We believe: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s day in the sun is over. She needs to let Barack Obama take the Democratic presidential nomination.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has fought valiantly for the Democratic presidential nomination. She has campaigned hard and spread a message that has resonated with many voters here in Madison County and across the country.

The campaign — thanks to Clinton and her opponent, Barack Obama — has mobilized voters from Maine to California and everywhere in between. Many states, Indiana included, have had robust turnouts for voting. People who’ve never been involved in the political process have become campaign volunteers, and young adults have come out by the thousands to get involved.

But the time has come for Clinton to step aside. Obama needs about 170 more delegates to clinch the nomination. Clinton needs about 330. Given that delegates from state primaries — West Virginia (Tuesday), Kentucky and Oregon (May 20), and Montana, South Dakota (June 3) and Puerto Rico (June 7) remain — are generally split according to the popular vote, Clinton would need to garner about two-thirds of the ballots cast in the remaining states. That’s not going to happen.

Clinton has campaigned hard to win over superdelegates — public officials from the Democratic Party who can give their support without heeding the primary vote in their states. But the tide of superdelegates is turning against her, as well. Friday, at least three more SD’s, including at least one who had supported Clinton, stepped in line behind Obama.

While big names in the Democratic Party, including ex-Sen. George McGovern (a former Clinton supporter), have called for Clinton to capitulate, some have urged her to fight until mathematical elimination. That would be contrary to the health of the Democratic Party and to the health of the presidential election process itself.

To gain ground on Obama, Clinton must not only extoll her virtues as a candidate but create separation between herself and Obama by exploiting his weaknesses — any ill-conceived statement, his perceived inexperience, his former pastor. The more these blemishes are irritated, the greater the rift in the Democratic Party, and the weaker Obama becomes. With the Nov. 4 general election drawing near, the makeover must begin now.

Republicans have watched the Clinton-Obama scrap with glee, but it is becoming counterproductive to the overall election process. The country’s political system is built on a foundation of each party throwing its entire support behind a candidate. It’s healthy for our democracy to have two well-supported presidential candidates, rather than one (McCain) who has a unified party behind him and another (Obama) whose party is fractured.

If Clinton drops out now, Obama can get down to the business of consolidating his power base and choosing a running mate to shore up his disconnect with white blue-collar votes. If Clinton stays in the race, that disconnect — and others hindering the Obama campaign — will only grow.