The End of Hillary Clinton

[LadyTevar]

From here. The true gem is the young man's commentary following the article.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/artic ... 40,00.html

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton for the ninth and tenth straight time last night, with blowouts in Wisconsin and Hawaii. Needless to say, this means nothing. As Clinton strategist Mark Penn explained yesterday, Wisconsin has a lot of independent voters, so it doesn't really matter. And Hawaii is practically Obama's home state, so it obviously doesn't matter. Anyway, as Penn said recently, "winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election." It's apparently not even a sign of who can win the Democratic nomination — at least not when the victories are Obama's.

The Clinton spin machine has been consistent about this. Nebraska, Idaho and Utah didn't matter because they were deep-red states. South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia didn't matter because they had large percentages of black voters. Maine and Washington didn't matter because caucuses aren't truly representative. Maryland and Virginia didn't matter because Obama was expected to win there. For a moment, it looked like Missouri might matter when the networks called it for Hillary — her campaign quickly bragged about winning a "closely contested toss-up state" — but the networks were wrong. On the other hand, it looked like Nevada wasn't going to matter at all because there were polling stations in casinos, but it ended up huge because Hillary won.

It turns out that the only state Obama won that could have mattered was Illinois, his real home state; unfortunately, home-state victories don't really count, except when they take place in New York. "Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states outside of Illinois?" Penn recently asked.

Well yes, in fact, it's starting to look like we could. So maybe all these Obama victories mean something after all. Maybe they mean that voters are sick of the perpetual Clinton spin machine. At the very least, they've made it clear that the machine is broken, if not dead.

Spin is about framing a coherent narrative, and Team Hillary's narrative borders on self-parody. When Hillary was getting lots of endorsements, it showed that she was the people's choice. Now that Obama's getting lots of endorsements, it shows that he's the "establishment candidate." When Hillary was doing better than Obama in head-to-head matchups against Republicans, it showed that she was more electable. Now that Obama's doing better, it shows that he hasn't been vetted. Obama was naive for saying he'd meet with foreign dictators; he was also deceitful for claiming that Hillary would refuse to meet with foreign dictators.

Let's face it: All campaigns spin. They all try to put favorable glosses on tough situations. Back when Hillary was dominating the polls and Penn was churning out inevitability memos declaring that the race had stabilized (3/27/07) except that Hillary was widening her lead (5/7/07) and strengthening her lead (6/18/07) and better positioned than ever (7/9/07), Obama had to argue that he still had a chance — otherwise, why would anyone have supported him? Now that John McCain is the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, Mike Huckabee has been saying he believes in miracles. What else is he going to say?

But at least Huckabee isn't trying to claim that his race is actually neck-and-neck, or that he wasn't really trying to win states where he campaigned and lost, or that one failed prediction after another just proves what he's been saying all along. Spin works best when it's intermittent and plausible; the Clinton camp's has been constant and ludicrous. Is it really wise to dismiss the vast majority of the United States as insignificant? Does anyone believe that the misguided attack on Obama's kindergarten ambitions was "a joke"? Explain to us again why Michigan's delegates should be seated even though Democrats agreed not to campaign there and Obama wasn't even on the ballot? Why are we supposed to ignore Wisconsin when it's got exactly the demographics that Penn has assured us are part of Hillary's "enduring coalition," back when Hillary had a massive lead in the state and just about every other state?

It's strange, because when I covered Hillary's first Senate race in 2000, I felt like she was a pretty bad candidate with some very smart advisors who helped carry her to victory by sticking to a relentlessly disciplined — though frustratingly banal — message. Now she's a much better candidate; she has eight years in the Senate on her resume, she actually lives in the jurisdiction where she's running for office, and she's much less stilted on the stump. And while she's still got the same advisers, they can't seem to keep their story straight anymore.

It's understandable that the Clintonites operate in permanent spin mode; they weathered a constant barrage of attacks in the 1990s, and they came to see politics as a perpetual war room where you say whatever's necessary to win the day. It's hard to know whether their self-justifying and self-contradictory nonsense bothers actual voters, or just the reporters who have it force-fed to them. Strategy and marketing can be overrated in the world of retail; it might just be that a majority of Democratic voters, faced with a choice between two strong candidates with similar policies, prefer the Obama product.

