Hillary Clinton to endorse Obama on Friday. If only she'd done this weeks ago.
« Ah Straight Talk | Main | Obstacles to Unity »
Dropping Out
04 Jun 2008 08:29 pm
Comments (169)
I know. That woulda worked.
Don't you mean months ago? As in, around the time it was actually over?
Or last night, perhaps?
Spot on analysis from a very astute political observer:
The Clinton people need to recognize that it is not coincidence that Obama's vote was more efficient. I have discussed this before. Part of this had to do with the fact that the delegate allocation system contains biases that happened to favor Obama. However, part of it had to do with the fact that the Obama campaign had a better understanding of the system. It found the possibilities and made the most of them. What's more, the Clinton campaign let it do this. Simply put, Obama out-maneuvered Clinton. Clinton supporters need to respect this.
Meanwhile, Obama supporters need to recognize that their candidate is the victor not because he put together a majority coalition, but because he out-maneuvered Clinton. This was a highly intelligent strategy, but it was not a grand feat of majority building. Obama supporters need to recognize that their candidate won not because "the people had their say," but because his campaign out-smarted her campaign. Accordingly, they need to respect the candidate whom they could not beat in a straight-up fight for votes.
Posted by Jay Cost at 12:00 AM | Send to a Friend | Print | Permalink
Login | Register | RSS
I believe it when she is in a padded room.
As i noted earlier today, Hillary wasn't given a choice in this matter.
(And I mean that in an APPROVING way. As Nancy Pelosi said, we can't expect the voters to think we can run the country if we can't even run our primaries.)
Can we at least hope her Friday speech will mention a politician other than herself, after the first two sentences, unlike last night's?
Ideally it would mention Obama, McCain, and Bush, and mention each repeatedly and appropriately; but I'd pretty much settle for it mentioning any two of them, and occasionally.
OOps that whole thing was supposed to be italicized. Apologies.
Clinton must have stated that the nomination would be decided shortly after the last contest a hundred times during the past two months and so it will.
This would have been over in March if Obama won either OH or TX.
How many upcoming news cycles in the coming months will be dominated by something that one have said amounting to "If we had only nominated Hillary we wouldn't be in this predicament"?
My intuition is that Bill and Hillary will go along with Obama's campaign in a lackluster fashion and there will be constant leaks to the effect that "privately the Clintons are predicting a landslide McCain victory."
I do not expect them to campaign in a serious way for Obama. They will make the bare minimum of gestures and nothing more.
I pray as much as an atheist can that they, the Clintons, will simply go away.
Obama supporters need to recognize that their candidate won not because "the people had their say,"
Winning the popular vote is "not winning because the people had their say?" How does that work?
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS! FOR HILLARY!!!
Don Williams is on crack if he thinks the Pelosi letter had any effect on Clinton. If there was even a sniff of a win at the convention, she would continue on. Pelosi and Dean have zero influence on her. (Harry Reid might have some)
Ted Kennedy went to the convention and fought for the nomination with only the support of his family and it turned out find for him.
Why should she have done it weeks ago? I see no advantage other than that it would have made some of her opponent's supporters happy.
jim:
Winning the popular vote by 0.1% is not a mandate. Especially when under different assumptions he lost it entirely. Clearly this was not a popular mandate from the Democratic voters.
...having said that, he won fair and square. Just a little humility would be nice from his supporters.
Bottom line is that HRC depended too much on the few key men in her inner circle, and they let her down big time -- they did not do their homework, especially Penn and Bill C. She decided on her own accord to depend on these guys and they screwed up. She had one chance to straighten it out and at least one of her folks told her how she could still win: send Bill C. off to do his international philanthropic work, keep him out of South Carolina, get back in the fight on her own. She chose, fatally, to stay with Bill and Mark Penn as her main go-to advisors. They lost it for and with her. It's the three of them's fault.
Especially when under different assumptions he lost it entirely.
What "assumptions" would those be? "Caucuses don't count?" "States Hillary lost don't count?" "Black votes don't count?" "Primaries Hillary agreed wouldn't count should count?" "Only votes from 60-year-old hardworking whites count?" "If the rules were entirely different,..."
Yeah, I'm sure there are different "assumptions" -- all contrary to reality - in which he "lost it entirely."
Luckily, none of this matters anymore, except to a dwindling handful of Hillary dead-enders.
Dropping out? That's like saying that the Rockies dropped out of the World Series last year after losing Game 4 to the Red Sox.
John Edwards dropped out. Bill Richardson dropped out. Hillary Clinton stayed in till the very end and now has no more contests left to go. She definitely drop out.
Jim:
No, just a simple assumption like counting the votes of Michigan Democrats. Even if you give the uncommitted votes to Obama, or split the votes based on the exit polls, she still wins the popular vote. But either way, it was basically a 50/50 tie in popular vote.
Obama won very narrowly against a very strong opponent, but he's the nominee. That's all that matters. I really hope Clinton supporters can get on board. It's certainly not Obama's fault that some of the media have been sexist, or that some of the rules have favored Obama, any more than it's Clinton's fault that so much of Appalachia is still racist.
I think all of this Obama/Clinton bickering should stop today. Everybody who keeps indulging just loves petty argument without end or purpose.
I don't particularly like her or respect her character, but I agree that Clinton is due a very large measure of respect for her tireless work and all the support she has accrued. I trust Obama to find the right way to accord her and her people that respect, short, of course, of letting them bully him on his most important decisions -- e.g., VP.
I second that, but I don't see it happening. I'm not going to sit by as people continue to take shots at Hillary even when it becomes clear she is bowing out.
Obama will win PA easily because Clinton didn't drop out after March 4. The hundreds of thousands of additional registered Democrats are going to put him well ahead in that state, which along with winning Ohio (basically even right now) would make it extremely difficult for McCain to reach 270 without running the table in the other swing states (a number that keeps increasing every day Obama campaigns).
Forget 2000, 2002 and 2004. In 2006, the Democrats needed to win 6 of 6 swing Senate seats to take control. They ran the table. McCain isn't going to do the same (without Ohio, even spotting him Florida).
Tim K:
Can I have what you are smoking? These are the same rules that Bill won under in 1992. Care to back up your assertions? Obama still won the popular vote and caucuses do count despite there being no vote total for them. Obama won in a straight up fight. If you can't see that then you are blind or just bitter.
All the hysterics last night were worried that she was taking it to the Convention, because you KNOW she's crazy, SHE WILL STOP AT NOTHING etc.etc. I said relax. Once in a while I am vindicated.
There was nothing wrong with her letting every state vote. I really have to say that Matt's decision that she needed to get out of the race once he and his hipster pals became bored with her is really reminiscent of a spoiled child stomping his feet. And people say HILLARY feels entitled!
It was the closest race in over 30 years (Ford/Reagan is the only closer one in the modern system. ) Had Obama done notably worse than he did in the later states, uncommitted super-delegates would have gone to Hillary's side. She did stop his momentum and won most of the late states, winning some that the Obama campaign assumed were theirs in their famous spreadsheet, e.g. Indiana and South Dakota, but in the end it wasn't quite enough to sow sufficient doubt in Obama's prospects to win over the supers. So he won. But that wasn't close to a certainty at the time. There is a difference between saying a strategy's chances of working are less than 50/50 and saying it is not reasonable to pursue it.
If only she'd done this weeks ago.
If she does it--and until she says the words, it's a big if--maybe we can cut her a little slack? She expected to win this, has had a plan in place for probably eight years, was the first woman to run as a frontrunner, or to run so well, dealt with the problems of historic run without much of the glory of such a run, and got a ton of votes. If she keeps her end of the natural bargain--total support--we ought to keep ours--total forgiveness.
Re arrow's comment "Don Williams is on crack if he thinks the Pelosi letter had any effect on Clinton. If there was even a sniff of a win at the convention, she would continue on. Pelosi and Dean have zero influence on her. (Harry Reid might have some)"
------------
1) That memo was what closed down Hillary's continued participation. By pushing uncommitted delegates to commit by Friday.
2) Obama already had an edge of roughly 170 yesterday. The roughly 50 endorsements rolling in to him last night increased his lead to 220 -- then 26 more today raised that to around 250. Another 70 or so endorsements over the next two days and Hillary is looking like Ralph Nader on Friday. Who wants to donate money or support to a farce?
3) While Obama does not seem particularly vengeful, only a moron would piss off the next President of the USA by voting for Hillary at this point. Once Obama had the nomination sewed up, then every remaining uncommitted Member of Congress had to ask himself what favors he would need from Obama over the next 4 years.
4) I noted this early this morning -- it was obvious. This report tonight confirmed what happened: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/ABC_Clinton_to_drop_out_Friday.html
An excerpt:
"Clinton had convened a conference call with congressional supporters Wednesday to plead for time. Instead, a Clinton backer said, her supporters laid down the law: Time had run out , and she needed to leave the race this week. "
5) Hillary's attempt to coerce her way into being VP was stupid -- and suggests why she should never have been considered Presidential material.
A junior Senator in his first term ran rings around her tactically. Al Qaeda and Iran would have done the same on the battlefield.
6) Nancy Pelosi laid down the law a month ago that delegates would have to commit within a few days after the last primary. So Hillary had a deadline.
Obama , by contrast , did not. He can take his sweet time in choosing a VP. He made that clear to Hillary today when he appointed Caroline Kennedy to "start the process" of finding a VP.
7) And in case Hillary still didn't get the message, one of her major supporters -- my Governor Ed Rendell --publicly stated this afternoon that
"There's no bargaining. You don't bargain with the Presidential nominee. Even if you're Hillary Clinton and you have 18 million votes, you don't bargain."
8) Followed an hour or so later by her major supporter in New York, Charlie Rangel, saying:
“Unless she has some good reasons-- which I can’t think of-- I really think we ought to get on with endorsements (of Obama) and dealing with what we have to deal with… so we can move forward,” Rangel said."
8) Respect and tact is one thing. But The LAST thing her supporters were going to do was let her pull them -- and the Democratic Party --down into the Abyss with her. We don't do Medea.
Joe Klein's whatever:
I said he won the race fair and square. Accept it, move on.
"Obama supporters need to recognize that their candidate won not because "the people had their say," but because his campaign out-smarted her campaign."
Yeah, it's a pity the dumber candidate didn't win. A real shame the democrats won't have the candidate in the fall who needs to take a remedial course on politics.
Tim K, I'm a committed Obama supporter, and I agree that Obamaites should start showing a little more magnanimity in their (our) triumph. We won the nomination, the party is not crushed or irreparably divided, Hillary is dropping out (as sane non-Peretz/Sullivan pathological Clinton-haters always knew she would).
At this point, bashing Hillary or her supporters achieves no purpose at all, except rubbing salt in wounds that can and should be fast to heal. She won 48% of the primary vote and continued to score big wins through April and May -- she had every right to stay in the race as long as there were still elections to contest (and she didn't go negative in a nuclear fashion). Now that there are no more, she should get out and support Obama. This is what she is doing. There isn't really an argument here.
I second that, but I don't see it happening. I'm not going to sit by as people continue to take shots at Hillary even when it becomes clear she is bowing out.
We're not taking shots at Hillary. We're taking shots at dipshits like you, who crapped all over Matt's threads for months, and who apparently think it's perfectly fine to ignore some states, and to count states where voters were told for weeks that their votes wouldn't count. Apparently in Tim K's fantasy world, voters who know their vote won't count always come to the polls in the same numbers they would have if they were told their votes would count, and none of them cross over and vote in the other party's election (where their votes really DID count).
Tim, you are not Hillary. When we call you, and delusional Hillary supporters like you, a douchebag, we are not taking shots at Hillary. We are pointing and laughing at you.
Dr. I Don't Know:
Thank you. It's comforting to know many Obama supporters are sane and reasonable individuals.
If she does it--and until she says the words, it's a big if--maybe we can cut her a little slack?
If she does it wholeheartedly, i.e. if she does a good job in her speech on Friday and enthusastically and dedicatedly works to heal the breaches she has for the last months worked to crate and to widen, then I'll cut her slack in a meaningful way, for whatever miniscule amount my verdict is worth. Not before then.
But just making the first steps towards party unity would probably stop most or all of the handwringing in the blogosphere.
don't get why it matters that Hillary stayed in the race until she was eliminated
she still had a chance to win this weeks ago
He didn't have the delegates until yesterday!
If she keeps her end of the natural bargain--total support--we ought to keep ours--total forgiveness.
The truth is, Obama needs her (and Bill's -- to a lesser extent) support more than he needs anybody else's in the country. If he receives that, not only will I forgive her some of her missteps (i.e. -- ginning up her supporters' resentments on Michigan and Florida; bogus plagiarism charges, etc...), I'll be downright thankful to her.
So thankful, in fact, that I'd give her another look in 2016.
Just a little humility would be nice from his supporters.
From 1980, when Bill Clinton was 34 (and two years before I was born), no member of the Clinton family has been defeated in a primary process or general election. For all their pissing and moaning, no Republican except Frank D. White has ever been able to prevent a Clinton from obtaining the office he/she sought.
