Posted on 02/21/2008 3:20:08 AM PST by kingattax
It's Hail Mary time.
Battered by 10 straight losses, Hillary Clinton launched a desperate drive to save her sinking candidacy Wednesday, pleading with wavering voters to stick with her and stop Barack Obama in the big primary states of Texas and Ohio on March 4.
"Please," she beseeched in one of many TV interviews yesterday. "Look at a candidate who is ready, willing and able to do it.
"Don't give up on this."
But never have the New York senator's odds of winning her once-indomitable White House bid looked so long. Her hard-stumping husband Wednesday acknowledged the grim reality: March 4 is her last chance.
"If she wins in Texas and Ohio, I think she'll be the nominee," Bill Clinton said at a rally in Beaumont, Tex., yesterday. "If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be."
Actually, even if Hillary Clinton wins March 4, she will remain the underdog. All that would do is keep her in the game.
She must stagger the seemingly unstoppable Obama at the Democratic debate tonight and set him up for a knockdown in the 11 days before the March 4 primaries.
Clinton enters the debate in Austin, Tex., intent on raising questions and sowing doubts about Obama that will linger, and will try to land the knockdown blow at Tuesday's debate in Cleveland.
Her two-round debate gambit will be buttressed by her campaign's aggressive attacks against the front-runner, bashing him in TV and radio ads, direct mail and leaked opposition research to the press, insiders explained.
Clinton will also get a boost from a nominally independent political group unbound by campaign finance limits, the American Leadership Project, which plans to launch an aggressive advertising campaign in the Lone Star and Buckeye states favorable to Clinton.
"If speeches could create jobs, we wouldn't be facing a recession," begins one ad, jabbing not so subtly at Obama. Most recent polls showed her clinging to leads in Texas and Ohio, but Obama still owns the momentum. Four more superdelegates jumped on his bandwagon, and the 1.4 million-member Teamsters union endorsed him. He even got cheered by a crowd of 17,000 in Dallas when he blew his nose.
It's a stunning spot for her to be in. When the former First Lady started her quest in January 2007, Obama looked like a flash in the pan and she sported one of the most fearsome political machines ever built, with the ultimate campaigner, Bill Clinton, as one of the architects.
But the man from Illinois has chipped away at her base, swaying independents, affluent Democrats and intellectuals with his message of change. His win in Iowa convinced black voters. Now, even Hillary Clinton's bedrock of female and poorer voters is starting to shift to Obama.
Hillary Clinton tried to play down her string of losses.
"A lot of those were predicted and we're going on," she told a TV station in Vermont, which, like Rhode Island, also votes with the mega-states March 4.
She cast Obama as strong on speeches but weak on follow-through. His programs on health care and the mortgage crisis are "short of solutions," she said. "I would call them half-hearted attempts."
Plaintively, she went on, "I know it's very attractive to have the fresh and new, but I think I'm tested and true, and I hope the people would consider that."
Obama pushed back in Dallas.
"It's not a choice between speeches and solutions," he said. "It's a choice between politics that offers more of the same divisions and distractions that didn't work in South Carolina and didn't work in Wisconsin and will not work in Texas."
Theres a Dem debate tonight? I’ll have to watch...
On the other hand, I hope that Hitlery is within the striking distance of nomination with the help of super-delegates. I can't pass up the prospect of good nasty fight between two enemies.
the greatest and most intelligent woman alive has been reduced to begging and pleading the peasants for votes...LMAO
I want Hillary out of the picture now, with no chance of the White House whatsoever!
No, even if she won both she needs too large of margins to offset Obama's lead in delgates.
Why won't Hillary disclose the details of her fixes?
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead.
Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Did you notice he was smiling when he said if you dont support her she Wont!
All this “Poor me” crap coming from the Klinton camp is just sweet music to my ears... Paybacks a Beatch !!!
What a world what a world.........
Look at Bill blame the voters! The more she and Bill open their mouths, the fewer votes she gets.
Eeeewwwwwwww! Only former president Billybub could cause the awful visions I am having.
Hillary’s favorite trash-talking retort now seems somehow appropriate returned to her in kind....woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Its OK, I am sure begging is in the Saul Alinsky playbook.
Well perhaps her solutions are buried in the sequentered records at the Clinton Liebrary and she cannot get them to them? (sarc.)
A lot of the juice behind Obama (except for the stupid kids) is revulsion at Hillary. A lot of the RAT voters don't even know it, but it's there.
With Hillary out of the picture, the way is open for Gore or someone else with proper qualifications for the office to send Obama packing.
I don’t think either of those two can “debate” anything. “You’re one!” and “You’re another!”
Proper qualifications?? By Gore, do you mean Al Gore?
Regards :)
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