In short, scorch the earth:

http://www.thepersonalispolitical.com/2008/05/is-hillary-scorching-earth-for-2012.html

Well said Greg. For all the crap you get about being biased I think this is a great and impartial reading of the race.

I think this is very astute, and Hillary has manipulated her supporters perfectly with her victim stuff. She seems to understand their emotional attachment to her very well. But I think she's only hardening them, as in with the MI/FL thing that its been stolen from her. THe more she says things like that, the more the TalkLefters go batshit crazy. I think it stopped serving Obama some time ago.

Also, this was just added on CNN:

Major Hillary Clinton supporter Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday the final primaries mark a “moment of truth” for the New York senator, who should end her campaign.

The California senator also repeated her view that Clinton should be tapped for the vice presidency.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/03/clinton-backer-feinstein-says-its-time-to-end/

I think that's a perfectly fair and reasoned analysis. Nice work, Greg.

Well, typical dysfunctional narcissitic nonsense. She could care less about the damage that she is causing to the dem party's chances in november. It's all about her and her lies and delusions. Pathetic.

By the way, she hasn't come back. She's been dead since February. She's just been driving a huge wedge into the democratic base. Isn't it interesting that she and obama have split the same demographic groups virtually the same way since February. It's the wedge that the clintons have drivin into the party, the clinton "brand" and that's about it. She sucks as a campaigner.

Whoopie!

HRC is a fighter!

Now we have to clean-up the broken tables and chairs.

Admirable.

She's trying desperately to stay relevant. But she's too psychologically damaged to realize that the only effective way to do so would be to endorse Obama pronto and immediately begin campaigning her ass off for him. THAT would give her clout. Acting like a spoiled child, not so much.

What happened to the 10:30 Schumer-Boxer press conference?

Thanks for your thoughts, Greg.

I think it would have been stupid for her to leave before this point. There isn't a huge gap between Obama and Clinton on any of the ways that one can assess this race. Dropping out before this point would have been akin to bowing to that constant pressure that says "Women aren't qualified to be a, b, or c".

I've wanted Democrats who would fight back against the noise machine controlled, it seems, by Republicans. Well, Senator Clinton fought back hard, against everything that was thrown at her by the media, and turned it to her advantage. She was, is, gutsy. I can't remember the last time that could be said about a Democrat running for the President.

It has been an epic fight. And Obama is stronger, and so is the Democratic Party, contrary to Bob Herbert's gnashing of teeth in his column this morning.

The flaws and warts of both campaigns have been exposed, thereby mitigating any September-October attack by Mavericky McSame.

Millions of people have voted. That alone is a victory, because if they were motivated to go out in record numbers in a primary, wait until the general election.

We'll be talking about this nominating adventure for years.

Certainly, she and Bill and their minions have vigorously applied the bellows to the flames of grievance among her supporters over the last two weeks. I supspect they themselves could not tell you how much of that is pure calculation, an effort to strengthen their hold over the zealots so they can present themselves to the Party as the only force capable of calming them, and how much is just raw fury. Indeed, I expect they themselves are probably least able of all to answer that question honestly.

In short, media enabling supposedly played no role in perpetuating the fallacies about her chances since Super Tuesday. Media stenography of her meaningless spin about electability, white working class voter challenges and popular vote legitimacy supposedly did not play any role in keeping this campaign on life-support. Like with the pre-Iraq war build-up, the media will ignore its role.

I read that piece and had a lot of disagreements with it. However it does contain a part of the puzzle, but only a part. Were Hillary way behind - were the race not close - one could give those theories more credence. But Hillary has had plenty of reason to fight on based on the possibilities of actually winning. There's an emotional element involved in supporting Hillary, and an emotional element in fighting on, but the same is true of Obama and his supporters. You make too much of it if you accuse Hillary and her supporters of being motivated completely by emotion. There is the real and valid desire to see her President - real support for her as the better candidate - a real concern that Obama is too vulnerable and could lose. Don't judge Hillary, her supporters or women in general as being pawns to their emotions lest people start to point to Obama supporters in the same way.

It would be difficult to construct a paragraph with more question-begging and straw-men assumptions than this one:

There's no question that the legions of Hillary supporters who see her in these terms would have been far more embittered had her story been brought to an abrupt and premature end -- particularly if that conclusion were perceived, rightly or wrongly, to have been engineered by forces hostile to the historic dimensions of her candidacy.

"There's no question"? Who asked for an "abrupt and premature" end? The "historic dimensions" depend on history, which is whatever happens, not what you or any others think should happen. This was a pre-fab candidacy that has had to be nurtured along by everyone, including Obama, to keep it going. We're still tiptoeing around her to keep her from facing reality. There's something a little sick and ACOA* about it all.

*Adult Children of Alcoholics

Perhaps she could've been more inspiring on the campaign trail then. Running as the incumbent candidate and then out with the kitchen sink kind of sunk any chance for her to be inspirational.

She'll do much more to save her legacy the second she suspends her campaign and gets behind the nominee.

So says this Obama supporter who voted for Clinton on Feb. 5.

Hillary Clinton's Sunset Blvd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWaL1XnUPN0

Why do the Clintons insist on publicly humiliating themselves time and time again?