Am I humbled that a mixed race candidate 14 years her junior was able to take on and defeat Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and the arrayed forces of the Democratic establishment? Deeply.
We live in a great country; the only one--so far as I know--where such a thing is even possible, much less real.
... If only she'd done this weeks ago.
And... what? It seems to me the end result would be exactly the same, save possibly for a false sense of overconfidence on the part of the Obama campaign due to vulnerabilities (the Wright association, attitudes in Appalachia) that might not have been exposed yet.
It was clear to me back in February that Clinton had no practical chance of winning, but given Obama's newness on the national stage, she would stay in just in case something fatally scandalous emerged (e.g., pictures of Obama having sex with one of Mickey Kaus' goats). If he got through the primaries without any such damage, she'd drop out well before a convention floor fight or the attempted "superdelegate coup" tactics some panicky bloggers (hi, Markos) warned about. And this is exactly what's happened.
The only potentially lasting ill effects are the bruised feelings of supporters on either side, which in some cases are a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here's what I mean -- given that this end was apparent (at least to wiser observers) in February, the persistent complaints from Yglesias, Kos, et al. about Hillary staying in were like the kids in the back of the car on a long road trip saying over and over, "Aren't we there yet?!?"
The incessant whining doesn't help the car get there any faster, but it does guarantee that by the time it arrives, everyone inside will be frustrated and ready to strangle each other. Nicely played, Matt and Markos.
Tim K,
Accept it, move on.
You are the only one around here who seems to need take your advice.
Also, I agree with SCMT: Total support = total forgiveness. Matt's complaining that she should have dropped out weeks ago, but really, given today's news cycle, how much difference does 3-6 weeks make to an election in 5 months? I'd say precious little.
Not to mention that Hillary had the best states on her map -- WV, KY, PR -- coming up. No candidate who's winning 48% of the vote this late in the game would drop out before he/she has a chance to score big, easy wins -- Hillary didn't do it, but neither would Obama or Edwards if they were in her position.
Now that she IS getting out, as Obama supporters we should be celebrating generously, not calling our newfound allies douchebags
Seitz:
You're a moron. The Democratic party should be ashamed that people like you are even in the party at all.
Southpaw:
Losing can't be easy when a family has won 8 consecutive gubernatorial, presidential, and senatorial election (not including all of the primaries won). And yet, they'll deal with it and the party will move on after Friday united.
Re Tim K's comment "Losing can't be easy when a family has won 8 consecutive gubernatorial, presidential, and senatorial election (not including all of the primaries won). And yet, they'll deal with it "
------------
How nice. Maybe that $109 Million --and more to come -- will help.
The 4000 families who've had to bury sons and fathers because of that corrupt bitch may take a little longer.
If I fault Clinton, it is for some of the attacks her campaign it used. Yet it may be for the good as it will have prepared the Obama campaign for the heavy artillery that rained on it by the Republicans. Obama's "I'm a better candidate for having to compete with Clinton" has substantial truth to it.
I didn't see any reason for Clinton to bow out as long as she was competitive or winning primaries. The 17+ million Democrats who voted for her certainly deserved to have their voices heard.
I appreciate Clinton's doggedness and wish the Democratic Congressional and Senate delegations had half the persistence, toughness and never-say-die attitude. If they did, perhaps some of the worst Bushtrocities would not have happened.
"This would have been over in March if Obama won either OH or TX."
"I think all of this Obama/Clinton bickering should stop today. Everybody who keeps indulging just loves petty argument without end or purpose."
These comments are right. As usual, Yglesias has been out-classed by his comments section on the subject of Hillary.
So, who else is curious how much money she raised Tuesday night?
The 4000 families who've had to bury sons and fathers because of that corrupt bitch may take a little longer.
Can't you just feel the healing?
It's easy now to say that voting for the war authorization was a mistake. It's another step entirely, however, to accuse everyone who voted for it of bad faith.
I think it's entirely possible that Clinton took her duties as a Senator very seriously and wasn't playing politics with her war vote. That vote ended up sabotaging her presidential campaign, so if she really was playing politics at the time, she certainly ended up facing poetic justice for it.
I think it's entirely possible that Clinton took her duties as a Senator very seriously and wasn't playing politics with her war vote.
Her subsequent votes bear this out. She is hawkish.
To me her campaign shows that she would not have excelled as President -- she trusts the wrong people too much. Like the '78 Red Sox, she blew a big lead, came back valiantly, but ultimately lost.
Speaking of which -- Ban Johnson, good job starting the American League. That is an experiment which has worked!
Say goodbye to madame clintn
dry your eye for madame clinton
wonder why for madame clinton
say goodbye to madame clinton
Obama supporters need to recognize that their candidate won not because "the people had their say," but because his campaign out-smarted her campaign.
I'm quite happy to grant you that, Tim K. :)
Assuming she's going to endorse Obama and not trying to muscle her way onto the ticket I don't see any point in trashing her or her supporters. I'm bored of the same old arguments. We need to start trashing McCain.
"If only she'd done this weeks ago"
declare defeat before one's opponent has won. hasn't worked well for Democrats in the past.
good for her. Obama doen't seem to be too worried.
how about less snark.
SCMT: She expected to win this, has had a plan in place for probably eight years...
This is why she lost, and why she deserved to lose. When she ran for the Senate in 2000 her goal was always the White House, she felt no one in the Democratic Party would/could stand against her, and in my opinion felt entitled to it (why, I don't know).
She went into the primary thinking it would be a cakewalk that would be over by 2/5 and ran into an opponent that and outplayed her in every key way, outworked her, and out-strategized her. With all her advantages coming in, she still lost. Again, she deserved to lose; it was hers to win. But what's so galling is that she truly acted every step of the way that she deserved the nomination (presidency, really), that it somehow belonged to her. Even today she wanted to continue on when there are no votes left and the contest has run its full course.
Get over it. You lost. Thank god. As others have said, her victory "plan" that her awesomeness and name would sweep her to an early victory with no alternative plan, failure to run a disciplined, focused campaign or make key executive decisions for it, and inability to see what was happening early enough to counter Obama or to formulate a plan after 2/5 on the fly indicate that in fact she was not good material to lead the country. All of those traits bear a strong resemblance to the current occupant of the White House, especially with regard to his policies in Iraq.
Obama is the nominee. Thats great. Now please stop shitting all over Bill and Hillary Clinton. By extension, you're shitting all over Hillary Clinton voters and supporters - statistically half the Democratic electorate. I'm sure you're quite proud of Obama's victory but pretending its a landslide is idiotic and destructive. I'm telling you right now, McCain says he's going after Clinton Democrats and if even a quarter of them are as fed up with race/class/age/income-level baiting Obama supporters and their self indulgent bullshit as I am, McCain has a real shot at pulling enough such voters away to kill Obama's presidential run. To paraphrase some fools I've heard along the way, the math doesn't favor a guy who only appeals to one quarter of the electorate.
I have no problems avoiding any illusions about the Obama campaign if we can simultaneously agree to not let Clinton supporters get away with default presumptions as being the opposite of what they are terming illusions about Obama.
If Obama did not lead directly to a victory based on a giant majority of the party, neither is it true that Clinton is some sort of leader of the true Democratic proletariat who can make any larger claim than coming in a very close second.
You're a moron. The Democratic party should be ashamed that people like you are even in the party at all.
Right. We're better off with people who spend half their campaign telling people that the Republican nominee is more qualified to be President than their Democratic opponent. Oh please, can we have more people like that in Democratic party? Pretty please?!
Don Williams is on crack if he thinks the Pelosi letter had any effect on Clinton.
There was something of an intervention today from Dems in the House and Senate, combined with a number of surrogate actions -- Lanny's petition, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz 'what women want' letter -- that came with atrocious optics.
But honestly, I think the end of the campaign treadmill did most to help pierce the bubble.
"income-level baiting"
I hadn't heard this one before. Do Clinton supporters think that elitist Obama has been income baiting? The "bitter" comments were a dog whistle to bring out rich folk? (rich white folk, I suppose I should say). Weird.
"On the Internet, tolerance consists mostly of posts that people don't make."
Mark Isaak, a long long time ago on talk.origins
Just sayin' ...
I'll be glad to see it. So glad. I would have preferred that she not step all over the night that the first African American secured the nomination of a any major party... but better late than never, and I'm looking forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with devout HRC supporters against the terribleness incarnate that is John McCain.
Eh. Count my vote in the "respect must be paid" column. I've been on the Obama side since Iowa; I didn't know who I was for until he won and I was elated. But the long-term best result would have been Clinton for 8 years and then Obama for 8 years after that. If Dem politics were decided in a smoke-filled room, but by committed progressives rather than machine power brokers, surely that would have been the result that emerged.
Most importantly, after McCain fades in October a la Bob Dole, and Obama coasts to victory, history will look back on the 2008 Dem primary as the real presidential election. You don't have a heart if you can't see why Mrs Clinton wouldn't fold her cards until there was truly no hope left.
Tim K
Winning the popular vote by 0.1% is not a mandate. Especially when under different assumptions he lost it entirely. Clearly this was not a popular mandate from the Democratic voters.
But there just isn't that much ideological difference between the stated positions of Obama, Clinton and Edwards. A lot of people thought that Clinton would be a better candidate, but by voting for Clinton they showed their support for many of the kinds of things Obama says he's trying to achieve. To not go forward with a Democratic agenda would let these Democrats down just as much as it would for those people who actually voted for him. So I think he does have a mandate.
Nathan said: "By extension, you're shitting all over Hillary Clinton voters and supporters"
Why? If everything we hear about candidates applies to their supporters, then I am a secret Muslim terrorist sent here to destroy America from within because I hate the country so much.
Note to any federal agents reading these comments: It's to prove a point, morons.
Tim K,
It would be easier for Obama supporters to show some humility if Clinton supporters like yourself weren't so goddamned passive aggressive in acknowledging that he won.
The first thing you posted in this thread was about how second rate Obama's victory was, how it wasn't the "pure" victory of a people's mandate. You basically quoted someone saying "okay, he won because he was clever about it." On this unbelievably historic week, you minimized Obama's accomplishment and chided his supporters to be magnanimous in victory and show patience and tolerance to Clinton supporters.
If that message is greeted coldly, it's because Obama supporters feel like they've been, for the most part, patient and tolerant for the last three months of the campaign because Clinton is holding her voters hostage to her ambition. Long past the time when another candidate would have acknowledged reality, the Clinton campaign and its ardent believers have known they couldn't win but knew that they were needed, and so were going to make Obama and his supporters beg.
That's what you're doing here. You're making us beg. We need your votes to win, so you're here to start by demanding that we show humility.
I don't intend to pile on Clinton--I'm sure the realization she's going through right now is worse than anything I or any pundit could come up with. But it's a bed she made herself, and all her enablers like you just make it harder for everyone.
How about you show some humility? How about instead of a grudging acknowledgement, you step back and look at the incredible thing Obama has done and appreciate it separately from your disappointment for Clinton? If you're capable of that, I'm capable of lauding the incredible accomplishments of Clinton in this campaign.
If only she'd done this weeks ago.
Look, she's dropping out 2 months before the convention, which is precisely what other challengers in her position - Humprhey ('72), Reagan ('76), Kennedy ('80), Hart ('84) - refused to do.
As an Obama supporter, I also think it would be wise to be magnanimous in victory. There's no need to piss on Hillary's grave, especially since Obama is going to need the votes of her voters.
The difference between her quitting a few weeks ago ... is actually significant.
She still tries to undercut the legitimacy of Obama's win - by asserting she won the popular vote. Which is a spin at best.
She still asserts that she is the strongest candidate - and inflamed her supporters by asserting that Obama "stole" delegates from Michigan and Florida. That claim is ludicrous - because the STATES were the plaintiffs not the candidates ...
at any rate ... she has pointedly tried to undermine the legitimacy of Obama as the party's candidate...
That is damaging. It matters if you value her and his stated policies.
Not trying to be at all negative to Hillary supporters - just trying to point out that her behavior matters.
"Look, she's dropping out 2 months before the convention, which is precisely what other challengers in her position - Humprhey ('72), Reagan ('76), Kennedy ('80), Hart ('84) - refused to do."
As it's already been said numerous times before; look at the results for the Dems, (and GOP in '76), in those contests. Hillary does not want '08 to be remembered like that, obviously after today’s developments.
But, now that HRC is finally throwing in the towel, there is not much of a need to hash this all out.
On this unbelievably historic week, you minimized Obama's accomplishment and chided his supporters to be magnanimous in victory and show patience and tolerance to Clinton supporters.
First of all, principally this was an important achievement for Senator Obama as an individual, not for an identity. I think it's right to acknowledge as a secondary fact that it is also an historic event as it is the first time an African American has become a major party nominee. Yet, again, as I said before, it is first and foremost an achievement for the individual not any one group. I don't think the event is so sacred that one requires to treat it with such deference that we make-believe it was a larger and more resounding victory than it really, in fact, was. It was an impressive, but very narrow and closely fought, victory. I will not pretend it was a landslide in order to add to some historical occasion.
