Hillary is putting up a big front about her ultimate chances which are, in my view and -- more importantly -- the views of other experts very small. One indicator is that she he is terribly behind in paying her bills and, while she has raised a decent amount of money and has as much as $38 million in the bank, much of it is by law reserved for the post-convention campaign. Poor Mrs.Clinton: she got lots of money but can't spend much of it. I read about this in today's Times of London in an article by Tom Baldwin, "Trail of unpaid bills casts doubts on Clinton finances."
Yes, her prospects are bleak and there is fratricide within the party. Still, I don't understand the common wisdom why the process should not be permitted go to the end. The 1960 Los Angeles convention at which John F. Kennedy was nominated came as the culmination of a bitter multi-candidate war. Among the aspirants were JFK, Adlai Stevenson (backed by a clump of liberals like Eleanor Roosevelt who didn't quite approve of Catholics), Oklahoma's favorite son and zillionaire Robert Kerr, Missouri's favorite son Stuart Symington and, of course, Lyndon Johnson. It was a fight, a nasty fight to the finish. Now, there were bosses at this convention, and they did a good deal of political maneuvering. We don't quite have bosses like that now. No Tammany Hall, no Chicago machine, etc. But we do have super-delegates and also the bearers of big cash. In the end, LBJ threw his support to Kennedy in exchange for the vice presidency. A pretty decent transaction in the context of the nation's history, Vietnam notwithstanding.
I don't think Obama will throw his support to anyone in exchange for his being anointed as Veep. Certainly not as second to Hillary. Imagine the humiliations she would foist on him. Actually on anyone. Maybe the only person she will find if she has the opportunity -- which she won't -- is a castrati.
And Hillary won't take seconds. She just won't.
So let's have the convention even with a little bit of blood on the floor. "The tree of liberty...etc."