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The Saddest Part About This Entire Primary Debacle.....
Is that had Clinton (or should I say the Clintons):
1. Run a halfway ethical and party-centered campaign.2. Refrained from whining and race-baiting.3. Refrained from criticizing those who 'can't stand the heat' and then proving themselves incapable of living up to their own expectations in others.4. Solidified their bases and planned for beyond SuperTuesday.
We would likely have ended up with what would have been a 350+ EV vote-collecting ticket for this Fall: CLINTON/OBAMA.
No hard feelings. No disenfranchised voters. No angered subgroups. A united and unstoppable front that could have secured the Presidency, Vice-Presidency and likely Supermajorities in one or both houses.
But no.
Once again, ego and entitlement are served up as 'drive and courage' - and what we have to live now is the legacy.
How pathetic and sad.
Comments (16)
agreed
June 1, 2008 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I still have the Clinton/ Obama bumper sticker that I bought the weekend after the election in 2004 - I would have loved to have put that on my car.
June 1, 2008 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
The primaries will be over on Tuesday evening and I hope everyone will move on. Clinton's post PR speech was subdued and conciliatory.
Clinton will campaign for Obama and I expect Obama to be our next president.
June 1, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then why is she sending me an email saying she's still reserving her right to take it to the convention? They're not going away quietly. I've seen too much evidence to the contrary.
June 1, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Reserving the right" is a hollow threat.
She's waiting to see how fast and convincingly the SDs move to Obama after Tuesday.
It will be a mini-tsunami.
June 1, 2008 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
From your lips to God's ears.
June 1, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chris:
I hope you are right. I feel the same way. But looking at Obama's EV situation versus Clinton's, one cannot dispute that Hillary would (at least today) make a stronger nominee and candidate. (THAT part of her argument I accept.)
If she DOES come out STRONGLY and FORCEFULLY to mend fences (and rally her base for Obama) - then I think we can all breathe easier.
June 1, 2008 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary's position in the polling today is meaningless for the general election. There's five months of a campaign to go through, and five months can change everything. Five months ago, Clinton had a huge lead over Obama.
Campaigning makes a difference, and frankly, Hillary has not shown herself to be a strong campaigner. She's a fighter, but she's not a good campaigner. She has not built her support at all in the last year. In fact, she's lost support.
Obama has shown that month after month, he can increase his numbers. Hillary has not.
June 1, 2008 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Campaigning makes a difference, and frankly, Hillary has not shown herself to be a strong campaigner. She's a fighter, but she's not a good campaigner. She has not built her support at all in the last year. In fact, she's lost support."
I'm stunned you'd think this and can't understand why you would.
Whilst I loathed some of the things she did in Ohio, I also had to concede a begrudging and growing respect for how incredibly well she campaigned there.
(Compared to Barack who did not - and before you jump down my throat, he himself has conceded that.)
She was holding smaller meetings, she came out with specific new policies, especially geared at low income women - - no child in poverty. She was very specific on foreign affairs, held roundtables etc where she was able to contrast this with Obama never having bothered to hold a meeting of his European sub-committee on Afghanistan.
obama himself has said he didn't adjust well in Ohio - his campaign kept him doing rock star type rallies where he was giving his stump speech - instead of adapting and doing a similar thing to Clinton's.
Seriously - I can't stand the woman - but she really frightened me in Ohio - I really started to think she might be able to pull this thing off. Obama was saved there by her frightful Bosnia fantasy. He was saved again in Indiana where her
flights into over the top Sarah Bernhardt imitations - `Washington doesn't hear your cries`
reminded people of her less savoury character traits. And Obama got his campaigning back on track.
`Not built her support at all'? Women were favouring Obama in Iowa!
June 1, 2008 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree about Hillary being a good campaigner. She made no significant gains during the primary. In fact, she lost much of the support that was indicated in 2007 polls.
June 1, 2008 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fran, Ohio's a good example. Clinton started out the favorite by far with with expectations of a 25 point blowout. But her poll numbers dropped steadily, until right before the election when she got a bounce, largely because of the (later-debunked) NAFTA story. The support she had in Ohio was by and large support she'd had for a year, not support she earned through the campaign.
See for yourself:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/oh/ohio_democratic_primary-263.html
As for Iowa, Clinton was favored there through most of 2007, but she still managed to come in third.
June 1, 2008 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well thanks for this. I learned something! :-)
So why do I *feel* that she got much better at campaigning and that she gathered support as the campaign went on?
(I agree she was mediocre to begin with)
Don't you think she's picked up and consolidated much greater support among women than she had at the beginning of the year?
Surely that has to be the case. No-one in the MSM or on the blogs was talking about large numbers of women voting for McCain early in the campaign. Now they seem hardly to be able to talk about anything else.
June 1, 2008 11:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because the MSM totally bought her narrative of a "come from behind" victory because the MSM has the attention span a Ritalin-addicted gnat.
She's been very successful at spinning, and the media hasn't called her on it, and Obama has never hit her hard on it (because he knows he's got the delegates even with the recent losses, so he stuck with his policy of not bloodying up a fellow Democrat).
June 2, 2008 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Phoebe Fay, I know it feels, perhaps, that your thinking falls on deaf ears to some here. It doesn't to many others.
June 1, 2008 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
NO, you probably would have ended up with Clinton at the end of the ticket. But I don't know that Obama (or anyone else in their right mind) would have signed up for four years of purgatory with the Clintons.
Remember, we saw that movie twice before. The 1992 version had no healthcare, Rwanda, Waco, Oklahoma City, World Trace Center I and more. The 1996 remake was the not remotely romantic comedy with Bill Hill Monica and Ken Starr.
With Hillary at the head of the ticket the question would have been "What About Bill?" (And I don't mean Bill Murray.) Who seriously would want to be VP in that administration. Ask Al Gore.
I agree that the Clintons could have, and should have, run a far better campaign, but I do not see Barack Obama in the VP role had she won.
June 1, 2008 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
may i ask why you think hilliary asking hilliary supporters to support OBAMA would make a difference to us?
June 2, 2008 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
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