Category: Election 2008

The End is Nigh? | Being Hillary Clinton.

“‘I want to say also that this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind,’ the former president told Clinton supporters in South Dakota, ABC and NBC reported on their news websites. ‘I thought I was out of politics, till Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president,’ he added at the start of his stump speech.” There’ve been rumors floating around about Sen. Clinton’s speech in New York tomorrow, but has Bill let the cat out of the bag? One can only hope.

Update: Sigh…A Clinton spokesperson categorically denies an imminent exit tomorrow. In related news, New York Magazine’s John Heilemann and The Atlantic‘s James Fallows ponder what Sen. Clinton is thinking these days. Heilemann: “[M]y response is simple: She wants to be president. Duh. And if it ain’t gonna happen this year, then her central objective is to make it as likely as possible in 2012.” Fallows: “The Clinton team doesn’t worry about hurting Obama’s prospects of winning in the fall, because they assess those prospects at zero. Always have…So by definition they can’t be making things worse. It is like sticking pins into a corpse — you’re not really hurting it any more. And if these efforts in fact make Obama’s victory less likely — well, then, reality will conform to their preexisting view.“

Update 2: Word this morning is Sen. Clinton will in fact concede (sort of) tonight. “The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City…But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.” Update 3: McAuliffe says not so. Get it together over there, y’all.

Update 4: Well, for once McAuliffe was right — You can’t call that a concession. Sen. Clinton’s “un-concession” speech tonight in New York, delivered an hour after Sen. Obama had mathematically clinched the Democratic nomination, would’ve been stunning in its gracelessness, if it wasn’t so much in keeping with what we’ve seen all election season from her. Classy until the end.

McCain Brain Drain Redux.

“We’ve seen this movie before,’ Obama said at a town hall in Rapid City, S.D. ‘A leader who pursues the wrong course, who is unwilling to change course, who ignores the evidence. Now, just like George Bush, John McCain is refusing to admit that he’s made a mistake.‘” One more from the past week: He already has trouble distinguishing Sunni from Shia. Now, it seems, GOP nominee John McCain is woefully unaware of our current troop levels overseas, and yet — like a certain prez we could mention — even refuses to admit he made a simple error. Uh, been there, done that.

The Comeback Id.

“There is reason to believe that Clinton, who never made more than $35,000 a year as governor of Arkansas and left the White House about $12 million in debt, has had his head turned by his ability to enjoy his post-presidential status; that the world of rich friends, adoring fans, and borrowed jets in which he travels has skewed his judgment or, at a minimum, created uncomfortable appearances of impropriety. There is ample evidence that his eight-year absence from a political workplace that has changed radically in the interim has left him conspicuously rusty at the craft of which he was once a master. There are those friends who worry that Clinton has never been the same since his quadruple-bypass surgery, in 2004, and the unexpected follow-up operation six months later to remove accumulated scar tissue on his lung…It is also possible that all these influences have combined to make the cavernous narcissism that has always driven Clinton, for better and worse, at last consume the man almost completely.“

As the primary season draws to a close, former White House correspondent and longtime Clinton watcher Todd Purdum tries to ascertain what’s happened to Bill Clinton since 2001 (and takes another look at some of his recent questionable dealings.) “Perhaps more than anything, Clinton, whose audiences in recent years have tended to be adoring crowds who hang on every word of what those who have heard his standard speech say is a rambling tour d’horizon of world problems, has simply lost a step.”

Update: “Most revealing is one simple fact: President Clinton has helped save the lives of 1,300,000 people in his post-presidency, and Vanity Fair couldn’t find time to talk to even one of them for comment.” Suffice to say, Pres. Clinton didn’t like the piece.

Last Stand in San Juan.

Whatever President Clinton’s recent issues, he’s still a much-loved figure down in Puerto Rico, as Sen. Clinton’s large victory in the island territory today partially attests. (We’re at 68%-32%, with 98% reporting.) Too little, too late, of course — particularly as Puerto Rico currently doesn’t count in the general election — but at least Sen. Clinton got a chance to go out with a bang.

Update: Some interesting math via Rural Votes: “Spanish-speaking Puerto Rico, obviously, is a place where Limbaugh has no significant listenership, and this provides us a yardstick with which to measure Limbaugh’s actual impact on English-speaking state primaries. In Kentucky for example, on May 20, a full 19 percent of Clinton’s voters said they would not be satisfied with her nomination. On May 13, an equal number – 19 percent – of her own voters in West Virginia said they wouldn’t be satisfied with her nomination. But only five percent in Puerto Rico were in that category. This suggests that 14 percent of Clinton’s vote in recent mainland state primaries consisted of the Limbaugh ‘chaos’ voters.“

Florida and Michigan, Resolved.

With architect of the DNC rules turned Clinton apparachik Harold Ickes playing dead-ender to the hilt, the Rules & Bylaws Committee decides to seat Michigan and Florida as half-delegates. (However irate the stark raving Clintonites, even the former President has suggested recently — in private — that this compromise made the most sense.) For those keeping score, this makes the new delegate threshold 2118, which, if all goes well, puts Obama in striking range to end the primary season officially on Tuesday night (in Montana and South Dakota.)

