Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Is it finally over?

Obama whips Clinton in North Carolina and Clinton holds a narrow lead in Indiana. Here's my guess - the long knives will be coming out for Mrs. Clinton, starting tomorrow. I think a lot of people want her to quit now so that Obama can turn his attention squarely on John McCain.

I doubt Hillary will quit, though. West Virginia and Kentucky are the next states and they should be more hospitable to her campaign. The math is against her, no question about it, but she's hoping that another shoe or two might drop. The only shoes left are those relating to Tony Rezko and Obama's radical chic pals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, but that probably won't matter at this point. In the general it might be different.

12 comments:

Strolling Amok said...

She has reportedly canceled all her tv appearances for tomorrow. Also she's said some nice-making things about Senator O in the last couple days. I'm guessing this is the end of the road - but who knows. My prediction all along has been that once the math got flat out impossible for her that she would cut a deal with Obama before the convention - her enthusiastic support for him in exchange for an appointment to the first vacancy on the Supreme Court. We'll see...

Right Hook said...

Don't ever count Mrs. Clinton out!

It may be over according to traditional rules, but in the Clinton Inc. world "the rules" do not apply to them. Mrs. Clinton clearly holds the view that the Presidency is her pre-ordained destiny and will not let a punk upstart like Obama deny her what is hers. She will be the nominee and will not hesitate to burn the party to the ground without so much as a second thought in her quest to achieve her destiny.

Consider that Democrat delegates are not technically bound to vote for a given candidate regardless of how they got their credentials and Clinton Inc. will not hesitate to grab onto a technicality and exploit it beyond imaginable bounds (remember the "meaning of the word 'is' is" and "I was truthful when I stated that Jennifer Flowers and I were never alone at that hotel - there were lots of other people registered there that day" ploys that were made to fly when Slick appeared to be at the end of the line?).

If a plausible reason for delegates not to vote for Obama can be successfully created and promoted Mrs. Clinton can and will steal the nomination, regardless of any delegate count. The Clinton Slime Machine is ruthless and coldly efficient, so do not be surprised if some scandalous or otherwise politically damaging information on Obama just happens to surface between now and the convention.

If pressured enough Mrs. Clinton may suspend her campaign, leaving the door open to re-activate it if "something" should come up, but she will never irrevocably concede the nomination. If this happens it will be the result of a cold calculation, not because it would be the right thing to do.

I think SA's scenario is plausible, but only as a "Plan B" (or maybe even a "Plan C" or "Plan D") for Mrs. Clinton. She will not voluntarily stake her quest for power on the gamble that Obama will win the general election.

Gino said...

i'm sure Team Clinton is digging up the black mail dirt on superdelegates as we speak. and likely has been for a while now.

remember in 2000? it was discovered that many members of the electoral college were being 'investigated'.

Dan S. said...

Over?? It's not over 'til she says it is!

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!...

Mr. D said...

I don't see the Supreme Court thing at all, SA. She still thinks she can be president later on, especially if Obama were to lose in the general; why would she agree to become a pinata for Scalia?

RH, I suspect you're right - she won't give up unless it's the only possible scenario. We're close to that point, but not there yet.

Gino,

That could be. I'm not sure how much dirt there is on some of the supers, but HRC could easily nuke a lot of them if she so chose.

Dan,

Exactly. I thought of the same quote today! She's rolling!

Anonymous said...

Guys,
Put a fork in Hillary, she's done. She is as defunct as John Cleese' parrot, and calls for her to step down now are not premature. Even if the DNC breaks all the rules for Hillary and gives her MI & FL...she still cannot gain the lead. And Right Hook, I don't mean to quibble, but labeling the Clinton Slime Machine ruthless and coldly efficient just doesn't hold water. Ruthless, yes. But how can you call a group that blew a 20 point lead and an exponential monetary advantage to a political neophyte efficient? One of the best debates to come out of this election cycle will be "Who was the bigger schmuck: Giuliani or Clinton?" It would be difficult to find another example of two worse run primary campaigns in American history. The missteps and miscalculations of both of those campaigns were staggering.

Besides her huge ego, the only reason I see her staying in is that she is that she hopes some huge scandal will drop out of the sky and hit her Obama on the head. It kind of goes back to the old politics way of thinking of "not so much why you should vote for me, but why you shouldn't vote for someone else"

At any rate, it doesn't bother me if she wants to spend more of her own money campaigning. Since we have come this far, it would be nice for all the states to have a voice. It won't change anything, but at least Hillary will be able to see exactly how much she lost by. Maybe she can even bring her numbers up a bit (especially if we give her MI & FL) and she can go away feeling a little better and looking less defeated.

Rich

Right Hook said...