Call for Dr. Phil....

As I asked in another thread, has any candidate in history been psychoanalyzed to the degree Clinton has?

What will she do next? Will she ruin the party? Her career? Will she be gracious? Will she be vindictive? Why is she doing it? What does she want?

Trying to figure out what's going on in her head has become a cottage industry. It's really just exhausting and it needs to end.

The reason she hasn't quit is simple. She is still winning contests, she has millions of supporters, and the other guy hasn't won yet.

I think its a calendar issue. HRC was still in with a chance up to the Texas and PA votes. If she had been defeated then it would have been easy to withdraw. But she won, and the problem is that she won at least one contest on each of the days they were held since.

Winding down a campaign is not as easy as the net-roots imagine. Obama has to win the nomination, a concession would be an anti-climax.

The question now is how to manage the final choreography. The problem with HRC giving a concession speech today is that it would tread on Obama's victory lap. So they have to play it carefully.

What happens this week is going to be choreographed and managed between the two campaigns.

I think this is an astute article. It is interesting that Hillary has gone from the candidate for cold, steely-eyed realists to the candidate for people who are emotionally invested in her.

I've said it before, but Hillary and Bill are America's Perons. Their grip on our nation psyche is intense, and out of proportion to their actual accomplishments. It isn't like Bill was FDR, the guy who pulled the nation out of the Depression and won WWII.

Bill was a competent President. Hillary is a competent Senator. This isn't a slight. Competence is hard to find.

But I, for one, am anxious for the drama to end. We have real work to do. And the Clintons need to realize this race isn't about them, it is about us. And they need to help us make this country better.

Tragically, and I mean tragic in the theatrical sense of the word, their inability to realize that this isn't about them is why Hillary has lost this election, and why Bill will be remembered as competent - not great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfuTV0L-c9g

One great speech by Clinton could end this whole fiasco and do much for party unity.

One speech could be the true inspiration of her campaign and the true legacy she can continue. One speech could highlight why she stayed in and why she must suspend.

One speech. Will she give it?

More and more rational Clinton supporters are now seeing the folly in her stubbornness not to quit and are distancing themselves from HRC. See Feinstein, Rendall. What remain are die-hard followers, who are becoming a bunch of angry feminists that thought they've been victimized and they seek revenge. The longer she stays in with her little cult, the more she marginalizes the Clinton brand. Wouldn't that be a nice payback for Bill's indiscretions?

Maybe HRC can run for the National Victims of Sexism party in November. She would have, I guarantee you, less than 17 million votes.

Looks like tomorrow may be the day...

near end of the video, Bob Beckell talks of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10D9gE07rhk

One key reason she has stayed in, I believe, is that it strengthens the inspirational power of Hillary's political narrative and persona, and, ultimately, strengthens her emotional grip on her supporters.

In other words: Because she is a NARCISSIST!

Sorry for raising my voice...

It's not just Hillary's political identity, Greg. Hillary also has faced personal humiliation at the hands of Bill. Those womanizing rumors in the 1992 campaign were (gasp) true. And Bill's womanizing continued if his escapades with Monica were any indication. After his terms ended, who knows?

I see parallels between Hillary fighting on and on and on for her marriage in spite of humiliation and Hillary fighting on and on and on for her political goals. Isn't this just Hillary being Hillary? I submit that this is exactly what this is.

And woman as victim is nothing new; those of Hillary's age mostly have this view. This group really, really believes that any man will be put ahead of any woman. That belief drives the rage.

My two cents....

The latest polls (and her campaign's claims to Drudge, apparently) are that she'll take So. Dakota tonight by a wide margin. And if she comes close to Obama in Montana, she'll be crowing all day tomorrow about how these last two contests are further proof he's not the best candidate. So she'll figure, why drop out today when she can bolster her claims?

Of course, what she'll fail to mention is how he's not been campaigning much - if at all - in any of these final contests such as West Virginia and Kentucky and the rest because to be actively engaged in them the way he was in Indiana and North Carolina would make him look like he's STILL in primaries-mode versus in general election-mode.

My guess is he's decided it's better to lose these final contests if need be and eat Hillary pie while he looks, acts and speaks like the already-designated GE candidate. Because, let's face it, when she took a beating in Indiana and NC, that was IT for her. The primary season was essentially over and he WAS looked upon as the GE candidate and everyone knew it. He stepped back then from the final contests and left her alone in these remaining races and she's been allowed to pretty much beat his pants off because he's NOT CAMPAIGNING AGAINST HER anymore. That's one hell of a wise, sly and characteristically SMART move on his part - a big reason I want to see him President, for sure - but he's had to eat more Hillary pie as a result, and he may well have to eat a little more tomorrow...

One key reason she has stayed in, I believe, is that it strengthens the inspirational power of Hillary's political narrative and persona, and, ultimately, strengthens her emotional grip on her supporters.

Sexist.

The ARG poll in SD is bullshit! Daily Kos has a handful of polls from SD that has Obama winning all of them!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/3/114823/0206/721/528113

Emotional grip.

coughCULTcough.

What?

