I’ve seen it in the sincere questions of anna in philly and in the snide remarks of Armando. There is this idea out there that Hillary Clinton should stay in the race just in case Barack Obama’s campaign implodes and it appears that he is totally unelectable by the time the nominating convention takes place at the end of August.

This idea is based on a total misunderstanding of how the nominating process works. None of the delegates (pledged or unpledged) are legally bound to vote for a particular candidate on the first vote at the convention. For the pledged delegates there is an obvious commitment to support the candidate they were elected to support. But the only barrier to them changing their support is their own conscience. If they can defend their decision to their peers they will have no further qualms about changing their vote.

To take an obvious example, if Obama were to get caught visiting high-priced call girls, like Eliot Spitzer, few pledged delegates would feel obligated to stick with him. In that hypothetical scenario, Hillary Clinton’s strong performance in the primaries and her large bloc of pledged delegates would make her a heavy favorite to be the replacement nominee.

If we are to appraise the current state of affairs fairly and honestly, we’ll realize that Clinton’s chances in such a situation will be unlikely to depend on the number of delegates she picks up from this point forward. She’ll have the strongest case to be the nominee even if she wins no more delegates. It’s possible that the nomination could go to Al Gore or some other candidate, but improving her odds of preventing that is a horribly weak rationale for continuing a campaign built around the argument that Barack Obama is not fit to lead the nation.

As Ben Smith notes in today’s Politico, Hillary Clinton can no longer realistically win the popular vote. That is reason enough for her to suspend her campaign, as Bill Clinton noted last week.

“If Sen. Obama wins the popular vote then the choice will be easier. But if Hillary wins the popular vote but can’t quite catch up with the delegate votes, then you have to just ask yourself, ‘Which is more important, and who is more likely to win in November?’” former President Bill Clinton told ABC earlier this week.

Asking Hillary Clinton to suspend her campaign isn’t “contempt for the voters, of Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and beyond”, as Armando says. It’s an effort to get Team Clinton to face reality and stop making John McCain’s case for him. Suspending her campaign won’t totally preclude the possibility of Clinton being nominated. In fact, it would probably improve her chances. After all, if Clinton is seen as largely responsible for making Obama unelectable, his pledged delegates will be more likely to remain in a bloc and vote for Al Gore or someone else.

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