32 Comments

huxley:

Seems more obvious to me that Hillary is still in the race because she chooses to.

She does so not just because she wants the presidency and wants it bad, but because Obama is poorly qualified, untested candidate with lots of dodgy connections, whose campaign could implode any day now. Obama’s frontrunning has much to do with the lazy vetting by the media.

Going strictly by the numbers what is indisputable is that neither candidate can win the nomination on their own–they must be selected by the superdelegates, who are not required to rubber stamp the popular vote or the delegate count in their decisions.

Huckabee was far behind McCain and the Republican primary process is not the crazy quilt of rules and exceptions that the Democrats have, so the Huckabee analogy is too flawed to bother with.

It’s going to be a mess however it turns out, but as long as Clinton stays in the race she does have a chance, and while she is in the race the media has no choice but to cover her campaign.

Mar 22, 2008 - 12:38 pm Wayne:

True, Clinton is behind Obama in the delegate count, but Obama still does not have enough to win. Clinton is most likely looking for superdelegate support when the shine comes off Obama, as it has already begun to do. That is what the undemocratic superdelegates are there for.

Mar 22, 2008 - 12:46 pm julie stipich:

It is selfish and self serving for Hillary to stay in the race at this point. Democrats need to rally behind the Democratic nominee, Obama, and focus now on winning back the White House.

Mar 22, 2008 - 12:49 pm julie stipich:

It is selfish and self serving for Hillary to stay in the race at this point. Democrats need to rally behind the Democratic nominee, Obama, and focus now on winning back the White House.

Mar 22, 2008 - 12:49 pm Herb Hoover:

Huxley and Wayne, thanks for parroting the GOP/Mark Penn talking points about Obama. It reminds us just how threatened and desperate the former first lady and her supporters are.

Game over corporate elite.

Mar 22, 2008 - 1:03 pm Carrie:

Hillary is still in the race because neither candidate will have enough delegates and the race will be decided by the superdelegates. She would be irresponsible not to stay in the race - especially since if Barack Obama gets more of the vetting he needs, he is likely to implode. And the vetting has just begun. I am counting on Hillary to stay in the race and win!

Mar 22, 2008 - 1:04 pm huxley:

Hoover — Thanks for parroting the brain-dead Kos-style “talking points” talking point. I’m a registered Democrat and I don’t read Mark Penn, whoever he is.

The facts remain that Obama is a poorly qualified, poorly vetted presidential candidate whose camapaign, as we saw this week, could implode any day now.

Mar 22, 2008 - 1:53 pm Herb Hoover:

Mark Penn is currently the former first lady’s chief campaign strategist. He’s the brilliant mind behind the myriad of cheap tactics, ploys, and other desperate maneuvers being used by the Clinton campaign. He may even be the mastermind behind the “buy me” yellow suit we’ve all come to enjoy watching Hillary stump in while on the campaign trail.

Mar 22, 2008 - 2:01 pm jesse:

The rest of Hillary’s 2008 race is a myth, deception and revenge. Unfortunately, that is not what Party politics is all about. Even if there were re-votes in FL and MI, she would not have won the nomination. She currently needs at least 64% of the remaining pledged- delegates. It is an insurmountable task for anyone to achieve. She has never won 5 races in a row. She is expected to LOSE in NC and Oregon but WIN in West Virginia, PA and Kentucky.

In terms of popular votes, she is 700,000 votes shy. The highest popular votes she has so far received were in New York and Arkansas. Even if she had the most popular votes, it would not matter. The first tie-breaker in the nomination process is the number of pledged delegates. Unless a candidate is caught with under garments down or dies, the Super delegates will simply award nomination to the candidate who has the most pledged delegates. Nancy Pelosi, the 2008 DNC Convention Chair has recently re-emphasized this point. What else do we need to know?

Hillary is not staying in the race because she is a fighter but to repay her financial losses and to vent out her anger against the wrong party which is her own. At the end of February, her debts were nearly $9 million. As a result, she has nearly doubled the volume of e-mail solicitations, showcases her Web site more at events and intensified online advertisements asking for small contributions.

Hillary needs to have an exit strategy after the PA primary especially, if she fails to win by 64% or donations dwindle down. Her current strategy is not good for her personally, Bill or her party. She has so far ruined the possibility for a Dream team. She is also diminishing possibilities for future presidential runs. She needs to blame the Republican Party that over the years has ruined her public image and creditability. Mostly it is a payback for her departure from the Republican Party, in her early political life.

