"Dear Mr. Noman, does it ever strike you

 That the more we see of you, the less we like you?"

                                               - Hilaire Belloc

The time to get past the Clintons has arrived.

Time for a Change.

It ain't over tiil it's over.

Methinks the obamaites are panicking and they want Hillary out before the PA primary. It ain't going to happen, people.

Hillary won't exit before PA.  It ain't going to happen, people.  

Hillary getting the nomination despite her deficit in pledged delegates and popular votes?  Ain't going to happen either, people.

Hillary hanging on until she is carried off stage stone cold politically dead?  Likely.

Hillary doing her best to damage Obama and the Democratic party so she has a shot at gloating, "I told you so" if he loses.  A certainty.

Hillary has always believed the party is there to serve the interests of Hillary, rather than the other way around.  She isn't likely to change now.

The only interesting question is not who will be nominated but how much longer this will go on before the  remaining supers declare their choice and the media accepts what any observer can plainly see.  It is over.

roid: Hillary's chances may be running out but your comment "the party is there to serve the interests of Hillary, rather than the other way around now. She isn't likely to change now" is just stupid and out of line. Do you even know her? Or are you one of those Eliza like programs coded up by the Republican propaganda machine?

Actually, sundar, I do know her and I dealt with her office in my capacity as chairman of the Democratic committee in my town.  While she was happy to show up here and raise money for herself, I was always invited by her to give her money and attended several high-end events where I did, whenever my committee asked her for assistance of some kind, an appearance, an introduction to someone else who might assist as with fundraising, lists, whatever, we got absolutely nothing.  

On the one occasion where they said they would assist, they never followed through.  Just stopped answering the phone until we got the message.  In sharp contrast, whenever we asked Chuck Schumer for assistance, he was always helpful.  Always.  And this was at a time when we had a Republican governor, Pataki, which made Schumer and Clinton, as the senior elected Democrats in the State of New York, the de facto heads of the NYS Democratic party.

Now, you can attribute this to bad staff work, but I feel quite confident that if Hillary, like Schumer, had felt that it was part of her responsibility to strengthen the party in New York at the grass roots level -- as I think it was -- her staff would have understood that.  Schumer's certainly did.  In fact, they used to call me up unbidden to ask how things were doing and what they could do.  

I was happy to support her when she first ran for office.   Gradually, I soured on Hillary.  My opinion, sundar, is that she was always using us in New York as nothing more than a base from which to run for president.  I don't think she ever considered herself our senator.  Perhaps we might have expected that considering that she had no roots here.  We got what we paid for and now she is getting what she earned through her poor political behavior.

Media people like yall would serve the public a lot better by reporting on the Clintons' tax returns than by reporting on what other media people are saying.

The GOP would LOVE to see Clinton win the nomination.  How else are they going to motivate their people to get out and vote?!

"Actually, sundar, I do know her and I dealt with her office in my capacity as chairman of the Democratic committee in my town."

As the kids say, Oh, SNAP!

For months I've been saying that the Clinton-as-NYS-carpetbagger would have been a fruitful line for Edwards and Obama--Edwards especially--to take in response to her experience argument.  You've confirmed my suspisions, roid.

sundar, it's not just roid. I know Democratic party officials and congressional staffers in Virginia, Iowa, and Minnesota who tell the same story. A lot of it likely has to do with Hillary sucking $32 million out of national Democratic fundraising coffers for her own uncompetitive race in 2006 when Democrats in competitive races were desperate for money. Had Hillary cared for the party as a first priority, rather her own ambitions, which she felt were best served by impressing the Democratic establishment with how much money she could raise, George W. Bush style, we almost certainly would have won one or two more Senate seats in 2006 and several more House seats. Obama was among the national and local party figures, many of them running their own races but feeling obliged to help non-incumbent Democratic candidates, who campaigned hard around the country to achieve a Democratic majority. Hillary could have done the same, but did not.

Even if this consensus is mostly just sour grapes over her party-damaging conduct in 2006, that's actually a pretty justified cause for the grapes to be sour. (Plus which she didn't even spend that $32 million wisely; she won a smaller percentage of NY voters than either Schumer or Spitzer in 2004 and 2006, making her New York's least-favorite statewide Democrat.)

