Reading the tea leaves, guessing at Clinton’s future

June 2, 2008

The political world is watching closely for any kind of hints about what Hillary Clinton and her campaign are poised to do, if anything. Drop out? Suspend? Endorse? Drop out and not endorse? Fight on to the convention?

There are probably only a handful of people who really know for sure what’s going to happen, but there are plenty of items bouncing around, generating scuttlebutt. For every item pointing in one direction, there’s another suggesting the opposite.

For example, Bill Clinton sounded rather wistful on the campaign trail today…

Could this be Bill Clinton’s last day on the stump this campaign season? The former president seemed to signal that his time on the trail was drawing to a close at a campaign event in South Dakota Monday.

“This may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind,” he said…. “I thought I was out of politics, until Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president,” Clinton also said.

…but the campaign said the remarks have been misinterpreted.

Mr. Clinton, aides said, was referring to the end of the primary season — there are no remaining places for him to campaign for his wife — and did not attempt to foreshadow her departure.

The Huffington Post’s Tom Edsall has heard that Clinton’s event in NYC tomorrow sets the stage for a departure…

Hillary Clinton has summoned top donors and backers to attend her New York speech tomorrow night in an unusual move that is being widely interpreted to mean she plans to suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama.

Obama and Clinton spoke Sunday night and agreed that their staffs should begin negotiations over post-primary activities, according to reliable sources…. Earlier in the day it was reported that Clinton staffers were being urged by the campaign’s finance department “to turn in their outstanding expense receipts by the end of the week,” another sign that the run at the White House was nearing an end.

…but Clinton aides deny this, too.

ABC News is highlighting a thin schedule…

An email went out to all advance staffers of Sen. Hillary Clinton telling them there are no events on the candidate’s schedule beyond Wednesday remarks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference.

The email told staffers this was not goodbye but there were no plans beyond Wednesday for now.

…but this doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll be done. With no more primaries or caucuses, it means she just doesn’t have anywhere else to go right now.

I noted this morning that Clinton and Terry McAuliffe seemed rather anxious yesterday to tell reporters about efforts to flip Obama superdelegates. This certainly doesn’t sound like a campaign poised to wrap things up.

At this point, your guess is as good as mine.

Could we all wait for the last precint to close before we start this?

Nah, never too soon I suppose.

  • Now this is molehill politics at its worst. I suggest the pundits and reporters who are doing this go out and volunteer in a food kitchen or something useful with their time.

    The only thing the suspense is killing is time.

  • Among the five stages of grief, with luck, Clinton is moving out of the anger stage (i.e. “I won the popular vote…dammit.”) and into the bargaining stage.

    Perhaps she’s envisioning the supers committing to Obama in large numbers on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and would be embarrassed about such movement if she hadn’t already ended her campaign. Mere speculation. Who knows what goes through her mind these days?

    With luck.

  • No events scheduled after Wednesday? What about McCain? He’s Hillary’s next opponent. Right?

    Hillary had no strategy after Super Tuesday. It’s fair to assume that she has no strategy after tomorrow. I hope the tea-leaf readers are right. It actually makes a lot of sense for her to “suspend” her campaign now. All it takes to continue wooing superdelegates is a telephone.

    Obama is acting like the nominee, running against McCain and ignoring Hillary after giving her a few compliments. Just as he should.

  • Among the five stages of grief, with luck, Clinton is moving out of the anger stage (i.e. “I won the popular vote…dammit.”) and into the bargaining stage.

    I believe the argument that she somehow won the popular vote is technically the denial stage.

  • No one has been more vocal than me about Hillary Clinton campaign’s egregious behavior throughout the course of the primary season. But this is her opportunity to make amends in a big way. The ball is in her court… and we’ll see what she chooses to do with it.

  • Once again, Obama is losing ground and “limping” toward the finish line.

    http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/

    ARG which did very well predicting recent primary outcomes has found that Obama leads in the polls against Clinton in Montana by 48%-44%, 8% undecided.

    I would have thought this would be more in his favor, but it gets worse for Obama. They have him losing to Clinton in S. Dakota 34%-60%, 6% undecided.

    That’s just for starters, the real problem lies in the number of folks who say they will NEVER vote for Obama.

    Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama 56% to 39% among men (46% of likely Democratic primary voters). Among women, Clinton leads 63% to 29%.

    Clinton leads 57% to 38% among voters age 18 to 49 (46% of likely Democratic primary voters) and Clinton leads 63% to 30% among voters age 50 and older.

    11% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary and 27% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Barack Obama in the primary.

