It is almost to the end of the Democratic Primary season. Despite losing heavily in Puerto Rico today, a state that has no bearing in the general election, Barack Obama is just 40 or some delegate votes away from clinching the nomination. With the clarification coming from the Rules Committee yesterday on the allocation of the delegates from the Florida and Michigan primaries that were done out of turn and thus required the sanction of the party, the path is now clear for Obama to become the nominee of all of the states.

Of course, he will not win it even with overwhelming victories in the last two states to vote, South Dakota and Montana. He will not doubt gather in most of the superdelegates in the next day or two he will need to position himself so that the results from the voting will push him over the top. This will be more of a symbolic thing ( he will need just a handful of the remaining delegates to get the nomination) but a potent one just the same. As a populist run campaign, to have people’s votes carry you over the top rather than party elite, this will show the depth and breadth of the Obama campaign.

So what now after Tuesday? It is not sure how the Clinton campaign will bow out; they could concede the nomination to Obama or they could make plenty of noise of fighting on to the convention. It probably will come down to an assessment on what the chances of the nomination going their way based upon some unknown event that will change the whole process and also what sort of legacy that the Clintons would wish upon the party if it is perceived that the reason that Obama may lose the general election was because of the obstacles that the Clinton keep throwing in his way distracting him from the general campaign.

I think though that if Obama clinches the nomination on Tuesday, a flood of the superdelegates will announce for him by no later than the end of the week just to wrap up the whole process (prodded on in part by the party hierarchy), give him a convincing margin of victory that no shenanigans on the Clintons part can over turn and then just move onto the general election. That is the way it should be.