She is in serious need of help to overcome the unfavorable result. This is where her peers including Bill Clinton are to step in and offer confidential counseling to heal her wounds and boost her morale. Bill should give precedence to the party that gave him presidency twice rather than the selfish ego of his wife. Hillary is seasoned politician but she has lately been politically reckless. The cause of Hillary’s failure is not her gender, Democratic members, the DNC process or Barack Obama but her lifetime political involvement that created a major negative machinery against her. No matter how optimistically you want to analyze it for Hillary, Obama will certainly end with a pledged-delegate lead and a nomination.

Mar 22, 2008 - 2:05 pm GHarri:

Hillary should go bye-bye. She can’t win without cheating, and if she does that, she can’t win the general. As her husband said to GWHB: It’s time to go. If she does it now, she’ll give Obama time to do what McCain is doing now: Find the best running mate, one who balances out any weaknesses and brings strength to the ticket. Here’s the best analysis about how it works that I’ve seen:
http://digits.hrblock.com/ssDigits/digits.php?rType=1&sPath=1140&sNode=1140&uId=198

Mar 22, 2008 - 3:05 pm FWalker:

I wish someone would ask Hillary if she would still consider Obama as a running mate.

Mar 22, 2008 - 5:24 pm Herb Hoover:

Governor Richardson knows what he’s doing. So does Chris Dodd. And soon, John Edwards and Al Gore will follow suit and get behind Barack Obama. They’re not following a man, they’re recognizing the parade. It’s not surprising that Hillary and her braintrust failed in this campaign. They ran it top down, while Obama ran a bottom up campaign and appealed to a broader, grass roots populace.

People like to paint Obama as an empty suit who talks about change but doesn’t specify what changes he’d make. All the while he runs a brilliant campaign composed of new and different strategies. The proof is in the pudding. If the question has to be asked, you aren’t going to get it anyway.

Mar 22, 2008 - 10:18 pm Rob:

How bizarre. What are we; Argentina. Why is this strange woman getting any traction at all running for President. Doesn’t anyone see how typical of the Clintons this end run around the Presidential 2 term limit tradition and law is??

Mar 23, 2008 - 6:12 am Harvey Levy:

There’s a very good reason Hillary is staying in the race - Obama can’t win a general election!! There are reports that indicate 20% of white working class Democrat voters will bolt to McCain if Obama is the nominee. Then forget Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.They’ll be red states come November and McCain will win in a landslide. An Obama bid for the presidency might even scare working class whites enough that a significant number will vote Republican in Congressional races. The scenario is way to scary for Democrats to risk running with Obama and I see a upcoming battle brewing for super delegates in the convention.

Mar 23, 2008 - 9:02 am Curly Smith:

Sadly, your two scenarios:

Obama would still lead in delegates by 1,632 to 1,589.

Clinton would then lead among pledged delegates, 1,777 to 1,757.

ignore the blindingly obvious — you need 2024 delegates, as currently structured, to win the Democratic nomination. Consequently, neither Obama nor Clinton can win the nomination without the Super Delegates.

The question isn’t “why should Clinton get out” but rather “why hasn’t Obama been able to win the nomination on his own”. Are you suggesting some sort of “Affirmative Action” for the nomination, that Obama just needs to accomplish 85% of what is normally expected? Why the concern over letting the process work as it’s designed to work? Or are you suggesting, like a good Democratic, that processes can continue to run only as long as they yield the outcomes that you desire?

Mar 23, 2008 - 9:04 am A. N. Pierson:

Aren’t you the guy who said that John McCain was about to drop out multiple times. Enough of the prognostication. It ain’t over ’til it’s over.

Mar 23, 2008 - 10:49 am Bruno:

The simple answer is that Hillary would prefer a McCain victory to an Obama victory. If McCain wins, Hillary will be back in 4 years. If Obama wins, Hillary is dust. She will stay in just to sink Obama.

Mar 23, 2008 - 11:52 am Mickey:

For me it’s indifferent if Obama or Hillary is nominated. I vote for MaCain, for a human being, not for a monster or a cannibal.

Mar 23, 2008 - 2:52 pm brooklyn red:

just say NO to socialism…

Mar 23, 2008 - 3:09 pm brooklyn red:

just say NO to socialism…

Mar 23, 2008 - 3:09 pm morton from vienna:

hillary just doesn’t want to conquer her ridiculous infatuation with power by biting the bullet and pulling out of the race. Obama’s blackness guarantees him the presidency, as it should, since white are obviously inferior presidens (just look at what white people have done to everything from the deficit to the road system, and everything in between) As a white morton I am thankful Obama has decided to fix this country by running. He can once and for all resolve the race problem also by putting black people on an equal footing which they have never had.