You can even look at the recent special election to fill Denny Hastert's House seat. Obama and other top Democrats were all over that race, cutting ads and loaning staffers and other resources to help the successful Democratic challenger win an important victory for the party. Hillary was AWOL.

Roidubouloi has it right. Hillary will not leave until the superdelegates put Obama over the top. That will either happen after Pennsylvania primary (unlikely), after the North Carolina primary (possibly) or in early June after the last of the primaries (definitely).

At some point the Clintons' l'etat c'est moi politics of personal and party destruction must be be brought down. The Obama campaign is anything but panicky. They are cool, calm and collected and that unnerves both the Clintons and the Republicans. Admittedlly, that is not always the case with Obama supporters.

Face the facts folks. This thing is over.

It is mathematically impossible for Clinton to catch Obama re: elected delegates. With no re-vote in Florida and Michigan it is virtually impossible for her to catch Obama in popular votes, which though technically meaningless was the only possible cover the Clinton campaign could give superdelegates in overturning the will of the elected delegates.

If you are honest with yourselves, you must admit that Obama gave a truly inspiring and  historic speech on race which, while not dispensing of the Wright issue altogehter, certainly showed that Obama is no John Kerry and can and will respond to attacks by elevating the debate and talking to us like adults. He may win in November or he may lose, no one can be sure.

Yet one thing we can be sure of is that this nomination is over. The Clintons are out of ammo. Wright didn't kill Obama. The speech, no re-vote, Richardson's endorsment, and beginning of a bounce back in Obama's polling numbers, as well as the general digust with the Clintons' Rovian style negative campaign have led the superdelegates to the inescapable conclusion that Obama has weathered the storm and will be the party's nominee. The media will try to hype the food fight and play it as a close race for as long as they can as it gets great ratings. Doesn't change the political reality one bit though. It's over. Time to rally around our candidate and prepare for a tough general election fight that clearly is winnable.

So, let's be clear about this.

The Democrats are going to nominate a man:

--whose experience is solely as a state legislator

--who won his first office by driving all of his opponents off the ballot with petition challenges

--who lost when he tried to get the nomination for a house seat

--who got his second office when the candidacy of his opponent exploded in a sex scandal

--who has won delegates and avoided voters by winning caucuses among very small and very atypical groups of  democrats and winning primaries where the African-American vote is atypically disproportionate

--who has not been able to win a major state against his opponent

--who has pursued a strategy of voter nullification in Florida and Michigan because he fears that having a vote in those critical states will end his candidacy

--who is trying to get Clinton out of the race before another large state--Pennsylvania--votes and again demonstrates his inability to win with a broad electorate

--who generally is afraid of the voters

--whose name is going to continue to come up in an influence-peddling trial in Chicago

--whose preacher, spiritual guide, and close associate for 20 years is a hate-mongering racist

--whose "post-racial politics" turn out to be retro and divisive

That John McCain is one lucky guy, and we democrats deserve what we get in November--which will be another version of 1972.

Or perhaps another version of 1994? Give it a rest, it's over.

Well, pc

There's no point in recounting all Hillary's flaws at this point as she is history.  But she never won a competitive nomination or election, ever, and her "experience" is largely chimerical.  If she were such a great candidate, she wouldn't be 400,000 votes behind Obama, even including Florida, a wider margin than that between Bush and Kerry.  It is perverse to argue that she can win but the guy who has already beaten her cannot.

We shall see.

Thanks, rhubarbs.  I was aware of the unhappiness about HRC's fundraising and foolish spending (a harbinger of her primary campagin?) in the 2006 race.  I hadn't really focused on her general lack of support for other Dems outside of NY.  It is clear she could have used her celebrity to be a leader in the senate and didn't.  No doubt she thought that would be too risky for her presidential ambitions.

It's not over at all. The next big three are Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana. What Clinton does in those states has the potential to determine the outcome. And so far Obama has not figured out a way to prevent voting in those states.

Try doing a little algebra pc with the delegate counts in those states, the number of likely voters, and the relative percentages in the opinion polls.  What Clinton does in those states has NO potential to determine the outcome of the nomination unless it were accompanied by a collapse of Obama in the opinion polls.  

