Barack [...] Obama has expanded his lead over Hillary Rodham Clinton: he’s now leading her 52% against 42%. This after the controversy surrounding his pastor. At the same time, increasingly more senior Democratic figures are calling on Clinton to withdraw from the race. The Democratic establishment, it seems, is uniting.

And not just the establishment of course. The voters themselves are also beginning to back the person they think will be the nominee. For quite a while Obama and Clinton were tied in polls. He’s now - once again - leading very, very comfortably. There are still 42% of Democratic voters who favor Clinton over Obama, so the race isn’t over yet, but a 10% gap is more than Clinton had hoped.

As said, the establishment is uniting behind Obama and calling on Clinton to withdraw from the race. As said yesterday, I’m getting a little bit tired from such calls. She should stay in the race; other voters should be able to speak out as well. Especially because Obama and Clinton are still quite close (in the polls and delegates). Both can count on a lot of support.

Furthermore, a nominee who can’t close the deal, who needs others to drop out in order to close the deal, isn’t a strong nominee. Obama has to be able to close the deal. Telling Clinton to drop out is a sign of weakness and insecurity. And… if people are so insecure about Obama’s ability to close the deal, why would Clinton drop out?

Right.

If Obama is the kind of candidate his supporters and the Democratic elite hope he is, the trend we see right now should continue. He should expand his lead over Clinton, and he should get more support from members of the Democratic elite. If he does that no one will have to ask Clinton to drop out; she’ll drop out because she realizes that Obama can close the deal. And that he has closed it.

It has to be said, by the way, that I think that they’re repeating this “drop out” line constantly in an attempt to influence voters. They don’t really hope and think that she’ll drop out because of what they say; they hope that if they repeat it often enough, quite some Democratic voters will be influenced by it and support for Obama will increase. They are, in other words, playing political games.