    This is troubling to say the least, and guess what.. Obamabots cannot say this is just some Appalachian phenomenon, S. Dakota was supposed to be a win for Obama.

  • Wow…..to be a fly on the wall when Hillary heard what Bill had to say…..he sure has a way of stealing her thunder.

    Often it seemed that Obama was campaigning against two opponents – Hillary and Bill. Seems like Hillary might have been campaigning against two opponents also….Barack and Bill.

  • “This may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind…. I thought I was out of politics, until Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president.” — Bill Clinton

    Let’s hope this is the last time he is involved in a presidential campaign. The last thing Obama needs is Bill Clinton running around the country improvising his own version of the campaign message.

    Maybe Obama can wrangle an invitation from Hef for Bill to stay at the Mansion until after the election.

  • If she stays in and negatively impacts Obama’s campaign against McBush, all I can say is – you think Democrats hate Nader? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

  • Perhaps people will even quit threatening a McCain win…nah, it would be easier to stop beating their spouses.

    A man wins a brand new car in a give away and all his friends gather around him and tell him how lucky and fortunate he is to which the man responds, “We’ll see”.

    While the man was out motoring around town he was hit by a tractor trailer truck which totaled the car and seriously injured him putting him in the hospital. His friends gathered around him to tell him how horrible it was and what an unfortunate event had befallen him to which the man replied, “We’ll see”.

    The next evening while he was still in the hospital there was an earthquake and the man’s home slid over a cliff in a mud slide. Had he been home sleeping in his bed he most certainly would have been killed his friends informed him the next day while telling him how lucky he was to have been in the hospital to which the man replied, “We’ll see”.

    That’s about all that can be said at this point about Clinton’s plans…We’ll see.

  • 11% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary and 27% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Barack Obama in the primary.

    This is utterly meaningless in the context of the general election.

    How many voters (dem, GOP, ind ) would never vote for HRC

    You can’t win the GE by appealing to partisan democrats.

  • I think she’ll suspend and keep a minimal operation going to lobby delegates, both super and pledged, declared and uncommitted. Not sure how she’s going to get all the attention she craves while playing under the radar, but I’m sure she’ll come up with a few zingers and the TeeVee will be all too happy to cover them.

  • But Greggy, you’re aaaaaaaaalways telling us red states don’t matter because we can’t win them in the general. Do they suddenly matter when Clinton wins primaries there?

    Seriously, I was surprised to see the ARG results on SD earlier today. That state hasn’t had a poll since mid-April and I thought Obama was ahead. Still, whatever happens tomorrow won’t change the nomination. I’m afraid that as much as you wanted your guy McCain to run against Hillary, and lord knows you worked hard to that end, he’s going to be running against Obama. Take some time to grieve and move on, son.

  • beep at 16, I think that’s about right. However, she’d still need to keep herself very much in the public eye (supers aren’t voting for her anyway, and they’re really not going to pay attention to her once she’s out of general view) and to keep the never-say-die group of supporters whipped into a foaming frenzy.

    To do that, she needs to make appearances and hold rallies, which cost money. Which she doesn’t have. Which she can’t get. So I think she’ll suspend because that’s about all she can do now other than drop out, but I think she’s going to be surprised at how quickly she drops largely and permanently out of view.

  • Given what a bad campaign she’s run–peopled by rats, divided into factions, schizophrenic in both strategy and approach–the mixed messages shouldn’t be surprising. That’s what poorly run organizations do.

  • 11% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary and 27% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Barack Obama in the primary. -ARG cite from Greg

    Greg,

    I’m not sure what this is supposed to tell us. I think you’re trying to make the leap from that statistic to the general election. It clearly says primary, and nothing indicates that people who don’t consider Obama their choice tomorrow won’t find him acceptable in November. You also failed to point out that those numbers are practically transposed for Montana:

    26% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary and 15% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Barack Obama in the primary.

    They’re still equally meaningless, but sound far less ominous for Obama. Call me an ‘Obamabot’ all you like, at least I’m not concern trolling cherry picked, meaningless data.

  • Too many rumors aflutter for there not to be something afoot…

    Shhh…no one’s supposed to know about Terry McCaullife having those missing Iraqi WMDs in the back of the campaign bus!

  • Greg: I gotta hand it to you, you win the all-time prixe for Most Pathetic Mouth-Breathing Bozo Ever in American Politics. I mean, you even take the prize from people at Red State, Townhall and The Corner!!!

    I bet you’ll be telling us she won on Wednesday, November 5.

