(Cross posted at My Left Wing.)
Booman asks What Now? after last night’s Clinton victory. (A successfully spun victory, spin being all that really counts now anyway.)
What now?
I got yer answer, Booman.
Right here.
Read on for more.
What now?
Here’s the deal, Booman.
Clinton is going to fight to the last man.
Bet on it.
She is going to fight until the convention and go into it with the popular delegate count about 48% to 52% or even better. At least the same as it is now and probably better because she will get a huge popular bounce from last night.
Obama 1257, Clinton 1127 in the popular primary vote so far.
Roughly 48%/52% (Figures from CNN.)
She now has 238 superdelegates as opposed to 194 for Obama. (No coincidence that the inside game favors Clinton by 55%-45%, either.) Percentages including superdelegates? 48.5 for Clinton, 51.5 for Obama.
There are a total of 796 superdelegates, excluding those from Florida and Michigan. That means that there are now 364 so-called “uncommitted” superdelegates. (As if the ones who are now on anyone’s balance sheet will not be in play for political favors, etc. Remember, this is Crooked America on BOTH sides of the aisle. And we are excluding the Michigan/Florida question here, which I will guarantee the Clinton insiders are now hustling for everything that it is potentially worth to them.)
You can also bet that they are hustling a big endorsement or two or three from…somebody. Anybody. Gore. Edwards. Carter. Satan. You name it. For reward, due to blackmail…you choose the payment and/or tactic; they will hustle it up.
It’s what they have done successfully since their Arkansas days. It’s called “American electoral politics”, and it is ALWAYS what’s for dinner here. Has been since the 1700s and it ain’t about to change now.
End result?
At best, a deadlocked convention decided on the inside and smoothed over by the media. There won’t be any 1968-style Chicago protest, for SURE. Not in present day, media-hypnotized FatMerica there won’t.
Here is what is up. Right now. The Obama novelty thing is wearing off in the ratings game and being replaced by the gritty Hillary meme as we speak.
( CNN right now-10:46AM EST, Wed., 3/5/08.)
Clinton: Campaign has ‘turned a corner’
Sen. Hillary Clinton Wednesday said her campaign had “turned a corner” with dramatic wins in Ohio and Texas Tuesday night.
She also hinted she would consider a joint ticket with her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama.
The New York Democrat broke a 12-contest winning streak by Obama.
Clinton also won Rhode Island, while Obama won Vermont. Clinton’svictories mean the Democratic race will continue at least through the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.
Clinton attributed her wins to the belief of voters that she would be the best candidate to protect the nation.
“For me, this election has always been about who can be the best president, and, you know, that includes who can be the best commander in chief,” she told CNN Wednesday.
Voters also choose her because she would be the best candidate to challenge Sen. John McCain, who locked up the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night, on national security issues in the fall, she said.
“People who voted a month ago didn’t know who the Republican nominee was going to be. They didn’t perhaps factor in that it will be about national security because, indeed, with Senator McCain, that’s what it will be about,” she said. CNN’s political team weighs in on the results »
Clinton also hinted that she would be open to a Clinton-Obama ticket in the fall.
“Well, that may, you know, be where this is headed,” Clinton told CBS Wednesday. “But, of course, we have to decide who’s on top of the ticket, and I think that the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me.”
Did you not see it last night? Obama knows. (Thus that desperation speech in Austin. Maybe eloquence will turn the tide against sheer hustle, but I doubt it myself.) Hillary knows. Even Tweety Bird knows, although his desire to sleep with Obama continues to override all else in his consciousness. Olbermann most CERTAINLY knows and is straddling the line with truly virtuoso mainstream media chops.
And here is the Clinton spin for the duration of this campaign. The public part.
I am a better, more experienced candidate. I have better credentials regarding the whole defense thing. MUCH better. I can beat McCain at his own game. Senator Obama is and has been a very worthy opponent, but he is not ready yet. Eight years as my Vice President and he WILL be ready.
End of public game.
It’ll work, too.
Watch.
Inside game??
She’s got the pull. Almost 20 years’ worth.
Plus…I will bet you that the movers and shakers in the armed forces are 98% in her corner. Watch. You will see them begin to come out soon. Watch Murtha.
Any of you who still think…after the electoral farces of 2000 + 2004…that this is some sort of honorable, one man/one vote system are living so high on the credulity index that I cannot even begin to describe the extent of your ongoing delusion.
This superdelegates thing? It’s just the electoral college writ small. And you DO remember where that shit went in 2000 + 2004, don’t you?
The Michigan/Florida hustle?
It will be decided by insiders.
The same sorts of insiders who decided the elections in 2000 and 2004.
INSIDE insiders.
And it will go…whichever way it goes…to Clinton.
Insiders always go to insiders.
That’ s how they got inside in the first place.
And there we will have it.
Clinton/Obama in ’08 if Obama says yes, and Clinton/Someone Else if he says no. (My bet? Against McCain? Wesley Clark. Bring on the military.)
Watch.
Ain’t democracy grand?
AG
as some sort of Clinton supporter.
I am merely a fan of American democracy in action.
A MOST convoluted, Rube Goldberg-sort of system.
And who is Rube Goldberg?
One ‘a them “New York Jews”, maybe?
YOU know…the ones who are supposedly always fixing things?
Nooooooo, O unenlightened ones.
He was a great cartoonist who specialized in depictions of the world as it really works.
In all of its ridiculous glory.
You know…like American electoral politics?
Got any better ideas?
I don’t.
Jes’ prop yer feet up an’ enjoy the show.
‘Less’n y’all want t’git the flintlocks ‘n’ headbashers out, ‘a course.
