The long Democratic primary season will be over in 16 days, and even though many have written off Hillary Clinton, the race may not be decided even then. The Journal-Constitution asked political scientists at four southern universities for their thoughts on Clinton's candidacy. Here are excerpts of interviews with the four professors, conducted by Sunday @issue editor Richard Halicks.

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Quitting now would anger her supporters

Audrey Haynes

Associate professor of political science

University of Georgia

There are these theories that she is positioning herself for 2012. Personally I do not think she is really doing that. I don't project that sort of Machiavellian deviousness onto Clinton. I think that, in some ways, she really thinks she is the better, stronger candidate. ...

I don't think she is really trying to destroy Obama. If she were, she wouldn't be saying the few snippets of positive things she's saying right now. I also don't think she wants to be vice president.

If we really get inside her head —- when people get into this race, they have followers, they have believers; it's so much more than just a game. She has her people telling her, "Don't! Don't get out." ...

I'm not certain that anything I know as a political scientist is really informing my opinion right now. It is more the political psychology of it all. How long have they been running? This is a war, this is a campaign, it is a fight, and they're not the kind of people to give up. You have to put yourself in her shoes. It is really hard for her to leave right now. She has all these people —- a lot of women, older women, older people —- who keep saying, "We believe in you, Hillary." It's really hard to say, "I'm going to quit. I'm going to step away from that."

In the end, if it's not close, she can say, "You know what? I gave everyone a chance to vote, and it's not in the cards, and I love you all, and I appreciate it. And we gave it our best shot. And I'm going to go on and help Barack." She'll be a good sport. ...

Some people think of Hillary as very cold —- there's always an agenda, she's always planning something, whatever. If she were to step down now, and just quit, there would be a lot of people who would be angry at her, people who have invested a lot of money in her, and a lot of time and a lot of effort. And they would feel betrayed, quite frankly, and that's what she believes. Go to the end. See what happens.

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Florida and Michigan figure in the scenario

David W. Rohde

Ernestine Friedl Professor of Political Science

Duke University

It's hard to believe that she actually believes she can win. The question is, is she pushing on because of a vanishingly small chance of winning? Some context in which catastrophe strikes the Obama campaign, and she's there? It's hard for me to believe that, but I suppose anything's possible.

The obvious things that other people have talked about —- she probably wants to be offered the nomination for vice president; whether she would accept it or not is another question, and I doubt that she's fully made up her mind. I think she would like to have it offered to her.

She's surely worried about her campaign debt. The stronger her position, the more likely it is that the Obama campaign would be willing to help with that. [And] she may want to extract some concession about Florida and Michigan so she can claim some accomplishment there, maybe for the future. To put herself in the position to run again if Obama fails in the general election. These are all little things that may be influencing her to stay in. ...

I think she's going to stay in until the first week in June, assuming that the numerical realities are what it appears they're going to be. Then she'll say, "I gave it a good fight. I came very close, but I lost."

A part of the scenario is going to be some resolution of the Florida and Michigan situation. I think it's probably important to her both substantively and symbolically. Symbolically, in that this will give her leverage four years from now if she runs with both Florida and Michigan.

She can say, "I fought for you, and I won you something." That will be advantageous. And I suspect that she probably really believes that they should receive some representation.

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She's most likely looking ahead to 2012

David J. Lanoue

Professor and chair, political science department

University of Alabama

It can only be one of three things. Either she honestly thinks she still has a chance —- maybe she can somehow get Florida and Michigan back into play; maybe she could win an unexpected victory in Oregon, and somehow she could come in with an authentic claim on the superdelegates. Or perhaps she's hanging around hoping that the other shoe will fall, that there's some other scandal out there involving Barack Obama that we don't know about that will suddenly turn the tide in her favor.

The second —- I have a hard time with this one, but I hear it a lot —- is that she's angling for the vice presidency. It seems to me that, if that's the case, she's made her argument for the vice presidency, and all she's doing by hanging around is making Barack Obama's job more difficult, which doesn't seem to be the way to audition for the second half of his ticket.

And the third thing is maybe she's trying to make the airtight case for next time. If Obama loses the general election, she'll have taken the opportunity to hit all the states, make all the connections, do all the things she should have done this time. ...

She's mostly building up her organization and her visibility and her positives in a lot of states that she wouldn't be visiting otherwise. If John McCain should win in '08, she will have laid the groundwork to be inevitable in 2012. ...

Eight years from now [should Obama win the general election and then serve two terms] she's old news. In eight years, a bunch of people we're not even thinking of right now are going to rise to prominence and the Democrats are going to build a bench. ...

My best guess is that she wins her states, and he wins his, we get to the end of May, or the first week of June, the superdelegates break largely in Obama's favor. They cut a deal on Michigan and Florida, and Obama wins the nomination.

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It's not clear what she gains by staying in

Alan I. Abramowitz

Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science

Emory University

It's unlikely she thinks she really has a chance of winning. I suspect that within the inner circle of the Clinton campaign, they've faced the reality that she can't. What does she gain by staying in the race? ...

The obvious thing would be, first, the vice presidential nomination: I have no idea whether she wants it. What I would say is, if she wants that, it would be pretty hard for Obama to turn her down. There would have to be some understanding, of course, about what role she would play in the administration, and about what role Bill Clinton would play. ...

I don't think Obama is going to offer that to her unless she really presses for it. They would probably rather not have her on the ticket. Beyond that it's hard to say. A Cabinet position? I don't think she'd be interested in that; I think she'd rather stay in the Senate. Policy concessions? It's hard to imagine what those might be, since they're so close on the issues. I would expect there would be an effort to bring some key people in her campaign into Obama's campaign.

I don't think anything's going to happen until the last primaries are over, which is only a little over two weeks now. Once they're over, I would not be surprised to see some sort of agreement reached with her suspending her campaign before the party rules committee meeting [May 31].

One thing is clear: I think that she is somewhat constrained by the fact that in order to preserve any role for herself in the Democratic Party, she has to do this: She has to support Obama and campaign for him after the convention. If she's perceived as undermining his chances in the general election, I think it's going to hurt her chances to be a major player in the party in the future. I just can't see that happening. All the indications, especially recently, are that the party's going to be unified.