  • Excuse me doubtful, but was Clinton ever predicted to win Montana? From every analysis I’ve heard, Obama was supposed to win S. Dakota though. She has already won Indiana which he was predicted to win.

    My point was that it looks like he is going to lose by close to the same margins he lost in KY, WV, PR in a state he was supposed to win in, despite this NOT being an Appalachian state.

    Maria, laugh all you want but a whole lot of Clinton supporters will not be supporting Obama in November. I’ll vote for Obama if he is the nominee, but I live in Florida so it won’t matter much because he is going to lose here BIG.

  • Greg, don’t get your hopes up about those ARG polls. Polling whiz Poblano over at Kos compared the predictions of major polling outfits with the results, and ARG didn’t look too good:

    ARG. They have a track record of rolling out some polls that are completely different from anybody else in the race, and when they do, they are almost always wrong. For example, there were 10 instances in the 2004 Presidential race where ARG turned out a poll that was at least 4 points different from the average of other pollsters:

    Connecticut. ARG: Kerry up 15. Average: Kerry up 9. Actual: Kerry up 10. ARG was way off.
    Maine. ARG: Kerry up 4. Average: Kerry up 10. Actual: Kerry up 8. Other pollsters were slightly closer.
    Michigan: ARG: Kerry up 8. Average: Kerry up 4. Actual: Kerry up 3. Other pollsters were much better.
    Montana: ARG: Kerry down 28. Average Kerry down 21. Actual: Kerry down 20. ARG was way off here.
    North Carolina: ARG: Kerry down 5. Average: Kerry down 9. Actual: Kerry down 14. Again, several pollsters missed high, but ARG had no business having Kerry this close.
    Oklahoma: ARG: Kerry down 17. Average: Kerry down 32. Actual: Kerry down 32. Other polls were spot on, ARG missed by a ton.
    Rhode Island: ARG: Kerry up 28. Average: Kerry up 13. Actual: Kerry up 21. Both were way off, although this is the one case where including ARG would have helped your average.
    West Virginia: ARG: TIE. Average: Kerry down 7. Actual: Kerry down 13. No idea how they got a tie out of this one.

    As you can see, when a poll looks like an outlier, it almost always is, especially when the pollster is ARG or Zogby.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/26/172522/92/503/426639

  • Excuse me doubtful, but was Clinton ever predicted to win Montana? -Greg

    I have no idea what predictions have to do with extrapolating primary data to the general election, which you were clearly trying to do.

    I also have no idea what predictions have to do with cherry picking doom and gloom numbers from one state while ignoring contrary evidence from another state.

    She has already won Indiana which he was predicted to win. -Greg

    Courtesy of Rush Limbaugh. That’s why such a significant amount of Hillary voters said they’d not support her in the general in Indiana’s exit polls. That’s a narrow win I’d hardly be bragging about if I were you.

    I don’t care what you say your point is now. You commented thusly:

    That’s just for starters, the real problem lies in the number of folks who say they will NEVER vote for Obama.

    Then cited data that did not support your claim. Then you got called out on it, which hit a nerve from the looks of your, uh, “rebuttal.”*

    * It’s in quotes, because you really didn’t argue against me. You made a whole new point and tried to play it off as your original point. It’s insulting you think so little of the other commenters to assume we’d fall for that.

  • Bill Clinton has been right on every single issue in this race.
    You don´t like him. That is your privilege.
    History will show how to the point and accurate his comments where.

    That is a fact.

    And I wrote an editorial to support Hillary

    Hillary Clinton –Editorial. The Guatemala Times. 5.27.08
    Link: http://www.guatemala-times.com/editorials/editorial/95-barbara-schieber/223-i-am-proud-to-be-a-woman.html
    I am proud to be a woman today because of Hillary Clinton
    Being a woman is a complicated issue in modern society. Being a man is also complicated. The roles, the definitions, the expectations, the responsibilities and opportunities have all very dramatically changed over a relatively short period of time.

    A very unforgiving example of what is expected of a woman in modern society can be observed in politics.
    The race for the nomination of the presidency of the United States of America of the Democratic Party has been extraordinary. For the first time a woman and a black American are candidates. Obama already has changed the political landscape of the USA forever, no matter what. I admire his guts.

    Hillary Clinton has been in public life for 35 years. The Press, both left and rightwing have covered her in an unforgiving and very critical manner. I remember her and Bill Clintons achievements during their 8 year stay in the White House and her presence in the US Senate. I know about her role in opening very important economic and political resources for woman’s health and gender issues in general. A lot of people and especially women seem to have amnesia, they do not remember that is was a peaceful and prosperous time, as well as hopeful and filled with energy and possibilities for the future.