While it is clear that you fervently hope for such a collapse, predict it constantly, even claim that it is happening already in the face of all evidence to the contrary, if it hasn't happened with the Wright controversy, it isn't going to happen.  Have you noticed that Gallup says Obama has now recovered the ground he lost over Wright?  A one-week wonder.

Clinton mythology? Peggy Noonan was on "Meet the Pundits" this morning and did a terrific analysis of the  declension of the Clintons. A de-mythologizing as only a Reagan mythologizer could do. Well done, Peggy!

roid--

if clinton does well in north carolina where obama should win, and wins in indiana where they are tied, and blows him out in pennsylvania, it is going to be hard for the dems to nominate obama.

pc, oh pc/

I shudder at thee/

And thy frantic contortions/

For poor Hillary./

pc, oh pc/

Don't be in a funk/

Just 'cuz your candidate/

Appears to be sunk./

pc, oh pc/

You show us such class./

But how to extract/

Your head from your ass./

OK, so  Obama wins the nomination no matter what.  I'm sure he'll give another amazing speech in Denver.  

There seems to still be the idea that the Clintons will fight this to the bloody end, no matter how small the odds, no matter how much damage they do to Obama and their reputations.  I doubt it.   They know what they're up against this year, and they while they're definately putting up a fight, it's not a fight to the death.  If they were in the mood to win at any cost, wouldn't they have arranged to get Rev. Wright videos to the press in February, rather than photos of Obama wearing a turban, or cribbing Deval Patrick speeches?  Imagine if the Wright story had come out the week before Wisconsin.  

But what if the coming weeks and months continue to give rise to speculation and fear that Democrats are nominating another weak general election candidate, with little strategy and hope for winning states like West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Missouri?  

Are Obama supporters so orgasmically enthused by him that they really don't care about the general?   Would they actually not mind losing to McCain, particlarly if it can be blamed on racist whites in flyover country?  Why win an election, when you can be part of a Historic Campaign?    

Clinton at least had a strategy for running a general election campaign.  It led her to do a lot of opportunistic things like vote for the war resolution against Iraq, and the constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, and the resolution naming the Iranian Revolutionary guards as terrorists, etc..  I didn't like any of those specific votes, but you have to admit: they were the actions of a person who had seriously thought: just how the hell am I going to beat a Republican in 2008?  Just like football teams that want to score touchdowns do pedestrian things like hand off to a running back and maybe once in  a while even throw the ball to wide receivers,  presidential candidates who want to win do stupid boring crap like move toward the political center in style and substance.  

Will Obama move toward the center?  On what issues?  Just what is his strategy for winning, beyond turning out the base and praying voters will be as angry about Iraq in 2008 as they were in 2006?    

And don't quote me any polls, unless they're polls in specific electoral college battleground states.  

No, pc,

It won't be hard for them to nominate him, even under your scenario.  He will still have more delegates and popular votes.  She will have victories, he will have victories, he will have more.  The supers will not want to override the outcome of elections.  They will want NOT to do so.  They only reason they would do so would be a simultaneous collapse of Obama in the polls which could be taken as evidence that the early primary results are out of date.  Absent that, Hillary cannot win.  There is nothing to suggest that that is going to happen.  Quite the reverse.  He is recovering from the hit he took over Wright.  

Is it against he laws of physics that every single thing could break right for her, including a collapse of his popular support?  No, but the odds of this occurring are rapidly becoming extremely small.  I would put them at about 5%.  Yeah, Hillary has about a 20:1 shot.  

Jack - if I wasn't happily married, I'd marry you for that.

