Photo from CBS NewsThe New Republic’s Norm Scheiber sums up the current state of the election.
The problem is that each day Clinton and Obama spend consumed with the other is a day that moves John McCain closer to the White House. McCain’s biggest asset is his political brand, which evokes a straight-talking, party-bucking reformer. Among his biggest liabilities is the suspicion he inspires among conservatives thanks to these same attributes. McCain apparently plans to spend the next few months making nice with his base. But anything he accomplishes on this front clearly diminishes his swing-voter appeal and, therefore, his chances in November.
Ideally, the Democrats would be exploiting this tension like mad…
Instead, something close to the opposite is happening. McCain’s courtship of the lunatic right and his ties to K Street have largely been hidden from view, while the Democrats’ dirty laundry has been aired for swing voters.
Schreiber all but says it: Hillary Clinton needs to get out.…On March 12, Ferraro and the racially polarized Mississippi primary were A-1 news in The Washington Post. It wasn’t until page A-6 that you stumbled across a story about McCain’s ties to the parent company of Airbus, the Boeing rival to whom the Pentagon recently handed a lucrative contract. The second story could have muddied McCain’s reformist credentials, but it barely caused a ripple on cable or the blogosphere.
Schreiber all but says it: Hillary Clinton needs to get out.
If McCain winds up facing Obama, he’ll enjoy yet another advantage: a nominee weakened by attacks from a fellow Democrat…
Hillary’s only path to the nomination, barring a meltdown by Obama, is to destroy his electability. But harsh attacks on Obama will inevitably discourage African Americans from voting in the fall, and Hillary can’t beat McCain without strong black turnout in places like Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Conversely, any attack on Hillary that alienated moderate Republican women could cripple Obama’s chances.
The chances of Hillary Clinton doing the right thing and stepping aside are about equal to the chance that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will someday put impeachment on the table. That they aren’t going to happen doesn’t change the fact that both decisions would be good for America.
“barring a meltdown by Obama”
She should “suspend” her campaign. If Obama does meltdown she can legitimately get nominated at the Convention. She will then be coming off a summer of not having been attacked by McCain and 527’s and the GOP will have wasted a ton of money attacking Obama. This is the only sensible path for her now. But if she looks complacent in the “Obama meltdown” she can expect Gore/Edwards to walk away with it.
All the candidates are running from someone, even McCain. For a humorous take on this check out, http://beema.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/presidential-candidates-meeting-in-the-middle/
Jimmy Crackcorn;
Gore/Edwards??? Ya think so???
Independent ticket???
Hmmmmm…..
I HOPE YOU’RE RIGHT!!!!
Although I do think Clinton is going to drop out before the convention I don’t think it’s going to be before Pennsylvania.
She already knows that she is going to win big there and even though she can’t win the nomination she can still wield a lot of influence. Right after the Penn primary and before North Carolina she will be at her most influential point in this contest, she could then use that clout to make a deal with the Obama camp allowing for the appointment of centrists to the government. Maybe even a VP spot for a guy like Jim Webb.
If she waits until after North Carolina a state that Obama will win easily, she will have waisted her chance to be influential on both policy platform and appointments because Obama will probably be in a much stronger position after that contest.
Couple that with the fact that the party elite will be so nervous about this thing running into the convention by that time that the heat on Hillary to drop out will be enormous and it will be coming from all different directions.
She will drop out before the convention, that’s a given.
The only question is wither she is going to get anything out of the time she has invested in this contest or will she and her wing of the party walk away with nothing but bitter feelings?
Timing is everything.
… and to think that I was fan of hillary clinton(R-NY) a year ago. Actions speak much louder than words and her and her champagne are despicable. They say that senile mccain is better for America than Obama now she throws Obama under the bus by his paster. I now hate her now.
Nah, you’re wrong. Two weeks ago Clinton was 20 % ahead in PA, now she’s 10% and Obama took 5 days off. And many of those polls were taken before it became, on nightly National News, that she was hyperbolizing her experience.
I think Clinton would be better in the long run, bowing out now. If she doesn’t win PA by 65%+, then she can’t win the nomination. Better to walk away now with the possibility that she could have won it, than later, with the fact that she didn’t win it as she needed to.