If that message is greeted coldly, it's because Obama supporters feel like they've been, for the most part, patient and tolerant for the last three months of the campaign because Clinton is holding her voters hostage to her ambition.
Barack Obama could have ended this race if he had defeated Senator Clinton in Texas and Ohio, or in Pennsylvania, and probably Indiana, too. He couldn't accomplish that so the race went on. Hillary Clinton couldn't force anyone to vote for her. Millions did so willingly and enthusiastic even after being told by the Obama campaign, Obama supporters and the media for months that the "math" was undeniable and the race was over. But now there are no more voters left to vote and the race can come to an end.
That's what you're doing here. You're making us beg. We need your votes to win, so you're here to start by demanding that we show humility.
No, I'm not making anyone beg for anything, nor is anyone else. Obama is the nominee and he has to earn his votes for himself, as I'm sure he understands and will go about doing.
But it's a bed she made herself, and all her enablers like you just make it harder for everyone.
That's not piling on?
How about you show some humility? How about instead of a grudging acknowledgement, you step back and look at the incredible thing Obama has done and appreciate it separately from your disappointment for Clinton? If you're capable of that, I'm capable of lauding the incredible accomplishments of Clinton in this campaign.
The fact that Barack Obama is black makes this an historic event, but I'm so so awestruck by it that I have to treat it as some kind of religious experience. It would have been equally historic had Senator Clinton won for women. So damn right I'm disappointed, especially since I still believe she was the better candidate. Which is, after all, more important than identity politics and historic firsts. But it's over now.
Why is she waiting until Saturday? It smacks of a willingness to subtly sabotage Obama. Conceding and endorsing over the weekend means less news coverage. The fact that she's waiting until Saturday also gives McCain a little more time woo her pissed-off supporters. If she REALLY cared about the party, she would concede and endorse tomorrow and share a stage with the man. Instead, she's hosting some lame event at her house with just her and her supporters. Hell, she should have conceded yesterday if she cared about the party. Of course it's a tough blow for her, but she's had since at least Wisconsin to prepare for this. The writing was on the wall then. There's no excuse for taking this long to bow out. It turns out Andrew Sullivan was right about her all along.
Tim K,
You should've known that your candidate was screwed when the dominant them of her candidacy went from inevitability to.... umm... wait a second. What was that theme again? Was it one of these?
1. Obama can't get white working votes. (Pssst... He's BLA-A-ACK.)
2. John McCain and I pass the Commander-in-Chief test, but that inexperienced guy (who isn't a Muslim as far as I know), well, you'll have to ask him about that.
3. Obama can TALK about bringing change, but that doesn't mean he WILL!
4. I like children. And guns. Now somebody give me a damn beer and a shot.
5. Sometimes the charismatic nominee gets assassinated, so you'd better vote for me... or at least let me hang around... in case something happens. Hey, I'm just keeping it real for all your naive losers who haven't seen the shit I've seen. Pussies.
I like this Ban Johnson guy, and not just for starting up the AL.
I think it's entirely possible that Clinton took her duties as a Senator very seriously and wasn't playing politics with her war vote.
She seemed to be genuinely hawkish on Iraq. Still, if Hillary hadn't written McCain's ads for him I'd be less adamant about not wanting her on the ticket.
Hard to forgive.
Lucy:
Do you really think the Republicans couldn't look at a 4-year Senator and think that experience might be an issue for themselves? Either way he's not going to make experience the central theme of his campaign.
Tim -
Thanks for responding with reasoned posts.
It really does help, because I've been at a loss to understand Clinton supporters. I started out marginally for Clinton, but when she moved away from Reasoned discussion and turned toward lizard-brain campaigning. It made me feel that her votes for the War and Kyle-Lieberman were not mistakes for her, but were reflective of her positions. It made me doubt her - in that either her stated positions or her campaign was disingenuous ... So I moved toward Obama. And grew to like him more and more, as he took unpopular positions and Reason. Stating that he'd talk to our "enemies" - a position Clinton ridiculed. When she ridiculed that position, it hardened me against her.
You wrote:
Barack Obama could have ended this race if he had defeated Senator Clinton in Texas and Ohio, or in Pennsylvania, and probably Indiana, too. He couldn't accomplish that so the race went on.
Really, he had her numerically trumped in early March. Most candidates - (see the GOP | or Edwards) - drop out at that point - to allow the remaining candidate to win with larger margins and grow a mandate.
I don't understand why people feel that Clinton would make the stronger candidate. At this point, I would have a hard time voting for her. Mrs. Edwards (sorry forgot her name) - called her borderline corrupt. She has VERY high negatives throughout the country. She just lost a primary starting out with 100% name recognition. And Mr. Clinton has lots of baggage still to run through.
I honestly feel she'd be a drag on the ticket if she's included. I'm not spiteful - that's my honest opinion.
Why do I get the sinking feeling about to learn the difference between "express support" and "endorse"?
damn typo:
Why do I get the sinking feeling I'm about to learn the difference between "express support" and "endorse"?
I can't blame Clinton for taking her shot, and if the time period had been extended, somehow, or the penny had dropped after New Hampshire, she would have won. But she didn't. It's just politics. The idea that she has done damage to Obama seems pretty silly to me. It wasn't like those blue collar voters wouldn't have known to not vote for Obama - it wasn't like the sentiment stirred up there wasn'[t pre-existing. That's magical thinking. Actually, that they were competed for, attended to, is going to be a plus is Obama is smart - they definitely weren't competed for by the GOP.
And I think Obama is smart. So smart he has learned from this campaign so far. I hope, in fact, he's learned enough to get Clinton to campaign for him. This truly has been a good primary season for the Dems. The only people who don't know that are the political insiders, still so wedded to their damn consultant's paradigms.
jackifus:
Thanks for responding with reasoned posts.
You're very welcome.
Really, he had her numerically trumped in early March. Most candidates - (see the GOP | or Edwards) - drop out at that point - to allow the remaining candidate to win with larger margins and grow a mandate.
Why not ask Edward M. Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, and Jerry Brown why they didn't do that. Or Jimmy Carter and George McGovern's opponents. It was really only the 2000 and 2004 primaries that ended in the kind of decisive way you are describing, so it's not typical. Candidates only get off the stage when they GET OFF. That means run out of money or run out of support, or both. Clinton still had donations pouring in, a committed staff and camp of supporters, thousands of volunteers, and millions of voters. There was no reason to end it until it was over, and now it's over so she's going to end it.
I don't understand why people feel that Clinton would make the stronger candidate. At this point, I would have a hard time voting for her. Mrs. Edwards (sorry forgot her name) - called her borderline corrupt. She has VERY high negatives throughout the country. She just lost a primary starting out with 100% name recognition. And Mr. Clinton has lots of baggage still to run through.
Those are boiler-plate criticisms of Hillary Clinton that we hear repeated over and over again and have for a decade or more. Truth is it hasn't stopped her from getting to this point despite the nay-sayers who thought she'd never become a senator or a serious candidate for president.
And people feel she would be the stronger nominee because she's lead John McCain pretty consistently in the polls (despite all the things are saying) for over a year and continues to have an advantage in the electoral college. Don't shoot the messenger, because you asked the question.
sorry forgot to put some of that in quotes but you know the parts you wrote.
TimK, I understand that you're trying to be conciliatory in some sense, but I don't think that you make a convincing case when you try to underplay Obama's achievement. Clinton had massive institutional support and a gigantic head start with voters because of her name. Obama ran an amazing campaign to defeat her. And he has, in fact, an extremely solid mandate as the candidate; demonstrated this week by polls showing him beating McCain outside the margin of error, and by the rumblings of massive superdelegate defections from Hillary Clinton if she continues to dither.
It's just about the biggest upset in Democratic party history. It's the first time a black man has won his party's nomination. It's kind of huge. His supporters are going to -- and indeed have the right to -- celebrate it.
-roger -
I like your point:
The idea that she has done damage to Obama seems pretty silly to me. It wasn't like those blue collar voters wouldn't have known to not vote for Obama - it wasn't like the sentiment stirred up there wasn'[t pre-existing. That's magical thinking.
However, I do feel that Clinton does do damage when she pushes the idea that he "stole" delegates or is in some other way illegitimate. Perhaps, you are saying that the Clinton supporters who may stay home wouldn't vote for Obama anyway... maybe that's true, I don't know.
But, she thus far hasn't encouraged them to come out to vote for him... let alone push for his election. And if she really does hold influence over her supporters, I'd imagine she could do some good if she did encourage positive action from them.
It was an impressive, but very narrow and closely fought, victory
It was a victory by a longshot candidate who overcame what was, for all intents and purposes, the incumbent. It was done through superior organizing and campaigning, and with the burden of being African-American.
Barack Obama could have ended this race if he had defeated Senator Clinton in Texas and Ohio, or in Pennsylvania, and probably Indiana, too.
This line of argument deserves a bullshit award. To be fancier about it, it's called a category error: You're treating the act of defeating one's opponent as a definite act, akin to taking a sip of a cup of coffee, where the only thing that matters is Obama's intent and action. Obviously that's not true--he doesn't win be deciding to. It was never in his power to "end the race" with a decisive act. He fought like hell, and so did Clinton, and they were both strong candidates. That's why it was a close contest.
But again, this is your passive aggressive minimizing of his accomplishment. Instead of seeing David vs. Goliath, you see a weak finisher, someone who just barely won a squeeker, who couldn't summon the strength for a knockout blow.
The fact that Barack Obama is black makes this an historic event, but I'm so so awestruck by it that I have to treat it as some kind of religious experience. It would have been equally historic had Senator Clinton won for women. So damn right I'm disappointed, especially since I still believe she was the better candidate. Which is, after all, more important than identity politics and historic firsts. But it's over now.
That Obama is black is not solely why it's such an accomplishment. At the start, Clinton was the heir apparent. It was hers. He outfundraised her, outfought her, outcampaigned her, outpoliticked her, and did so when she held the reins of the Democratic party machine. On top of that, she showed an unbelievable determination to win, long past the point where the mathematics of the race allowed for that possibility, forcing him to work twice as hard to claim what he'd won months earlier.
Remove his race and her gender and you still have an incredible accomplishment. It's not that he's black; it's that the whole narrative of his ascent, including his race, is as heroic a tale as you see in politics.
At the end, now that it seems over, I have a deep appreciation for the fact that, if it weren't for Obama, Clinton would be the first woman president, and would have become so by kicking McCain's ass all over 50 states. In the end, I think the better candidate won the nomination, but unlike you, I feel a certain worthiness in the opponent.
Clinton had massive institutional support and a gigantic head start with voters because of her name. Obama ran an amazing campaign to defeat her.
It's just about the biggest upset in Democratic party history. It's the first time a black man has won his party's nomination. It's kind of huge. His supporters are going to -- and indeed have the right to -- celebrate it.
I agree with everything you said there.
And he has, in fact, an extremely solid mandate as the candidate; demonstrated this week by polls showing him beating McCain outside the margin of error,
I'm sorry but that's just not factually accurate. The two daily tracking polls (Gallup and Rasmussen) have had him in a statistical dead-heat with McCain for weeks, and in fact, months. He has been behind as much as he has been ahead. Does that mean he cannot win? No. At this point I would give him a 289-249 edge in the electoral college projecting forward to the election. It's not going to be a landslide but I think he can pull it off.
jackifus, If you'll remember the conventional wisdom last year, it was Hilary's big negative was with... blue collar white guys. They supposedly hated her. Would never vote for her.
Well, hard times change hard hearts. I can't see Clinton, an ambitious person, screwing any influence she would have in the future in the Democratic party by screwing Obama, once he is the nominee. The myth - which is the myth of the Maureen Dowd crowd, in which all politics is high school - is that Clinton would do that out of pique. But if Clinton was moved by pique, I imagine she'd be a divorced woman by now. She has larger views and a more complex sense of herself than the caricatures. I couldn't stand her support for the Iraq war, and am happy that she lost, but I admire her as a politician - on domestic issues, she's fine.
Roger:
Agreed. There's also the fact that as Hillary campaigns for Obama, she'll have no need for her own personal porcine pollster. ie: Mark Penn can now well and truly go fuck himself.
Better late than never . . . why not hold our powder at criticizing the Senator herself, unless she does something ungallant again, and her supporters, except those who defect to McCain.
Obama was right to praise Clinton in his speech as she was wrong to have gone negative on him for about 3 straight months (including last night) -- the equivalent of bunting in the 9th in a no-hitter situation when the other team's putting up runs. But, it is what it is. She's doing the right thing now, and that's all that matters.
As far as any misogyny goes, this campaign has proved by faint praise that HIllary Clinton is, indeed, her husband's better half.
But even when news reports circulated early Wednesday evening that Clinton would drop out of the race Friday, the initial reaction was muted.
"No comment," said an Obama aide.The Clinton campaign had not yet made contact with the Obama campaign, another aide said outside an evening fundraiser in Manhattan.