But the Orwellian spin and the silly gotchas certainly could reinforce Obama's message that Clinton is mired in the small-minded, zero-sum, it's-all-a-game Washington politics of the past. There was that classic debate moment when Hillary said her worst quality was her impatience to change the world, and then criticized Obama for admitting he was disorganized. The next day, Obama said that if he had known that was how the game was supposed to be played, he would have said his worst quality was his overeagerness to help old ladies cross the street. Who do you think won that argument?

This morning, after his resounding victories in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Hillary finally acknowledged the obvious about Obama: "He's had a good couple of weeks, and he's run a good race." It wasn't an admission of defeat; it was an admission of reality. It added a bit of credibility to her larger where's-the-beef argument, which is that Obama isn't ready to be President, and voters have been falling for his fancy speeches without examining his substance. That's spin, too, but it's reasonable spin that tells a debatable but plausible story. We'll see if voters buy it in Texas and Ohio.

And if they don't, we'll find out whether Texas and ohio don't matter either.

I could not possibly agree more with this article.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has struck precisely the wrong note throughout this entire election. As Tev said, her strategists could not think outside the DC Beltway, and are now paying the price for it. Her strategy all along was to make it impossible for anyone to CONCEIVE of beating her. Unfortunately, she thus could not conceive that Obama was a real candidate, and mis-handled running against him from day 1.

Her message should have been obvious, clear, and unilateral. Obama's genius was embracing his lack of credentials and claiming to be the candidate for change. Whether or not that was truth (and I think it is), it was a plausible thing to claim, because it trades on obvious facts like his age, his record, and his (lack of) experience in Washington. Hillary should have traded on similarly obvious facts. She has a reputation as a ball-breaker and an ass-kicker, willing to do anything to win. Instead of the pathetic attempts to hide this fact (remember the crying in New Hampshire), she should have come out like a bull in the China shop. She should have stood up and said: "My name is Hillary Clinton, and I will kick so much ass in the White House on your behalf that the Republicans won't know which end to speak out of. I will drag this country kicking and screaming back into the path of rightness and prosperity, and I will smash the bloodsuckers stealing your jobs and money with my flying fists of fury"

Obviously that's not how I'd have her put it in her stump speech, but you get the point. She should have embraced her cutthroat, winner-take-all approach to politics that EVERYONE knows she has, and instead of appearing sleazy by pretending to hide it, she should have come out and said: "I take no prisoners, and if you elect me, I will take no prisoners on your behalf, and fight like hell until all of the things this country needs done are done." Obama has been called the second coming of John Kennedy. She should have countered it by being the second coming of Harry Truman. "Give 'em Hell, Hillary!" should have been her rallying cry. She should have boasted about her being ready and willing to fight dirty if necessary, in the service of a greater good. Granted, Obama would still hold much of the country enthralled with his message of a new kind of politics and turning the page, but she could at least have co-opted some of his base, instead of him co-opting hers.

But she didn't.

Obviously we don't know why she thought this would work, but I think I know why. Hillary believed so much that she was going to be the president that she forgot to ask anyone else if they agreed. By treating the electorate as nearly inconsequential, she has succeeded in alienating so many people. Her tactics of naked intimidation both of delegates , of endorsers, and even of entire communities (vote for me or I'll get you when I'm the president) has backfired terribly, as it deserves to have backfired. People like the LA Times don't take kindly to being told that they MUST endorse you "or else". People like the State of Wisconsin don't either. I don't know if she has yet gotten that through her head, but it doesn't look like it to me. Every move she makes smells more and more of desperation, fear, and brute-force larceny. There are now rumors circulating that she has hired armies of private investigators to research the private lives of various super-delegates for the purposes of intimidating them into voting for her. More and more the mask is slipping, and she's being revealed as exactly what everyone thought she was, a conniving, win-at-any-costs, two-faced, power-hungry maniac. There was a time she might have converted that image into a winning strategy. That time is long-since passed.