Rich -

My "ruthless and coldly efficient" description referred to the capacity and capability to slime an opponent, not necessarily to run the greatest campaign. Slick is much better at it than she is, but I think he is more of a pragmatist while her ego gets in her way.

I'm still having a hard time coming to the conclustion that the Ice Queen will just go away, no matter how "done" she truly is.

Mr. D said...

Rich,

I know Hillary can't win, barring some deus ex machina development. But she won't quit.

And we don't need to wait for the historians to understand what's happened. Obama is shiny and new and Hillary is about the oldest shoe around. But the primary voters and caucusgoers aren't the general electorate. We'll see if Mr. Obama has what it takes to win over a more skeptical audience, especially now that Hillary has roughed him up a bit.

Anonymous said...

Right Hook,
I am in agreement with you on that. The Clinton penchant for prevarication seems to know no bounds.

Mark,
I don't entirely disagree with you about the notion that Obama represents the shiny and the new, but there is more to HRC's loss than that.
She had a 20 point lead over everyone at the end of the summer, the active backing of a popular ex-President and unparalleled political strategist, more money than God, a massive and entrenched national organization, etc. And she ran as "The Inevitable", and that is never a good idea, especially in politics. She made no effort in caucus states outside of Iowa, because who needs those? She burned through all of her money like a bi-polar in a manic state in Neiman-Marcus. Then she capped it all off by planning her victory dance on Super Tuesday. No one in her organization seemed to know anything about the prima-caucus in TX (3rd largest state). I can keep going.
You can't lay that all off on Obama being new and shiny. He ran a very shrewd campaign, but going in to Iowa, he had the backing of less than 50% of black registered voters nationally.
If you are the dilettante blogger, she was the dilettants campaigner, until it was too late. She has no one to blame but herself.

Regards,
Rich

Mr. D said...

I take your point, Rich. My guess is that we're closer on this than might appear. My suspicion is that a lot of Democrats (and I definitely think you and Strolling Amok fit this category) were hoping that a reasonably plausible alternative to HRC would emerge. Obama has turned out to be that alternative. Her campaign missteps haven't helped her cause, but my guess is that you personally would have supported Obama anyway because of your distaste for the Clintons and that had HRC won, you would be in essentially the same posture that I find myself with McCain.

As a somewhat disinterested observer, I've been more amused than anything else with all the twists and turns. And one parallel I see is the 1976 election. We were both awfully young then, but you might remember that while both Ford and Carter pretty much had things wrapped up, they both ended up losing primaries late in the game, which weakened their momentum to a certain extent. Reagan kept campaigning hard all the way to the convention and after Carter had dispatched his closest competitor (the immortal Morris Udall), Jerry Brown jumped into the race and won a few primaries. HRC will win Kentucky and West Virginia and may very well win Puerto Rico, too. That won't help Obama's cause, even though it won't change the final result.

Anonymous said...

Mark,
you pretty much nailed it there, except for one thing: If it had turned out to be Hillary, I am pretty certain I would have voted for McCain. I genuinely like him, and and was very relieved when he locked up the nomination.

You are also correct to note how little votes matter that are cast after the nominee has it in the bag. I've been quite amused over the last month by Dems trying to make hay out of McCain 'only' getting 70% to 80% of the votes in the recent Rep primaries. As you noted, historically those are actually pretty solid numbers. Especially considering McCain's history within his own party.

BTW, the mention of Mo Udall reminded me of one of my favorite political stories. Udall used to tell this one himself. While campaigning on a cold and snowy morning in New Hampshire, Udall walked into a barbershop and introduced himself to the 10 or so men inside. He declared "My name is Morris Udall, and I am running for President." The barber and owner of the establishment, in mid-clip, replied "Yah, we were just laughing about that." Now that's what I call a tough room.
Rich

Anonymous said...

Mark,
you pretty much nailed it there, except for one thing: If it had turned out to be Hillary, I am pretty certain I would have voted for McCain. I genuinely like him, and and was very relieved when he locked up the nomination.

You are also correct to note how little votes matter that are cast after the nominee has it in the bag. I've been quite amused over the last month by Dems trying to make hay out of McCain 'only' getting 70% to 80% of the votes in the recent Rep primaries. As you noted, historically those are actually pretty solid numbers. Especially considering McCain's history within his own party.

BTW, the mention of Mo Udall reminded me of one of my favorite political stories. Udall used to tell this one himself. While campaigning on a cold and snowy morning in New Hampshire, Udall walked into a barbershop and introduced himself to the 10 or so men inside. He declared "My name is Morris Udall, and I am running for President." The barber and owner of the establishment, in mid-clip, replied "Yah, we were just laughing about that." Now that's what I call a tough room.
Rich