What will be the impact of this long and closely-fought nomination battle? The Democratic Party could possibly be compelled to revise primary rules for the next election season in four years, perhaps replicating the Republicans’ winner-takes-all system so as to ensure an earlier winner.

More immediately, however, Clinton will come under even greater pressure to withdraw from the race for the sake of party unity. She refused to do so on Tuesday, despite Obama’s declaration of victory and the media commentary in his favour. She will certainly have to withdraw by the convention in late August when the nominee is formally elected. But by staying in the race for another three months until the convention, she will be seen as helping the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee John McCain.

Clinton’s defeat is likely to place the Indian-American community in a quandary. The community’s support for Clinton has been substantial. Many Indian-Americans, while overwhelmingly Democratic, were offended by the Obama campaign’s infamous memo ridiculing Clinton as a senator from Punjab. The possible addition to the Republican ticket of Bobby Jindal, who joined McCain at a rally in Louisiana on Tuesday, may also cause some Indian-Americans to vote against Obama in November.

But Clinton’s defeat will also provide clarity for many among the larger voting populace and international followers of American politics. Obama and Clinton saw their policies overlapping on most key issues, and their campaign rhetoric changed rapidly based on immediate electoral contests. Most notably, the criticism of outsourcing by both Obama and Clinton surged considerably as they campaigned in the industrialised Midwestern states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia: the so-called ‘Rust Belt’. In fact, Obama’s condemnation of outsourcing — which had been so pronounced during his Iowa speech in January, as well as at his 2004 convention speech when he first announced his arrival on the national political stage — was comparatively muted in St. Paul.

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