    Hillary was key to the allocation of resources and formulation of new policies from the World Bank, IBD, and endless other institutions all through the world to improve women’s lives and positions in all societies.

    Hillary does not only talk, Hillary acts, decisively and effectively. I know too many people who just talk and never do anything. I know too many people who make a very good and comfortable living writing about poverty and other social issues, but they never do anything to change them, to improve them.

    During the Lewinsky scandal I was living in Washington DC. There was not one media outlet that didn’t cover the story every single day, 24 hours a day. It was disgusting, revolting and it showed the media at its worst.

    The funny thing is that Bill Clinton’s approval rating where great when he left office, in spite of the republican media machine and the left-wingers self-righteous behavior, and the pure greed of the media in general.
    Lesson learned: the media does not reflect the sentiment of the American people, the media just goes after ratings and their own agendas.

    I have been comparing the coverage of the media on all candidates on diverse outlets in the US and in the world.

    It is sad, but true that the main words how the media describes Hillary are: she is not likable, she is hard, the ominous Clinton machine. If she wears pink she is accused of playing to be feminine and to use the gender card. If she dresses in somber black she is accused of not being feminine enough and to imitate men. If she fights, she is seen as “going negative” and running a dirty campaign. If she doesn’t fight, they say she has to do something and suggest she goes negative. When she wins it is: “barely”, “in spite of”, “a narrow win”, “people still don’t like her” – well, who is voting for her then?

    If you read The Huffington Post, a left wing media outlet financed by moveon.org -Soros, you feel that you want to vomit. What they have been publishing for the last 15 months, and the comments of the readers are beyond bias and beyond anything anti- ethical I have seen so far. If your read Politico.com, transcripts form CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNMB news shows, it is the same story.

    The language that the political pundits, commentators and reader use when they address Hillary as a candidate is biased, unfair and condescending. If that is not good old sexism, then what is?

    Has Hillary given up? No. Has she lost her cool? No. Has she inspired women to fight their own fights no matter what? Yes. Has she lived up to our expectations? Yes. Is she a winner no matter what? Yes. Has she earned the respect of the most arrogant and impolite news anchors? Yes, even when they do not want to admit it.

    But here we go again, a women always has to prove she is good enough, smart enough, tough enough, resilient enough, (according to what rules?) and only if she survives that grueling test, then maybe, just maybe, she gets a fair chance.

    It does not matter to me if she wins the nomination or not. She has already won.
    For the USA I wish she would be elected President, not because she is a women, but because she is the most intelligent and accomplished candidate, and she knows how to solve problems. She has done it all her adult live.

    If someone calls me a racist because I admire and write about Hillary Clinton, go ahead, I can take it. I am not a racist. I am a woman.

  • For a textbook example of denial, take a gander at any one of Greg’s posts.

    Obama “closed the deal” in Wisconsin. The rest has been one big exercise in futility.

  • History will show how to the point and accurate his comments where.

    That is a fact.

    Unless you’re communicating with us from the year 3000, that is an opinion.

  • At this point, your guess is as good as mine.

    And therein lies the problem. Step back for 30 seconds and imagine an administration that sends out the kind of conflicting messages we’re getting right now. Now imagine living with that for four years. Imagine what the Republicans would do in the face of such disorganization and mixed messages. Imagine what shape the country would be in.

    This campaign has gone completely off the rails. They blew an insurmountable lead on every level to an upstart. The Republicans haven’t even begun to start on her. And it’s not even 3:00 a.m.

    No more drama. The world can’t take it.

  • I think this is a very important analysis of the campaign successes of the two candidates:

    http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/6/2/164613/9413

    It explains why people are worried about Obama’s ability to win in the Fall and why Clinton has been so persistent. It also explains why there hasn’t been a rush of superdelegates to Obama — they understand the problem raised by these numbers.

    Basically, the link talks about the imbalance in representation between caucuses and primaries and the fact that Clinton’s delegates have come from large population blue states with primaries while Obama’s have come from small population red states with caucuses. Obama, by their count, has only 40% of the electoral college votes needed to win going into the Fall election, and that is problematic. Clinton’s victories in blue states give her 100 electoral college votes beyond what would be needed to win, suggesting she would easily win in the Fall. This is a different calculus than simply comparing poll numbers, since it takes into account the realities of the electoral college system and the distribution of votes by states. Obama is not going to win.

