The Democrats
民主党
Close but no cigar
几近结束,但无法庆祝
May 22nd 2008 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
The contest that refuses to die
拒绝认输的竞争
ON MAY 20th both Democratic candidates had a chance to declare themselves winners. Hillary Clinton, speaking in Louisville, Kentucky, celebrated her two-to-one victory over Barack Obama in the state. A little later Mr Obama, speaking in Des Moines, Iowa, the state that turned him into a front-runner back in January, celebrated the fact that he was “within reach” of locking up the nomination.
5月20日，两位民主党人都有宣布自己获胜的机会。希拉里克林顿在肯塔基州路易斯维尔宣布，她在这个州的初选当中以2：1的比例战胜奥巴马。晚些时候，奥巴马在爱荷华州得梅因宣布自己“几乎”锁定提名。正是这个州在今年一月使奥巴马成为领头羊。
Mrs Clinton’s gigantic victory in Kentucky has steeled her determination to run the race to the very end. She will contest the three remaining primaries (in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota). She will also present a vigorous case to a special meeting of the Democratic National Committee on May 31st that the votes in Florida and Michigan should be counted. She told supporters in Louisville that she would keep campaigning until the party had a nominee—“whoever she may be”.
克林顿夫人在肯塔基州的大胜更加坚定了她战斗到底的决心。她会参加剩下的三场初选（波多黎各，蒙大拿和南达科他）。并且在民主党全国委员会5月31日的特 殊会议上据理力争,要求将佛罗里达和密歇根的投票计入统计。她告诉路易斯维尔的支持者，自己会继续竞选，除非党内提名最终确定——“不管她是谁”。
But Mrs Clinton is fighting against both the rules of the game and the tide of opinion within her party. After this week’s contests Mr Obama has the majority of the pledged delegates. Mrs Clinton’s only chance of winning is for the superdelegates to move en masse into her camp. She can theoretically make a case for this, based on her strong performance in battleground states and, quite possibly on having actually won more votes than Mr Obama.
但目前克林顿夫人是在同时对抗竞选规则和党内舆论。本周过后，承诺代表当中大多数支持奥巴马。唯一能够使克林顿夫人获胜的机会就是超级代表大量涌入她的阵营。这在理论上是可能的，但她必须在竞争激烈的州有强势表现，并且她可能更要确保自己确实能够赢得多于奥巴马的选票。
But it would cause civil war in the party (Chris Rock, a black comedian, jokes that nobody had ever heard of superdelegates until a black man looked like winning the nomination). Besides, the superdelegates are moving in the opposite direction. Mr Obama has picked up a further 22 of them since his crushing defeat in West Virginia on May 13th compared with Mrs Clinton’s four. The majority of the undeclared superdelegates come from states that Mrs Clinton won, suggesting that they have reservations about backing her.
但这会引起党内内讧（黑人喜剧演员克里斯洛克开玩笑说，要不是一个黑人看起来要赢得提名了，人们都没听说过超级代表这个东西）。另外，超级代表们的行动与 克林顿夫人的愿望相左。5月13日西弗吉尼亚惨败后，奥巴马又得到了他们当中22人的支持，与此同时支持克林顿夫人的只有4人。观望的超级代表中有大部分 来自克林顿夫人获胜的州，说明这些人对是否支持她持保留态度。
In her pursuit of her seemingly impossible goal Mrs Clinton has nevertheless exposed a serious weakness in Mr Obama’s candidacy—his failure to connect with working-class whites, particularly in the Appalachian heartland. The usual rule in primaries is that voters flock to the winning candidate. But Mr Obama has now lost both West Virginia and Kentucky by huge margins. Mrs Clinton carried three-quarters of white voters in Kentucky who earn less than $50,000 a year and lack a college degree. Only 33% of Mrs Clinton’s supporters in Kentucky told exit pollsters that they would vote for Mr Obama if he is the Democratic nominee in November.
然而，在追求这个似乎无法实现的目标时，克林顿夫人揭开了奥巴马作为候选人的一个硬伤——他未能赢得白人工人阶级的支持，尤其在阿巴拉契亚核心腹地。初选通常的 规律是选民们会纷纷涌向获胜的候选人。但现在奥巴马在西弗吉尼亚和肯塔基以巨大的劣势落败。在肯塔基年收入不足五万美元和没有大学学历的白人选民中，有四分 之三的人支持克林顿夫人。这个州只有33%的希拉里的支持者告诉民调人员，如果奥巴马在11月时是民主党候选人的话，自己会支持奥巴马。
Why is Mrs Clinton putting her party through such agonies? She claims she has an obligation to provide a voice for an important Democratic constituency—the “silent voters” that the media and the party establishment would prefer to ignore. Some of her closest supporters worry that she is exacerbating divisions within her party. But from the purely personal point of view her tenacity makes sense. She will be the obvious candidate in 2012 if Mr Obama goes down in defeat in November. She will also have a good chance of inheriting Edward Kennedy’s position in the Senate as the lion of liberalism and the voice of a huge Democratic constituency. The family that gave America the New Democrats will live on as the guardian of the Old Democrats.
为什么克林顿夫人要让民主党经受这样的煎熬？她声称自己有责任为一些重要的民主党选民说话——即媒体和党内机构往往忽视的“沉默的投票人”。一些最亲密的支 持者们担心她会加剧党内的分裂。但是单纯从个人角度出发，她的顽强不无道理。如果奥巴马在十一月落败，她毫无疑问将会成为2012年民主党候选人。她同样 有可能接替爱德华肯尼迪在参议院的位置，成为自由主义的领袖和庞大的民主党选民的发言人。这个家庭为美国塑造了一个全新的民主党，但它必须扮演旧民主党守护者的角色，才能生存。
Mr Obama clearly has some hard work ahead of him as he moves from candidate to nominee. The Democratic Party has never produced a candidate who excites such adulation from his sort of voters. He attracted a crowd of 75,000 people in Portland, Oregon on May 18th. He raised $31m in April—including money from 200,000 new donors. (Mrs Clinton raised $22m, still an astonishing amount; but her campaign is more than $20m in debt).
毫无疑问，从候选人到最终获得提名，奥巴马还有很艰难的路要走。民主党从来没有一位候选人能够获得自己支持者如此热烈的追捧。5月18日在俄勒冈州波特兰，他吸 引了七万五千人。4月份，他筹集了3100万美元——包括20万新捐赠者的资金。（克林顿夫人筹集了2200万美元，这也是个令人吃惊的数字；但她的竞选活 动现在已负债2000多万美元）
But equally it has seldom produced a candidate who encounters such strong resistance from core Democratic voters. Mr Obama is capable of doing well among white working-class voters: witness his victories in Wisconsin and Missouri. A recent poll shows him doing just as well as Mrs Clinton against John McCain among non-Hispanic whites and people without college degrees. But Appalachia could yet prove to be his Achilles heel.
但同样，民主党也从来没有一个候选人要面对核心民主党选民如此强烈的反对。奥巴马有能力处理好与白人工人阶级的关系：看看他在威斯康星和密苏里的胜利。最 近一次调查显示，他同克林顿夫人一样，有能力在非西班牙裔白人和没有大学学位的民众当中同约翰麦凯恩对抗。但阿巴拉契亚始终是他的阿喀流斯之踵。
译者：xsj191 http://www.ecocn.org/forum/redirect.php?tid=11557&goto=lastpost#lastpost