lives and many millions, if not billions, of dollars of property damage. Or will he return to his roots as an angry race baiting community organizer and demand justice?

He will certainly have the promise of the DNC that he will be the party's next nominee and he might even be offered the vice presidency (there should be enough vestiges of a spine left in the party leadership to twist Hillary's arm that hard at least). Will he take the deal? Will he allow himself to be just one more black man denied what is rightfully his and given the leftovers from the master's table as a consolation prize.

In other words will Barack Hussein Obama fight for what is his or will be become Hillary Clinton's house negro?