At the end, now that it seems over, I have a deep appreciation for the fact that, if it weren't for Obama, Clinton would be the first woman president, and would have become so by kicking McCain's ass all over 50 states. In the end, I think the better candidate won the nomination, but unlike you, I feel a certain worthiness in the opponent.
You don't think I think Obama has been a worthy opponent? He just beat my preferred candidate. You don't do that by not being worthy.
I'm just tired of Obama partisans minimizing Hillary Clinton's accomplishment. Disparaging her campaign, her voice, her laugh, her record, and basically every aspect of her being. Trying to suggest she's only where she is because of who she was married to. That is an insult and does not get me in the mood to kiss and make up.
Re Ban Johnson's comment "I think it's entirely possible that Clinton took her duties as a Senator very seriously and wasn't playing politics with her war vote. "
-----------
1) I don't think so. Regular readers please excuse me while I point out a few things to Ban that I've already discussed here before on several occasions.
In 2002, Senator Bob Graham , chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Nancy Pelosi (who was on the House Intel Committee) told us that they had seen no evidence in the intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to this country.
2) As the Iraq Commission showed, Bush's case for the war fell apart like a cheap rug once you pulled on a few loose strings. So why didn't Senator Hillary do that -- push Bush and the Intel community into further investigation? Starting with polygraphing the "sources" that Chalabi was feeding us.
3) Because political calculation overrode duty, honor and country. Because the biggest donor to the Democratic Party in this period was an ISRAELI billionaire named Haim Saban. A man who
Terry McAuliffe said "saved the Democratic Party". Terry was chairman of the DNC at the time -- he's currently running Hillarys campaign.
Haim gave almost $15 MILLION to the Party in the 2000-2002 time period. Other billionaire supporters of Israel -- like S Daniel Abraham -- gave $1 to $2 Million.
In some cases, Israel's supporters gave to destroy those they felt were not sufficiently "good for Israel". Most openly in the attack on black Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in Georgia and in the destruction of Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential campaign in Iowa.
4) In 2002 , the Israel Lobby wanted Saddam Hussein destroyed -- Saddam was giving pensions to families of suicide bombers in retaliation for Israel working with the Turks to divert water from the headwaters of the Euphrates.
5) I noted here several cases in 2002 in which Ariel Sharon and his most senior officers issued public statements or made speechs here in the US urging the USA to take out Hussein --and making claims that Hussein had "WMDS".
6) Haim Saban didn't stop there. He set up a "Saban Center for Middle East Policy" at Brookings and then hired pro-Israel US officials to staff it.
Kenneth Pollack, for example, who had been on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council. In 2002, Pollack put out a best-selling book on the "Iraq Threat" --titled
"The Threatening Storm".
In that Book Pollack talked about how Saddam was almost certainly working feverishly to develop nuclear bombs and was likely close to success.
7) Another officer at the Saban Center , Marty Indyk (former high level AIPAC officer and US Ambassador to Israel)joined with Pollack in writing a 2002 LA Times OpEd saying that they "had the intelligence" and that Saddam needed to be taken out before he used his WMDS.
See http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2002/1219iraq_indyk.aspx
8) It's not as if Haim Saban even tries to hide his hand. In a 2006 Haaretz interview, Saban noted that:
a) He's a one issue man and that issue is Israel's security
b) Admadinejad is like Hitler and must be stopped before he develops nukes
c) America is one of the two pillars of Israeli security (the other pillar is Israeli nukes).
d) It is Haim's duty to use his power, money and influence to ensure that NOTHING interferes
with America's protection of Israel.
e) George Bush has been the best friend Israel has ever had (i.e., by taking out Saddam) but has lost all political capital.
f) Hillary, by contrast, will be "good for Israel".
See http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798292.html
9) In that interview , Haim also talks of the lengths to which the Clintons kiss Haim's ass. Of how President Bill Clinton fetched Haim soft drinks when Haim visited the White House.
10) You would think that Hillary would have shunned Haim after seeing the debt in blood levied by the Iraq War.
But NO -- Hillary was HAPPY to maintain her association with Haim. Haim Saban is, in fact, one of Hillary's major financial backers in the current campaign.
Although his obvious quid pro quo -- deaths of thousands of American sons to protect Israel -- is the same as it was in 2002.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Saban#Bill_Clinton_presidency
thx for the feedback Tim -
re: Kennedy and Jerry Brown -
I guess you are right. The press didn't treat Jerry Brown as a serious candidate ever - he was a side show. I suppose it's because this primary season lasted FAR longer than any earlier one, that those comparisons don't seem quite apt to me. But your point is taken - thx.
Those are boiler-plate criticisms of Hillary Clinton that we hear repeated over and over again and have for a decade or more. Truth is it hasn't stopped her from getting to this point despite the nay-sayers who thought she'd never become a senator or a serious candidate for president.
I would say - that "getting to this point" - isn't all that far. She never had a real opponent in her senate campaigns, and won with help of her incredible name recognition as well as her family being atop the Democratic Party. (I'm not saying she's not a good senator... just that she never had a really contested election). This isn't to say she hasn't done anything. She did win two elections and has shown stamina that I can't dream of during this primary season.
Though you say those are "boiler plate" criticisms, it doesn't make them invalid. That Mr. Clinton refuses to release donor information for his library, and has had dubious and lucrative financial deals, haven't been part of the boiler plate.
re: Her polls versus McCain and really is all you need to make your point ...
I found:
Clinton (48%) vs. McCain (44%)
Obama (46%) vs. McCain (46%)
from
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/196769.php
So, you are correct. thanks for pointing it out.
2 percentage points are so close at this point, that I don't see that as a true advantage, especially with the dirt on Mr. Clinton yet to surface. But that is my opinion - and thank you for explaining yours.
Nice catch, southpaw.
The Clinton campaign end their run in the same fashion as it ran: without respect for anyone but themselves.
jackifus:
I made the prediction months ago that as more was learned about Senator Obama that his unfavorables would rise, his favorables would fall, and his lead over McCain would dissipate. That's exactly what has happened. Clinton, on the other hand, is looking as strong as ever. The things you and others have been saying about Hillary aren't new. The Clintons have always had haters and they've always managed to do quite well thank you very much.
As for the polls, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So I'd take Clinton's numbers today over Obama's fantasy numbers in the future, that may or may not materialize.
Jerry Brown may have been a joke, but Kennedy and Hart were not. In fact, there are many parallels between Clinton and Kennedy's campaigns. Both benefited from high name recognition and the connections and support coming from their political family. Both were the early front-runners in their respective races (Kennedy lead Carter considerably in 1979-80 before the Hostage Crisis). Both fell behind their rival early on in their race but came back strong to win the second half. Neither was able to overcome their opponents delegate advantage. There are two key differences though: 1) Kennedy was over 900 pledged delegates and 12% in the popular vote behind Carter, while Clinton is only 130 or so pledged delegates and 0.1% in the popular vote (to be generous) behind Obama. 2) Clinton is not taking her fight to the convention, while Kennedy refused to drop out and endorse. He didn't even shake Carter's hand. Clinton is not going to be like that.
And, finally, for those who complain about the length of this race. If the Democrats had a more rational nominating process, that allocated delegates on a basis that rewarded the popular vote winner of primaries with substantially more delegates their the popular vote loses of primaries (or caucuses for that matter) the nominee would have been chosen by March. The problem - for Obama partisans - is that if the Democrats had such a system of winner-take-more delegate allocation Hillary Clinton would have won.
The Democratic Party and the pundits have what they wanted, Obama as the nominee. However, he is a wounded figure. He cannot heal a party that he's divided. The meeting in DC demonstrated the absurdity of deciding MI and FL. Awarding half of a vote to Americans will cost the Democratic nominee full votes in November. By their logic, the Obama Democrats were more concerned about the voters that could have been.
Furthermore, Democratic unity was damaged because both Clintons were cast as racists. The strategy worked and Obama won a 90 to 10 ratio of AA. It shows Obama is a polarizing candidate. Even with Hillary on the ticket, I wouldn't vote for him. It is time the rest of the country stands up to this bully.
-roger:
The myth - which is the myth of the Maureen Dowd crowd, in which all politics is high school - is that Clinton would do that out of pique.
right on in your description of Maureen Dowd.
You are basing your "she wouldn't undermine Obama" on a conjecture of reasonableness. When I focus on her actual behavior, that conjecture doesn't hold.
I would have imagined reasonable behavior would imply that she would at a minimum make absolutely clear what she is pushing for by staying in the race so long, and by painting Obama as some how illegitimate.
Edwards made his championship of the poverty issue clear. What's her issue? Why are so many in the media asking "What does she want?" ...
Because she hasn't made it clear why she has remained in the race past the point where it was winnable (to grant visibility for a particularly valued policy), her presence in the race appears irrational. And the conjecture of reasonable behavior is undermined.
Perhaps if you could explain what she is pushing for - it would help me understand her to be reasonable.
Re Tim K's comment " if the Democrats had such a system of winner-take-more delegate allocation Hillary Clinton would have won."
--------------
I very much doubt that. There is a shitload of adverse info on Hillary --e.g, see above -- that would have came out if she ever showed signs of getting the nomination. Not everyone is deterred by the idea of triggering a bloody civil war in the Democratic Party.
Hillary's strength was largely limited to Appalachia.
If those low-info voters in Appalachia were told about Haim Saban, for example, Hillary couldn't get elected dog catcher there. Blue collar men tend to be patriots -- and they despise anyone who sells out the country to foreigners. Especially when American sons die as a result.
It's a point that Peggy Noonan made but it's still valid:
Even when she's almost got a person's vote - there's something about Hillary they just recoil from. There's something wrong with her and people sense it.
The Hillary persona is not just inauthentic. It's creepy, creepier than Nixon. Recall the hastily scheduled public appearance on the night that New Hampshire wacko held her campaign workers hostage. Bundled up in a spiffy winter parka - she was so delighted with this turn of event - she almost started to drool with joy. She really believed this thing would generate waves of sympathy for her even though she wasn't there. She was ecstatic convinced this wacko's choice of targets cemented her #1 status in the public's eyes. Little did she know that the wacko was behind the curve, that he was a grade A idiot. The hot candidate was Obama.
When I saw that gleam in her eye- I knew she was gonna self-destruct.
Don Williams why didn't you enlist to ease the burden on those families? Where was your call for national military service so the terrible costs were spread more equitably? You are a loathsome fuck wrapping yourself in the sacrifice of others.
Funny how Don didn't mention the 98 mothers and daughters who have died while railing about that bitch.
-Tim -
As for the polls, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So I'd take Clinton's numbers today over Obama's fantasy numbers in the future, that may or may not materialize.
Fine point. Absolutely.
I made the prediction months ago that as more was learned about Senator Obama that his unfavorables would rise, his favorables would fall, and his lead over McCain would dissipate. That's exactly what has happened. Clinton, on the other hand, is looking as strong as ever.
Clinton's negatives weren't probed that deeply because the Obama story really gained momentum. I disagree with you there. But, sheesh - one would be silly to argue that the Clintons can't come back from political negatives.
So - I think your point makes sense.
re: Kennedy
I don't think that's the model one is looking to if one is looking for party unity. That Hillary Clinton is closest to Kennedy's behavior isn't a "good thing."
re: Other primary contest rules favoring Clinton
That is really tangential... were the rules different, Obama's campaign would have focused on those rules... and (perhaps) have won as well. The reality is that Obama's campaign was organized around the rules that were in force, and that's why he won the way he did.
-- Tim, I do want to thank your for the discussion - and to note that I'm not a Democrat. I'm an "independent" voter who was a Democrat but left the party after witnessing corruption first-hand.
I'm not pro-Democratic party in particular. I'm for Reason. And because the GOP is anti-Reason, I'm anti-GOP.
That's likely why Obama's focus on discussion and such rings true to me, versus Clinton who may have a better shot at returning to the Whitehouse, but who wouldn't emphasize rational thinking or approaches. (3am, Obliterate them, is he a muslim etc..?)
Again, thanks for explaining your position. It makes sense.
BTW: I would vote for either candidate over McCain, of course.
Tim K:
you are an idiot. as is everyone who uses the absurd hypothetical "if this contest had been done by popular vote", or winner-take-all, or any of the other ridiculous fictional metrics the Clinton campaign has at various times tried to use to cling onto a lost contest. if the Democratic nomination was determined by, for instance, popular vote; the Obama campaign's strategy would have been very different. in fact, the entire nominating process for the Democratic Party would have been different. but that's not how we in the Democratic party determine the nomination, so why in the hell are you talking about it as though the idea had any weight whatsoever?
no-one can say, and there's no real point in considering, what the contest would have looked like under a different set of rules. beyond wishful thinking (read: whining) there's no reason to reflect on what the process might possibly have looked like. oh, and for my money, given only the kinds of advisors and methods employed by the candidates this cycle, i'd still put Obama in a commanding lead.
your candidate was incompetent, squandering every advantage and showing the barest possible good judgment at nearly every serious turn. the country is better off for not having such a person in charge of it. you can either accept this fact, or not. but continuing to live in fantasy land means you're going to miss out on a lot as the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, begins combating John McCain.
