The Note: Exit Strategies

May 9, 2008 -- So now that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has survived (sort of) her roughest week yet -- which way toward her (officially deemed inevitable) exit?

Will the public calls from (former) friends reach critical mass?

Could Sen. Barack Obama simply declare the race over? (Watch May 20th.)

Will her financial fumes evaporate? (And would a bailout matter?)

Will it just be math -- as tallied by the superdelegates? (Two more dropped Friday morning, and those scoring at home will notice a new super-leader, for the first time this campaign.)

Will it take a job offer?

Sober consideration of what's next?

Or will the general election just start without her?

An important symbolic threshold was crossed on Friday: With two new superdelegate endorsements (including one switch from Clinton), Obama now has the support of 267 supers, to Clinton's 265, per ABC's count.

Clinton's insider support -- a cornerstone of her campaign's foundation, and its building plans for whatever future it has left -- is stalled and shrinking, as smart political types bow to realities. (And don't miss how crisply the Obama campaign rolled these out through the local newspapers.)

"Clinton's advantage among superdelegates was once massive and has been dwindling steadily since Super Tuesday, when she was ahead by over 60 superdelegates," ABC's Karen Travers reports.

"That means he leads in every important metric in this race right now," ABC's George Stephanopoulos said on "Good Morning America" Friday. "He is consolidating this victory, moving toward unifying the party, and really not looking back."

"It's clear now that Sen. Obama is going to be the nominee," he added. "I think the only thing now is working out the details of how to get it done -- and I would just say, before June."

This is the group Clinton needs to reject Obama in overwhelming numbers, and yet:

Obama "represents our best chance of winning in November," Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., told The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes.

"It's time now for us to pull our party together," former Clinton backer Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., tells The Star-Ledger's Robert Schwaneberg.

Contrast that with the enthusiasm of Clinton's new super, Rep. Chris Carney, D-Pa., who points out that Clinton was favored by his district's voters: "I will respect their decision."

That extraordinary scene on the House floor Thursday, with Obama feted as a conquering hero (in the same neighborhood Clinton has trouble scheduling meetings a day earlier) was a decent measure of which way the wind gusts.

"Mr. Obama made a celebratory return to the Capitol, where he received an enthusiastic reception on the House floor in an appearance staged to position him as the party's inevitable nominee," Carl Hulse and David M. Herszenhorn write in The New York Times.

"Senior Democratic officials said he met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi when their paths crossed at Democratic Party headquarters. They had spoken by telephone earlier in the week. Ms. Pelosi and Mrs. Clinton have had no known recent talks."

"He looked every bit the triumphant Democratic nominee as he marched on foot in the drizzling rain with some members of Congress from a meeting nearby into the Capitol building," ABC's Z. Byron Wolf and Jacqueline Klingebiel report.

Clinton backer Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., scrambled to get an autograph on the House floor, "while some 200 Democratic members swarmed the likely nominee and showered him with hugs, kisses and backslaps," Richard Sisk and David Saltonstall write in the New York Daily News.

For Obama, the pivot has already begun: He's not mentioning Clinton in his stump speech, is spending more time playing "Taboo" with reporters than campaigning in West Virginia -- and don't look for any Obama surrogates to agree to talkfest TV debates with any Clinton surrogates any time soon.

The Obama campaign is peering past Clinton -- on to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

"In Chicago, Obama's team worked to accelerate a transition to general-election mode that began weeks ago, only to be shelved as the primary showdown continued," Shailagh Murray and Perry Bacon Jr. write in The Washington Post.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., got her conversation with Clinton: "She doesn't believe it's time," Feinstein said afterward.

Yet in quiet corners of Camp Clinton, the whispers continue: "She's darting around the country like a full-fledged presidential candidate, but within Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's circle of advisors and donors, the conversation has turned to how she can make a dignified exit from the race," Peter Nicholas writes in the Los Angeles Times.

Richard Schiffrin, a Clinton national finance co-chairman, said he planned to advise Clinton: "Let's look at the situation as it exists and think about whether there's a credible path to the nomination, and if there isn't, what's Plan B?" Says a "Clinton aide": "I don't think anyone sees that there's a clear path to victory here."

(Who doesn't want to go out on a high note?)

From cold, hard politics, to cold hard cash: "The once-formidable fund-raising machine of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton has begun to sputter at the worst possible moment for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign, Clinton advisers and donors said Thursday, with spending curtailed on political events and advertising as Mrs. Clinton seeks to compete in the last six nominating contests," Patrick Healy and Michael Luo write in The New York Times.

The post-Tuesday online haul: Barely $1 million. "Clinton advisers said they were looking for opportunities to save money on campaign events in the coming primary states of West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon," Healy and Luo write. "The advisers said events would be more frill-free, but they also said that the campaign was likely to go deeper into debt to vendors who design and produce her events."

Obamaland won't push someone who's sliding on her own: "Obama advisers are watching and waiting," Dan Balz reports in The Washington Post. "They are concerned that Clinton appears ready to continue challenging his strength against McCain. Inside the Obama camp, there is consensus that she should be given time to ease down from the intensity of recent months and to make a transition to more positive campaigning."

That may change -- slightly -- May 20, when Obama will almost certainly clinch a majority of the pledged delegates. "If at that point we have the majority of pledged delegates, which is possible, then I think we can make a pretty strong claim that we've got the most runs and it's the ninth inning and we've won," Obama told NBC.

(And those in both camps aren't quite shooting down talk of a "Dream Ticket" with the certainty they once did. "She is tireless, she is smart, she is capable, so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list," Obama told CNN.)