    You can waste breath arguing that Obama is going to magically win Clinton’s blue states in the Fall, but what reason is there to believe that? He has demonstrated no ability to appeal to those voters and in fact, a larger % of Clinton voters in exit polls show strong resistance to voting for Obama than Obama voters do to voting for Clinton. There is typically at least a 10 point difference, working against Obama. The unfairnesses shown to Clinton at the rules committee make unity less likely and hurt his chances even more. Why on earth should we take a chance on Obama learning how to win in blue states when we already know that Clinton can do so? Where is the fairness in choosing our weakest candidate for this race? That is what the superdelegates are pondering, if they have any rational thought left in their heads.

  • beep52, why should she suspend her campaign when there are no more primaries? It would be a symbolic gesture only, and what could it symbolize that would be helpful to her cause? She will either quit or stay in and I believe it is the latter, based on other reports I’ve been hearing (from non-Obama favoring webpages) and the denials of all these silly news items by her staff.

  • Several outlets (CNN, AP) and a few of the blogs are now reporting/linking that “most” of the still-uncommitted Dems in the Senate (17 in all) will commit to Obama later this week—and that they’re holding off to allow her a “grace period” to do the right thing.

    Obama’s countdown to 2,117 is now at 40.5 (DemConWatch).

    Reports also now indicate that all Clinton staff—and not just the advance staff—have been told to submit their final expense vouchers by Friday. And yes—the word final is being used

    The writing is on the wall, and I think it’s the money issue. She’s so wrapped up in debt that, in order to fly her “kamikaze sink” strategy to the Convention, it’ll take the entire balance of her personal fortune.

    Then, there’s 2012. She certainly won’t dare to challenge a sitting Dem President, and she WILL have to face some serious competiton for that Senate seat the next time around—from angry Dems in the primary who have long memories, and from back-to-the-wall, wounded-wild-critter GOPers who will be “desperately desperate” for any victory at all after the shellackings of 2006, 2008, and 2010.

    I’m not going to hold my breath—but this morning, everything looked like she was stripping down for a last, lean-n-mean suicide run at the nomination. Now, I’m not so sure that she’s got it in her to make that kind of a jihadist, all-or-nothing commitment. She just isn’t coming across with that “It’s-a-good-day-to-die” dedication that’s needed to do such a thing….

  • Mary,

    I took this post as a response to my question on another thread about where your certainties about Obama come from, and I read the document linked to.

    1. If the superdelegates aren’t thinking about who is the most likely candidate to win in November and have as broad a set of coat-tails as possible, they’re not doing their job, regardless of whether they’re laying awake at night worrying about “fairness” — whatever that means.

    2. The analysis presented in the paper linked to is far less conclusive than you seem to believe. For example, it’s basically all about the “fairness” of the caucus system and how it disadvantages certain people. Nowhere is it interested in producing the best candidate, which seems to me to be a problem, primary wise. Frankly, I am unconvinced by the extrapolation of caucus results to primary election results — using Kerry’s figures surely undercounts the independent vote, to give just one reason.

    I think your certainty is “in advance of the facts.”

  • beep52, why should she suspend her campaign when there are no more primaries?

    Because not suspending it means the Democrat is going to lose to McCain. You can argue that Clinton would be the better candidate against McCain if she had the next 5 months to campaign, but that isn’t going to happen because Obama is too far ahead for her to win without a protracted battle. And neither of them is going to win if they spend the next 3 months fighting each other and then try to unite the party against McCain for the last 2 months after the convention. Of course, you don’t care about that because you don’t want Obama to become President and don’t mind if Hillary sabotages him.

  • Charles, thank you for looking at the link. The Independents cannot be assumed to stay with Obama. Because there was no real race on the Republican side, there was no reason for them to vote in that primary, so their inclusion in the Dem voting may be an artifact. Despite posturing, Obama is the more conservative of the two candidates running and thus the one most likely to be selected by cross-overs or Independents (people with no firm and loyal attachment to the Democratic party by definition). When it comes to a choice between a conservative and a liberal, those with an inherently conservative bent and going to select the conservative. The contrast between Obama and McCain will drive them that direction. If they didn’t have such leanings, they would alredy be Democrats. That’s why you cannot count on the independents in the fall. If Obama runs to the right, as he may decide to try to do, he will have difficulty bringing in the Clinton supporters and estranged progressives, as he must do in order to win, and I think he will still lose the Independents because he still won’t be conservative enough for them. All of this assumes they weren’t voting for him in the first place in order to mess with the Democrats nomination process.

  • Shalimar, Clinton’s actions are having no impact on the exchanges between McCain and Obama and her staying or going would have no impact either. She is not affecting the election by staying in at this point. Obama cannot be nominated until the convention, whether Clinton stays or goes, and Obama is doing exactly what he would be doing anyway, if Clinton had left the race.