And, finally, for those who complain about the length of this race. If the Democrats had a more rational nominating process, that allocated delegates on a basis that rewarded the popular vote winner of primaries with substantially more delegates their the popular vote loses of primaries (or caucuses for that matter) the nominee would have been chosen by March. The problem - for Obama partisans - is that if the Democrats had such a system of winner-take-more delegate allocation Hillary Clinton would have won.
Counterfactuals are, by their nature, true. However, if things were different, Obama (and Clinton) would have run different campaigns. One of Obama's strengths this time was that his campaign bothered to learn a lot of intricacies of the process and exploit them; Clinton's campaign didn't, and it cost them.
Re fuck Don Williams "Where was your call for national military service so the terrible costs were spread more equitably?"
-------------
Why in the hell would I risk my life for a lie -- a lie disseminated for money? Or have you found Saddam's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" yet?
Besides, if Americans are going to pick up guns and kill people, why shoot Muslims on the far side of the world? From the viewpoint of national defense, it seems to me that our enemies are a lot closer to home.
Besides, I'm a peaceful person. After all, my son has not been drafted and sent to die in Iraq to appease some campaign donor. Although he has had to register for the draft.
If only she'd done this even last Tuesday.
BA:
Yet another infuriating tirade of hate against Senator Clinton. I'm not going to bother going after it point by point, it's mostly just re-hashed anyways.
Justin:
I was simply making the point that it is the Democratic party proportional delegate allocation rules that have both contributed to Obama's delegate lead, and contributed to the lengthening of the race. So you cannot have the one without the other.
The Obama campaign wisely focused to organize in the caucuses out of necessarily, because they knew they wouldn't have the time and resources necessary to overcome Clinton's advantages in the larger Super Tuesday states. But were delegate allocation rules winner-take-all, or more reasonably, winner-take-MORE, then there is no way Obama could have won more delegates in the caucus states than she did in states like California, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Also, the Democratic rules give more delegates to congressional districts that vote more Democratic. Those also happen to be districts dominated by African Americans. Had the rules been different, how could Obama magically change his support base from one set of congressional districts to others? That's silly. He had inherent strengths as a candidate, and his strategy was largely out of necessity, and could not have been freely altered depending on the rules. Processes do affect outcomes in the real world.
Having said that, much of the Clinton campaigns ultimate failure was due to strategic errors early on.
Tim K, your patience and stamina are to be admired.
I'm an Obama supporter, and have been, but all that you have said about Clinton and how great she is rings true.
My favored candidate won, and I do think that Hillary had every right to take this to the end. I am not a big fan of any "favors" she might be trying to extract from Obama at this point (which are speculative, not known in any real sense), but she is an awesome politician, and aside from a few votes, an incredible Democrat.
I don't get the HillaryHate, and I have to agree that while now that the show is over, it is time for her to gracefully exit, I have not minded her being in it to win it up to this point. Finally, the idea that she didn't concede last night and is now going to wait until a few days (gasp!) later is borderline stupid. So long as she bows out and fights for the party, things are good. I am afeared that many folks are just not willing to wrap their heads around the fact that Hillary, Bill, and most of her supporters are on our side.
Don't try to find new enemies, folks, there are plenty of real ones. Think Iraq, etc. Don't take your eye off the ball. Hillary and her supporters most definitely are not the ball...
"Yet another infuriating tirade of hate against Senator Clinton. I'm not going to bother going after it point by point, it's mostly just re-hashed anyways."
Wait, you're Hillary Clinton? Because it's you who I see being dissed by BA. The fact that you don't see where she ends and you begin is just creepy. Get a life.
We should probably lay off Clinton a bit to reach out to her supporters. However, Tim K is Canadian and is thus just a poser Clinton supporter who couldn't even vote for her, so feel free to rip into his jerkoff ass while he deals with his mommy issues or whatever by trying to be more Catholic than the Pope.
Re fuck Don Williams "Don didn't mention the 98 mothers and daughters who have died while railing about that bitch. "
-----------
Correction: that CORRUPT bitch.
And the reason is that I was waiting for all the stupid cunts who support Hillary to wake up and ask Hillary where Saddam's WMDs are.
Or do all those white collar feminists -- who, like Hillary, have never gotten within a 1000 miles of an active battlefield -- prefer to simply say "fuck you" to all the mothers who have lost sons in Iraq? For the cause, of course.
I remain mystified by this:
I am not a big fan of any "favors" she might be trying to extract from Obama at this point (which are speculative, not known in any real sense)
from my post to roger above:
I would have imagined reasonable behavior would imply that she would at a minimum make absolutely clear what she is pushing for by staying in the race so long...
Edwards made his championship of the poverty issue clear. What's her issue? Why are so many in the media asking "What does she want?" ...
Because she hasn't made it clear why she has remained in the race past the point where it was winnable (to grant visibility for a particularly valued policy), her presence in the race appears irrational. And the conjecture of reasonable behavior is undermined.
Perhaps if you could explain what she is pushing for - it would help me understand her to be reasonable.
At this point Tim has helped me understand why Clinton supporters stayed with her... (appreciated). But, I don't understand her behavior.
Reality Man:
Is there some reason you grave my attention?
He called Hillary Clinton incompetent, that's what I was taking exception to. That, and he clearly is a Hillary Hater as well. Not the fact that he called me names.
abject funk:
Totally agree with your remarks.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/198827.php
From Mrs. Clinton:
On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.
I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise.
That kinda settles it for me.
thanks all.
Barack Obama could have ended this race if he had defeated Senator Clinton in Texas and Ohio
Bill Clinton said Texas was do-or-die. Obama won Texas by getting more delegates, which is the only measure that really counts in getting the nomination.
Not that it matters, but the only way Senator Clinton can claim to have won the popular vote is by counting all of the votes for her in Michigan and zero for Obama even though exit polls showed that 35% of Michigan voters would have voted for Obama if he'd been on the ballot. (He wasn't because he--along with the other major Democratic candidates and unlike Clinton--honored his signed pledge to not campaign or participate in the Michigan primary.
Tim K, thanks for the note. Jackifus, the "favors" mean trying to muscle into the VP slot. I am not opposed to her in the VP slot, but it has to be an Obama decision on the merits. The way it currently stands in the media (not necessarily by Clinton design) is that he is weak if he asks her to be VP, and he is damaged if he does not (as in, her supporters will be pissed). I don't know the reality, I just know the narrative, and if she is angling for VP, this is a bad way to go about it in my opinion. She should concede, step out of the pres race, and wait and see who Obama picks, with real and true backdoor politics ruling the day (as opposed to selective media leaks from her campaign or surrogates). I wouldn't mind a "dream ticket" at all, but it has to be because it is best for the nation (and party), not because Hillary used her not inconsiderable leverage.
Not saying it is true, just trying to explain my earlier "favors" comment which was less than clear.
That settles it for me too.
Croatoan:
100,000 more voters supported Hillary Clinton in Texas. In a Democracy that is what counts as winning a primary.
You guys are all nuts. Why don't you all lube up and make sweet love?
Wow. Over four hours of petty bickering. You're all wonderful human beings. Give yourselves a round of applause. And then a kick in the face.
I'm going to give my toilet a hot karl.
funk - thx.
I, personally, would mind a "dream" ticket. Obama's appeal to me is that he's not part of the Democratic Party machine that I've seen to be destructive. Clinton is the epitome of the Democratic machine. They seem to be opposites that I don't see as reconcilable.
btw- if she has been trying to force a VP selection, it has been as clumsy as her campaign has ... putting Obama in the "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" position.
In fact, I don't see her as particularly effective. She's really smart... and has lots of stamina .. boy does she. But... has she been a great Senator?
How has she opposed the Bush agenda effectively? She has been a senator throughout the Bush years. She hasn't steered out national discussion. Her campaign was less than successful especially considering her formidable advantages. I just don't see her as being particularly effective at pushing an agenda that's an alternative to Bush.
She seems to be an effective party boss. I don't want a party Boss as VP ...
jackifu, not sure I disagree. Merely will repeat that she is an amazing politician, and while not my first choice for president, I really admire and appreciate and support both H and B Clinton.
That said, it is clear she will have a very important role to play in the New Democratic Majority (yay!). What it is, we shall see. I just am focused on acknowledging her presence, her stature, her power, etc. I truly respect the woman and I want her supporters to know that I respect them too. As far as everything else goes, we'll see how things shake out. Suffice it to say, Hillary and her supporters have a big (and positive, in my opinion) to play. And I welcome their cooperation, and, indeed, I even welcome their criticism/skepticism, a la Tim K. (As if I am in any position to designate or define who is offering constructive criticism. I'm arrogant, but not that arrogant).
thx funk -
I essentially agree as well.
onward we go.
jackifus:
One of the reasons someone like Ted Kennedy is so loved by Democrats and acknowledged as a "great" Senator, or "Liberal Lion" as he is often referred to as, is because he isn't running for president anymore. His only constituencies are the liberal electorate of Massachusetts and the base of the national base of the Democratic party.
Hillary Clinton has been positioning herself for the general election in 2008 for 8 years. She's actually done a pretty fantastic job of moving to the centre when you consider the fact that she was seen as extremely liberal only a few short years ago. Now she is accused by left-wingers in the Democratic party as a Republican in sheeps clothing. Remember when Obama referred to her as Bush-Cheney-lite? In some ways she did too good a job of triangulating. While she is exactly where a Democrat needs to be for the general election, she wasn't liberal enough for the Democratic party of 2008, which has become very liberal. Party activists simply couldn't forgive her vote to authorize the Iraq war. Had she not cast that vote she would be the nominee.
Hi Tim,
I agree with your post. And it's why I don't like Hillary Clinton.
You note that had she not voted for the war, she'd be the nominee. That is perhaps true, but her vote for the war and her image as the new Lieberman don't appear to be accidental. They appear to be genuine. And genuinely unappealing. She voted not just for the war, but also for Kyle-Lieberman, and made comments such as "obliterate Iran" and ridiculed the idea that one should hold talks with adversaries.
So, that "if" (she didn't vote for the war) appears to be a ruse ... if she weren't who she is ... she may have won.
true enough.
You are correct that she was able to remake herself as a Lieberman-type right-wing Democrat... and that is remarkable. Thanks for the context, she did it so well I failed to notice!
That she blew with the political winds, even when those winds blew towards Bush, is pretty gross to me.
But maybe that makes me a naive idealist...
Even if Hillary endorses Obama on Saturday, her supporters will not. He has run the nastiest, racist, and most divisive campaign. Obama is unfit to be the POTUS.
One thing that always bothered me about this race is that Hillary's voters were treated as if we were non-existent. The remarks by some of the posters about the meaning of her campaign illustrates my point. She was our representative and symbolized our hopes and dreams. The way that she has to exit this race on Saturday is degrading. It doesn't help Obama or the DP.
Or take the case of MI and FL, the Obama Democratic leadership played fast and loose with the rules on Saturday. Ickes was right, how can the DP members replace the voting rights of 600,000 voters in MI? According to your reality, BO's team can steamroll anyone to get what they want. Is this the role model the DP wants to project to the rest of the country? They have shown an affinity for picking losing candidates.
Using the wedge issues of the war, race, and abortion will not work for Obama in the GE. You can forget unity, when your own party shreds the reputation of their best candidate and former President.
She's just going underground.
"Officially" her campaign is over. Unofficially, it's full speed ahead.
Suckers.
The Dems have already lost this election.
Tim,
goyoga82's post is a case in point of how damaging Clinton has been ... MI and FL is mentioned as an injustice because Clinton framed it that way.
unfortunate.
good night. thanks, I learned something
Can I just spend a moment to express my alarm at the ongoing attempts to delegitimize Obama's victory?
This nonsense about the popular vote-- as if that were any kind of a fair metric, given the structure of the caucus states-- is pretty fallacious. The election in Michigan was a potemkin contests, with only one candidate campaigning. It seems silly to pretend it were conducted legitimately.
You have to discount states Obama won, and count states that did not hold fair elections, and kind of squint really really hard in order to get math that says Hillary won the popular vote.
She adopted that talking-point in an attempt to justify her continuing campaign.
That doesn't make it true.
--------------
TimK--
I agree, fundementally, that the outcome of this election hinged in large part upon its structure. That said, why would you wish to adopt GOP-style winner-take-more primaries? Would it not be wiser to unify our electoral mechanics (no superdelegates, no caucuses, no regional allocation formulas based on past general election turnout) and just conduct a (staggered) national popular vote?
Not to say that the current system is pristine in any respect-- but winner-take-all systems are essentially undemocratic and disenfranchising. It's shameful enough that we use them in the general (I'm in Texas-- I will get no meaningful vote in November). Weighting some voters more than others isn't something I'm prepared to endorse as a matter of principle.
"Or take the case of MI and FL, the Obama Democratic leadership played fast and loose with the rules on Saturday. Ickes was right, how can the DP members replace the voting rights of 600,000 voters in MI?"