Indeed, her time is long-since passed, and I don't mean that she cannot win the nomination. I mean that if she does win the nomination at this point, it will be due only to backroom dealings and theft, and that even if she does win it, it will do her no good. Since super Tuesday, Obama has won eleven (counting the abroad primary) primaries in a row. ALL of them, he has won by more than 15 points, most by more than 20, some by as much as 50. Groups that were once hers to do with as she wished (working class, elder voters, even latinos) are now looking iffier and iffier. She has woken up too late to the fact that the few good points she has to make against Obama, his lack of experience, his predilection for words rather than actions, do not matter to a huge proportion of the electorate, who are so sick of her kind of politics that they are willing to take a leap of faith on Obama, who speaks to their dreams and ideals and goals. She repeats endlessly that all he has to offer are speeches, whereas she offers actions, but Obama's speeches promise a new day, a new page, to borrow the terminology from another president, a "Morning in America". Her actions do nothing but promise more mud and toil and filth of politics as usual, and victory at any price, including the price of principle and legality. She will steal the election with the super-delegates if she can. Perhaps, in her position, Obama would too, but everyone KNOWS she will, and they loathe her for it.

Her options are otherwise emptying rapidly. She is polling in a statistical tie in Texas, a fact which is more worrisome for her than it sounds, because she was also polling at a tie in Wisconsin, and wound up being beaten by 17 points in a state packed with her own constituents. Her lead in Ohio has shrunk from 21 points to somewhere between 3 and 6 (depending on the poll). Everything she and Bill do seems to make it worse, and her recent actions smack of "How dare you vote against me! You owe me this!" that we all know she believes in her heart (as, in fairness, do many politicians). Unable to count on victory here, she has no choice but to turn to any means necessary to win. She will intimidate super-delegates. She will dig for dirt on anyone and everyone. She will threaten to retaliate against Obama-backers once she is the president, sending the IRS and the FBI after them as Nixon did.

If she wins the primary, and does so with theft and arm-twisting and backroom deals (which is all she has left to her), it will be a tragedy for the Democratic party. Obama's supporters will feel outraged, and they will be right. Many will bolt to McCain's campaign, McCain who also holds a captivating spell over many independents. Many others will stay home, refusing to vote for her. Yet more will vote for third party candidates, protest votes, or write ins. The Green party will see its greatest turnout in history (still single digits, but all is relative), and Hillary, thieving Hillary, will go down to an EPIC defeat. McCain will beat her black and blue across every state that is not so solidly democrat as to be a foregone conclusion. It will be the biggest landslide since Reagan beat Mondale.

On the other hand, if Obama beats her, and becomes the Democratic candidate for president, he will handily beat McCain at his own game, that of appearing the wild-card maverick who can appeal to independents and undecideds. He has the poise and gravitas to stand against McCain (who is not a weak candidate in his own right), and focus all the rage and frustration of democrats and people in this country against the failed Bush policies that, for better or worse, McCain will be saddled with. He will appeal to hope and promise and a shining future for the country, and he has demonstrated that he can galvanize a groundswell of support the likes of which cynics like me thought did not exist any more. He is one of those candidates that makes the United States truly special among the nations of the world, the one nobody REALLY should be supporting, but everyone does simply because in their hearts they know he is the right one to support. McCain will fight back hard, and with valid ammunition, decrying Obama's lack of experience, his naivety, his positions on gun control and Iran and foreign policy, and he will score points with some of those issues, but in the end, I think it will avail him not at all. Most of Hillary's supporters will transfer their support over to Obama, and the time is simply right for a seismic shift in policy in this country. This is 1980. This is 1960. This is 1932. This is a new chapter in American politics. If given the opportunity, I predict Obama will defeat McCain by a wide margin.

The democratic super-delegates have a choice. They can choose to win the general election, or lose it. That choice is becoming more and more stark and clear as time goes on. I did not initially think Obama had a chance in hell of beating Hillary, I even bet money against it, no matter how much I hoped he would win. Never have I been more hopeful of being wrong. I thought that, as the Giants had no chance of beating the Patriots, so Obama had not the slightest prayer of stopping Hillary. The Giants beat the Pats. Obama can beat Hillary.

He must beat Hillary.

My name is General Havoc, and I endorse Barack Obama as my choice for President of the United States of America.

