May 13, 2008

WV Prediction

Obama will lose by more than 20 but less than 30. This is far less than the predicted 35+ point loss, so the media will spin it as a positive thing for his campaign. Bill Clinton will launch into a day after tirade about how unfair the media has been to him and his wife. And we will all then return to our regularly scheduled program.

May 11, 2008

SNL

Wow.


May 10, 2008

Go Enjoy Your Weekend!

Get out of here on a high note...


Clinton's Campaign Debt

All this talk of Obama paying off Clinton's campaign debt had been really worrying me. His campaign's ability to raise small sums of money from millions of voters is unprecedented in a way that has the potential to transform our electoral process. People gave money to him because they believe in his campaign, and I suspect that a sizable percentage of them would be quite upset if their donation was used to help the Clintons repay loans they made to themselves. But Obama is a smart guy, so from the first time I heard Tim Russert suggest this idea, I had hoped that if it was to be done, it would be done very carefully.

So today I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I read this from Steve Benen:

Recognizing the obvious problems with this -- and aware that it could conceivably hurt Obama fundraising in the short term -- the Obama campaign was quick to point out yesterday that if they were to help Clinton with her financial difficulties, the support would not come from Obama's campaign account. As the NYT noted, "Instead, he would have to make a fund-raising appeal on her behalf, asking people to contribute."


In other words, people who contributed to Obama could feel confident that the money would not go to Clinton.

That makes perfect sense. As does this:

I'd just add that Time's Mark Halperin ran the "outline" of a possible deal between the two Democratic camps: "Clinton agrees to leave the race in return for help paying off her campaign debt, a key role at the convention, and a guarantee that she becomes the lead Senate sponsor of the health care reform bill under a President Obama."

All of those things are going to happen anyway, so there's no harm whatsoever in making the deal once the fundraising part has been cleared up.

May 8, 2008

On Second Thought...

Kevin Drum is right: the race is over, and we ought to start acting that way. So unless it is news related to her formal withdrawal, I'm just going to ignore everything Sen. Clinton says during the remainder of her failed presidential campaign. If she does something interesting or noteworthy as a Senator, I'll take a look. But as a campaigner? Unless it is in some way related to her wrapping things up, I'm done.

Please Just Go Away

So much for going gracefully. USAToday:

Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Wednesday to continue her quest for the Democratic nomination, arguing she would be the stronger nominee because she appeals to a wider coalition of voters -- including whites who have not supported Barack Obama in recent contests.


"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

H/T: The Plank

UPDATE: And Josh Marshall is absolutely right - whatever the terms and conditions, please do not think that Obama's 1.5 million small donors will be repaying either your personal loans or your $5+ million debt to Mark Penn. you gave the money to yourself to help yourself, and there's no reason you should expect anyone other than your own friends (if that!) to help you repay it.

UPDATE II: More nonsense, this time via TPMe:

"Do you know difficult it is for women to stand up and say we are the best at anything?" Clinton said last night at a "Generations of Women for Hillary" fundraiser in Washington. "The Democratic Party has to know that women are the core, women have to be at the table and women are going to be heard as we continue in these contests until they finally end."

Sen. Clinton, do you know how ridiculous this sounds to the generation of young women coming out of college today? Do you not realize how much the world has already changed? How much you and your generation have already changed the world? Please do not project your own ideas and beliefs, no matter how widely they might be shared by those around you, out on to the entire world. Look around you. Yes, there is still much work to be done, and there always will be. But look at the success you and your cohort have achieved!

More specifically, who precisely do you think believes or has said that women don't deserve a seat at the table in the Democratic Party? Who has said that women's voices should not be heard? I'd really like to know, because to my knowledge no one in your party in this campaign has ever said such a thing. Unless, of course, you interpret suggestions that you should go away as suggestions that all women should go away. But you of course are not all women. You are one woman, nothing more. Your campaign may be symbolic, but symbols can only be taken so far.

You may not realize it, but you are doing a disservice to the movement you claim to represent. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the basic premise of feminism that all women should be treated equally as individuals? That it was a mistake to make gross generalizations about anyone based on their sex and gender? Wasn't the point to get beyond simple categories to recognize that everyone should be valued equally as an individual? If so, then why are you acting as if all women are the same, and as if your unique situation is somehow representative of the situation of all of the women in the Democratic Party?

This is as nonsensical as your "I'm a hard-working, blue collar girl" narrative that you picked up these past few weeks. You are a United States Senator. You are one of the most powerful people in the world. On a planet of 6.6 billion people, you are among a very, very tiny handful of elites. Even among the world's elites, you would be considered an elite. You are rich and powerful beyond most people's wildest dreams. Relative to the people you claim to want to represent, you are no more disadvantaged than you are working class. You are quite literally privileged in every sense of the word. To claim victimhood renders the concept meaningless. Life isn't perfect, and it never will be. There will always be challenges. But you, a victim? Please just stop. Please just go away. You aren't helping anyone with this. Please just stop.

May 7, 2008

Hillarity!

War Room reports on this AM's Clinton conference call:

And another reporter pointed out that while the Clinton camp has repeatedly denigrated Obama for his inability to capture the white working class demographic in the primary thus far, Clinton has shown herself unable to win a key Democratic group, African Americans. The Clinton aides had little response.

Bill Clinton was once called "the nation's first black president" because it was widely believed that he both understood the black community and did not take their support for granted. Despite that enormous advantage, and despite week's of Bill's best efforts, Hillary won less than 10% of the black vote. Of course they have no response. There's nothing to say.

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