Maybe Ickes should have thought about that before he voted to strip those states of their delegates.
When will that huge ass, Tim K, go away? He whines, he moans, he plays the victim, he's a pathetic loser. Sounds a lot like his candidate. Face it, Timmeh: the bitch lost. She ran a lame campaign. She herself is lame. As are you.
Please just shut the fuck up.
Look, for better and worse, the vast majority of both Obama and Clinton backers are Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters who simply aren't in the midst of these most heated debates.
That's why as a person who moved his rather meager level of support from Edwards to Obama, I don't have any problem with the great masses of people who "supported" Clinton (what? a vote? a few bucks?).
Each candidate's most fervent backers, though, will have some rather active hostility for those of the rival candidate.
That's why outside the sturm & drang about the content or tone of Hillary's speech and whatnot really doesn't matter much, because over the next weeks the vast majority of Democrats who may have "supported" other candidates simply and naturally shift to backing the actual Democratic candidate.
The main difference, though, is that activists who support certain policies can no longer do so via the proxy of a candidate whom (they believe) represents those policy preferences; they now have to advocate those policies directly.
Tim K, for example, has consistently written here his paeans to DLC centrism and how anything other than that is some sort of liberal extremism. Others (like Digby) have argued that it's bad in general and maybe extra bad tactically right now to spend a lot of time pointing out what was wrong with Bill Clinton's presidency.
Fine, whatever. But now, all these views will have to be argued directly, and not via proxies about what happened in Michigan or Florida or these games about which is the real Democratic demographic group worthy of attention and candidate representation, and since there is no longer any candidate representing by proxy some peoples' arguments for a return to or leavng from Bill Clinton style politics, this too is outdated.
Justin JJ @ 1:28 AM: I agree with pretty much everything you've said in this thread. However, "Counterfactuals are, by their nature, true"? I'm not convinced of that. It might be anyone's guess what it is in virtue of which a given counterfactual is true or false, but does that automatically mean that we should default to the position that counterfactuals are all true? It's a time-honored option, but not the only one, and I would want to see more argument for why I should take it.
Yes, my quibble is pedantic and off-topic, but it's no less productive than continuing to pile on HRC now that her campaign is over. I'm all for kissing and making up, friends.
1. Douglas F'ing MacArthur allowed Emperor Hirohito to give his last speech to the Japanese people without using the word "surrender." Apparently the frat boys in the 2008 Democratic party are less magnanimous to the candidate of 48% of their own party than Dugout Doug was to the guy who led the government that got us into WWII. That shows real class. You have no evidence that Senator Clinto is going to sabotage the party -- she's spent her entire life working for it -- but somehow, now, she's going to take the place down in a fit of pique. I realize none of you have gone to your 10th high school reunion, but real grownups don't behave that way.
2. The thing that makes me angriest about this is that you all are insisting that a Senator and candidate for President play by "girl rules." She's a girl, and is therefore obligated to be Nice more than anything else. Every woman past 28 who works for pay knows this, and knows that when we play nice, we lose, but when we play like the boys, we're Evil Mean Castrating Bitches. At least the bitch gets some money to show for her troubles.
If Senator Clinton holds on to her delegates, she has leverage with the Obama campaing for platform positions and for patronage for her supporters. That, children, is what politicians do. Fail to do that and you lose. It is not unusual, nasty, evil, or designed to ruin Obama's chances. I am reasonably certain that Obama, being a product of Chicago politics, understands this point. It's a pity so few of his supporters manage it. Oh, and for what it's worth, I voted for Obama in my state primary, but unless his supporters cool it, my yard sign stays in the garage.
Wow, I remember how angry the Clinton campaign and supporters were one of the times that John Edwards gave a speech after losing yet another primary or caucus (they count too!) without acknowledging Hillary's victory, and gosh, did they accuse Edwards of being classless.
But, one of the traditional strengths of the Clintons is that they demand the right to not be held to any of the standards or logics they advise for others, so, you know, that's not surprising.
If only she had dropped out months ago then what exactly?
Obama would have become the nominee? There would not have been so many energized primaries? Obama would have gotten his primary victory bumb earlier (and with bumps the earlier the better)?
I have been with Obama throughout this contest, but I am not sure exactly what would have gone better for Obama if Clinton had conceeded months ago?
I suppose Clinton would have avoided a 20 million dollar campaign debt, but presumably that is not the point being made here.
unless his supporters cool it, my yard sign stays in the garage.
This is a meme some variation of which I've seen repeated over and over on message boards -- blaming Obama, essentially, for the handful of his overheated supporters on the internet. It's pretty much always ridiculous.
Any successful politician is going to have some supporters who get a little carried away in some form or another. And, in the internet age, with its anonymity and immediacy, there's nothing holding these people back from expressing themselves. The vast majority of Obama supporters are not engaged in long spiteful arguments on message boards and are not calling Hillary mean names. Back away from the internet occasionally: it gives a distorted view of the world.
"You don't think I think Obama has been a worthy opponent? He just beat my preferred candidate."
I'm with Reality Man on this one. Tim K. is Canadian and so technically doesn't have a candidate. His/her only purpose here are these passive-aggressive stances seeking to rehash every specious argument he/she has made through out the campaign in an effort to diminish Obama's accomplishments and victory (as someone mentioned earlier). Regular visitors to MY are familiar with his/her MO and quite a few of us have tired of it.
Attacks on Timmeh Kay become attacks on Hillary. Valid criticisms of Senator Clinton tactics become attacks of Timbo's political acumen and are returned with attacks on the poster’s knowledge, maturity and awareness. And so we are forced to listen to Timmy chide and lecture the Obamobots for their arrogance and blind allegiance and must sit enthralled by this canuck's infinite knowledge of the US political system and the Democratic Primary season in particular.
As I've said before, Timmeh is the answer to the question that Canada didn't ask and it is unfortunate that the good people of Canada are forced to endure his/her presence. If that sounds mean, well, let's just say that Timmy's song and dance has worn a little thin.
Matthew was stupid for writing this post as are anyone else who posts similar on their blogs. There's no good reason to continue or exacerbate the fight between the Obama and Hillary supporters (as Timmy continues to do while simultaneously denying his participation in the act) and it is important that we all come together to beat the snot out of McCain this fall. Tim K., well… he's just full of shit...
"The thing that makes me angriest about this is that you all are insisting that a Senator and candidate for President play by "girl rules." She's a girl, and is therefore obligated to be Nice more than anything else."
If in 2000, what if Al Gore had come out after that final Supreme Court decision and said..."I'm not going to concede, I'm still the best man to be President, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Check back with me in some undetermined amount of time"?
The vast majority of folks are not saying Hillary is obligated to be "nice". They're saying she should be required to behave appropriately, JUST LIKE EVER OTHER CANDIDATE WHO'S EVER LOST AN ELECTION.
Mike
"Back away from the internet occasionally: it gives a distorted view of the world."
Excellent advice.
Also, getting rid of cable TV does wonders...
The only thing worse than sore losers are sore winners. It's not Obama I have trouble with so much as many of his supporters. The lady lost. She's conceding. She has ALWAYS said she would support the nominee of the party. I guess she has to grovel, beg forgiveness, kiss the asses of every single Obama supporter, divorce Bill, apologize for slavery, wear sackcloth and beg forgiveness for being concerned about older women. As a life long democrat myself, I wish I could personally tell each and every one of you people to back off, you are severely hurting the party and your candidate. It's not Hillary who needs the votes now. I've never seen such arrogant winners. I'm trying to come to terms with voting for Obama but EVERY time I just about get there, one of you decides the Clintons need to be destroyed rather then merely beaten and I get furious and back away. I am truly on the verge of dropping out of this election. Nothing is more unappealing to me than to consider putting up with so many arrogant people for the next four years.
I suggest people read Lincoln Chafee's recent book
"Against the Tide". Although a Republican, Chafee opposed the Iraq invasion.
From http://www.projo.com/news/content/LInc_Chafee_01-27-08_PD8NPTK_v102.182ab97.html
"The book excoriates Mr. Bush and his GOP allies who repeatedly fanned such wedge issues as changing the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, abortion and flag-burning. But he saves some of his harshest words for Democrats who paved the way for Mr. Bush to use the U.S. military to invade Iraq. That includes New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, whom Chafee says put her presidential ambitions above standing up to Mr. Bush and the rush to war in Iraq.
“I find it surprising now, in 2008, how many Democrats are running for president after shirking their constitutional duty to check and balance this president,” writes Chafee. “Being wrong about sending Americans to kill and be killed, maim and be maimed, is not like making a punctuation mistake in a highway bill.
“They argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.”
Chafee was the only Republican senator to vote against prosecuting the war. “The top Democrats were at their weakest when trying to show how tough they were,” writes Chafee. “They were afraid that Republicans would label them soft in the post-September 11 world, and when they acted in political self-interest, they helped the president send thousands of Americans and uncounted innocent Iraqis to their doom.
“Instead of talking tough or meekly raising one’s hand to support the tough talk, it is far more muscular, I think, to find out what is really happening in the world and have a debate about what we really need to accomplish,” writes Chafee. “That is the hard work of governing, but it was swept aside once the fear, the war rhetoric and the political conniving took over.”
Chafee writes of his surprise at “how quickly key Democrats crumbled.” Democratic senators, Chafee writes, “went down to the meetings at the White House and the Pentagon and came back to the chamber ready to salute. With wrinkled brows they gravely intoned that Saddam Hussein must be stopped. Stopped from what? They had no conviction or evidence of their own. They were just parroting the administration’s nonsense. They knew it could go terribly wrong; they also knew it could go terribly right. Which did they fear more?”
As an Obama supporter let me take the time to acknowledge and thank Hillary Clinton for bowing out of the race. It is a bit belated, and it would have been nice if she had recognized that the race was over on her own rather than only after her own campaign staff recruited a bunch of Senators and Congressmen to tell her it was over, but she has done the right thing and in the end that is all that matters.
And because I've seen a few comments about Hillary supporters wishing that Obama supporters would be a bit more gracious, let me take a moment to recognize the historic nature of what Hillary has accomplished.
As a woman running for office, she gathered around 18 MILLION votes in a PRIMARY. This is a stunning accomplishment and proves that a woman can successfully run and win the presidency. This will happen in my lifetime.
Let not the fact that she ended up losing (barely) detract from the fact that she won an astronomical number of votes. I also fully believe that had she managed to beat Senator Obama, she would have made short work of Senator McCain in the general election. My only difference of opinion with Hillary supporters in this area is that I think that Senator Obama will easily defeat Senator McCain as well. (And it would be nice if more Hillary supporters would acknowledge this instead of predicting a McCain landslide...)
Senator Clinton is a tenacious warrior. Frankly, she's so tenacious that it is a little scary. If McCain was willing to fight half as hard as Hillary was willing to fight, then I would actually be concerned about this general election.
While I do not believe that Hillary is the right choice to be Obama's VP, I DO believe that she needs to be given something. Give her a cabinet spot, a supreme court appointment...something! I was never of the opinion that she didn't deserve SOMETHING. I was only of the opinion that she didn't deserve, and didn't have the right, to FORCE Obama to make her VP or to dictate terms to the winner. (No matter how narrow he won by.)
Hillary supporters...your candidate has led the way. She has endorsed Senator Obama. While I know you may be justifiably disappointed that she is not going to be president this time, please follow her lead and come help us get a very good Democrat, Senator Barack Obama, elected to the oval office.
As an Obama supporter let me take the time to acknowledge and thank Hillary Clinton for bowing out of the race. It is a bit belated, and it would have been nice if she had recognized that the race was over on her own rather than only after her own campaign staff recruited a bunch of Senators and Congressmen to tell her it was over, but she has done the right thing and in the end that is all that matters.
And because I've seen a few comments about Hillary supporters wishing that Obama supporters would be a bit more gracious, let me take a moment to recognize the historic nature of what Hillary has accomplished.
As a woman running for office, she gathered around 18 MILLION votes in a PRIMARY. This is a stunning accomplishment and proves that a woman can successfully run and win the presidency. This will happen in my lifetime.
Let not the fact that she ended up losing (barely) detract from the fact that she won an astronomical number of votes. I also fully believe that had she managed to beat Senator Obama, she would have made short work of Senator McCain in the general election. My only difference of opinion with Hillary supporters in this area is that I think that Senator Obama will easily defeat Senator McCain as well. (And it would be nice if more Hillary supporters would acknowledge this instead of predicting a McCain landslide...)
Senator Clinton is a tenacious warrior. Frankly, she's so tenacious that it is a little scary. If McCain was willing to fight half as hard as Hillary was willing to fight, then I would actually be concerned about this general election.
While I do not believe that Hillary is the right choice to be Obama's VP, I DO believe that she needs to be given something. Give her a cabinet spot, a supreme court appointment...something! I was never of the opinion that she didn't deserve SOMETHING. I was only of the opinion that she didn't deserve, and didn't have the right, to FORCE Obama to make her VP or to dictate terms to the winner. (No matter how narrow he won by.)
