Tuesday´s Democratic primaries crucial, but unlikely to be conclusive

NO SINGLE DECISIVE PRIMARY

After Indiana and North Carolina, there will be only six primaries left for the Democratic nomination battle.

All are important, but none will be decisive.

The six contests line up in predictable fashion: Clinton should easily win West Virginia on May 13, Kentucky on May 20 and Puerto Rico on June 1.

Obama is heavily favored in Oregon on May 20, and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.

As a result, the final contests will have little effect on the delegate count.

The real answer, as the Washington Post's Dan Balz suggested, lies in Michigan and Florida,

The two states, both of which favor Clinton, were deprived of their representation at the Democratic National Convention in August because they moved up their primary date without approval from the Democratic National Committee.

But the issue remains unresolved, and Clinton continues to press for a solution that would give her a boost in the delegate count.

The most important date on the calendar could be May 31, when the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee meets to consider the matter.

　　IT'S UP TO THE SUPERDELEGATES

With just a handful of smaller states left to vote after Tuesday, Obama and Clinton are not looking to surprise voters or build traditional political momentum.

Rather, they are aiming to impress a small but important audience: the more than 250 Democratic Party officials, or superdelegates, who have yet to publicly back a candidate.

That means Clinton, who trails in the overall delegate count, is the one praying for lightning to strike.

"The onus is on her. She's got to do better than tie," Clinton backer James Carville told Newsweek recently.

Obama's aides said they expect Indiana to be close, downplaying Obama's own earlier suggestion that the state would be the race's "tiebreaker".

Clinton aides, meanwhile, argue that Obama needs to beat her soundly in North Carolina.

Most polls suggest relatively narrow margins.

Obama led by seven percentage points in North Carolina in Monday's polls while Clinton led in Indiana by five percentage points.

Results on that scale would give neither candidate a dramatic boost in the delegate chase.

Unless there is a runaway winner in the final stages of the Democratic primary season, superdelegates could face an unpalatable choice: hand the nomination to a candidate who limps to the finish a month from now, or overturn the will of voters and face a backlash among African Americans and young people energized by Obama's promised break from the past.

The greatest beneficiary, many Democrats fear, will be Sen. John McCain of Arizona who in effect wrapped up the Republican nomination in February and now runs even with either of the two Democrats in national polls.

Editor:Xiong Qu