Not Buying It

I’m not a particular fan of Hillary Clinton, but the idea that she’s hurting the Democratic Party by not conceding is horseflop.

• First and foremost, maybe it’s wishful thinking but I hope it doesn’t matter what she does–I’ve got my money on whoever gets the Dem nominationObama over McCain as voters notice he’s old, cranky, waterboard-y and happy to soldier on in Iraq.
• My understanding is that the damage being done is Clinton and Obama criticizing each other down to the wire, and that the preferred outcome for Dems would be their being able to unite behind Obama right now. But any question about the nominee also means Richard Mellon Scaife and His Swingin’ Swift Boaters have to either divide their attention between the two, or wait the thing out like everyone else, which leaves them less time to do their damage down the stretch. That’s a bad thing for the Dems?

  The party got neatly behind Kerry in 2004, against a widely mocked, wounded, significantly incompetent incumbent on the Republican side. All that unity worked out real well.

  Unfortunately, the Democratic party continues to suck. When Dem-controlled Congress isn’t rolling over for Bush on Iraq, they’re pulling their own pathetic popularity numbers and not exactly energizing the masses with their efforts. They shoulda won the last Presidency going away… this time, there’s no excuse for it being a contest (which, like I’ve said, I hope it’s not).


Ma’am, you just take all the time you need.

• You want to see an underdog? How about a guy who has his top ad consultants quit on top of being seven figures in debt and lagging behind actor Joe Don Baker in New Hampshire popularity polls? Those are John McCain’s press clippings from August 2007.
• Even if she doesn’t get the nom–and I agree there’s very little chance of that at this point–maybe she’s got something else on her mind. Is she trying to look as widely supported as possible to further bolster her bonafides for Obama’s Vice Presidental selection? Does she want to get as many delegate votes as she can so when people just look at 2008 delegate counts after President Obama leaves office in 2016 she’ll look like the default choice? Maybe she was all ready to quit, but then she thought about those fantasists who would support Al Gore over her if Obama somehow gets Kwame-cized sometime over the next couple of weeks, and she wants to remain in the driver’s seat just in case. Beats me, but she might have an angle here she cares to exploit.

Everyone knows Clinton badly wants to be President; in many ways she’s built her entire life around this campaign. It’s easy for all of us to give her the sage advice to bow out, but let’s try laying off a little bit, letting her define her own damn exit strategy with her own money, and save our derision for the non-Republicans of America rather than Hillary Clinton if her sticking around as long as she chooses proves to be any kind of factor at all in this year’s elections.

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