The Long Fight: Good or Bad?

For the past month or so, all the major newspapers and news channels have had something to say about the long battle between Senator Barak Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. But what are these "wise" political analysts saying?
The general consensus seems to be that the fight needs to end, that it's detrimental to the the health of the Democratic party. They think that the constant fight has already begun to hurt the democrats' chances in the November election; regardless of which candidate receives the nomination, they have bashed each other enough to give Senator John McCain an advantage for the fall; as the former chairman of the Democratic Party, Paul Kirk said in a New York Times interview, "The Republicans are not asleep, they’ll use all that stuff for cannon fodder."
The rising concern of an over-heated battle through the summer has many Democratic Party members looking for their leader: Howard Dean. Some party members think that it is his responsibility to quell this fight, find a nominee, and win the election in November. After all, he is the party chairman, and that should be his job, right? Well, in a way it is, and in a way there isn't much he can do. "He truly only has limited impact on this despite people’s sense that a party chair can wave a magic wand and make it happen. I know other people will disagree with that," said former party chairman Steve Grossman. He continued on to say “As a former chair, I have to acknowledge that I don’t think any former chair has in my memory gone through a period of time that is as complex as this. Howard has been scrupulously nonpartisan in terms of all his activities in dealing with this campaign.”
So, what can be done? Well, according to former President Bill Clinton, we just need to let it play out. Last Sunday, President Clinton said, "There is somehow the suggestion that because we are having a vigorous debate about who would be the best president, we are going to weaken this party in the fall...Chill out!" Yes, he is obviously pro-Hillary and desperately wants her to win, but there are many democrats across the country that do not want her to drop out because the fight is interesting and exciting.
Not only that, but Senator Clinton hasn't lost yet. Right now, the delegate count is 1,626 delegates for Barak Obama and 1,486 delegates for Hillary Rodham Clinton (the difference is only 140 delegates). On April 22nd, Pennsylvania will hold its primary, where 188 delegates are at stake and Clinton is polling at an average of 6.6% higher (according to RealClear Politics) than Obama. In order for either of them to win the nomination, they need 2,024 delegates. Even though Sen. Clinton is the favorite to win the primary in Pennsylvania, she will not receive all 188 delegates (which would put her above Sen. Obama), because of the proportional way delegates are awarded in the democratic primaries (some of the states in the Republican primaries are winner-take-all elections). However, even if she were to win all the delegates from PA, and all the delegates from the other states that have yet to hold their primaries, she would not reach the 2,024 (and, to add a cherry on top for everyone involved, Mr. Obama would not reach that magic number either, even if he were to win all the delegates). This means that we do not have a candidate who could win if the other dropped out. So, they must now fight for the votes of the super delegates, of which Sen. Clinton has 243 and Sen. Obama has 213 (but that can be left for a later discussion).
As Donna Brazille said in a New York Times interview, there is a new concern, "In the beginning, they liked one candidate and respected the other; now they love one and hate the other." Many people (democrats) have threatened to vote for McCain in the general election (including myself) if their candidate is not the nominee. But this happened in 2000 on the republican side, and almost everyone ended up going back to the party in the end. We also have to realize that about 65% of the country disapproves of what President Bush has done, and many of the once Republican supporters who have switched parties, will probably be persuaded to vote for the democrat, regardless of which candidate gets the nomination (and Democrats will see that it is harder to vote for a Republican than they expected and by November, they will return to the Democratic Party).
So, I say, Chill out!