Hillary supporters...your candidate has led the way. She has endorsed Senator Obama. While I know you may be justifiably disappointed that she is not going to be president this time, please follow her lead and come help us get a very good Democrat, Senator Barack Obama, elected to the oval office.
I am truly on the verge of dropping out of this election. Nothing is more unappealing to me than to consider putting up with so many arrogant people for the next four years.
And you meet all these arrogant Obama supporters where? On the street? At your workplace?
On the internet, I'm guessing.
As I said before, back away from the internet. The majority of Obama supporters are not arrogant or meanspirited, in my experience; they're just desperately craving the new kind of politics he represents to them.
"I guess she has to grovel, beg forgiveness, kiss the asses of every single Obama supporter, divorce Bill, apologize for slavery, wear sackcloth and beg forgiveness for being concerned about older women."
Rich, is it really that hard for you to understand the anger Obama supporters feel when on the very night when he is officially crowned the presumptive nominee Hillary stands up, does not concede the race, says "I'm still the best candidate" and stands there with a sh!t-eating grin while her supporters cheer for her to take it to a convention fight in Denver? Seriously?
Both Obama and Clinton folks need to be gracious but Obama folks should at least be able to ask the Clinton folks to meet them halfway on that.
Mike
we're Evil Mean Castrating Bitches
Can't speak for anyone else, Karen, but you certainly sound like one.
If the Clinton's don't work thier asses off supporting Obama this Fall they will be through in politics. The electorate has changed and owes the Clinton's nothing.
"Rich, is it really that hard for you to understand the anger Obama supporters feel when on the very night when he is officially crowned the presumptive nominee Hillary stands up, does not concede the race"
The Obama supporters aren't just mad that she didn't concede the race Tuesday nite, they are made she didn't concede the race in February!! That's the whole point of this entire thread. Remember, this started with the statement "...if only she had done this weeks ago."
Don't forget she won a primary that nite also. She had every bit as much right to claim a victory that nite as he did. She's acknowledging his greater win now and has always said she would support whoever gets the nomination. Now it's not enough that she has been beaten, she needs to acknowledge loss in the way Obama's supporters demand!! I still see that as arrogance.
Rich:
I think the point Matt was trying to make when he started the thread that way was that it would have been nice if Hillary had dropped out and endorsed when it became mathematically obvious that she had no realistic shot at catching Obama.
Three months ago, Senator Obama released mathematics that said they had built an insurmountable lead. To Hillary supporters, this was taken as a sign of arrogance. To Obama supporters, while it may have been arrogant it was also accurate and correct.
Think about a basketball analogy. Let's say that Obama ran up a 35 point lead at halftime. Technically, it is theoretically possible for Hillary to come back, but it just doesn't happen very often. At some point in the game, usually about halfway through the third quarter when the lead hasn't dipped very much, most coaches "concede" that they're not going to catch up by pulling their starters out and putting in the bench players in order to conserve their starters' energy for the next game. Then, the other side acknowledges this by pulling their starters out.
Particularly after Texas and Ohio, when Hillary didn't really score a big victory that allowed her to close the gap, it became very obvious that there just wasn't enough primaries left for her to catch up. She needed BIG wins in Penn, Ohio and Texas to begin closing the gap. When the superdelegate count also ended up going Obama's way, and he eventually passed her in superdelegates, her back up plan of getting a flood of superdelegates to put her over the top became obvious as a failure.
At that point at the latest Hillary should have conceded for the good of the party. If she had, then instead of spending an extra $50 million dollars or so...probably more...fighting against Hillary, Obama could have started going after McCain.
In business, people talk about "Opportunity Cost". Which is basically the cost of not taking Door Number 2 in gameshow parlance.
The Opportunity Cost of Hillary not dropping out early is that we lost anywhere between a month and three months (depending on when you think it became completely obvious that Hillary wasn't going to catch Obama) that we could have spent healing intraparty wounds between Obama and Hillary supporters and chipping away at McCain's outdated "staight talker" image.
Let me get this argument straight. The Obama campaign releases a memo showing how a third of the states that have not yet voted are going to vote, so Hillary should concede he's already won. Why even have elections then? Why use his starting point to determine if we should vote the rest of the votes? Why not just use the original poll that showed Hillary was going to win the nomination and not vote at all? What a silly, undemocratic statement!
BTW, your basketball analogy is just as silly. Name ONE team that has ever walked off the floor before the game was over.
Let me get this argument straight. The Obama campaign releases a memo showing how a third of the states that have not yet voted are going to vote, so Hillary should concede he's already won. Why even have elections then? Why use his starting point to determine if we should vote the rest of the votes? Why not just use the original poll that showed Hillary was going to win the nomination and not vote at all? What a silly, undemocratic statement!
BTW, your basketball analogy is just as silly. Name ONE team that has ever walked off the floor before the game was over.
If McCain was willing to fight half as hard as Hillary was willing to fight, then I would actually be concerned about this general election.
Ain't that the truth? As an Obama supporter, I fear that if the election were held today, Obama would lose. But I also think that McCain just doesn't have the campaign in him to win. The more people see of him, the more scrutiny he's subjected to, the more his support is going to dwindle. I think Obama can gain strength by November.
While I do not believe that Hillary is the right choice to be Obama's VP, I DO believe that she needs to be given something. Give her a cabinet spot, a supreme court appointment...something!
The problem is that I don't think she really wants the VP job, and a cabinet position in an area where she specializes --- like Health and Human Services --- would have to be seen as a demotion. At this point, I'm not really sure what she wants if she can't be President.
Rich,
I don't want to spend a lot of time rehashing old arguments.
I will point out that you're displaying a bit of ignorance of how the Democratic Party Primary system works. This wasn't a situation where, even if Obama is wrong and Hillary wins a couple of extra states or runs up a couple of larger than expected margins, it changes the numbers.
Because of the proportional allocation of delegates, at some point (and we can disagree on when that point was) Hillary needed to win pretty much every remaining state with staggering margins...like 65% or more. Winning every single state with 55%-45% margin wouldn't have done it.
And that's where my point comes in about it being theoretically possible that she could have come back. She could have, theoretically, won every single remaining state with 20-25 point margins of victory, but it was HIGHLY UNLIKELY...in fact virtually impossible.
It isn't undemocratic to recognize this, as you're asserting. It isn't trying to disenfranchise voters or waiting until every last vote is cast as the Hillary camp argued. It is recognizing reality.
Let me use an extreme example to prove my point.
In Tuesday's primaries in South Dakota and Montana there were 31 pledged delegates left to fight over. Obama had about a 150 pledged delegate lead. So even if Hillary got ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the vote in both of those two states and won ALL THIRTY-ONE of those pledged delegates, it wasn't going to change the overall end outcome of the big picture race.
Am I being undemocratic by saying this? No! Of course not. I'm just recognizing that Obama built up such a big lead earlier on that there were just not enough delegates left for Hillary to catch up...even if she won 100% of the remaining votes in those last two states.
That's why I say we can argue about when exactly it became completely impossible for Hillary to catch up, but you can't really argue that at some point BEFORE Tuesday's primaries it became, literally, impossible. When it became literally impossible for Hillary to catch up, it would have been better for the party and for our chances of winning the General Election in November if she had dropped out and let Obama save his time, money and resources for battling McCain rather than trying to keep her from continuing to damage his image and his overall standing.
Anthony Damiani:
It's nice to see there are those here who ask intelligent questions in a respectful way.
I would never advocate a "winner-take-all" delegate allocation system. Although, it would be a much better approximation of the general election.
Allocation by national popular vote isn't practical since states run their primaries and caucuses based on their own laws and state parties want to defend their turf. I just don't think it would ever happen.
I would favor a winner-take-more system that actually rewarded the clearly winner of a contest. So one proposal would be to divide the delegates based on state-wide popular vote, but to grant the winner of the popular vote an additional number of delegates equally, for example, 20% of the delegates from that state. Another method would be to award delegates on a winner-take-all basis by congressional district, which would give a more proportional outcome than state-wide winner-take-all but would also lead to more decisive victories. I think a system that rewards winners is the best way to choose a winner, and find a quicker resolution to the process.
The caucuses are just absurd and undemocratic. John McCain did terribly in caucuses, but there is no question he was the most electable candidate the GOP could have chosen. Had the GOP delegate allocation rules been based on popular vote he never would have clinched the nomination by Texas and Ohio, or built such a commanding lead by Super Tuesday even. Romney might even be the nominee.
Rewarding congressional districts that are filled with the most loyal Democrats is the best way to choose the most liberal Democratic nominee, not the most electable nominee.
Rich,
I don't want to spend a lot of time rehashing old arguments.
I will point out that you're displaying a bit of ignorance of how the Democratic Party Primary system works. This wasn't a situation where, even if Obama is wrong and Hillary wins a couple of extra states or runs up a couple of larger than expected margins, it changes the numbers.
Because of the proportional allocation of delegates, at some point (and we can disagree on when that point was) Hillary needed to win pretty much every remaining state with staggering margins...like 65% or more. Winning every single state with 55%-45% margin wouldn't have done it.
And that's where my point comes in about it being theoretically possible that she could have come back. She could have, theoretically, won every single remaining state with 20-25 point margins of victory, but it was HIGHLY UNLIKELY...in fact virtually impossible.
It isn't undemocratic to recognize this, as you're asserting. It isn't trying to disenfranchise voters or waiting until every last vote is cast as the Hillary camp argued. It is recognizing reality.
Let me use an extreme example to prove my point.
In Tuesday's primaries in South Dakota and Montana there were 31 pledged delegates left to fight over. Obama had about a 150 pledged delegate lead. So even if Hillary got ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the vote in both of those two states and won ALL THIRTY-ONE of those pledged delegates, it wasn't going to change the overall end outcome of the big picture race.
Am I being undemocratic by saying this? No! Of course not. I'm just recognizing that Obama built up such a big lead earlier on that there were just not enough delegates left for Hillary to catch up...even if she won 100% of the remaining votes in those last two states.
That's why I say we can argue about when exactly it became completely impossible for Hillary to catch up, but you can't really argue that at some point BEFORE Tuesday's primaries it became, literally, impossible. When it became literally impossible for Hillary to catch up, it would have been better for the party and for our chances of winning the General Election in November if she had dropped out and let Obama save his time, money and resources for battling McCain rather than trying to keep her from continuing to damage his image and his overall standing.
From Huffpo "In an interview with The Washington Post, Clinton supporter and Black Entertainment Television network founder Robert Johnson said Clinton has authorized him and others to persuade Barack Obama to pick her."
Is there a more tin-eared way to campaign for vice-president than to put Robert Johnson in charge of convincing Obama's camp?
"When it became literally impossible for Hillary to catch up, it would have been better for the party and for our chances of winning the General Election in November if she had dropped out and let Obama save his time, money and resources for battling McCain rather than trying to keep her from continuing to damage his image and his overall standing."
She did exactly that. It became literally impossible for her to catch up Tuesday nite. Prior to that Obama DID NOT have enough delegates to claim victory. On Wed. she released a statement that she would be announcing the suspension of her campaign this week. I guess taking less than 24 hours between Tuesday nite and Wed. afternoon to do this just isn't fast enough for some people. Until the primaries were over and the superdelegates declared, she was in it to win it. The supers could have ended it but they DIDN'T DO IT. She still had a shot. You can argue forever that she wasn't going to make it but that was just conjecture. She still had a shot until he had enough delegates to claim it.
"The caucuses are just absurd and undemocratic."
Caucuses are not absurd or undemocratic. What is truer to the spirit of participatory democracy than a process where people have to stand up and justify their support of a candidate and trying to persuade their fellow citizens to get on board?
Mike
Jim Crozier:
It's the same thing that happened to Ted Kennedy in 1980.
Rich: Feb 14th Nagourney NYTimes--Clinton camp admitted they would never catch up in pledged delegates but would ask for coup by superdelegate. So for some of us, the time to give in was several months ago. (And I hope the Dems get rid of the supers next time--none, or 1/5 vote apiece, or something to minimize this ludicrous house of lords yay or nay over the voters.)
It's nice to see there are those here who ask intelligent questions in a respectful way
Tim K...when are you going to take your lame ass back to Canada and quit torturing us with your sobbing and rationalizing?
Was that "respectful" enough for you?
OK, I see. Hillary was supposed to play by the rules on Fla. and Michigan because rules are rules but, she was also supposed to forget the rule that says superdelegates have the same voting rights as elected delegates. She should have known the unwritten rule that said only elected pledged delegates mattered. If that were true, we still wouldn't have a nominee. No one would win it.
Give the lady a break, she fought hard to the end because there was a shot for her. She lost and is now conceding.
Joke:
Well respectful or not it certainly doesn't qualify as intelligent.
There is another reason that Hillary's supporters will not vote for Obama. If he wins, she cannot run in 2012. We can live with the four year term of President McCain.
I know, you are already preblaming Hillary if BO loses. That's his problem!
