Opinion for Obama: NY Times Columnists Question Wisdom and Motives of Continuing Clinton Campaign

On three successive days noted NY Times columnists highlighted Hillary Clinton's dwindling chances of winning the nomination, and increasing chances of damaging the party and its nominee.

First, on Tuesday, March 25, it was conservative David Brooks with The Long Defeat"

"Hillary Clinton may not realize it yet," he wrote, "but she’s just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign."

The key developments, wrote Brooks:

• Obama weathered the Rev. Wright kerfuffle, and as of Tuesday retained a small lead among Democrats in the Gallup tracking poll
• Obama’s lawyers prevented re-votes in Florida and Michigan, effectively making it impossible for Clinton to take a lead in either elected delegates or total primary votes.
• Superdelegates appear to be following Nancy Pelosi's assertion that the winner of elected delegates should win the nomination. Politico.com reports that Clinton has lost about 60 superdelegates in the last month.

Next, on Wednesday, March 26, in "Hillary or Nobody", Maureen Dowd noted that "As Barack Obama was floating in the pool with his daughters the last few days in St. Thomas, some Clinton disciples were floating the idea of St. Hillary as his vice president."

The irony, of course, is that the last time the Clintonians pushed the idea of an Obama-Hillary ticket "it was an attempt to undermine Obama and urge voters and superdelegates to put Hillary on top; the implication was that this was the only way Democrats could have both their stars, and besides, it was her turn."

Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain.

And on Thursday, March 27, Nicholas Kristof weighed in with "Obama, Clinton — and Echoes of Nader?".

"Mrs. Clinton is more than 700,000 votes behind in the popular vote," Kristof reminded us. "

To get the lead, she would need to win at least 56 percent of all the remaining votes — or well more than 60 percent of the votes outside of North Carolina and other states she is expected to lose. So far, though, Mrs. Clinton hasn’t won 60 percent in any state except Arkansas, where she had been the state’s first lady.All this means that Mrs. Clinton’s chances of winning are negligible, barring some major development.

Meanwhile, the big winner of the Democratic fist-fighting is Senator McCain.