I know, I know. You’ve been waiting for weeks and it still hasn’t happened. He’s won primary after caucus after primary after … well, you know the history of his victories as well as I. From South Carolina to Louisiana, from Washington State to Washington, D.C., from Wisconsin to Maryland to Virginia to Hawaii. It’s been an impressive run, you have to admit. And now he is even out raising Senator Clinton in campaign contributions by a large margin. Not to mention a significant lead in the popular vote, pledged delegates and total delegates.
Still, what if he loses tonight? Three states, two states or even one? I think we all know the answer to that question, don’t we? Sadly, it will be time to say goodbye to the fairy tale. The power of words will have succumbed to the power of negative ads warning of 3 am phone calls. It will be time for Senator Obama and his campaign to come to grips with the inevitable decision he will be forced to make. Time to acknowledge that the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of new voters energized by his campaign are not enough to outweigh the combined force of Dean Broder and the Beltway 500, and all those dedicated Clinton campaign consultants, strategists and informal advisers, not to mention her coterie of wealthy supporters, caring corporate lobbyists (lobbyists are people too!) and others with establishment ties.
In short, it will be time for Barrack Obama to go. Time to bow to the inevitability of another Clinton comeback. Time to accept that he while has a pretty face, a stirring and eloquent voice, a message that resonates with millions of Americans, Americans who seek real change not dynastic successions, who seek new ideas not 100 years of the same old wars, foreign and domestic, he simply doesn’t have what it takes to be the next Democratic President of the United States of America.
He doesn’t have the last name of Clinton.
So Senator Obama, please, do the right thing if you should lose any primary contest tonight. Graciously concede the nomination to the person for whom it was intended all those many months ago when our betters in the Washington Establishment first anointed her the inevitable Democratic nominee. Please don’t continue to tear the party apart by giving Senator Clinton the opportunity to smear you in negative ad after negative ad in the coming months. Don’t allow yourself to be demeaned by a process where your integrity is called into question because Louis Farrakhan endorsed you, or because your middle name is Hussein (which must mean you are either secretly a Muslim or Saddam Hussein’s cousin) or because a conservative Canadian government leaks a story about you to the press, that, while lacking any substance, permits the pundits of the media to tear the very flesh from your bones. Go back to the Senate where someday maybe they may let you chair your very own committee.
Who knows, with any luck, a gracious exit now could earn you a spot in the next Clinton cabinet. How does Secretary of Housing and Urban Development sound to you, eh? Nice little sinecure for all your efforts. And as for your millions of campaign volunteers and supporters, I’m sure they will be just as enthusiastic in supporting Hillary for President as they were for you. Don’t give them another thought. They’re only little people after all. “Yes we can” was a nice slogan, but we all know that in politics, the battle goes to the person who is in it for themselves, the person with the most blind ambition and the ruthlessness to match it.
So please, Senator Obama, should you not win every primary tonight, please, do the right thing. Just quit.
(I’m not Hillary Clinton, but I’m sure she approves of that last message).
it will be the end of the Democratic Party at least for me. I have been a Democrat for over 40 years and I have never seen a candidate that is so corrupt as Hillary. Its disgusting.
I see Billary winning in Ohio, but only by a thread.
However, Obama is located deep in the heart of Texas.
Rendell is going to EAT those words in Pennsylvania. Vermont and Rhode Island are going Obama.
…and if Indiana is any indication, Obama will take that, too.
Have you seen the recent Pennsylvania polls? Pretty close for seven weeks out.
I see victories for Clinton in West Virginia (28 del.) and Kentucky (51 del.) (assuming she’s still in) and maybe a close race in Indiana. That leaves six states & Puerto Rico looking like Obama victories, with North Carolina, with 115 delegates, being the largest of the remaining contests (he’s well ahead there). And, lest I forget, Mississippi and Wyoming are coming up soon and look like Obama victories. So….would anyone looking at this think Clinton could still win? — NO.
Pennsylvania is the last of the so-called firewalls. After that it’s an issue of whether Clinton is attempting to damage the Democratic nominee.
Just heard on MSNBC, Bill Clinton went on Rush Limbaugh’s show today. So…. where are they going to pick up support? Nora O’Donnell reporting 10% of exit poll respondents were Republicans in Vermont, compared to 2% in 2004. Raiding has become very apparent and quite substantial in its effect. Those numbers include genuine crossover voters (judging by how Obama polls), but 10% is way too high.
Brilliant.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/3/4/142712/2196
The story is that Obama volunteers are signing people up for caucuses so they don’t have to show.
But this sounds far more like the ultimate dirty trick – a way for Hillary supporters (or even John McCain supporters) to make Obama supporters think they’ve already voted ‘at the caucus’ as a way of suppressing Obama’s vote.
I hate all the nonthinking, uncritical reporting of this crap. There’s no way in hell Texas volunteers for Obama would make this mistake. We’ve been well taught they they MUST vote in the primary to participate in the Caucus, and MUST show up and sign in after the caucus opens for their vote to count.
So either this is an effort by some truly dumbass, non-campaign-connected supporters, or this is a false flag operation designed to reduce Obama supporters at the polls.