I think the question will be which candidate appears more viable in the general. If Clinton is demonstrating sperior drawing power in major states--even those where she is not expected to do well, like North Carolina--and Obama is still running from the voters any way he can, and not doing well where he can't hide--then a lot of stakeholders in the Democratic Party are going to want Clinton.

pcostello -- I disagree.  Given the choice of angering Obama's supporters and losing the general election, many superdelegates will choose the latter.  The flak catchers don't want to be mau-maued.  Dems are going to pick up Congressional seats anyway, so why not let McCain be the one to bomb Iran?  I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thinking is going on.  

from Jerome Armstrong at mydd:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "I also can't help but notice that Clinton does seem to have much better chances than Obama in the upcoming races:

Pennsylvania - Clinton by double-digits

North Carolina - Toss-up

Indiana - Toss-up, no recent poll

West Virginia - Clinton by double-digits

Oregon - Toss-up, no recent poll

Kentucky - Clinton by double-digits

Puerto Rico - Likely Clinton, no recent poll

Montana - Likely Obama, no recent poll

South Dakota - Likely Obama, no recent poll

From any neutral standpoint, the upcoming contests do show a strong winning narrative potential for Clinton. I can see how an Obama partisan, looking at the potential of Clinton coming off of big wins in TX & OH, and riding into potentially winning all 6 of the contests in April & May would be scared enough to try and shut it down."<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Here's the link:

www.mydd.com/.../461

gurd--

you may well be right. but if the dems do that, they will not only lose the general but severely damage the party--a lot of Clinton supporters are ready to be very angry. if the party did go with clinton, they might win the general and also damage the party. but i think you may be right that they don't have the strength to make a difficult decsion. mau-mauing usually works really well on dems.

Ah, Wandreycer1, my very first virtual, hypothetical marriage proposal--you made my day.

I too am happily married, and my wife (of 30 years) and I occasionally journey from western Mass to NYC to take in a play.  Whenever in the future that might happen, I would love to meet you for a drink.

(A paltry counter-offer, I realize, but there it is.)

What are Clinton's strengths in a general election? National security/foreign policy cred acquired as first lady? Compared to McCain? Are you people off your nuts? Her credentials are largely a fabrication and she's carrying enormous negatives into the general, too. And she has consistently polled worse against McCain than Obama. So please, please God, explain to me this line of reasoning.

She's behind in popular vote, states won, and pledged delegates. She might close the margins, but not nearly enough to win. She's hoping for miracle. Ain't going to happen. She's done, face it.

Much as I dislike the Clintons, if I were Hillary, I wouldn't quit until Obama actually had enough delegates to claim the nomination.  Which he does not.

First, she owes this to her millions of supporters and all the contributors of millions of dollars.

Second, with many waiting for another shoe to drop on Obama, why would she leave now?

Third, there is PA and some other states. If she wins big in PA, and you add to that the fact that he's mainly won small rural states that he won't take in the general (including all those Southern states) and that she's won a lot of big states that she will or well could take in the general--CA, NY, NJ, MA, MO, OH-- she's still got a good argument for her candidacy with the Super Delegates.  

Especially if by August Obama has a lot of questionable associations around him-- the Weatherman Couple, Rev Wright, etc.  Given that he leans well Left, and that he's been on the South Side of Chicago for twenty years, other skeletons could easily fall out of Obama's closet.

I know pccostello pisses all you guys off.  But his general election logic is pretty strong.

While you are obsessing on the popular vote total among Democrats in this primary, pccostello is looking at the electoral votes Dems will need to win in the general.

While I don't think Hillary is a very strong candidate among normal people-- as opposed to the Democratic primary electorate-- she is the one winning the big states with all the electoral votes.

Obama ain't going to ride to D.C. on Iowa and Idaho, or whatever minor states he's pulled.

And while every Clinton scandal has been on the table for years and lost its radioactivity, Obama has fresh scandals that aren't just about sex, or stealing money, but-- fair or not-- raise questions about his patriotism and loyalty to the country.

Now, because Democrats are preternaturally prejudiced against Old White Guys who actually have experience, you have once again given yourselves a horrible choice.

But, at least you are far more politically correct than the Republicans.  You can take great pride in your inordinate fair-mindedness.

There is at least one reason that Hillary keeps running: because she firmly believes that she would be a better President than Obama.  Plenty of people agree with her; I, for one.  Personally, I don't think Obama can win the general election; in the unlikely event that he does, I think he would be a disaster as President.  It is this conviction, as much as anything, that makes Hillary run, and that makes her supporters urge her on.

