Never before have the political pundicrats been so consistently wrong in their prognostications on this year’s presidential horse race. Leading up to the primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, some of the pundits were ready to write off Hillary Clinton, but she managed to foil these predictions by winning Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island. Despite these wins, she made only a small progress in narrowing the delegate count because of how the delegates are apportioned. At the time of this publication, CNN reports that Clinton still trails Barak Obama by 99 delegates. Nevertheless, Clinton is using her recent win to show that she is the candidate with the momentum. Never mind that in the beginning of the primary she favored delegate count as the indicia of a successful nominee only to now favor the argument for momentum as she trails Obama in delegates.

The longer the Democratic primary continues the more it has the potential to become divisive; Clinton will likely go more negative forcing Obama to completely abandon the high road and respond with equally negative counterattacks. Already Clinton’s spokesman Howard Wolfson has characterized Obama’s tactics as imitating Ken Starr—which is the worst thing another Democrat can call another. Unrelated to Wolfson’s remark, Obama’s foreign policy adviser Samatha Powers was reported to have called Clinton a “monster” in an interview with a British newspaper. In response, the Clinton campaign pressured for Powers’s resignation and got it. By contrast, Wolfson was not similarly held to account for his remarks.

If the primary goes all the way to the Democratic Convention with only a slim delegate count separating Obama and Clinton, the issue of how to seat the Michigan and Florida delegates will be fiercely contested. Proposals have been put forth, but there is no agreement on whether the Democratic National Committee or the respective states will pay for a redo primary. Then there are the 800 unpledged superdelegates. It appears that after all the primaries neither Obama nor Clinton will have the necessary delegates to win the nomination without looking to superdelegates. These superdelegates will have the unpopular, unwanted task of casting their votes based on who they think is the best candidate or based on the will of their voters. The Clinton campaign has argued that superdelegates should vote their conscience whereas the Obama campaign has argued that superdelegates should vote based on their constituency.

An Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket has been proposed to cut this political Gordian knot. Obama has responded that such a proposal is premature while Clinton has stated she would only agree if she were on the top ticket. A long, drawn out and negative campaign may make this dream ticket just that—a dream.