[Mr Bean]

I thought for a second we had an acutal General Havoc somewhere in the Army or Marines and I got all teary eyed(With a last name like Havoc how can you not love him?)

Then I was disapointed to learn it was simply a pen-name, ah well, he makes many excellent points

[LadyTevar]

I thought for a second we had an acutal General Havoc somewhere in the Army or Marines and I got all teary eyed(With a last name like Havoc how can you not love him?)

Then I was disapointed to learn it was simply a pen-name, ah well, he makes many excellent points

Youre right, Bean, it would have been great if he was a true Military general.

Still, his points are why I decided to quote him in full. He has a way with words that I can't match, despite sharing his sentiments.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Wow...

Get General Havoc a column, tute suite. He's 100% on the money. Hell, I'm a borderline fundamentalist Christian Republican, and I want Obama to be the next President.

[RedImperator]

I heard an interesting interview on NPR today. A reporter who has been covering the Democratic race said that one of the things he noticed is that since Clinton was seen as the inevitable Democratic candidate, many, if not most of the people working for her campaign are Beltway insiders who went to work for the campaign because they wanted a job in the future Clinton Administration (in his words, "they signed up because they want to be Deputy Assistant to the Undersecretary of Agriculture's Janitor or ambassador to Botswana or something"). Once Clinton got herself into an actual contested race, these people found themselves in way over their heads, which explains much of the incompetence the campaign has shown. On top of that, these insiders have consistently overruled, ignored, and pushed aside local Clinton people in the various states, so in addition to the national-level bungling that's been going on (going through Obama's kindergarten papers), they've made countless mistakes in state races because they don't know how to campaign in most of them.

Obama, meanwhile, has people working for him because they actually believe in Barack Obama's candidacy. It goes without saying that if he wins the nomination, the DC hacks who ruined Clinton's campaign will try to attach themselves to him. I hope he has the good sense to tell them to go fuck themselves.

[Patrick Degan]

Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had very much the same opinion in his column today:

Hillary's defeated; GOP sets its sights on Obama

Published on: 02/21/08

Even though Mike Huckabee lost Wisconsin by more than 15 percentage points, he has vowed to press on to Ohio and Texas. But it would take a miracle for him to win his party's nomination.

The exact same thing can be said of Hillary Clinton.

She too lost Wisconsin by more than 15 percentage points; she too needs a miracle. And while she too vows to press on, the race is over and she has lost.

Thanks to substantial defeats in Wisconsin and Hawaii — giving her a losing streak of 10 in a row — Clinton has now fallen behind Barack Obama by more than 140 pledged delegates. With 981 delegates still to be elected between now and early June, it might at first glance seem possible to overcome that gap.

But it's just not so. To pull ahead of Obama in elected delegates, Clinton would have to win every one of the 16 remaining contests by margins of 15 to 20 percentage points. There is no sign that such a sweep is possible.

Clinton's only other hope for a miracle lies with her party's 800 superdelegates, who have the right to vote for the nomination because they hold elective office or high positions in the party.

However, those superdelegates show no sign of wanting to get into the miracle business, nor should they. They understand the outrage that would result if unelected delegates try to overturn the verdict of Democratic primary voters, particularly when the candidate the voters have chosen is a black man.

Denying Obama the nomination under those circumstances would alienate not just black Democrats, but also the many young people drawn into politics by Obama. It would tear the Democratic Party apart and doom its chances not just in 2008, but in 2012 and 2016 and perhaps beyond.

That is particularly true given the lingering bitterness in the party over the 2000 presidential elections. Many party regulars believe that race was settled by the Supreme Court, not by the American people. They would not accept party elders altering the outcome of a vote in a similar manner.

Obama's victory has to impress and to a degree even frighten Republican political professionals. Try as they might, the Republicans have not been able to beat the Clintons. They couldn't beat Bill, and in two Senate elections they couldn't beat Hillary either.

Between them, the Clintons have been regarded as two of the smartest, most fearsome politicians of their generation. And yet Obama, coming out of nowhere, has now beaten them both, in a campaign in which Hillary had all the initial advantages.

In the past few weeks, GOP commentators have already begun re-targeting their cannons from Clinton to Obama. In his victory speech after the Wisconsin primary, John McCain also focused almost exclusively on Obama. They fear Obama not merely because he will be more difficult to beat as president, but because he would make a lot of other Democrats difficult to beat as well.