This has nothing to do with general election viability, it has to do with her sense of entitlement - it's her due. She never considered that she would have to make a serious run in the primary, she had her eye on the general. And it was that arrogance that cost her the primary. She voted for an authorization to use force in Iraq because it covered her flank in the general election. Then she voted for a bankruptcy bill that was a total sell out to her friends on Wall Street. She has no shame, no sense of right or wrong, no prayer of winning the primary and zero chance of winning the general. And this big state versus small state is absurd, that is unless you believe she's going oo win Texas or if you believe the equally absurd assertion that Obama will lose California. If their positions were reversed, this race would already be over. She's staying in because of her enormous sense of entitlement, nothing more.

pc,

In what sense in NC a tossup?  There have been 8 polls there in the past 2 months, all of which have shown Obama ahead (though by insignificant margins in a couple of the PPP polls).

Indiana's a question mark at this point.  The only poll there had Obama ahead 40-25, but that was over a month ago, so who knows what the numbers are now.

Chan,

Neither you nor pccostello knows hos

w to count.  Pc isn't looking at the electoral college math.  She's making it up.  The US News article which is at least carefully done makes clear that the Electoral Collage math distinctly favors Obama over Hillary.  The whole big state/small state thing is a red herring.  The four BIG states are all accounted for, two blue, two red.  There are no other really big states.  Plus, the very notion that the outcome of a primary indicates who would win the general in a state is ridiculous as has been noted here often.  What matters is the Electoral College vote count.  A serious analysis by US News, looking state by state and at all the polls, shows Obama has a roughly 50 vote advantage over Hillary in the Electoral College.  Rants by pccostello or you, with a different justification every moment and not even a tangential reality to the electoral math, don't change a thing.

Hillary is a political loser.  She cannot even beat Obama who, for good reason having to do with the need to keep the party together, barely criticizes her.  How can such a political lightweight possibly beat McCain and the Republicans?  At least with Obama there is everything to gain and nothing to lose.  With Hillary, it is all a loss for the Democratic party.  Even electing her could easily be worse than not electing her given her demonstrated record of political failure.

"Neither you nor pccostello knows how to count,"  is what it should have said.

Chan,

For the record, she didn't win MO, Obama did (and it would be absurd to argue from the tiny victory margin that he would be better there in the general).  As far as the general election strength argument, I don't at all understand why anybody points to CA and NY as general election strengths for Hillary.  It makes no sense to argue that Obama's not going to win all those really red states he took in the primary without acknowledging that he's also not going to lose all those really blue states that Hillary won.

Actually, the Clintons of all people should understand that losing states in the primary does not translate into losing them in the general.  Bill lost primaries/caucuses in WA, NV, CO, MN, IA, MD, DE, and literally all of New England, and then went on to win those states in the general.

Florida seems to be a legitimate advantage for Hillary as opposed to Obama, based on polling there and the demographics.  Hillary also polls better in NJ, and she might also have an advantage OH, also that's unclear at the moment.  She's also the only one of the two candidates with a chance to win Arkansas or West Virginia.

Obama, meanwhile, has been polling better in CO, IA, MN, NV, NH, NM, OR, VA, WA, and WI.  But yeah, the Dems don't really need those 81 electoral votes (I should note here that I'm not claiming that Obama will necessarily win all of these states, or that Clinton will lose all of them, just that Obama is a better bet in all of these states at this point).

"While I don't think Hillary is a very strong candidate among normal people-- as opposed to the Democratic primary electorate-- she is the one winning the big states with all the electoral votes."

First off, that's not actually true; Obama has also won big states with significant electoral vote totals. But even if it were factually true, it would still be logically false. Hillary has won (some) big states -- among Democrats. Ability to win among Democrats =/= ability to win against a Republican. If there were any correlation, even on a state-by-state basis, then logically John Kerry must be president right now.

There are two important reasons to object to these arguments about relative electability based on primary results. One is that they're crap arguments on their face. The second is that Democrats as a class are very bad at judging general-election electability, and recent history has shown that the more passionate or actively involved a Democrat is, the worse he or she is at judging electability. At this point in history, any Democrat who is not aware of this fact, and therefore extraordinarily skeptical of his own judgment of electability, is almost certainly a fool. There is a strong correlation between early support for Kerry in 2004 and strong support for Hillary now, and that alone should be a warning sign about electability-based arguments for Hillary.

roid, you write, "...Hillary is a political loser.  She cannot even beat Obama who, for good reason having to do with the need to keep the party together, barely criticizes her.""

it would be pretty ironic if you got me to praise Hillary.  And I won't be.  But, since Obama hasn't yet won the necessary delegate votes to win the nomination, it is pretty presumptuous of anyone to insist that she "do the math" and come to the conclusion you have.

