The campaign between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has gone on so long that even political junkies are eager for it to wind up. I wrote on April 22 that it would be up to North Carolina voters on May 6 to end Clinton’s campaign for good, and despite Reverend Wright and a traditional media intent on ignoring key issues and electoral math, nothing has changed my analysis. The last week has significantly altered the prevailing narrative that the two candidates have largely identical views. Clinton’s support for a summer waiver of the federal gas tax, her attack on economists opposing the waiver as “elitists,” her willingness to “obliterate” Iran, and her Indiana mailer accusing Obama of infringing on gun owner’s rights reflect a neo-Cold Warrior candidate who will move as far to the right as necessary to get what she wants. Half of the remaining pledged delegates will be decided tonight, and, if she loses North Carolina, even a national media desperate to prolong this race will be urging Clinton to drop out. This race is about delegates, not a mythical “electability,” and with African-Americans comprising 40% of the state’s early voting electorate, Obama should finally “close the deal.”

Clinton Moves Right

The day of reckoning has finally arrived. For all of the talk about Kentucky and West Virginia, and then taking this fight to the convention, Hillary Clinton either wins both North Carolina and Indiana or her hope of winning the nomination is done.

Recognizing the stakes, Clinton has described North Carolina as a “game changer.” And she has responded to this challenge the same way that the Clintons have always done: by moving to the right and co-opting Republican policies/campaign messages.

Consider the following:

The summer gas tax waiver: That proposal was initiated by John McCain, and is opposed by all leading Democrats. Clinton used the standard Republican tactic of talking like a populist while governing like an aristocrat in pushing a gas tax waiver that would eliminate tens of thousands of blue-collar jobs, while not costing the oil companies a dime.

Remember earlier this year when Clinton repeatedly attacked Obama’s accurate claim that Ronald Reagan had shifted the nation in a way that Bill Clinton had not? Well, in Clinton’s raging against the federal gas tax---the one used to build highways and mass transit---she appears to be channeling Reagan and other Republicans in trying to wear the anti-tax mantle in this race.

Clinton’s claim that her opponents are “elitist”: A classic example from the Republican playbook, which has multimillionaire candidates like the Bushes claim that Democrats and progressives are serving the elite.

Economists are “elitists” whose views should be ignored: Clinton argued over the weekend that she did not care that every economist thought her gas tax waiver was a bad idea, because she said they were “elitists.” George W. Bush has shown the disastrous impacts of ignoring expert advice, and Clinton is now embracing the same course.

Obama Won’t Protect Guns: Clinton’s long support for strong gun controls has not dissuaded her from attacking Obama’s similar support of gun restrictions. Just as her gas tax stance appears to have backfired, her Indiana mailer portrayed a rifle that cost $2600 and must be imported from Germany. How’s that for a woman in touch with the common hunter? A full account of Clinton’s wooing of the gun lobby is at http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/4/2019/37925/478/509057

“Obliterating” Iran: Clinton adopted McCain’s gas tax proposal and is now following his bellicose approach to Iran. Clinton made her commitment to obliterate Iran in response to that nation’s hypothetical bombing of Israel, attempting to show that, unlike Obama, she is “tough enough” ---i.e. she is willing to kill millions of innocent people under the guise of fighting “terror”--to be Commander in Chief.

Republicans have won many elections by accusing Democrats of being “weak” on defense, and Clinton is again drawing on the Republicans playbook.

Will Clinton’s rightward turn succeed? It may help her with conservative Democrats in Indiana and North Carolina, but her charge that gas tax opponents were siding with oil companies has alienated the superdelegates she needs (some, like Colorado Congressmember and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall have publicly expressed anger at Clinton’s stance). Since Clinton’s only hope lies with a superdelegate stampede toward her nomination, her new image as a Henry “Scoop” Jackson of the 21st Century is unlikely to get her there.

Returning the Media to the Fact-Based World

The past two months demonstrated the traditional media and punditry’s lack of insight into the priorities of the American people. And while many critics have focused on the media’s undue preoccupation with flag pins and Reverend Wright, the larger problem is its unwillingness to focus on the delegate count, instead treating the nomination for president as an Oscar contest with purely subjective criteria.

If someone understood the nomination process only by reading newspaper stories, they would conclude that the winner is the person that party leaders deem “most electable” regardless of the actual delegate count.

This accurately describes the system in 1968, when Hubert Humphrey was nominated without winning a primary. But even though different rules have applied for nearly forty years, the media has wanted readers to believe that the subjective “electability” standard, not elected delegates, is the test.

After Obama wins North Carolina, the media will have no choice but to declare the race over. Clinton will have too few primaries and too few uncommitted delegates left to change the race.

Had Obama lost more narrowly in Pennsylvania, and this close defeat not been followed by Reverend Wright’s speech, droves of superdelegates would have announced for Obama. This will now occur after North Carolina, giving the punditry the excuse it needs to declare, “race closed.”

Indiana’s White Working Voters

Although a Clinton victory in Indiana changes nothing, expect pundits to use her win to question Obama’s ability to win the “white working class vote,” which the media has all but declared to be worth far more than African-American votes in the 2008 primary race.

There has been more bad reporting on the elusive “white working class vote” than on any other issue in this race. As I pointed out on March 20, these voters comprise an important part of the Republican presidential base and even went for Republicans by a 14% margin in the 2006 midterm elections.

Yet the media insists, contrary to the facts, that Obama has a “problem” with these voters that could hurt his chances in November.

As Charles Blow demonstrated via a chart in the May 3rd New York Times, white Democrats have pretty much maintained their same view of Obama since the summer of 2007. For all of the talk of how Rev. Wright, the “bitter” comment, and Obama’s alleged image as “elitist” has weakened Obama’s white support, the facts say otherwise.

A North Carolina victory ensures Obama the most delegates on May 6 (some predict he will win nine more delegates in NC, while losing four in IN).

How fitting that on the 77th birthday of the great African-American superstar Willie Mays, the nation’s first black presidential nominee makes history.