Some Logic About "Closing the Deal"

I do not by any means claim to be perfect.  In the category of Really Terrible Housekeeper, I am world-class.  Overweight, lousy sleeping habits, smoker, drawing ability limited to stick figures, and most 3-year-olds could navigate the world solo without getting lost as often as I do.

But there is at least one thing that I am really quite good at.  Extraordinarily good, in fact.  And that thing is . . . logic.   Scored in the 99.9% percentile on the LSAT, back in the day when it was much closer to being a test of pure logic than it is today. Nowadays I'm a math teacher, another career venture in which logic comes in handy.

I think it's time to apply some logic to a very annoying phrase I keep hearing.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

What is this ridiculous meme that Obama "can't close the deal"?  In a recent diary, tonyfv lets us in on an e-mail he received from a friend of a friend:

I think it says something that at FOUR crucial junctures in this campaign so far, Obama has been on the verge of locking up the nomination -- and he has faltered every time -- in New Hampshire back in early January, on Super Tuesday in early February, on Ohio-Texas Tuesday in early March, and now in Pennsylvania on April 22. If he had gotten 3 percent more in New Hampshire, if he had won, say, California on Super Tuesday, if he had won either Texas or Ohio in March, and even having muffed all those chances, even if he had won Pennsylvania recently -- he would have knocked Hillary out. He has underperformed in the crunch. Hillary, by contrast, has shown the remarkable stamina and ability to bounce back from repeated defeats and keep coming on strong.

This is such a self-contradictory analysis. It's a presidential primary race! In a party whose primary delegate allocation system makes it very difficult for someone to take a quick, easy lead. The proportional allocation system pretty well guarantees that in a two-person race in which the core constituencies of the two candidates are different, there will be some see-sawing between them as the race progresses through states in different regions, with different demographics. Sometimes (most often) Barack has been on a roll, has been able to win a series of contests. Sometimes, though infrequently, that momentum has shifted temporarily over to Hillary.

Both of them have had wins followed by losses; both of them have thus been unable to "close the deal," because the other candidate came back stronger in a subsequent contest with different voters.  
Why is it that when this happens to Obama, it's called being "unable to close the deal," but when it happens to Clinton the narrative is that  Hillary has been able to come out with fists swinging and snatch victory from Barack's grasp?  Neither of them has "closed the deal"; all that means is that the contest is still going on.  If that signifies inadequacy in any candidate, it would be Clinton, because she has "failed to close the deal" by about 175 more delegates than Obama has failed to close it by.

I know this is all moot from a big-picture perspective; BHO has the nomination sewn up. But I'm pretty sure we're going to be hearing the "can't close the deal" yammering for the next couple days after today's WV results, so I'm posting this to help inoculate my brain against taking their idiocy seriously. Join with me in letting it just roll on by . . . .