Umm… Isn’t there a Primary tomorrow?
As I surf the net, admittedly more than I should, one thing stands out. Where are all the articles on the upcoming Kentucky and Oregon primaries? I’m not saying that blogs like Taylor Marsh and Hillaryis44 are giving an inch, but Jerome over at mydd seems to have accepted that Obama is the nominee and has now moved on to promote Clinton’s New Role.
Not that I’m popping the champagne yet. A lot depends on how and when Hillary exits. What will her Kentucky victory speech sound like? Will she set the stage for her withdrawal, or will she push onward and make more references to the convention? Personally, I think she drops out sooner rather than later, but it doesn’t matter what I think, or even what Hillary knows. What matters is what her supporters believe.
And they believe in Hillary. They believe if she loses the nomination it’s because of sexism, because Obama, not Bill Clinton, played the race card… because the race was rigged against her. And many of them aren’t budging on these points. It’s Hillary or bust.
Guess I’m watching TV tomorrow night. What will Hillary say after winning Kentucky? What should she say? What shouldn’t she say? How does she stay true to her ardent supporters and bring this primary season to a close?
So yes, there is a primary tomorrow, but the results won’t change the message. Only Hillary can do that. I’m all ears… with my fingers crossed.
Tags: 2008 Presidential
I’ll have the liveblog link active also. But it could be a long night.
I’m in. I’m really curious to see how HRC plays this. I’ll take my cue from her. Hey, I’m ready to be gracious, but…
McCain was funny on SNL.
“Imagine the excitement of leaving the convention and still not knowing who the nominee is? That would be crazy — crazy exciting.”
But let’s put the jokes to rest this tues.
He was funny. But if you thought Al Gore was stiff…
Actually, Al Gore is usually great on SNL. Did you catch him last year on, I think, “30 Rock,” where he had a cameo bit and that ended when he cupped a hand to his ear and said, “I’ve got to run. There’s a dolphin in trouble!”
He was great with the phony SotU speech also. But McCain was stilted.
Umm, boys… I like SNL too, but… any thoughts on what Hillary might say tomorrow night? Or is this really over no matter what she says?
It’s over in the sense that the race has been decided, P, but you’re right, her reaction will make a big difference. Both HRC and BHO made nicey-nice sounds about each other over the weekend, so there’s at least some reason for hope about patching up the ship before the voyage to November.
Thanks, Al.
I am guessing that Hillary is really subdued. I have been expecting a concession speech for a long time now, so I don’t think that will happen now (actually, I’m hoping that by giving up the dream, it will become a reality…).
But she has to start making some attitude adjustments. She starts that process tomorrow.
I hope so. We now have Geraldine Ferraro “implying” that she might not vote for Obama. So much for all the talk about how a long primary season will make us stronger.
It’s not over untill one of them gets 2009 pledged delegates
correction 2029
Uh-huh, TT. Sure.
Yes Al she now leads in the popular vote and I do believe that was one of the Obama’s supporters bench marks.
Still no matter which one gets the nod they will have been picked by the Party Hacks.
I swore I wouldn’t do this, but here goes…
Hillary DOES NOT lead in the popular vote unless you give Obama No votes in MI and do not count the caucus states. Oh, I forgot! Caucus voters don’t count.
PEOPLE VOTED AND THATS A FACT
But it is still delegates who are the deciders.
Yes Cassandra THE SUPER DELEGATES YOU KNOW PARTY HACKS IN THE BACK ROOM
TT, turn off the cap key!
The rules are the rules. Rules, I might point out, that HRC was completely fine with until she started to lose.
So you will be ok with the fact if the Super Hacks picked Hillary?????
Also she hasn’t lost yet neither has the amount to win
TT: You are what is known as a dead-ender. The rest of us will carry on as if the obvious is true, that is, Obama will win the nomination. Check the media, TT. It’s over. If their positions were reversed, I’d say the same thing.
Obama will win the nomination, but I have serious doubts about his ability to win the general.
Frankly, their disingenuous “make nice” tour is really sickening. Even Arianna wrote a glowing article about Hillary today. Puhlease. If HRC supporters have proven anything, it’s that we’re not easily snowed. I would have respected him more if he had stuck with his obvious disdain for all things Clinton. Instead, he is proving what I have said all along – he is a slimy, pandering politician, no different than the rest.
Welcome Dominique!
He has to make nice, and so would she if the positions were reversed. Unless Clinton supporters would want her to give all those voting Obama supporters the finger if she had won? 😉
Really, D, what would you have him do?
