Is Hillary Running Out Of "Game Changers"?
Presuming the Dem race continues, Hillary is expected to rack up big wins in Kentucky and West Virginia. No one expects that this won't happen.
But does the certainty of her wins in those states -- even if it will allow her to marginally close the pledged del and popular vote margin -- also carry yet another disadvantage for Hillary?
Let me make the case. Hillary's candidacy has rebounded several times with big wins -- hard-earned ones -- that have swung the momentum back in her favor. After her string of losses in February, the big win in Ohio shifted things back in her direction. Then, after her losses in Wyoming and Mississippi, her big Pennsylvania win swung things back her way yet again.
Her ability to grind out tough victories that weren't assured, at times when her back was to the wall, became an integral part of her campaign's emotional and narrative arc.
Now, with Hillary's crushing loss in North Carolina, and her presumed smaller-than-expected win in Indiana, Hillary needs yet another big "game changer," to use a phrase that has been bandied about a bit lately.
Can Kentucky and West Virginia -- smaller states -- really deliver that in the same way that the other big states did? She's far and away the favorite in those states -- so it seems certain that they just won't pack the same kind of dramatic wallop those previous dramatic big-state victories did. They won't offer the emotional payoff that her campaign's previous back-from-the-dead moments provided.
And this is something she now needs at least as much as she did on the eve of all her previous rebounds.
In addition to Kentucky and West Virginia, there is Oregon, Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana.
How many "game changers" -- ones of the magnitude she needs -- are left at this point?
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