  • For the most part, the South Dakota primary is meaningless, no matter the outcome.

    With one exception.

    If Obama loses, his top “kitchen cabinet” advisor, Mr. Daschle suddenly loses a lot of cache. If he can’t deliver his home state when Obama had once been leading there, the likelihood of his snagging a major position in the administration drops precipitously.

  • Mary,

    The problem is that in the modern era, political conventions aren’t what they once were. They are, and long have been, a very sophisticated product launch. Absent something wholly unforseen, Obama is our “product.”

    The Republican convention will be tightly scripted and designed for the sole purpose of introducing McCain to the general public in the best possible way just as they are starting to pay real attention.

    If we are unable to do the same, because Clinton hangs around and makes the planning, negotiation, packaging etc difficult, we start out at a big disadvantage to the Republicans – it amounts to spotting McCain about 5-points in national head-to-head polls.

    It would be a silly risk for the party to take to let that happen. The convention has a single purpose – kicking off a general election campaign. Every Democrat of any party loyalty at all needs to help ensure that it can serve that purpose to its very best. Anything else is, in any real-world sense, pro-McCain.

  • Mary,

    I’m sorry, but your analysis is filled with assertions for which you have no evidence.

    In fact, it piles one baseless assertion on top of another in a logical house of cards. It is wishful thinking — in a negative sense.

    I’m in fact an independent (I stopped considering myself a Democrat in 1972, although I register as a Democrat so I can participate in primaries — when they’re held: this is a caucus state, and my vote was not counted), and I find your analysis of my voting hilarious.

    I no longer have a firm attachment to the Democratic party because its leadership has, increasingly, run people on the basis of their longevity in the party, on their relationship to past high-ranking Democrats, and on identity politics, and I find it disheartening.

  • Mary… Your concept of fairness seems limited to getting what YOU want. Obama has won a majority of pledeged delegates. He is leading in the popular vote. All thats left is for the remaining superdelegates to make their decisions. If they want to choose Clinton, then so be it. It’s their decision, they can select whatever candidate they please. If they select Obama, then again, so be it. Either way, the rules would have been followed, and the outcome fair. If you don’t like it, then please, get out of our party. If you are not going to support our nominee then we don’t want you. We don’t need you.

    It looks as if Obama will win, and therefore we will choose between him and McCain. If the American electorate looks at these two candidates and choose McCain, then we deserve what we get. We deserve another term of Bush-like policies.

    Again, this is not the Clinton party, this is the democratic party. It looks as if we are going to nominate Barack Obama, so either get on board, or leave us alone.

  • Clearly, Mary rejects the political implications of just how disastrous the Bush administration has been for the conservative side of the American aisle—and how equally-disastrous (if not more so) a McMaybe presidency would be for that same side of the political spectrum.

    But just as clearly, Mary also forgets her History. A certain Mr. Arnold once turned his back on his allegiances to the American Colonies and the Revolutionary Movement, embracing instead the offer of a place of power and prestige within the realm of a certain George Rex III of England. Just as the British found his treason distasteful (Arnold died penniless and shunned), so too does the name Clinton now find itself in a reasonably-similar position, due to those many loyal citizens and their long memories of the sell-out of Progressive values and ideals “triangulation” of 1992-2000.

    It is important to note—at this point, and throughout the fall campaign—that McMaybe offers nothing more than a stay-the-course rerun of KG43’s insanities and crimes. He offers old, cold leftovers from the refrigerator—and those leftovers have been reserved, reheated, and excessively seasoned (to hide the scent and taste of spoilage) to the point that they are neither palatable nor digestible. A good many conservatives who could never vote for Clinton, but also do not desire a McMaybe presidency, see in Obama a third option. They’ve been inundated for decades by the two mere choice of “eat what you’re given, or go hungry.”

    Obama offers them an alternative to that scenario—and whether Mary wants to acknowledge that option or not, it is there for the people to choose.

    And they, regardless of what the multitude of Marys would limit them to—a rancid repast from the stay-the-course refrigerator, or the pangs of status-quo-inflicted hunger—have chosen that third option.

    They shall know hunger for change no more….

  • You can waste breath arguing that Obama is going to magically win Clinton’s blue states in the Fall, but what reason is there to believe that?

    Latest polls of Obama vs. McCain in “Clinton’s blue states” (Pollster.com)

    California, Obama wins 52-35
    New York, Obama wins 52-33
    Mass., Obama wins 51-38
    New Jersey, Obama wins 48-40
    Penn., Obama wins 46-40

    Looks like plenty of reason to believe that.