The reason is turnout.

It's pretty clear that Obama would bring a lot of young people and black people to the polls that Clinton could not have attracted, and they will vote Democratic. The enthusiasm he has generated among those groups hasn't been seen in a long, long time.

Conversely, a lot of Republicans who might have rushed to the polls to vote against Clinton — a payoff for the party's 15-year investment in Hillary hatemongering — won't be quite so motivated to vote against Obama.

Together, those trends could elect a lot more Democrats in down-ticket races this fall, which in turn could help Obama make good on his pledges of change.

In his campaign, Obama has talked fervently of a new spirit of cooperation and post-partisanship in Washington. He has been criticized by some as naive for those statements, but I suspect there's hardheaded calculation behind the rhetoric.

Obama knows that the best way — the only way — to overcome partisanship in Washington is to have a lot more votes on your side than the other guy does. And while November is a long way off, he seems well-positioned to make that strategy pay.

She was also, at one point, booed during the debate with Obama in Dallas last night. She's losing the general public. At this point, I believe there is no way for Hillary Clinton to legitimately win this fight and go on to win against McCain in November. And I believe this to be her one and only real shot at the presidency, which isn't going to happen now or ever, because four or eight years from now her time will definitely have passed. If she keeps up the pursuit of the White House, then politically she's on the road to nowhere.

[CaptainChewbacca]

She was also, at one point, booed during the debate with Obama in Dallas last night. She's losing the general public. At this point, I believe there is no way for Hillary Clinton to legitimately win this fight and go on to win against McCain in November. And I believe this to be her one and only real shot at the presidency, which isn't going to happen now or ever, because four or eight years from now her time will definitely have passed. If she keeps up the pursuit of the White House, then politically she's on the road to nowhere.

I saw that, I can't remember the last time a legitimate candidate was booed to their face. They didn't even boo Ross Perrot. Right now Hillary can either suck it up, realize she won't be President, and become the next 'Elder Statesman' of the democratic party, or she can become the 'Bitch who won't quit' and get tossed out on her ass next time she's up for re-election.

[Coyote]

Obama also has the good sense to let his "field officers" conduct the battles according to local political terrain, rather than Hildebeest, who's insiders want to control everything centrally while pushing paper back at her Beltway Fuhrerbunker.

I find it funny that --like "post-fall-of-Baghdad Bush", she, too, had no plan whatsoever for dealing with a suddenly problematic situation after Super Tuesday. The parallel, politically at least, is great IMO.

[The Spartan]

It's interesting. I hear and see campaign ads on the radio and TV for Obama but I'm not seeing anything for HRC. Which is odd to me in one respect but also makes sense in another since she is never going to win Texas, on the other hand, I doubt even Obama would get Texas' EC votes so he may just be making a push to get the nomination. Something I wholeheartedly support.

[CaptainChewbacca]

It's interesting. I hear and see campaign ads on the radio and TV for Obama but I'm not seeing anything for HRC. Which is odd to me in one respect but also makes sense in another since she is never going to win Texas, on the other hand, I doubt even Obama would get Texas' EC votes so he may just be making a push to get the nomination. Something I wholeheartedly support.

He's not discounting anyone or taking their support for granted, its a refreshingly honest change.

[redmagister]

if hillary wanted to be the next elder statesman, instead of the bitch who wont quit it's way to late for that, politically her position is crumbling, she's resorting to hatchet work, and not very effective hatchet work at that. her deranged desire for power... god I love rhetoric, has destroyed her husbands image as the elder statesman and she's swiftly finding out that the ball breaking attacks don't work on Obama. she tried to get him in the debate and got caught completely flat footed. it is over she's like a mastadon thats been shot and doesn't know it's already dead, and it's an anachronism anyway.

[Coyote]

It's interesting. I hear and see campaign ads on the radio and TV for Obama but I'm not seeing anything for HRC.

She's 7-mil in the hole, and this is even after her personal 5-mil loan to her own campaign. The good news, however, is that her campaign seems to have finally arranged the deck chairs on the Titanic in a perfect feng shui.

