It Won't End for the Dems on February 5th

Those of us who are enjoying the pitched battle going on for the Dem nomination will find this news heartening:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are locked in a drawn-out war of attrition for the Democratic presidential nomination, sure to be fighting for delegates beyond next Tuesday no matter who comes out ahead on the primary season's biggest day.

Still, it is a very big day - coast to coast and then some. Democrats will have their say in 22 states and American Samoa.

The sheer size of the Feb. 5 challenge could favor the former first lady. She is still better known than Obama and holds a lead in national polls. Obama won or came in a close second in four early states where he had extensive field operations and spent weeks in retail campaigning - an option not as available to him now as he's forced to bounce among nearly two-dozen far-flung contests.

But with a sizable bank account and lots of attention from his win in South Carolina last Saturday, Obama is prepared to go toe-to-toe with Clinton. And he benefits from party rules that award delegates according to the share of the votes each candidate receives. There's no winner-take-all on Feb. 5, and that means he could still win a substantial share of delegates even if Clinton wins most of the states.

This will go on at least through March 4 where several other large primaries will take place, and possibly beyond. Thanks to the Dem preference for proportional delegate awards (instead of winner take all), a protracted battle is pretty much assured if you have more than one strong candidate.

I believe that it was always the Clinton campaign's plan to have a quick victory in the front-loaded primaries because they know that prolonged exposure to Hillary is bad for their poll numbers. They needed a quick win that they're not going to get. Obama tends to wear a little better over time.