On Tuesday Hillary Clinton won three primaries (Texas, Ohio, R.I.), while Barack Obama won one primary (Vermont) and one caucus (Texas). As everybody knows, the democratic party awards delegates proportionally, not on a winner takes all basis. However, for anyone watching CNN on Tuesday evening this victory was painted in the most dramatic of colors. True, Clinton won three important primaries, although only one by landslide. But her overall delegate gain after Tuesday was a trifling 4 delegates. In other words: de minimis. To provide a telling contrast, Obama gained more delegates than Clinton did in the Washington DC primary alone (9), in the Nebraska primary (8), in the Washington State primary (12), and in the Georgia primary (33). Hillary’s complaint leading up to Tuesday was that there existed an unfair bias in the media towards Obama. This complaint was A. desperate and B. patently untrue. Remember that Obama won 12 straight contests before Hillary was able to finally win in Rhode Island. 12 straight. If Clinton had amassed that kind of winning tally, I guarantee the media would not have been so kind to Obama, or have even given him any remote chance of climbing back into the race. The Democratic party and the media would together have been clamoring for Obama to bow down and wait his turn. He would have been altogether written off only to become a nice little political footnote in the Clinton’s power mongering memoirs.

Clinton has stayed alive precisely because the media has tolerated her, has consistently breathed life into her campaign even while Obama has criss-crossed the United States winning primary after primary, and caucus after caucus. The fact of the matter is that the media wants this to get as bloody as possible and as close as possible because that makes for better sport. But the only chance that Clinton has to win the nomination is through power brokering for superdelegates at a brokered convention in Denver. This is simply a fact. She cannot, barring miraculous lopsided victories in the remaining primaries, overtake Obama’s lead in pledged delegates. It is also extremely unlikely that she can amass more of the popular vote in the remaining contests. Even if she gets her way and, like a 5th grade tyrant who can’t bear losing, changes the rules of the game that she and everyone else agreed to and manages to get a revote in Florida and Michigan, she still will not surpass him.

All the Clintons can hope for is to minimize the margin by which he leads so that they can better make their case that the superdelegates should have a right to break what is effectively a “tie”, that superdelegates should not look to represent their respective constituents, but instead selfishly determine for themselves what is “best for the party” (but more likely, what is best for themselves). That is all the Clintons can hope for. That and that the media will line up right and left to support her in the endeavor. That the media will paint her as “the comeback kid” (even though, remember, only 4 delegates were gained on Tuesday). That the media will re-anoint her as the inevitable incumbent nominee, that the media will join with her in tearing down one of the most inspiring and powerful grassroots campaigns in the history of our country. That the media will portray a new narrative of “it’s anybody’s game now”, instead of portraying honestly and openly the reality of the situation to the American people. That the media will aid and assist her in running an increasingly negative campaign by giving credence to negative campaigns in the first place.

The sad fact is that the media will willingly accept this role because the media is owned by large corporations and conglomerates whose main priority is securing millions of dollars in revenues and profits through the distribution of their “news”. The media wants this to be a fight to the end, a duel to the death. Turn on CNN at any moment during their political coverage and you will almost instantly hear phrases like “taking the gloves off”, “throwing punches” and “in the trenches”. The media wants to turn this into a sporting event, instead of honest coverage of political issues and candidates. CNN calls their coverage “Ballot Bowl ’08” for crying out loud. The news media will carry and fuel this increasingly vicious primary season all the way through Pennsylvania, and what now sadly looks like all the way to Denver. It took them nothing more than to know that Clinton won Texas and Ohio primaries to start making ridiculous claims about Clinton’s new momentum (which, if there is any is being fueled only by her negative campaigning/scare tactics and the media’s newfound depiction of her campaign) and about how the campaign is all back to even.

I hope the good people of Wyoming, Mississippi and Pennsylvania can serve up victories for Obama and make the case once and for all that people want something different in the White House, not more of the same. But the cynic in me sees an increasingly desperate and negative campaign from Hillary Clinton, which ascribes by the rules of do anything, regardless of ethics or grace, in order to win. Do anything, even if it means telling the American people that hope is synonymous with delusion. Do anything, even if it means tearing apart the Democratic party and discouraging an entire new generation of energy and involvement. Do anything, even if it means spreading false rumors about your opponents religion in order to scare up votes. Do anything, even if it means tearing down a potentially transformational figure in American politics instead of rallying your own constituents by standing up for what you believe. Do anything, even if it means changing your message constantly throughout a campaign, so as to properly microtarget and divide Americans up by race, gender, religion, demographic, instead of understanding the underlying fiber that connects us all and reaching towards something higher than yourself in order to inspire Americans as a collective entity to believe in and fight for real change.