[The Spartan]

He's not discounting anyone or taking their support for granted, its a refreshingly honest change.

This is the first time in my life that I've actually felt, I don't think excitement is the right word, maybe genuine optimism(?) at a political candidate. In the past, even when I was too young to vote, it was more about what I was voting against. This time it's more like I'm voting for something, while at the same time voting against something. I know that makes little to no sense but there you go.

She's 7-mil in the hole, and this is even after her personal 5-mil loan to her own campaign. The good news, however, is that her campaign seems to have finally arranged the deck chairs on the Titanic in a perfect feng shui.

I figured it was something like that. I'm pleased to hear it. She can keep digging a deeper hole and Obama can just keep being himself, more or less, and become president. Works for me, anyhow.

[Isolder74]

Sadly we can't count Hillery out until there is no longer aeven a remote chance of her winning. She is still banking on the woman vote and on her connections with party insiders to pad herself up with the superdelegates.

The unfortunate thing is if she does lose Texas she may try and blame everyone other then herself and still keep trying. Oboma has swept every state since super tuesdy. There is no way to put it other then Obama has gained momentum.

Hillery needs to buck up and bow out gracefully now while she still has a remote change of looking good.

[Qwerty 42]

If Clinton is going to drop, it will be if Obama takes Texas, Ohio, or both on Tuesday.

[The Original Nex]

Clinton has been hinting that if she doesn't do well in Texas and Ohio she will drop out and endorse Obama. You can already see in the debate last night, she's using conciliatory language very similar to that used by Edwards before he dropped out.

[Tanasinn]

I saw that, I can't remember the last time a legitimate candidate was booed to their face.

Romney got booed during those silly youtube questions for his weasling on the issue of gays in the military.

If you happen to be interested

[NeoGoomba]

Wow Havoc totally nailed it for me. It's an odd thing to have some of the same thoughts and feelings in your head that you can't quite express spelled out in writing by someone else.

[Fleet Admiral JD]

Is there anyone here on SDN who actually likes HRC?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Is there anyone here on SDN who actually likes HRC?

Likes more than some possible presidents? Yes. Likes in general? NO.

[RedImperator]

Sadly we can't count Hillery out until there is no longer aeven a remote chance of her winning. She is still banking on the woman vote and on her connections with party insiders to pad herself up with the superdelegates.

The unfortunate thing is if she does lose Texas she may try and blame everyone other then herself and still keep trying. Oboma has swept every state since super tuesdy. There is no way to put it other then Obama has gained momentum.

Hillery needs to buck up and bow out gracefully now while she still has a remote change of looking good.

I think it's time to put superdelegate nightmare scenarios to bed. The mathmatics are such that for Clinton to be in a position where the superdelegates could help without appearing to blatantly steal the election for her, she has to win every state from here on out by huge margins--a scenario in which I'd have to argue that she may well deserve the nomination, because for that to happen, something would have had to go disasterously wrong with the Obama campaign. If she doesn't run the table with landslides, he's going to be so far ahead in the pledged delegate count that the superdelegates wouldn't dare throw the election the other way no matter how much arm twisting and log rolling happens in the smoke free rooms. I've come to the conclusion even the Democrats aren't stupid enough to commit mass electoral suicide for the sake of a presidential candidate who had every advantage at the start and blew them all.

If Clinton loses Texas and Ohio, or possibly even if she loses only one, she'll wait a few days and then bow out. At that point, there aren't any excuses left to be made, her coalition will have already unraveled, and unless I miss my guess, her own campaign organization will start disintegrating--all those inside-the-Beltway fair weather friends of hers (who helped screw up her campaign to begin with) will start jumping ship, and the grassroots organization will wither as all but the diehards decide there's no point volunteering their time for a loser. If she bows out then, she goes down in history as a woman who came within a hair's breadth of winning a major party nomination for president, who conceded the race for the good of the party after a hard fight. She'll remain a well-known Senator from an important state, and probably take a shot at majority leader or major committe chair (probably both). If she hangs on after losing March 4, she's just going to get humiliated and her political future is over.