  • If Clinton quits, I will quit supporting her.

    Mark, thank you for the explanation. It saddens me to see a democratic process become a marketing process, much as it saddened me to see the rules and bylaws committee set aside principles, set aside rules, in order to help crown Obama. I’ve generally had more faith that people in groups, with a public spotlight upon them, will do the right thing. They failed, and that saddens me. Perhaps that’s why so few people watch the conventions any more.

    I watched Recount and saw Al Gore bow to the realization that he was right but wasn’t going to win. I think Hillary Clinton is in the same position. It should shame a lot of people that they have created such a situation, analogous to the manuvering of the Republicans in FL, but I doubt it will. The people who behave this way are generally proud of themselves for being sharp operators. I see that here now and that saddens me too, because I have always thought of Democrats as different than Republicans.

    Charles, my analysis contained generalization — it was not meant to be true for every single person in the groups I was generalizing about. I didn’t make up that stuff — it comes from other people’s analyses.

  • From Mary:

    It should shame a lot of people that they have created such a situation, analogous to the manuvering of the Republicans in FL, but I doubt it will.

    Um, no. You are comparing apples to oranges. Your Hillary blinders are truly dulling your ability to be objective about anything having to do with elections.

    The Florida and Michigan Democratic parties CHOSE to move their primaries up AGAINST PARTY RULES and they KNEW THE PUNISHMENT FOR BREAKING those rules. They had an active hand in creating this situation. The candidates SIGNED PLEDGES agreeing to THE RULES. People voted KNOWING that their votes would not be counted– a lot of people didn’t bother to vote because the VOTERS KNEW ALL OF THIS AT THE TIME.

    I understand that giving Florida and Michican half delegates might be upsetting– but this is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like 2000. Florda and Michigan democratic parties DISENFRANCHISED THEIR OWN VOTERS. More importantly, OBAMA IS NOT TO BLAME. In fact, the DNC is not to blame. The FL and MI parties should be held accountable for creating this situation.

    All that being said, I’d be far more sympathetic to Hillary’s concern about seating Florida and Michigan’s delegates IF SHE SAID SOMETHING BEFORE. You know, when this decision was actually made, back when she signed a pledge to not campaign in states that go against DNC rules. Her caring about it so late in the game makes her appear to only care when she has something to get out of it. As far as I know there is no record of her whatsoever having a problem with this– if anything her defense of why she kept her name on the Michigan ballot was because “it didn’t count anyways.”

    Feel free to disagree with how the DNC orders their primaries. In fact, I hope there is a huge review and revision of some of these rules before 2012 so that this doesn’t happen again. State parties should not have the power to disenfranchise their own voters.

    However, the bottom line is that all the candidates agreed to the rules at the beginning of the game. No one complained about the rules BEFORE. Demanding that the rules change during the game to change your personal odds is also known as CHEATING.

  • Hillary has shown time and time again that her judgment is poor, i.e., her mismanaged campaign, her mismanaged husband, her mismanaged staff, her miscalculations, her misspeaks continually ………….

    Let go and let the party come together as a united front. The forces that have driven this country apart for the past eight years must be stopped & swept from the White House … it’s time to step down and encourage your supporters to support the Democratic party. We NEED to win the Whitehouse back. Our country can’t take another 4 years of Bush which is what we’ll get with McSame.

    When will this end. Enough already, Hillary. ENOUGH!!!!

  • 46. On June 3rd, 2008 at 12:24 am, Lexi Levy said:
    Hillary has shown time and time again that her judgment is poor, …..

    Let go and let the party come together as a united front.
    *****************
    Lexi,
    You spent the first part of your post showing what poor judgement Hillary has. I must note that you didn’t state the poor judgement Obama showed to stay in Rev Wright’s church for 20 years.
    Having criticized Hillary, you then have the nerve to say “let the party come together united”. United my eye. I wouldn’t vote for that slime ball if he were the last one standing. And, you arrogant nasty supporters of his won’t see him in the white house either, because it will be McCain.
    So, do you tell your mom often how much you care right after you kick her under the bus?

  • I wouldn’t vote for that slime ball if he were the last one standing.

    So G—go vote for McMaybe until you’re blue in the face, for all the Party cares. Or sit on your worthless hide on election day, and do nothing. The Party can unite without you, and the Party can attain victory beyond its wildest dreams in November—again, without you.

    Have you ever read any of Wright’s sermons? Have you ever listened to them in their entirety? Have you ever examined the context in which the man said, “God damn America?”