Helping him pass the threshold, of course, will be the superdelegates, who have continued their trend toward Obama during my moving week. Since the last update, according to DemConWatch, Obama has picked up fifteen supers to Clinton’s four, and word is the rest of the “undecideds” are just waiting for the word to break for our nominee. At long last, it’s over, folks.

Death Wish.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it.” A Freudian slip, or just the Mother of all Gaffes? Classy to the end, Sen. Clinton, perhaps inadvertently, blurts out her Vulture Strategy. Now, that should go over like gangbusters. Ugh, go away already.

Update: “Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, reacting to Mrs. Clinton’s comment through a spokeswoman, said only, ‘This is beyond the pale.’“

Update 2: In a special comment tonight, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann blew a gasket over Clinton’s remarks, and offered a concise and damning litany of the ridiculousness Sen. Clinton has subjected us to over these past few months. To be honest, I think Olbermann is pretty far over the top here. That being said, the riff beginning at 7:13 is very worthwhile.

Jeepers Veepers.

After Sen. Clinton gets toxic and ridiculous over Michigan and Florida — In a clear attempt to poison the well (and fire up the smoke machine), she compared the DNC’s decision to adhere to the rules she herself agreed to (when it suited her) to Election 2000, Zimbabwe, and the civil rights movement — her aides, fundraisers, and husband try to foist Sen. Clinton as Obama’s veep. But Rural Votes’ Al Giordano says hold up: “The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said ‘no.’ Obama is going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process.“

In the meantime, regarding delegates: Obama picked up two more Edwards delegates and supers Pilar Lujan (GU) and Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA) crossed paths switching (Lujan to Clinton, Cardoza to Obama.) Also for Obama since the last update: Rep. Jim Costa (CA), Rep. Joe Courtney (CT), and DNC members Scott Brennan (IA), Jenny Greenleaf (OR), and Wayne Dowdy (MS). (In the meantime, Clinton picked up 2 more UADs from Ohio and Massachusetts.) Thus, the most recent tally: Obama +7, Clinton +2. Sen. Obama is now 57 delegates away from the (current) magic number of 2025.

Full Circle. | The “VSC.”

“Tonight, Iowa, in the fullness of spring, with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville, we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.” After winning Oregon 59-41 (with 94% reporting) and, uh, doing less well in Kentucky (although I was heartened to see he took Louisville), Sen. Obama returns to Iowa with a majority of the pledged delegates, thus effectively sealing up the nomination.

It looks like Sen. Clinton has decided to hang around a few more weeks nonetheless (in part, it seems, to expose the “vast sexist conspiracy” which caused her not to contest caucus states or come up with a plan past Super Tuesday), but the focus for Team Obama is now clearly on John McCain and the GOP. “‘I will leave it up to Senator McCain to explain to the American people whether his policies and positions represent long-held convictions or Washington calculations,’ Obama’s remarks continued, ‘but the one thing they don’t represent is change.’“

Update: By way of The Late Adopter and sententiae et clamores, The Village Voice‘s Allison Benedikt puts the lie to Sen. Clinton’s grappling with sexism of late: “Currently pregnant with the next generation, let me just say this: There is no greater wish that a mother can have for her daughter than that she will exploit poor people, obliterate Iran, and win rigged class president elections, Putin-style. (Mom, I won 100 percent of the vote!)…This War on Women is just like the War on Christmas: imaginary.”

Rounding the last corner.

Welcome from the land of boxes, and, if you live in Kentucky or Oregon, please consider voting for Barack Obama today. I expect updates will be sparser than usual this week on account of my imminent move, but, to catch up on recent electoral goings-on: Since the last super update, Sen. Obama has picked up the endorsement of Sen. Robert Byrd, Rep. Madeleine Bordallo (GU), DNC members Greg Pecoraro (MD), Larry Gates (KS), Blake Johnson (AK), Dwight Pelz (WA), and Cindy Spanyers (AK), and 3 UADs (2 in California, 1 in Kansas). (In the meantime, Sen. Clinton has picked up 3 Cali UADs.)

So, that’s Clinton +3, Obama + 10 and Warren Buffett. The upshot being, however much tiptoeing is going on at the moment, Sen. Obama should wrap this thing up for good tonight when he takes 50% +1 of the pledged delegates. And there will be much rejoicing.

The Battle Plan.

“Clearly, and I’m being cautious, I think it’s going to be a close race. If Obama wins the 255 votes in the states where he’s favored, then to get to 270 he needs to choose from the following menu: 1) Win Ohio, which takes him to 275; 2) win in the West — Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, for 274; 3) win the three N’s (Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire) for 269, plus one other state; or 4) win two of the three N’s and either Colorado or Virginia.” With the general election begun in earnest, Democratic pollster Paul Maslin surveys the electoral vote terrain for Salon.