[Sidewinder]

When I read 'Primary Colors' for a college English class, the professor said that Susan Stanton, the Hillary Clinton parody, had ambitions to go to the White House but knew the public would think twice before voting for a female candidate-- that's why she pushed so hard for the campaign of her husband, the Bill Clinton parody. I'm surprised how similar the parody is.

I thought for a second we had an acutal General Havoc somewhere in the Army or Marines and I got all teary eyed(With a last name like Havoc how can you not love him?)

General Havoc was a villain in 'Power Rangers: Turbo'. (See here.)

[CmdrWilkens]

I don't think she will quit as long as she can win either Texas OR Ohio. As much as her campaign has been admitting that they need both (and they do) I don't think she has the fatalism necessarry to concede after a win. She still has strength in PA despite the fiasco with getting delegates slated and I think a win in Ohio would convince her that she could still mount a last minute comeback. The question becomes one of both narrativeAND demographics. If Obama wins either of thenext two contestsand again eats into her margins amongst Union households, lower and lower-middle income households, and women then it will be over and she will admit it. However if she regains her core constituencies I just can't see her dropping out without at least trying in PA no matter how much she would have to move the goalposts first.

Admittedly against this the fact that the campaign has already repaid the loan (and it didn't even make headlines but she did it anyway) means that she has placed herself in a position to exist the race without burning financial bridges. She can quit with enough cashon hand to pay off her outstanding debt and then still transfer everything back to her Senatorial Campaign which frees up her whole donor base to get money into the rest of the Democratic races (and if she shifts her fundraising organization in that direction she could win BIG points with any party people she has pissed off). So long story less long I think any hint of victory will leave her chasing one last chance at glory BUT she is in a position that she can either continue or withdrawl without seriously hurting her chances UNLESS she sticks it out despite clear losses amongst her core constituencies.

[Flagg]

Sadly we can't count Hillery out until there is no longer aeven a remote chance of her winning. She is still banking on the woman vote and on her connections with party insiders to pad herself up with the superdelegates.

The unfortunate thing is if she does lose Texas she may try and blame everyone other then herself and still keep trying. Oboma has swept every state since super tuesdy. There is no way to put it other then Obama has gained momentum.

Hillery needs to buck up and bow out gracefully now while she still has a remote change of looking good.

I think it's time to put superdelegate nightmare scenarios to bed. The mathmatics are such that for Clinton to be in a position where the superdelegates could help without appearing to blatantly steal the election for her, she has to win every state from here on out by huge margins--a scenario in which I'd have to argue that she may well deserve the nomination, because for that to happen, something would have had to go disasterously wrong with the Obama campaign. If she doesn't run the table with landslides, he's going to be so far ahead in the pledged delegate count that the superdelegates wouldn't dare throw the election the other way no matter how much arm twisting and log rolling happens in the smoke free rooms. I've come to the conclusion even the Democrats aren't stupid enough to commit mass electoral suicide for the sake of a presidential candidate who had every advantage at the start and blew them all.

If Clinton loses Texas and Ohio, or possibly even if she loses only one, she'll wait a few days and then bow out. At that point, there aren't any excuses left to be made, her coalition will have already unraveled, and unless I miss my guess, her own campaign organization will start disintegrating--all those inside-the-Beltway fair weather friends of hers (who helped screw up her campaign to begin with) will start jumping ship, and the grassroots organization will wither as all but the diehards decide there's no point volunteering their time for a loser. If she bows out then, she goes down in history as a woman who came within a hair's breadth of winning a major party nomination for president, who conceded the race for the good of the party after a hard fight. She'll remain a well-known Senator from an important state, and probably take a shot at majority leader or major committe chair (probably both). If she hangs on after losing March 4, she's just going to get humiliated and her political future is over.

The problem is that she has a pretty good chance of winning Ohio. At that point, I think she may have a harder time actually getting out of the race than if she did it now. Because right now is the time to get out if she wants to appear as a gracious elder statesman, not after losing Texas and/or Ohio. Hell, if she managed to pull off a 1 or 2% win in Texas and carry Ohio, she'll not be in any better position and it will be even more difficult to get out at that point.

[Darth Wong]

At some point, people are going to have to start putting pressure on Clinton to drop out for the good of the party, aren't they? At this point, there is no realistic scenario where Clinton wins and the Democratic party comes out looking good.