    No?

    Then the depth of your moronic, holier-than-thou stupidity is matched only by the callous, shallow, infinitesimal value you hold for the United States of America itself .

  • It should shame a lot of people that they have created such a situation, analogous to the manuvering of the Republicans in FL, but I doubt it will.

    The Republicans in Florida? Weren’t they the ones who called their supporters out to protest and harass the election officials? Weren’t they the ones who threw a tantrum in their “Brooks Brothers riot”?

    Hmm, that does seem analogous to one of the camps in the Democratic primary, but I don’t think it’s the one you’re thinking of.

    And yes, they really should feel shame over creating this situation, but I doubt they will.

  • Zoe, if you had watched the entire proceedings on CSPAN, as I did, you would have learned something about the situation and wouldn’t be stuck with a bunch of misinformation. First, FL did not decide to go early. They were forced to do so by their Republican state legislature and governor. Second, Obama did sign a pledge, as did Clinton, but Obama violated it by running ads in national and adjacent broadcast markets in FL, so he did not honor his pledge. Third, Obama tried to outsmart the pledge in MI by taking his name off the ballot (something not required) and collaborating with 3 other candidates in a campaign for “uncommitted” with advertising and other media and active campaigning. It was his choice to take his own name off the ballot and he deliberately did so. He also circumvented the no-campaigning pledge. Third, the voters of the states of FL and MI wanted to have their votes reinstated. Of course Clinton supported them — they have good reasons for wanting their votes to count. Those states brought the appeals, not the campaigns. Those states argued the appeals, along with statements by each of the remaining candidates. Fourth, as noted by former MI governor (and concurred to by present MI governor), no one at the time of the primary told MI voters that their votes were not going to count. There was an active get out the vote campaign, including media, in addition to the active “uncommitted” campaign urging people to go vote. The claim that voter turnout was suppressed was unsupported by the numbers of people showing up at the polls in both MI and FL. Further, if there was suppressed voting for Obama, there was probably also suppressed voting for Clinton too. These are all facts that were presented during the testimony at the hearing.

    Here is where Obama did the wrong thing. Clinton handily won both primaries. Obama tried to minimize the impact of reinstating the votes in FL by confining them to .5 instead of full voting. That cut Clinton’s lead in delegates in half for FL and cost her 19 delegates. The committee vote was 3 short of the number needed to reinstate the state in full, largely due to Obama’s lobbying of the committee members. This act made no sense, since FL did nothing wrong and did not deserve or need to be punished for something done by the Republicans, outside their control. This decision to cut their votes to .5 was done solely to benefit Obama. In MI, the actions were even more blatant. Not only did they award all of the “uncommitted” votes to Obama despite the 3 others (Edwards, Richardson, Biden) who campaigned with him as “uncommitted,” but they took 4 votes away from Clinton and awarded them to Obama. There was no precedent for doing this and no basis for it. This supposed compromise was brokered by Dems behind the scenes and the logic and math behind it were never clearly stated except that it would bring “unity.” It violates the Dem party charter to take votes by committee from one candidate and award them to another, especially one who was not on the ballot by his own choice. The wrongness of that act boggles the mind. This too was done to help Obama’s campaign, not for any reason that makes any kind of sense. It was possible only because Obama had sufficient support on the committee to make it happen.

    It would be nice to think that Obama has won his nomination fair and square, but these sorts of dirty dealings show that it just didn’t happen that way. This stuff is more troubling because, if Obama has a groundswell of support, it is entirely unnecessary to subvert the process in order to ensure his victory. It should leave a dirty taste in everyone’s mouth — but to YOUR shame, it obviously does not. Zoe — you should have watched the proceedings and then you’d know why I am upset about it.

  • Mary, factually you are simply wrong that FL was all the fault of the Republicans – tell me exactly how many Dems in the legislature voted against it?

    But even setting that aside, no matter who is at fault, do you really believe there should be no consequence for violating party rules? Why wouldn’t all states engage in endless leap-frogging if there were no penalty for doing so? how would the party ever have any control over its own nominating calendar? In the end, the DNC decided that its punishment was too harsh (and made to look even harsher by the fact that the RNC’s punishment was only to cut the delegations in half), and so the DNC amended the punishment to be more lenient and more in line with the RNC punishment.

    Doing so helped Clinton. While other scenarios may have helped Clinton even more, there can be no doubt that the MI/FL reconsideration helped Clinton as opposed to the pre-reconsideration status quo (no delegates at all).

    So explain again how this is a bad thing, even for you?

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