Actually, we both know this really isn’t up to Obama. It’s up to Hillary to make nice and get her supporters on board. The general is in their hands. And that’s my question. How will she end this?
I would have expected him to try to win it without branding the Clintons racist and without tolerating the vicious sexist attacks his supporters continue to launch against Hillary. He sits idly by (as he has from day one) while that happens rather than stand up and tell his supporters to tone down the rhetoric. It certainly wouldn’t have guaranteed that the tweens who support him would have behaved like adults, but it would have gone a long way to raise my (and other HRC supporters’) opinion of him.
During the Edwards endorsement, the mere mention of HRC’s name by John Edwards (who was, btw, being incredibly gracious and complimentary) was met by boos and jeers from the crowd. Instead of putting a stop to it, Obama sat there grinning like a Cheshire cat. It’s absolutely galling to hear his supporters talking about her bowing out ‘gracefully’ as if they would even recognize grace if it slapped them in the face.
As to how she ends it, I would expect her to wait until after PR and either concede or suspend her campaign – maybe even before that since I think the rules state that she can get the bulk of her personal campaign donations back if she drops out by 5/30; however, she could take it to the convention (Kennedy took Carter to the convention when he was behind by 1,000 delegates). Given the fact that we still know very little about Obama’s past, it’s not unlikely that yet another scandal will come to light – not that it would matter because, between his fanatical supporters and the dreamy-eyed media, he seems relatively immune to any real damage.
In the end, the Dems will once again choose the weaker candidate and be shocked at the audacity of the electorate to reject their wisdom. Same old, same old.
FTR, I don’t think it’s possible for her to get her supporters on board. I love HRC, but I’m not going to vote for someone I don’t believe is qualified for the job because she or anyone else wants me to.
You’ve got your head up your ass Dom.
HRC is the John Kerry. Stop clining to a dead religion and lay down your burden.
I would have respected him more if he had stuck with his obvious disdain for all things Clinton. Instead, he is proving what I have said all along – he is a slimy, pandering politician,
*
that is naive
the PARTY is desparate to orchestrate this and Obama is probably complying with direct orders from DNC etc.
the disingenuous take of yours in ignoring all the sleaze that HRC allowed from her surrogates is pretty disgusting.
Nancy –
Dom seems like a nice person but she is non compos mentis when it comes to Obama.
I agree P it’s up to Hillary to get her supporters on board a real task some of the slime and hate put forth her way by Obama folks on some of these blogs hasn’t helped. The last thing the party needs is for her to pull a Ted Kenneny on Obama like he did to Carter which gave us 12 years of Regan Bush. However that little stint didn’t seem to hurt him in the party go figure
Once again I see that the Obama supporters on this site resort to name calling Jason you can disgree with Dom with out the Head up the ass remark.
I assumed that we were adults here and not children comments like that add to Dom’s point about the jeering and booing during Edwards speech when he mentioned HRC name.
Booo!
I just don’t feel like going into everything that is wrong with Dom’s comment. The observation that she has her haed up her ass is my summary.
No hard feelings. No animosity. Just a statement of fact.
Her supporters ‘boo’ when she mentions Obama. BOTH are wrong, however, this idea that Clinton didn’t play the race card or the gender card (she’s played the gender card too many times to count) is folly. She was not above it all. She could have brought the ABC debate back to the issues instead of piling on.
Stop demanding things of Obama that you don’t demand of Clinton.
The race card was played by obama supporters on Bill’s fairy tale remark also by MSNBC after NH
I think the fairy tale remark was Joe Biden, and Obama said that he didn’t take it the way that the media jumped on it.
Do we really have to rehash this? I really don’t want to recount the misdeeds of either campaign. I want to move on.
Lib Geek it was Bill talking about Obama stand on the Iraq war remember he was against it before going to the senate but once there his voting record on the war matches Hillary’s
A Great spech by Our Girl tonight a lot of talk of Unity
Pandora – I hear what you’re saying about Clinton supporters booing Obama. They all do it; however, the vitriol that has come from the Obama supporters is unlike anything I have seen in my 20+ years of participating in the political process.
HRC isn’t going to be the nominee, so she doesn’t need to make nice. Obama, on the other hand, does. He and his supporters, who have been full of bluster and arrogance throughout this process, are coming to the harsh realization that they need HRC supporters after all. Too bad they’ve spent so much time with ‘head up your ass’ attitudes. Too bad they dismissed us as bitter, uneducated and lower-class. Too bad they felt it was so necessary to viciously attack the Clintons and their supporters. I’d say Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost, if you will. As far as I’m concerned, he can ride his unity pony straight to the glue factory.