Mar 23, 2008 - 4:16 pm J.-P.:

The experience of New Hampshire’s primaries demonstrates the illusory quality of all polls. Reality is fluid and no poll is able to fix it. The comments of anonymous but real men and women, and not impersonal polls, allow much better to see the real situation of these strange democratic primaries. Reading the comments on Fox News, I have had a clear impression: supporters of Hillary will not vote for Obama and supporters of Obama will not vote for Hillary. Extremism of the two parts is absolute. The political debate seems to become a religious war. The passions, which these democratic primaries excite, indicate visibly that there are two democratic parties or two sectarian churches with their fanatic worshippers. And as all fanatics they can only destroy their country. So people who preserve their common sense, will surely vote nor for Hilary nor for Obama

Mar 23, 2008 - 4:30 pm Angry African:

I don’t know if I will ever blog about the elections in the US again. There is nothing honorable in politics in the US anymore. I don’t think the Founding Fathers will proud. They will be ashamed. This is a proud country. But politicians do everything to kill that honor and pride. http://angryafrican.net/2008/03/23/the-founding-fathers-will-be-ashamed/

Mar 23, 2008 - 5:48 pm Matt Weiss:

I think most people who blog regularly in these sorts of forums have become so caught up in the day-to-day vicissitudes of the horse race that they have lost any sense of the big picture and are too focused on the moment. Campaigns are intense and emotional things, and people are given to very strong feelings.

Neither Clinton nor Obama supporters will ever vote for the other? Some won’t, but most will. It only seems like a plausible hypothesis if you forget the past eight years. If, for instance, some of these Hillary supporters see Obama as the antichrist, imagine how they must feel about George Bush, or any other candidate who doesn’t fundamentally agree with 95% of what their favorite is saying. Double for the Obama supporters. Probably more of them will feel disaffected and sit the election out if he loses, but speaking as one of them, I have some dim memory of being beside myself over the state and direction of my country for almost a decade, so I think I can get over an Obama loss to vote against a guy who has, despite his reputation as a maverick, been kissing George W. Bush on the hindquarters since roughly 2004.

So McCain is going to magically pick up 20% of white Democrats? Maybe, but lots of those Democrats hate this war, and agree that it shouldn’t have been fought. Furthermore, as their jobs, or at least earning power, savings and health insurance disappear in a tanking economy, they might take a hard look at McCain before they blithely install another Republican–one who has said he plans to continue to spend $5000 a second in Iraq and who admits he doesn’t know much about the economy (and, it appears from his recent trip, doesn’t know much about Iraq). He hasn’t faced any of that thus far. He’ll be pounded with it mercilessly for months before the election, and heaven help him if things get worse, which they very well might.

Sure, if the election were held today, after months of overheated rhetoric on the Democratic side with policy differences between Obama and Clinton so thin we’re reduced to talking about preachers and first-lady schedules (anybody else eager to hear 20 more minutes on “health care: mandate or no mandate”?), the Democrats would be in trouble.

But it won’t be held today and when it is held, it will be about a lot more than Reverend Wright or Obama’s lapel (though those problems won’t go away). Americans are going to be reminded that we have just (barely) survived the worst presidency in the history of the United States (you can debate me, but it’s in the discussion) and that one of its supporters in several key and unpopular areas has been none other than John Sidney McCain III (yeah–Sidney. You all know Obama’s middle name. I wonder why.)

Mar 23, 2008 - 8:26 pm lee3do:

Hey folks, let’s keep the confusion (chaos?) going. Maybe Obama will implode? He’s vacuous and maybe a lot of folks will figure that out.

Mar 23, 2008 - 10:23 pm Z-Lo:

Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton and “give up” in the same sentence seems almost oxymoronic. She is dragging the Democrats and the country down with her.

To people addressing whether “Clinton or Obama supporters will ever vote for one another”:

I would have assumed that they would at the beginning of the race. But I think that there is a significant proportion of Obama supporters who easily prefer McCain over Hillary. I know more than a couple of them personally. On the other hand, I am not aware of a group represented by Hillary that would not simply vote Democratic.

But even I have joined those who have been severely turned off by Hillary. If she won fair and square, I guess I would vote for her in a contest against McCain - but it would not be a simple choice. The only ways in which she could possibly win the nomination now are through pure sliminess, which would not allow me vote for her. It would become a question of: McCain or abstain.

