The functional problem with both identity and confessional politics is that they make no room for compromise. When your position on any given question grows mainly out of your ethnicity or your spiritual convictions, there's no way to meet the other guy halfway without ceasing, in some essential way, to be yourself. In other words, compromise is suicide.

It's a hopeful trend, therefore, when polls show significant numbers of young Latinos eager to step across traditional ethnic dividing lines to vote for Sen. Barack Obama.

Apparently, there were problems statewide with voters gaining access to the polls, according to the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU-NJ), which reported that Hudson County, of which Jersey City is the county seat, was a special case. Even Gov. Jon Corzine was unable to vote at his Hudson County polling place in Hoboken because of problems with the voting machines, according to ACLU-NJ Executive Director Deborah Jacobs, and was not offered a provisional ballot, as required by the state's election law. Instead, Jacobs wrote in a press release, Corzine was sent to another polling place. "When both advocates and members of the press called the Hudson County Superintendent of Elections to ask about Gov. Corzine's experience," according to the press release, "staff members hung up on them."

While Obama has clearly caught up to, and perhaps passed, Clinton in the battle for the nomination, they continue to have complementary strengths and weaknesses. To win in November, Obama is going to have do much much better among the white working class--one can assume that he would get Clinton's female voters just as she would get his African American voters. Clinton, on other hand, looks very shaky among white men. There remains a question, too, whether the young voters and independents who have flocked to Obama's banner would vote for her in the fall.

With Mr. Obama closing in on her steadily, it is essential for Mrs. Clinton to defeat him decisively on Super Tuesday. Anything less than a crushing victory will allow the race to continue throughout February and well into March, and that will almost certainly prove fatal. After Super Tuesday, the race will shift back towards the sort of state-by-state retail politics that characterised the early primaries, allowing Mr. Obama to play to his ability to fire up the crowds at huge rallies that resemble rock-concerts more than conventional politics. The buzz that surrounds him will grow, neutralising Mrs. Clinton's greatest advantage, which is the fact that people feel they know a lot more about her.