Posted on 05/21/2008 7:00:06 PM PDT by mdittmar
This was never supposed to happen.
The winner of the biggest states, the battleground states, the most electorally rich states, the more representative primaries (rather than exclusive caucuses), the contests of Democratic voters only, and likely the popular vote as well is probably headed for the history books instead of the nomination.
Hillary Clinton’s end in the 2008 race, as with so many events in her life, is painful and poignant and drenched in drama. The math is unfair, and Hillary has finally found her best, winning self. But the Clintons are hearing a deafening silence from a party they once ran . Some close aides and friends are asking Hillary to relent, warning her extended campaign is deepening a racial divide in the party that could imperil its chances of winning the presidency. Bill and Hillary Clinton won’t hear of it, insisting there is still a chance. Yet the chance won’t come from their electability argument, only a rival’s implosion or tragedy — Democrats once asked to defend Bill Clinton for lying under oath are not willing to overturn the rules for his wife now.
Life is what happens when we make other plans, and Hillary Clinton’s long-held plan is on its death bed. We will never know how many years Clinton has spent in silent, meditative, disciplined waiting. But as a new senator in 2001, she oozed an almost obsessive intention and deliberation. She took no interviews, stood in the back of the line at Senate press conferences, and insisted on speaking little or last. She was deferential, humble and shrewd. She played it smart with Democrats and Republicans alike, reaching out to former impeachment foes and Republican critics in bipartisan legislative compromise and, privately, in prayer groups.
But calculation, calibration or even religious patience still cannot stop fate. Having raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, Clinton has driven her campaign more than $30 million in debt and had to loan it millions in personal money. In the process, Clinton has let an unprecedented juggernaut dissolve while her opponent, who had only a pipe dream, triumphed in a battle between hubris and hope.
Barack Obama proved that winning is indeed a science, of breaking down voters and opportunities for victory — district by district, county by county, town by town and block by block. He mastered the rules of the Democrats’ very strange game. Team Obama owned the map, finding delegates where they could and stopping at nothing to get them. He not only won more delegates than Clinton in states she won, like New Hampshire, Nevada and Texas, but netted the same amount of delegates from the Idaho caucuses that Clinton picked up in her 10-point win in Pennsylvania. The vote totals are staggering — approximately 20,000 in Idaho compared to more than 2 million in Pennsylvania.
Team Clinton could have competed aggressively against Obama at the very same game; they had the money and influence and party activists to do so. They sure had a leg up on time. With the help of her husband; the alleged greatest mind in the party, Mark Penn; Harold Ickes; Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell; and Terry McAuliffe ( two men who had operated the party machine), how could Hillary have ceded this advantage?
Hillary, should she be making more plans, should follow the footsteps of Al Gore, the only person since Adlai Stevenson to be welcomed back by the Democratic Party after losing. When the Supreme Court ended Gore’s White House dream, he delivered his best speech, conceding that “no matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”
When it’s all over the Clintons can talk of glory, and of party unity, but they can’t say this was never supposed to happen.
It ain’t over til it’s over fella. And I bet that is not yet. Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.
Which we all hope happens after the communist Obama is nominated.
What are you trying to say, that hillary will try to steal the nomination from obama?
Dem chickens coming home to roost...
Does Hillary want to be a Supreme Court Justice?
It gets me how both Clintons have said how politics is a rough sport, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen, etc.
Yet they are complaining so much about the news media is not being fair, the Democrat party rules (which they helped write or agree to) are unfair to Hillary, counting caucus states is somehow unfair, the popular vote is more important, or should be more important than the delegate count, victories in certain states are more important than other states, it’s a civil rights violation if Florida and Michigan don’t count (when Billary agreed to those rules, and didn’t complain when the rules were being agreed to by the DNC and all candidates at the time), etc. etc.
Billary seem to be complaining that the rules as agreed to are not fair. And all the while, Hillary sends out her flunkies like Howard Wolfson to say, if you take the popular vote, and divide by the square root of pi, and then add a fudge factor to the delegate count of states that used primaries instead of caucuses, then Hillary would be ahead. This is such nonsense coming out of Hillary’s camp.
And then this inevitable candidate who couldn’t win her own party’s nomination is somehow supposed to be more electable in the general election.
And harping on meaningless wins in states like Kentucky and West Virginia seems unwise, because polls show many of her own Democrat voters will vote for McCain in the general election! She tries to make it sound like she will win any state in the general election where she won the primary, but we all know that’s not true. Yet she implies that Obama won’t carry any states he won in the general election ,because......who the heck knows why, but that the Clintonian diarhea(sp?) of the mouth for you.
Heck I see why she does so well among less educated voters. Anyone with any common sense can see how little sense her and Bill’s complaints and explanations and excuses are.
It ain’t over till a majority of Justices say it’s over. This won’t end till a court ends it.
It has been noted that the closer Obama gets the wider the margin of loss. He will lose the general. JMHO
She should threaten to endorse McCain if Obama doesn’t yield, and agree to be her veep.
I agree he will get shellacked.
Waaaaaaaaa!
The man-hating wing of Democrats (and even too many Republicans: feminists/romanticists and their homosexualist sidekicks) went through with their “gender” conflict plan or whatever. Now they’re getting the consequences.
The crushing of us peasants by our effete, socially confused leadership is going to grind to a halt. Bad government to keep the class war going and to keep the potential domestic competition down is expensive. WTI crude futures are nearly $135 per barrel, and the dollar continues to equalize toward currencies of the communist slave countries preferred by our leadership. Where will the future revenues for using anti-family social programs and government/corporate/university partnerships to keep the neighbors from starting new businesses come from? They made their globalist bed. They’ll lay in it.
It’ll all come out in the wash, but we’ll have to suffer a little in the meantime. ;-)
Be nonpolitical until then.
You are so right. Hillary cannot manage her marriage. She cannot manage her campaign finances. She will lie to get her way. There isn’t anything good about this woman. Why would anyone want to vote for her?
If they were winner-take-all contests like the general election is then Hillary would have blown Obama outa the water.
At this point nothing would surprise me- I wouldn’t even be surprised if McCain asked Hillary to be his running mate. I keep feeling like I am in the Twilight Zone this year with politics.
I heard today that a large percentage (25%) of Democrat women will not vote for Obama for any reason. That should throw Obama Hussein a scare. Another surprising believer that Obama is going to the WH is Savage. Unbelievable! Obama should never even be on the same street as the WH and we must do all we can to make sure it does not happen by getting out the vote big time. I do not like McLame, but he’s a million times better than Obama.
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