Rich,
I think I see what you're saying. Once he OFFICIALLY CLINCHED it became impossible for Hillary to catch.
You're referring to overall delegates. I'm referring to PLEDGED delegates.
Sometime in May, I forget the exact date, Obama officially secured the majority of pledged delegates available. (50% + 1) When I refer to impossible to catch, that's the number I am referencing.
So what you're saying is that, technically, there was still a glimmer of hope that Clinton might catch Obama if she finished strong and impressed the superdelegates enough to provoke a massive flood of them over to her cause.
This plays back into my statements about Opportunity Cost.
What do you place the odds of a huge flood of superdelegates overturning the pledged delegate winner at? 5% at the most?
So for maybe a 5% chance of winning, Clinton stayed in for an extra three months and cost the Democrats (her and his campaign combined) easily $130 million Democratic donation dollars that could have been used to attack John McCain or help downticket Democrats. We lost three months while Clinton pursued an incredible longshot. During those three months, Republicans, who knew with virtual certainty who their opponent was going to be, have been tagteaming attacks on Obama with Hillary McCain has been running unopposed. (This is why MY has repeatedly stated that McCain's best allies for the last few months have been those in Hillary's camp attacking Obama.)
It is my opinion that when it became impossible for her to catch Obama in pledged delegates she should have dropped out, because at that time the only way she could "win" was to get the superdelegates to overturn the pledged delegate count, which would have proked riots among Obama supporters and likely splintered the party in half.
This brings us back again to what MY was referring to in his opening post here: what is the Opportunity Cost of Hillary pursuing her desperate longshot?
Obama supporters are angry at Hillary Clinton because it long ago became a virtual certainty that Obama would be the nominee. While, technically, there was a tiny chance Hillary might catch up through some combination of Superdelegates + Michigan and Florida being settled in a way that overwhelmingly favored her, it was never a very realistic one. Hlllary on the other hand kept telling her supporters that the race was super close and she had a great shot, when she was always smart enough to know that wasn't true!
And as each roadblock got passed (like when Obama passed Hillary in the Superdelegate count...thus invalidating her backup plan of triggering a flood of superdelegate support her way) we kept expecting Hillary to admit defeat so we could shift into General Election mode.
So ultimately, while I'm glad that Hillary is dropping out and conceding, in a lot of Obama supporters minds the timing of this should have happened a while ago when her chances became so miniscule.
To me as an Obama supporter, it irritates me when Hillary supporters fail to recognize that we have a legitimate point. That while Hillary had the right to pursue her desperate longshot, there are costs involved in doing so. That while it is true Obama NEEDS Hillary supporters to win the general election, they now need HIM AS WELL.
Hillary supporters - at least in my mind - seem to be acting like Obama should somehow apologize for beating Hillary and come and beg them to switch over to supporting him, despite the fact that ON THE ISSUES, Hillary and Obama are virtual clones and now Hillary supporters if they care at all at seeing their issues pass, need Obama at least as much as Obama needs them. So they should be meeting us halfway, not bludgeoning us with threats to sit out or go vote for McCain.
Rich,
I think I see what you're saying. Once he OFFICIALLY CLINCHED it became impossible for Hillary to catch.
You're referring to overall delegates. I'm referring to PLEDGED delegates.
Sometime in May, I forget the exact date, Obama officially secured the majority of pledged delegates available. (50% + 1) When I refer to impossible to catch, that's the number I am referencing.
So what you're saying is that, technically, there was still a glimmer of hope that Clinton might catch Obama if she finished strong and impressed the superdelegates enough to provoke a massive flood of them over to her cause.
This plays back into my statements about Opportunity Cost.
What do you place the odds of a huge flood of superdelegates overturning the pledged delegate winner at? 5% at the most?
So for maybe a 5% chance of winning, Clinton stayed in for an extra three months and cost the Democrats (her and his campaign combined) easily $130 million Democratic donation dollars that could have been used to attack John McCain or help downticket Democrats. We lost three months while Clinton pursued an incredible longshot. During those three months, Republicans, who knew with virtual certainty who their opponent was going to be, have been tagteaming attacks on Obama with Hillary and McCain has been running unopposed. (This is why MY has repeatedly stated that McCain's best allies for the last few months have been those in Hillary's camp attacking Obama.)
It is my opinion that when it became impossible for her to catch Obama in pledged delegates she should have dropped out, because at that time the only way she could "win" was to get the superdelegates to overturn the pledged delegate count, which would have proked riots among Obama supporters and likely splintered the party in half.
This brings us back again to what MY was referring to in his opening post here: what is the Opportunity Cost of Hillary pursuing her desperate longshot?
Obama supporters are angry at Hillary Clinton because it long ago became a virtual certainty that Obama would be the nominee. While, technically, there was a tiny chance Hillary might catch up through some combination of Superdelegates + Michigan and Florida being settled in a way that overwhelmingly favored her, it was never a very realistic one. Hlllary on the other hand kept telling her supporters that the race was super close and she had a great shot, when she was always smart enough to know that wasn't true!
And as each roadblock got passed (like when Obama passed Hillary in the Superdelegate count...thus invalidating her backup plan of triggering a flood of superdelegate support her way) we kept expecting Hillary to admit defeat so we could shift into General Election mode.
So ultimately, while I'm glad that Hillary is dropping out and conceding, in a lot of Obama supporters minds the timing of this should have happened a while ago when her chances became so miniscule.
To me as an Obama supporter, it irritates me when Hillary supporters fail to recognize that we have a legitimate point. That while Hillary had the right to pursue her desperate longshot, there are costs involved in doing so. That while it is true Obama NEEDS Hillary supporters to win the general election, they now need HIM AS WELL.
Hillary supporters - at least in my mind - seem to be acting like Obama should somehow apologize for beating Hillary and come and beg them to switch over to supporting him, despite the fact that ON THE ISSUES, Hillary and Obama are virtual clones and now Hillary supporters if they care at all at seeing their issues pass, need Obama at least as much as Obama needs them. So they should be meeting us halfway, not bludgeoning us with threats to sit out or go vote for McCain.
Using the numbers from Real Clear Politics and NOT including Michigan at all, the difference in popular vote between HC and BO was one-tenth of 1%. The difference in PLEDGED delegates was 4%. Maybe that looks like a race YOU would have thrown the towel in on but it doesn't look that way to me. It doesn't really matter if you think it was a long shot, this was the closest race in democratic party history. Quit saying he had it locked up months ago. That is simply not true. He also did not lock up the pledged delegate lead until the end of May. He didn't lock it up three months earlier as you claim. Every time you make that kind of a claim, you discount the votes of millions of democrats who went to the polls because this was still a close election.
And again, I suggest you aren't fully internalizing "proportional delegate allocation".
That means in order to actually gain on the difference, Hillary needed BLOWOUTS. Yes, while the percentage difference in their pledged delegates was pretty minor, it doesn't mean that the race was that close.
For example:
Using Real Clear Politics, the site you mention, In Ohio and Texas, two of those HUGE AND IMPORTANT STATES that the Hillary campaign said were such big wins for her, she netted a pledged delegate gain of...two delegates.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
Obama netted a pledged delegate gain of TWELVE delegates out of IDAHO. (My home state with 15 pledged delegates up for grabs.)
Add in Pennsylvania, another HUGE AND IMPORTANT STATE that Hillary claimed was so important to win in...and she gained 14 delegates combined with Ohio + Texas + Penn. (Out of 492 delegates total up for grabs in these three states.) In other words, her total gain on Obama's lead from these three huge states that she won was only TWO delegates, because her gains in those three states were almost entirely erased by him slaughtering her in Idaho.
And that's why this race was over long before Tuesday, even though Obama hadn't actually clinched. She failed to get BLOWOUTS in the last big states like Texas, Ohio and Penn that would have let her cut into his lead significantly.
After the Penn primary (4/22/08), there were 328 pledged delegates left in total and she was roughly 200 behind. She would have needed like 70% - 30% wins in EVERY SINGLE ONE of the remaining states to catch him in pledged delegates.
So while you're right, percentage wise they were not that far apart, realistically the race was over long before Tuesday because of the fact that all the states do proportional delegate allocation.
Joke:
Well respectful or not it certainly doesn't qualify as intelligent
Tim K shoots and scores!
You still suck though.
Jim Crozier, thanks for clearly and calmly explaining reality to people like rich jones. You and the Obama campaign are able to handle those folks, while most of the rest of us just get too damn angry and frustrated responding to people who seem to be deliberately ignorant. It's like people have taken the whole "don't accept the premise of the question" thing to the extreme of denying any and all information that doesn't conform to their agenda.
Mike
"I guess she has to grovel, beg forgiveness, kiss the asses of every single Obama supporter, divorce Bill, apologize for slavery, wear sackcloth and beg forgiveness for being concerned about older women."
Well, I offered to bang her many times. Had she done so, I would have passed on the groveling and just let her kiss my ass.
Now, she can grovel, too.
And given how much trouble Bill was for her during this campaign, I'd say divorcing him and marrying some other even richer guy like Jackie O did would have been a smart move.
As for sackcloth, well, look at her pantsuits.
And her only "concern for older women" is her concern for herself.
Fuck her.
"The caucuses are just absurd and undemocratic."
There’s reasoned political logic for you. If you can’t win, change the rules.
"There is another reason that Hillary's supporters will not vote for Obama. If he wins, she cannot run in 2012. We can live with the four year term of President McCain.
Posted by goyoga82 | June 5, 2008 2:15 PM"
So what do you care more about, making sure Clinton is president someday or having a president who largely agrees with Senator Clinton's views?
"The Obama supporters aren't just mad that she didn't concede the race Tuesday nite, they are made she didn't concede the race in February!! That's the whole point of this entire thread. Remember, this started with the statement "...if only she had done this weeks ago.""
Actually, the polling I've seen has said a greater percentage of Clinton supporters thought Obama should drop out than vice versa. A few voices in the media don't add up to a large group of millions of people. Obama and Clinton supporters tend to be united, for example, of their hatred of most establishment media figures, especially chauvinist SOBs like Chris Matthews. Personally, I had no problem with the idea of Clinton staying in the race until the final vote was cast. I only had a problem in that the way she campaigned only made sure that Democrats would be at each others' throats and that both of their negatives would go up. She wasn't pushing for any particular policy the way Edwards did, with the exception of non-ideas like the gas tax holiday. For a lot of us, the problem wasn't her continuing to campaign, it was the way she campaigned once it became improbably she would win.
My vote is sacred! I want someone with courage, tenacity, and honesty. Obama represents the opposite of those qualities. The Democratic party and Obama have "burnt their bridges."
"My vote is sacred!"
And lo did the almighty and powerful GOD descend from on high to bestow upon goyoga82 his sacred might. Speaketh did he:
"You and you alone know what is correct and what is right. Be you now my voice on earth from this day forward."
And hearing such words did Goyoga82 swell with price.
"Shall be as you say oh lord. I shall presume to be your ultimate arbiter of all who are, or are not, worthy of my vote."
**************
Yeah, you're right. It took absolutely no courage or tenacity for a black man to become the first ever nominee of a major political party in the United States. That just kind of fell in his lap instead of him having to work for it.
You, sir, need to reevaluate your priorities. Because Hillary Clinton lost, "The Democratic party and Obama have 'burnt their bridges'".
Please.
This is what irritates me about many Hillary supporters.
Hillary and Obama want pretty much THE EXACT SAME THING on the issues. McCain wants the complete polar opposite of Hillary on pretty much every major policy issue.
So if you want to wait four years for some of the problems we have to be fixed, so be it. If you think four years is a short time then obviously you didn't pay attention during the first Bush Jr. term in office. What do you think of the Iraq war? Would you like to add an Iran and North Korea war to that?
Four years is an ETERNITY. But because you are ticked that Obama beat Hillary you'd rather spout bullshit phrases like "my vote is sacred" and vow to forever abandon the Democratic party until they bow to your infinite wisdom and go begging Hillary to take over.
It is because of morons like you that Republicans have done so very well in Presidential elections for over fifty years. Your first choice lost. Now, you have a choice between a second choice who believes pretty much VERBATIM everything that your first choice candidate believed, or sitting out and letting someone who believes the EXACT OPPOSITE of what your first choice candidate believes get elected.
And you're choosing to either sit out or go vote for McCain.
Fine. That's up to you. Your vote is "sacred" as you say. If you want to throw an immature temper tantrum and do what you're threatening be my guest. I can't stop you.
But let me just tell you this. Dean was my first choice in 2004. He lost. Edwards was my second choice in 2004. HE lost. Kerry was probably my fourth or fifth choice and he won. So be it. He still was a hell of a lot closer to representing my views than Bush was so I VOTED FOR KERRY.
If you actually give a rat's ass about the issues and not just Hillary, then you WILL vote for Obama.
Comments closed June 18, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
Here's a good take on this . . .
http://justnotinteresting.blogspot.com/2008/06/10-things-i-hate-about-you.html
Posted by pjs | June 4, 2008 8:37 PM