The Ultimate Punishment

The media have figured out how to end the Democratic race.

Declaring it over doesn't work. Urging Hillary Clinton to drop out doesn't work. Putting Barack Obama on the cover of Time as the nominee doesn't work.

What does work--ah, this is fiendishly clever--is to simply ignore the race. Many journalists are just moving on. What will become a tsunami of speculation about whom Obama will pick as his running mate is already under way.

That's not to say the MSM isn't reporting on Hillary's campaign stops, her $6-million loan to her struggling operation, the trickle of superdelegates toward Obama and similar developments. But we are now treating Obama as The Man. That's why Brian Williams and Wolf Blitzer interviewed him yesterday. Psychologically, the focus is on the fall matchup. The media have moved from Will she drop out? to Does she want to be veep?

It is the ultimate sign of the speeded-up news cycle. Obama's media coronation lasted about 24 hours. If he formally wraps up the nomination in the coming weeks, everyone will play it up, but the truth is it will feel like old news. We will already have done our anatomy-of-an-upset pieces. And, with summer-like temperatures soaring, the fall campaign will be under way.

Tom Bevan nails the dynamic at Real Clear Politics:

"Hillary Clinton's biggest problem right now isn't her lack of money, and it isn't that undecided superdelegates will suddenly move against her. Indeed, yesterday was notable for the fact that so few superdelegates declared, and that multiple Democratic party bigwigs went public saying Hillary has every right to stay in the race and shouldn't necessarily get out just yet.

"The biggest threat to Clinton's candidacy right now is the media, and the instant (and almost universally accepted) conventional wisdom among the pundit class that it's over. Wednesday, Clinton suffered through a barrage of political obituaries, from talking head heavyweights like Tim Russert and George Stephanopoulos to opinion columnists from across the political spectrum . . . The CW [is] nearly set in stone."

And to further prove my point, the Philly Inquirer's Dick Polman:

"While Hillary Clinton runs around West Virginia, doing her best impersonation of a Japanese kamikaze pilot who is cognitively incapable of acknowledging defeat, there is a sense that the general election phase is about to begin."

Roger Simon makes the point with much more colorful metaphors:

"Rats don't swim toward sinking ships, and pols don't back no losers, and this is why Hillary Clinton is in such trouble.