SACRAMENTO — Californians can be thankful the state held its presidential primary on the earliest day legally possible. And Hillary Rodham Clinton should be especially grateful.
Clinton probably wouldn't even be in the race today if California had not rescued her candidacy way back on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, by delivering a timely victory that helped keep her afloat. The Pennsylvania primary Tuesday likely would have been irrelevant.
Some state pundits have been pining for a June primary that, they dream, would be the final decider of the Democratic presidential nomination. They argue that California got lost in the crowd Feb. 5 -- there were 23 other contests -- and we were irrelevant.
If this state had waited until the optimum moment, they contend, it could have picked the winner and peppered the candidates with California-specific questions on the likes of illegal immigration and the environment.
I doubt it. More likely, Barack Obama still would have been grilled by some Beltway bore about flag pins or the inane equivalent. There was ample opportunity before our primary to press the candidates on state issues; there were two major televised debates, after all.
As for delaying our primary in hopes of becoming the final arbiter of the nominating process, that's like a poker player surrendering a full house in hopes of drawing a royal flush. Almost always, he'll go bust. And California certainly would have.
For starters, Republican John McCain's strongest competitor, Mitt Romney, folded shortly after Feb. 5. California all but clinched the nomination for McCain. That was the last day that any Republican's vote meant anything anywhere in the country.
Next, do the Democratic math. Clinton won California and gained a net 38 delegates (Clinton, 204; Obama, 166). But if California hadn't voted Feb. 5, she would have lost Super Tuesday nationally by 12 delegates.
That's not the complete story of Clinton and California, however. Those are just the pledged delegates won on election day. Figure in the superdelegates who have committed to her and she leads Obama within California's huge 441-member delegation by 56 votes. Most of those super delegates sided with her before the primary. Many probably would have held off if the primary weren't slated until June.
An axiom of politics -- even for superdelegates -- is don't make a decision until you have to.