I disagree with your notion that HRC has played the gender card, but that’s neither here nor there. And it’s not her job to bail him out of a jam (ABC debate). I always found it puzzling that Obama supporters expected her to not answer questions about Rev. Wright or whether Barack was a Christian (‘as far as I know’). She’s competing with him in a campaign; she’s not his mother. She passed up many, MANY opportunities to kick the shit out of him while he was down, but chose to take the high road instead. Not that the Obama camp would give her credit for that (well, maybe over the next few ‘unity’ weeks…gag).
Obama, his surrogates and his supporters have done a lot of damage with their vitriol and their race-card tactics over the past few months. It will be interesting to see what ends up happening in November. In fact, it will be interesting to see if we we learn more about Obama between now and then. HRC would probably be wise to suspend her campaign rather than drop out completely. He was a successful Chicago politician. You don’t get that far in Chicago without a getting a little filth under your fingernails.
Jason – I’ll lay down my burden when I’m good and ready – probably sometime in mid-November. It certainly won’t be at the behest of Obama or one of his little minions. Sorry, but you can’t attack and trash girlfriend and expect her crew to rush over and embrace the guy who sat back and grinned while the whole thing went down. Good luck in November.
Nancy –
I never claimed that she didn’t allow sleaze from her surrogates. I was just as disgusted with Mark Penn as the rest of the country was and I cringed at some of the comments of the other surrogates.
Are you willing to concede that the Obama camp sanctioned a truckload of sleaze as well? I have yet to hear you or Jason say a negative thing about anything the Obama camp has done. They milked the race issue until the tit was dry and bruised. It was disgusting and disgraceful and to deny it happened would prove once and for all that you guys are completely delusional. You won. At least be big enough to admit that it was done in a filthy, albeit politically brilliant, way.
“They milked the race issue until the tit was dry and bruised.”
That has to be the single most evocative political metaphor I have seen in weeks. Not to mention, painful.
Exactly.
Dominique, I’d like to point out that you and I have had quite a civil discussion over these two candidates for the past few weeks, and I am an Obama supporter.
The barbs have flown from both sides. From the beginning I was nervous about what a long, drawn out primary would do to the Democratic Party, and was told – mainly by HRC supporters – to toughen up, that this primary is “mild” by comparison, and if I couldn’t handle the heat…
Both sides harbor their list of complaints against the other – some valid, some not. And it’s funny, when I read your posts/comments from my perspective, how easily I can insert Obama’s name for Hillary’s. That’s our collective bias. And it’s only intensified in the blogosphere where insults fly with the speed of an anonymous key stroke.
But I guess what I’m really asking is this: Do you paint me with the same brush you paint all Obama supporters? And, if not, am I really the exception that proves the rule?
Fuck Clinton. If she wins I will never vote for another Democrat.
Oh and fuck her racist supports like Dom too.
But I guess what I’m really asking is this: Do you paint me with the same brush you paint all Obama supporters? And, if not, am I really the exception that proves the rule?
*
good question. I guess that is why it is so difficult to talk with Dom on this subject.
How about good old DE Curmudgeon who equated the Obama 75K crowd with the hordes who followed Hitler. UNREAL.
I maintain that the two candidacies are not a draw that Clinton was worse but I have never contended that Obama was faultless.
The reason Dom doesn’t agree, IMO, is mainly a matter of her philosophy. She is far from alone in thinking that the only way to win in November, the only way to overcome the GOP and its Swift Boat Contingent, is to fight back hard — equally hard at least, and preferably harder. I disagree, but not because I think Dom is a racist or a sore loser or anything else. I just don’t think it’s the right way to win — or, at best, it’s a Pyrrhic victory.
For a local analogy, look at some of the flame wars that have broken out lately in the Delaware blogosphere — and I include myself as guilty. Dana has promised that if anyone hits him, he’ll hit back harder. This doesn’t seem to have won him fans or respect. I confess I have had the same reaction sometimes when attacked; it didn’t seem to win me any fans or respect, either.
I know how important this election is. In spite of my saying, just like everybody else, that I could never vote for the opponent of the guy I like, I also wouldn’t do anything to make electing McCain easier. I respect Dom’s opinion that McCain will make a better president than Obama, though again, I don’t agree with it.
Calling her names won’t change anyone’s mind.
Gosh I see that jason has responded with his normal elementary school yard response. Have you noticed that the quickest way to end a debate is to resort to name calling.
Screw you.
As I have said many times before it will serve neither of us well to be able to Say I told you so in November.
By the way Jason a very enlighten retort
I’m in an enlightened retort kind of mood.