GET ON THE PHONES AND CALL THROUGH THE OBAMA Web Site. Tell people they haven’t voted in the caucus unless they sign their name AT the caucus AFTER the polls open, and they should stay to make sure the paper they signed is counted accurately.
Good guess.
Rush Limbaugh was pushing “raiding” (strategic crossover voting) against Obama yesterday. There is a whole litany of dirty tricks in the Repugs bag of tricks, and they do make frequent use of false flag techniques. I recall the UC-CS College Republicans appearing in Denver around the time of 2004 election with “free Saddam” signs. Usually they’re not that clumsy.
Right now, they’re saying on the teevee that it’s better that Hillary LOST all of those consecutive elections because now if she even gets a single vote, Obama should just drop out of the race! Because regardless of the vote or delegate numbers, Hillary was always meant to win anyway.
Come on guys, just deal with reality. Obama just has to drop out because we’re all getting tired of him forcing her to delay her coronation.
Just who do we think we are, anyway?
Disturbing. After the SCOTUS’s installation of George II in December 2000, I could see something like this actually happening. Obama’s name is not Clinton: it is also not Bush. Bush/Clinton/Clinton/Bush/Bush = 20 years, nearly a generation. Add one or two Clintons and the total is 24 or 28 years. Who are the Clintons? They’re much less special than they might think. We’ll just forget about the Bushes. Or do they also have further claims to the White House? Starting tomorrow I am tuning out.
And then Jeb will run when the Clintons are done.
ENOUGH!!!!!
Next up is Chelsea, starting with a lower office.
Actually, I add the Reagan years to that because there was a Bush in the White House then, albeit as vice president. So we actually have (Bush)/(Bush)/Bush/Clinton/Clinton/Bush/Bush.
January 19, 1981. That was the last day to this point that no one named Clinton or Bush was in the White House. I’m sure there are regular posters on this site who weren’t even born yet!
My boyfriend wasn’t born yet – I didn’t yet talk.
Jeeezus, get em OUT OF HERE!
Right, but the oldest are already 27 years old, then after two times Mrs. Clinton, 35 years old. This can’t happen.
Rumor has it that the deal for the reins of power were handed over from Reagan to Bush on the ambulance to the hospital. Someone leaned in and told Ronnie that there were more crazy Mormons where that guy came from.
And between a Clinton win in any of the four states and the Rezko trial getting the full Village Deluxe Treatment (where they’re sure to tell you breathlessly that Obama has nothing to do with Rick Rezko), Obama is just destroying the country.
Keep in mind, it’s March…it’s another Eight Fucking Months of this.
Ironically, it may be the superdelegates, the folks that Obama supporters feared six weeks ago, who may just end all this.
Whatever the results tonight there won’t be a huge Hillary victory. She may actually win in Texas and Ohio (I don’t think so), but she won’t gain substantially in the delegate count. That means less time on the clock and essentially the same number of delegates down.
The Clinton campaign can spin it however they wish but the Party elders know she can’t win and they know what damage she can do over the next couple of months. Sure, there are plenty of DLC-types and plenty of money suppliers who want Hillary, but unless there are a couple of landslides hidden somewhere in there, she can’t win.
Me, I see two close races in Texas and Ohio, probably a slight Obama gain in delegates, and a split in Vermont and Rhode Island. Hillary and her cheerleaders can make chicken salad out of chicken shit with any results but people in the Democratic Party know better. I think that Richardson was sending a message, as per the AP: “Gov. Bill Richardson remains undecided on whether to make an endorsement in the Democratic presidential race, but he said Sunday the party needs to unify behind a candidate to avoid a protracted and negative campaign.”
The superdelegates were always going to play a role in a relatively close race. Since they are almost 20% of the delegates, there is no close race scenario which would allow the leader to win without them.
Take heart, y’all:
Tom Brokaw has told the world that Obama has 50 supers in his pocket, just waiting for the right moment to announce. Here’s the link for Huffington Post–http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/04/brokaw-obama-has-50-supe_n_89789.html — but it’s all over the ‘nets.
… and I know nerves are taut, and times are fraught, but I think we’re greatly exaggerating Sen. Obama’s demise 😉
Stop picking that zit! Can’t you see you’re beautiful, and (as they say here in Ireland) it’ll all be alright on the day? Take a deep breath, and (unless you’re GOTVing) go read the Daily Kos threads on voting stories until the polls close–touching inspiring and some of them funny (although the thread is buried…)
Nice to see you here. How are your cacti doing? All the cacti here are in bloom and I was thinking of you.
Wait, are you spoofing calls for Clinton to drop, or saying that Clinton SHOULD drop because it’s ridiculous to think she can win (as argued above)?
Well, you could say I’m spoofing everything. But it is ironic that if Obama had lost so many contests in a row and had little chance of catching Clinton in pledged delegates, this race would have been long over. Someone from the establishment would have already made the call on “Barack, my old friend” to inform him it’s over.
In the brief time before the results start coming, take a look at my post about how Matt Gonzalez could have and should changed national politics, here:
http://southofheaven.typepad.com/south_of_heaven/2008/03/how-matt-gonzal.html
Booman or Steven-
Could we get a Vermont results thread created?
Done
No surprise, but a nice way to start the night!!