The Democratic solution is far more complicated than one thinks, and no one should write Clinton off yet. If Hillary wins a majority of the remaining states, and some of them by wide margins, and is able to count Florida, it is not at all clear that she will be all that far off in the aggregate vote. And then she will adduce three or four powerful arguments—1) she has won the large in-play states, (2) she has the greater momentum finishing the primary season, (3) her delegates are predicated more on popular voting, Obama’s more the result of caucuses, (4) she may be running stronger against McCain in the majority of polls.

Obama’s ace-in-the-hole argument that the super-delegates should not ‘steal’ the nomination from someone who comes to the convention with the greater delegate count and perhaps total popular vote ( and to do so, would forfeit his supporters in the general election) is balanced by Hillary’s supporters’ own implied defection should Obama be nominated.

That might be more interesting an argument than one thinks. She might suggest that while Obama’s supporters might stay home should she win, hers are more likely to jump to McCain should Obama be nominated and do the nominee much more damage.

Historians are right to suggest that in the past contentious conventions have not stopped candidates from winning in the fall — but we haven’t experienced a brokered convention in a long time, and the shock effect on our generation would be considerable.

The audience is watching to see which candidate will implode under the pressure, and either say something untoward or have something serious come out. It’s not easy to have every word deconstructed of the many thousands they offer up each day, and the pressure will only grow more intense. Clearly, Obama must get out of the rut of tit-for-tat with Hillary, get back to the ‘above it all’ ‘hope and change’ messiah, and reformulate his campaign as a post-racial candidate, both by talking about Obama the candidate and his own views rather than as Obama the African-American. And, if he will not dissassociate from the ticking time-bomb Wright, he must give speeches that de facto implicitly decouple his own views from black liberation theology. His problem is not with whites per se, but with Hispanics, Asians, and working class whites to whom Wright is an anathema and can’t be explained away.

Right now it is wise to have kept Wright in seclusion and, for Hillary, to put off as long as possible Bill’s mega tax return.

McCain has received a godsend because the Democratic gunslinging shaves off weeks of his campaigning, and with it all sorts of venues in which any candidate can misspeak. So apparently for a month or two more he doesn’t have to say anything controversial as long as Clinton and Obama by needs go after one another. In turn, he will have an entire data base of talking points that some of the best minds in Democratic politics have conjured up against Clinton or Obama.

It is not just that Democrats are spending millions that otherwise would have been unleashed on McCain, but rather spending millions for McCain. In that regard, the multimillions that the two candidates are raising are not as telling as one thinks, since far more importantly, it is only how they are spent that matters.