Later…
AG
Well, you’ve long been extolling her “virtues” as one of the most gifted politicians of our age. And if by gifted, you mean backroom-dealing, advantage-taker of the lowest common denominator, then I guess that you’re right. You should be pleased. < cough, cough >
To quote a comment I just made on MLW:
Regarding your “backroom-dealing, advantage-taker of the lowest common denominator” lick…I repeat from the main post:
We shall soon see.
Bet on it.
Clinton can beat McCain.
And Obama can beat McCain.
But both of them?
Together they can REALLY beat McCain.
We will see what is gong to happen soon enough.
Watch.
If this is a roundabout way of calling me naive, I can assure you that I’m not. But one of our Democratic candidates is doing anything and everything to achieve the top of the ticket. In this pursuit, there is nothing beyond the pale, not that this is a newsflash. Everyone will be thrown under the bus, if need be. And the one doing this is not Obama.
And Obama is the one who is likely to lose.
Why?
Because he is trying to change the game.
Somewhat.
He’s no saint either. He just cheats…differently. (The Rezko thing, the Canadian Goolsbee/NAFTA fiasco…? Please.)
The game has been played thusly for a long while. The longer it has been played this way with success…and I trust you understand what “success” the Ratpubs have had with it over the last 40+ years or so (With of course the sole exception of the Clintons…who play the same game…up until the time ol’ Bill got honeytrapped.)…the longer it has been played successfully in this manner, the less chance that a new tactic will work.
As long as the same general conditions prevail.
Which they still do today.
No societal collapse, no media collapse, just business as usual. Complaints and all.
So it goes.
FORGET the delegate counts.
I give Obama at best 1 to 3 against his winning the nomination.
At best.
The media is marshalling against him now and the Dem establishment is performing the same general act that they laid on Paul Hackett in a smaller scene a couple of years ago.
As above, so below, baby.
As above, so below.
“… some advice for other maverick candidates. ‘They simply can’t rely on any of the party infrastructure to help them, and they must assume that people at high levels will work against them.’ “
Yup.
HIGH levels.
Watch.
Do you really think the CIA and other intel services are relishing having to clue in someone new!!!???
Or even harder, pull the wool over yet another smart pol’s eyes?
Please.
Watch.
AG
Maybe you are the credulous one. For swallowing the reports on the Canadian NAFTA mess. TPM has posted the Canadian government’s official apology for the misrepresentation of Goolsbee’s conversation which I have pasted in below.
“The Canadian Embassy and our Consulates General regularly contact those involved in all of the Presidential campaigns and, periodically, report on these contacts to interested officials. In the recent report produced by the Consulate General in Chicago, there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA. We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect.”
#1-I do not believe that the so-called “reality” of what happened is of any import politically whatsoever.
Only the public perception matters. And the anti-Obama forces…notice I do NOT say “the Clinton forces”, simply because I believe that there are segments of the PermaGov other than the Clinton campaign (very powerful segments) that are not very happy about the prospect of an Obama Presidency…the anti-Obama forces succeeded in painting the Obama campaign with that particular stripe.
#2-I believe nothing that is put out by a governmental bureaucracy.
Especially when it is written in classic, many comma-ed bureaucratisiness.
What cover-your-ass bullshit THAT is!!!
C’mon, Heart.
Wise up.
I wouldn’t blame the Obamas is the LEAST if they were tap dancing around that question.
They had damned well BETTER get their tap dancing act together if they are going to win the Presidency of the Tap Tap Tappity Tap Dancing Capital Of The World, The United States of Omertica.
Bet on it.
AG
About the only thing guaranteed in all this is a nice Dem cluster—- for the next few months.
The media-presented “common wisdom” is that:
I wonder.
What if the more McCain presents his “message” the more rotten it appears to the public?
Which is what I think will happen.
100 years of war?
He’s going to live to regret THAT idea.
While the continuous exposure of Clinton and Obama to the same public will increasingly illustrate that either would be a good President.
CERTAINLY better than Senator TimeBomb.
Hmmmmm…???
AG
Stephen Colbert did a funny bit on McCain last night where he tried to explain with pie charts what we/press/people are allowed to ask McCain about, because of the before doesn’t matter (it’s the present), the future can not be discussed because of the Turrorusts (and it’s too far away) so we only have the now to discuss which is gone in a sec so there is nothing left..(of course he was a lot funnier)
How far is Mac going to get with that strategy.
Well as has been the case I wholeheartedly endorse the above diary, small minor things I disagree with but for the most part yay, you got it and the Clinton/Obama ticket will blow out the country, 50 states, because the Dems are clearly almost 50/50 divided on this and with the 2 of them we will get 100%.
It will be our dream ticket, McCain will look like a dreary old man before this is over.
Better get over the Hillary hate, so you all can help to elect a Dem.
That really depends on what you consider a Dem…
I just had this thought, if there is an Obama/Clinton ticket or vs. will some of the residents of this site not vote for them because of HRC, even tho BO will be on the ticket.
I heard on MSNBC last night that Obama called Clinton last night, wonder why?
Because he has class and congratulated her on her win, perhaps?
He wants a corner office.
AG
He was listing all the reasons she could not afford to go negative. He told her she lives in a glass house on experience. He told her that she has begun a type of fight that she will surely lose. He told her that since she admires McCain’s experience then he will tie them together rhetorically at every opportunity. He will tie them together so that the stink of a decaying economy will rub off on her as well as Senator McCain. She will go down with McCain’s 10,000 year surge. He told that her important votes were all votes of a collaborator not a leader.
Senator Clinton has started a fight she cannot finish. She doesn’t have her own experiences to use in this fight. More tea ambassador?
sounds like a good plan to me, just toss Edwards in as Attorney General, and voila….