Pandora –
You are clearly the exception. I think Jason has gone out of his way to prove exactly what I mean. That said, even if every Obama supporter and surrogate was like you, I still wouldn’t think he was the man for the job.
I think that a presidential candidate should be able to prove that he/she is qualified for the job based on his/her own merits and accomplishments. From where I’m sitting, Obama’s main qualification is Hillary’s vote for the war. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
At the end of the day, I’m looking at a candidate who has yet to prove that he has the knowledge of the issues, the strength to endure a nasty general election campaign, or any history of making change. He has millions of people believing he will change…what, exactly? Can someone please tell me? I’m not being snarky. What is he planning to change? How is he planning to do it? Jason, you’re the president of his fan club – why don’t you tell me? Sell me on your candidate. See if you can do it without trashing mine.
Couple the complete lack of any real substance to what he has accomplished or what he promises to do with the fact that his supporters (at least the vast majority I have encountered) are incredibly insulting, not only to my candidate, but to her supporters (me) and I can think of no logical reason to support his candidacy.
Call me a crybaby, call me bitter, call me whatever you want. It doesn’t change anything. I know what I feel and it has absolutely nothing to do with race. I know you guys don’t know me very well, but I shouldn’t have to defend the fact that I’m not a racist. Accusing someone of racism is a really shitty thing to do. Not to mention, it’s a telltale sign of desperation. It’s not surprising that Obama supporters do it so often given that they have no substantive arguments to support their candidate’s qualifications.
Accusing you of racism is out of line. The name-calling exists on both sides. I resent being called delusional, kool-aid drinking, latte drinking, elitist, cultist. These terms are designed to make me sound like a moron, incapable of independent thought, and if I would only snap out of my zombie state I would see the truth.
I reached my decision to support Obama through careful, well-researched analysis. I despise how my intellect is constantly diminished. That being said, I’ll admit the racist term hurts more..
So why do I like Obama and why should you consider him…
1. I have always said that I will vote Dem in November. If Hillary gets the nomination I will vote for her. WHY? Because too much is on the line. This election is too important, and Obama and Hillary are basically the same on the ISSUES. Ultimately, I will vote on these issues.
2. Strength is an illusion. If McCain had strength he wouldn’t be selling out. Torture, Immigration, and now a sudden date for withdrawal from Iraq. McCain wants to win. Fine. But he’s a total flip-flopper for votes. To me that is not strength. That is a major weakness.
3. I believe the change Obama refers to has less to do with “policy” and more to do with the American people buying into his vision. Time and time again I hear Obama supporters say, “We can’t just vote for Obama we have to help, we have to stay involved.”
And that is change. Is it perfect? No way, but it is different, Dominique. And I’m ready to try different.
Please know that if our positions were reversed… well, I shudder to think what I would write. You are entitled to your feelings, and you are NOT a racist. I can feel the pain (too strong?) in your post, and I am deeply sorry.
I’m not asking you to change your mind. All I’m asking is that you try to let go of this primary and give Obama a fair hearing. Ultimately, the decision is yours, but I’d pay good money to have you in my corner.
FTR, I don’t think his supporters are elitists. Rude, childish and perhaps a bit idealistic (though I don’t fault them for that), but not elitist. I do, however, think it will be an image he personally will have difficulty overcoming in the GE.
Again, Pandora, you are the exception. You are the only Obama supporter I have encountered who can be passionate about him without being hideous to those who don’t agree with you.
Cry baby.
If ever a person needed to be ridiculed and berated for their racists bullshit it is you Dom.
Hey Dom, will you drop the “sexist” crap if Obama picks Sebelius for VP?
What on earth has Hillary done? This is the straw argument. She had no security clearance in her years in the WH. She has no more to offer than Obama.
Her running mate Bill is now trying to force her to the VP slot. NO…….
Obama can pick a VP with superior foreign relations experience and be far ahead of anything the Clintons have going.
Dom you should be aware that the Race card is always played to stop debate. Sharpton plays it all along as does jessy Jackson so why shouldn’t Obama’s people it’s a tatic use to cut off debate when your side is losing Bill Clinton was talking about Obama ‘s votes supporting the war when he entered the senate they were the same as Hillary’s (check it out Obama supporters) but they played the race card and his votes were never looked at closely
Obama did not vote to authorize the Iraq war.
He did vote for authorizing the so-called emergency funding authorizations to maintain the effort and troops.
What Obama also did not do that HRC DID DO was to roundly criticize those of us who pretty vocally maintained that the war was a mistake.
Where the heck do you get your information, TT?