But it is not impossible to imagine being convinced to vote McCain: She happens to be on the right side of a lot of issues; he’s just a lot more genuine. Actually, imagining a scenario in which I would vote for Hillary is getting pretty difficult.

Mar 24, 2008 - 2:41 am ic:

“He is an inspiring speaker, a Democratic Reagan.” I don’t know we are electing an inspiring speaker, I thought we are electing a president. My mistake?

A few observations: Reagan has been in politics for most of his life, a union boss, a two term big state governor. What has Obama done, except being black and can deliver a well constructed speech? A lot of con men can do that too. Some talking heads claimed Obama Kennedy-nesque. Kennedy had much more experience than that before he became president. And, Ferraro was not racist, she was pointing out the obvious, the little boy who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. Hilary is doing the country a great favor for staying in the race forcing the MSM to look into who Obama is. Obama’s nomination is as inevitable as Hillary’s was in 2007.

Mar 24, 2008 - 5:12 am M.E.:

For Matt Weiss as well as for all liberal leftists George W. Bush’s presidency is the worst because this great man had courage to make war against two absolutely criminal regimes: the Islamo-cannibalist of talibans and the National-fascist of Saadam Hussein. It’s the same to say that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency was the worst because he made war against Nazi Germany.
For all these liberal-obamites, like Matt Weiss, the most criminal and bloody dictatorship is better than any democracy, most of all, the American Democracy; and dictators, like Saadam Hussein, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Castro etc. are benefactors of the mankind, while the democratic president George Bush is its enemy.
In Stalinist Russia common criminals were called by the authorities “social allies”. So also for the liberal-leftists the criminals, dictators, terrorists are “social allies”. Their ignorance and moral perversion is truly infinite.

Here you have my analysis of the Democratic Party’s situation without pretension to possess the absolute truth in my pocket as the leftists do:

Enthusiasm for a sympathizer of Islamofascist and communist regimes, like Obama (his political preferences leave no doubt after Luis Farrakan’s endorsement and Jeremiah Wright’s scandal), clearly indicates a radicalization of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have taken a bad example from the European socialist parties which have split in two extremist groups, communist and fascist. In any way political and social radicalization leads always to the catastrophe for the radical political party itself and for the country if this party takes the power.
Obama is a cancer of the Democratic Party that will destroy it from inside. With Hillary this Party had some hope. With Obama it has no hope. It’s not necessary to be a prophet to see it. The Germans have elected freely Hitler. For their free election they have paid with 20 millions of dead. What price will the Americans pay for the election of the “pacifist” Führer Obama? In real History (not utopian of idiotic pacifists) one must choose between war that costs, for example, 10.000 lives and peace that will cost 1.000.000 dead. The European wanted at any price a peace with Hitler, and the peace’s price was 60 million dead. What would cost a peace with the Taliban’s monstrous regime, Saadam Hussein and the Iranian Islamo-fascists?
The European experience helps to understand the actual political situation in the Democratic Party. Some prevision is possible to make just now: the “apocalyptical” battle in the Democratic Party that we witness will destroy both adversaries and also this Party as a punishment for its total inability to see the reality of its own Country and of the World.

Mar 24, 2008 - 8:54 am RM:

As a Republican, I insist that Hillary stay in the race, to maximize her later embarrassment.

Mar 24, 2008 - 11:18 am Fat Jolly Penguin:

Curly Smith: of course they still need 2024 delegates for the nomination. That ensures that this little drama will continue until the end of August, leaving the victor barely two months to convince people that he/she can lead the country better than McCain. Love cynicism re the Democrat Party by the way — only follow the rules so long as they help you.

Personally I’m confused as to why Hillary even needs to endure this soap opera. Wasn’t the nomination — nay, the whole damn Presidency — hers by birthright? Isn’t that what we were hearing not even a year ago?

Mar 25, 2008 - 6:45 pm David Thomson:

“Some won’t, but most will”

How are you defining “most”? The Democrats must have their normal ninety percent of the black vote to capture the presidency. Even a drop of six to ten percentage points spells doom. The odds are that minimally twenty percent of all black voters will stay home on Election Day if Hillary Clinton is perceived as stabbing Barack Obama in the back.

Mar 26, 2008 - 10:33 am johnm:

ME
as a european - you ar spot on right !

Mar 29, 2008 - 12:22 pm

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