Other stuff can still happen.  Why should she do Obama or his supporters any favors until they've won fair and square?  Even Huckabee kept running 'till he McCain got the requisite votes.

rhubarbs wrote, "...Democrats as a class are very bad at judging general-election electability, and recent history has shown that the more passionate or actively involved a Democrat is, the worse he or she is at judging electability. "

True, true, and wise, wise, rhubarbs.

Chan,

One other thing.  You write "Now, because Democrats are preternaturally prejudiced against Old White Guys who actually have experience, you have once again given yourselves a horrible choice."

Perhaps that's because Old White Guys who actually have experience have a spectacularly bad track record as Democratic nominees.  Over the past 150 years, the only winning Democrats who met that description were ones that had already been president (Truman, LBJ, Cleveland's third election, and reelection bids for FDR and Wilson).  If you want to find an old, white, experienced Democrat who got elected without having already been president, you'd have to go back to James Buchanan in 1856.

Our other Old White Guys with experience are somewhere between 0-7 and 0-13, depending on what you want to count as old and experienced, including such luminaries as Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, McGovern (not really old at 50, but certainly experienced and white), Humphrey, Al Smith, and Winfield Hancock.  You can quibble about whether some of the other losers count, but regardless, it's hardly encouraging.

But hey, the law of averages says if we keep trying, it will eventually work.

alan,

jerome armstrong, whom i was quoting from mydd, listed NC as a toss-up. I would have said it favors Obama. But the last PPP poll, for whatever it may be worth (I don't really know them), has Obama up by only 1% in NC.

You absolute fools.  I can tell you as an African American voter....the Clinton's have LOST the AFRICAN AMERICAN vote.  Period.

Without us they can never win.

Work the numbers.

IT IS THE TRUTH.

AlanSP, excellent analysis.  And, Buchanan-- boy did he suck!

kwaller, I believe you.

And if circumstances should show in late August that Obama has been hopelessly tainted by revelations, and the Dems therefore give the nomination to Hillary, then not only will the Clintons not have the black vote, but the DEMOCRATS will have lost if for 20 years or more.

Which is why the Democrats are potentially getting themselves into another bind.   Like when they had to go from Dean to Kerry.  Big improvement.

Obama is enormously talented.  For the Dem's sake, let's hope he has no other skeletons in the closet.  The Wright thing has a lot of time to blow over.  So, we'll see.

Speaking of closets and skeletons, why is there virtually no mainstream coverage of McCain's past?

Nothing about the Hensley's family and where their money came from, his tax returns, his wife's history with drugs, nothing at all in the major media.

And where is McCain's money coming from? Who are the people the money wranglers are going to?

The silence is deafening.

Jack R - if you're out there still - we would be delighted!!!

What did Jeremiah Wright have to say about Buchanan?

Well, all this makes a lot of sense, BUT - HRC will not drop.  I know roi is confident thaht the math won't change, but if she blows him out in PA (60/40 or so), the media narrative will change.  She wins IN and KY and NC, and while the math still favors him, the race is a lot closer.  Close enough to where the supers may just go in a room (pace Brazile) and decide.

Either way, the Dems split in two.  Cause the Clintons simply will not leave the stage while breathing.

Fou - please, let's talk about Cindy and the drugs.  Tell all those people who forgave Brett Favre for the same problem now have to vote against JM because his wife got sick.  Great, JM could use some good coverage.

Any Arizonans out there who can tell us where the family $$ comes from?  As opposed to say, whoring yourself out to Kazakh's oligarchy?

The primary process is essentially over? Did I miss someting?  Did Obama just win Pennsylvania and now has the required number of delegates.

Let's just wrap this up today.  In fact, let's not even bother with the general election.  Obama's got it sewed up.

$'s from a beer distributorship, IIRC