Is is really over?

New York produced two big winners, Clinton and Trump. They may be the overall winners as a result. While they both appear unstoppable there is still more to come as the primary season winds down. And the betting money is still on a contested Republican convention so the best may be yet to come.

“I got this.”

There is little doubt that Clinton will win the Democratic nomination. It’s not just New York, but commanding leads in the next primaries in Pennsylvania and Maryland that make it see so. There are also reports that despite being a great fundraiser Sanders is also a great spender – those rallies are incredibly pricey to put on. They may have been what broke the bank for him.

Why didn’t Clinton have big rallies? It wasn’t unpopularity, it seems, but frugality.

For the Democrats it appears to all be over but the whining, and there will be a lot of that. But somewhere in here it will be followed by some of the best political theater we’ve seen in a long time. Call it The Big Make-Up, if you want, but somehow Clinton will have to mend the party and put on a big show of unity.

Robert Reich

How exactly that will go down is hard to say, but it will be big. Yuge, in fact. We can expect President Obama and Robert Reich to play leading roles, as will Sen. Warren. There will be a platform fight, which is usually unimportant, but it may be a reckoning moment for both sides to come together in a big hug.

I know, Sanders isn’t known as a hugger. That’s what will make it fun.

What would I like to see as a Clinton supporter? It’s common to say that a politician “flip-flops” when they change their minds about something, a campaign tactic I don’t understand. Anyone smart should evolve, especially if new facts emerge, and a leader in a Democratic-Republic has to respond to the will of the people. But Clinton, as a woman of her time, rarely changes her stand and when she does she often denies anything is different. It is supposed to look strong, but it looks arrogant.

Clinton is not an Ice Queen. Seriously. She’s not.

What if Clinton stood on stage and said, “You know, through this campaign I learned a lot. And something I learned was that I was wrong about XXXX.” I don’t care what XXXX is – big money in politics, more regulation for banks, whatever. Getting her to openly change her mind would break the ice that follows her like Elsa from “Frozen”. It would be a game changer.

That’s the thing about Clinton all around – her negatives are high and hardly changing. Moving her to at least a net neutral overall will be tricky, but it can be done with something very dramatic. I think that it’s very much worth doing.

The main reason for doing this is that the Revolution we heard about so much may yet happen. I don’t mean Sanders’ revolution, I mean Clinton’s. How is that?

“But I just got the office!”

The Republican Party is floundering so much that the US House may indeed be in play after all. Flipping 30 seats is going to be difficult, but it is very possible. Whether the nominee is Trump or someone propped up to stop him, the party will look horrible. It’s a matter of how many people show up at the polls.

That’s where Clinton’s popularity really matters. A contest between two relatively hated people won’t generate the down-ballot success that President Clinton will need. She has to really break the ice and get people to want to turn out – and be in a position to campaign eagerly for everyone running for a House seat.

Can it happen? It’s really up to her at this point. There’s always a chance that Trump will tone it down dramatically, as he has been lately, and he won’t be as hated in November as he is today. But the election is very much Clinton’s all around.

The question is how she will be able to govern – how the hardcore pragmatist will indeed get anything done. If she really means it she has work to do – work that might be hard for her but will really be all about one really big show with a wow season finale.

No, it’s never over. There’s always more to come.