Why Hillary Won't Quit: A Theory
The question you see a great deal of on political websites, is this one: Hillary can't win, so why doesn't she drop out now? Theories abound. She's mentally unstable. She needs the funding; her and Bill are broke. She's hoping that Obama falls ill, too ill to push on with his bid for the nomination. Bill won't let her (it's Bill who's deluded, not Hillary).
And events, dear boy, events. She knows how events can change a dynamic. Even if it seems unlikely that any event of any kind would change the math, there could be something, God only knows what it is. And she's come this far, why not take it all the way to Denver, hoping for a miracle along the way?
These are all decent theories. I have one too. It's a little vague but maybe that's best. Suppose that Hillary has an ace up her sleeve with regard to Obama. She knows something. We don't need to speculate on what it might be, it doesn't matter. We only need to make it big, something that will make Obama unelectable. So she sits on it, and waits. And waits and waits. In the meantime, she goes around campaigning and taking in money. About a week before the convention begins in Denver, she asks for a private meeting with Obama, and gets it. And at the meeting---Bill is there, too---she tells him what it is that she has on him. It is, suppose, lethal. As in: if it gets out, he's toast. Let's make it something quite innocent that he either said or did but that nevertheless will effect the electorate like a bomb. (There are things like that in politics, innocent things that happen that, for all their innoncence, ruin people. After all, Howard Dean was runied with one lone shout.)
Now she gives him a choice: he can either be on a ticket with her, as VP, in which case she will never tell what she knows; he can simply withdraw, suddenly, giving some reason or other that sounds plausible, in which case she will never tell what she knows; or he can fight on in definace of her generous offer, and she will expose whatever it is and that will finish him.
Question: If she has something, why doesn't she use it now? Or why didn't she use it months or weeks ago? Surely, if she had something, she'd have used it as soon as she got it. Right?
Answer: not necessarily. She might, as suggested above, want the money, millions of dollars of funding. But there is another possible reason: whatever she has, she wants to use it at the last possible moment, to ensure that he does not have time to recover. She could wait until the last week, even the last three days, of the convention in Denver. He would have zero chance of recovery, if she did that.
In my view, this theory is plausible. Beyond it, I don't have an idea why Hillary doesn't just give up and go home. The math's wrong, the pledged delegate count is wrong, the superdelegates are all over the place so that you can't make plans. And still, she stays.
Could it be that Hillary just wants to fight to the end in a democratic process designed for such fights? Could it be as simple as that? That straightforward, and she has zero on Obama? Yes!
And events, dear boy, events. She knows how events can change a dynamic. Even if it seems unlikely that any event of any kind would change the math, there could be something, God only knows what it is. And she's come this far, why not take it all the way to Denver, hoping for a miracle along the way?
These are all decent theories. I have one too. It's a little vague but maybe that's best. Suppose that Hillary has an ace up her sleeve with regard to Obama. She knows something. We don't need to speculate on what it might be, it doesn't matter. We only need to make it big, something that will make Obama unelectable. So she sits on it, and waits. And waits and waits. In the meantime, she goes around campaigning and taking in money. About a week before the convention begins in Denver, she asks for a private meeting with Obama, and gets it. And at the meeting---Bill is there, too---she tells him what it is that she has on him. It is, suppose, lethal. As in: if it gets out, he's toast. Let's make it something quite innocent that he either said or did but that nevertheless will effect the electorate like a bomb. (There are things like that in politics, innocent things that happen that, for all their innoncence, ruin people. After all, Howard Dean was runied with one lone shout.)
Now she gives him a choice: he can either be on a ticket with her, as VP, in which case she will never tell what she knows; he can simply withdraw, suddenly, giving some reason or other that sounds plausible, in which case she will never tell what she knows; or he can fight on in definace of her generous offer, and she will expose whatever it is and that will finish him.
Question: If she has something, why doesn't she use it now? Or why didn't she use it months or weeks ago? Surely, if she had something, she'd have used it as soon as she got it. Right?
Answer: not necessarily. She might, as suggested above, want the money, millions of dollars of funding. But there is another possible reason: whatever she has, she wants to use it at the last possible moment, to ensure that he does not have time to recover. She could wait until the last week, even the last three days, of the convention in Denver. He would have zero chance of recovery, if she did that.
In my view, this theory is plausible. Beyond it, I don't have an idea why Hillary doesn't just give up and go home. The math's wrong, the pledged delegate count is wrong, the superdelegates are all over the place so that you can't make plans. And still, she stays.
Could it be that Hillary just wants to fight to the end in a democratic process designed for such fights? Could it be as simple as that? That straightforward, and she has zero on Obama? Yes!