What's dangerous for the Democratic Party is that, for many women, the eye of the storm has moved beyond Hillary or anything she does at this point. The offense has turned personal.

They are now in their own orbit, having abandoned popular Democratic Websites that reveled in crude anti-Hillary outpourings -- and established new ones on which they trade stories of the Obama people's nastiness.

But worse than the online malice has been the affronts to their faces.

Tara Wooters, a 39-year-old mother from Portland, Ore., told me that wearing a Hillary sticker around town has become an act of defiance. She recalls one young man telling her, "I'd rather vote for a black man than a menopausal woman."

"We don't hurl insulting, berating remarks at Obama supporters, or at Obama himself or his family," Debbie Head, a 40-year-old from Austin, Texas, complained to me.

Remember Peggy Agar? The women do. They can't stop talking about the Detroit TV reporter who asked Obama a serious question at a Chrysler factory -- "How are you going to help American autoworkers?" -- to which he answered, "Hold on a second, sweetie."

The women are angry at the ludicrous charges of racism leveled against Clinton by the Obama camp -- amplified in the supposedly respectable media -- and projected onto themselves.

Jean B. Grillo, an "over 50" writer in lower Manhattan, was pretty straightforward: "I am so tired as a white, ultra-liberal, McGovern-voting, civil-rights marching, anti-war fighting highly educated professional woman who totally supports Hillary Clinton to be attacked and vilified as racist and or dumb."

Shauna Morris, a 44-year-old lawyer from Largo, Fla., told me, "I am upper-middle class, and I still can't stand him -- and it has nothing to do with race, believe me."

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_froma_harrop/white_women_take_the_gloves_off

Obama clinches the nomination---

according to the AP and it's math.

Woo Hoo! Victory speech tonight!!!!

Why would AP call it before the polling places close??? That's pretty tacky of them...and I'm an Obama supporter!

Hillay will have a chance to run again in a few years, Oilbama will be trounced by McCain worse than either Dukakis or McGovern. Scumbag Oilbama supporters have seen to that with there sliming of the candidate with 1/2 of the party's support.
Oilbama really does not seem like that bad a guy, but his supporters are certainly not people most supporters of Hillary want anything to do with. To be associated with such hateful scumbags would be unconscionable. Good job Obamabots you have lost the election for Oilbama with you hatefilled rhetoric.

I'm a little lost here.

Is Greg simply trying to jump on the new meme of "she's responsible for their anger"? It's clear that the purpose of this new campaign is not only to pressure Clinton to drop out NOW but to start campaigning for Obama TOMORROW, but whatever.

But I have to admit, I have been impressed at the creativity of anti-Clinton smears, both open and subtle. Whoever is behind this must be as full of Clinton hate as her supporters are now being accused of.

Jesse Jackson was 1200 delegates behind and nobody told him he was ripping the party apart when he took it all the way to the convention to close with the "hope" speech.

I guess that would have been "playing the race card". Which is, of course, a bigger sin than splitting the party.

I've been thinking about this and wanted to get your read on it...what will be timing tonight for Obama and hillary's speeches. Will she goes first and early as to not take away from Obama's speech or will the speeches be competing for a preferred time slot???

Major Clinton Backer; General Wes Clark, endorses the ticket of:

Obama/Sebelius

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/Wes_Clark_floats_ObamaSebelius.html

Wes Clark stopped out in Texas yesterday to drop by a fundraiser Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius headlined for Michael Skelly, a Democrat running for congress in Texas.

Clark introduced Sebelius and, according to a regular correspondent and reliable source who was there, said:

"The London odds-makers say that Kathleen Sebelius is the odds-on favorite to be the next vice
president. I can tell you, she'd make a great vice presidential choice."

He then introduced her as "The next vice president of the United States...."

Sebelius is typically considered for the slot only if Obama is the nominee.

I really wish Hillary would run as an Independent.
The Democratic party is being taken over by wingnut Obamabots. We need a new party bigtime.
I will vote Republican for the first time as at least McCain voted against Dick Cheney's Energy bill, unlike Oilbama. He also served our country in wartime while Oilbama and his wife were hating Whitey.

Great analysis. I also think there has been almost a Kubler-Ross dimension to this - that Hillary, in a sort of time-delayed fashion, had to experience each stage of her campaign's unraveling (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, resignation) at the distance of an echo, at each stage still holding on to convictions for a time even though facts to the contrary were already there. Sort of like the amputee's sense that the limb can still be felt, so it must still be there. Glad it's over (better be...) now, though.

17 million plus votes for Clinton, a mere 0.1% deficit in the popular vote, plus a series of Clinton primary thumpings of Obama = "unraveling."

And Obama supporters get testy when you call them delusional or serial misrepresenters of the truth.

LOL

It will be interesting to see which racist church Obama embraces next.

to Nobama:

What are you smokin? You state that you would stamp you foot, pick up your chips, and vote for McCain out of spite? What is at stake is the future of this country not your hurt feelings. What you are contemplating is like burning a house down to kill the termites. Not logical or rational. McCain is the same, if not worse ,than Bush. Think of all the lives McCain would toss into the woodchipper. This Election is not about you. Get a grip.