Over in Early June?

[Herb Schaffler]

Clinton Aide Predicts Race Will Be Over by June


Thursday, May 8, 2008 10:11 AM

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WASHINGTON -- Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman said on Thursday he believes the Democrats will have a presidential nominee in June and that if it is not Clinton, she will campaign for rival Barack Obama.

Clinton is given little chance of winning the nomination but so far is rejecting calls by some prominent Democrats to withdraw from the race and cede the field to Obama, a first-term Illinois senator who crushed Clinton in North Carolina on Tuesday and almost defeated her in Indiana.

The New York senator and former first lady, a fixture in American politics for the past 16 years, is leading the polls in the next state to vote, West Virginia, which holds its contest on Tuesday.

"She can win the states we need to win in the general election. Why should Hillary Clinton, until there is a nominee with the number of necessary delegates, why should she get out?" Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe asked on NBC's "Today" show.

After Tuesday's voting in West Virginia, which Clinton is expected to win, the remaining contests are Kentucky and Oregon on May 20, Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Superdelegates, those party leaders who can vote for whichever candidate they want, will likely move quickly to endorse the winning candidate.

"It'll be over early June," McAuliffe said. "We've all said we'll be together at the end. If Hillary doesn't win, Hillary, (former) President (Bill) Clinton, myself, we'll be over there helping Senator Obama. And, likewise, Senator Obama will come together to help Hillary if she's the nominee."

Democratic leaders have expressed fears that the closely fought contest could drag on until the Democrats hold their convention to nominate a candidate in late August in Denver.


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[Herb Schaffler]

Hillary Crippling Democratic Party With Attacks on Obama


Friday, May 9, 2008 8:53 AM

By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann Article Font Size

OK, so Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is staying in the presidential race despite losing among elected delegates, facing a slimming lead among superdelegates, losing the popular vote and being behind by 2-to-1 in the number of states carried.

She slogs on, hoping against hope for a sudden turnaround in the race.

Apart from the psychological reasons for her stubbornness, is there a more subtle political calculation going on?

Is she continuing her race so as to have a platform from which to continue to bash Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the hopes of so damaging him that he can’t win the general election? Is she doing this to keep her options alive for the 2012 presidential race?

Hillary is obviously entitled to keep running until Obama has secured the votes necessary for the nomination, and it is certainly understandable that she would want to run until the last popular vote is counted. But must she run a negative, slash-and-burn campaign? Must she use her time on the platform and on television to belittle, mock, deride and try to destroy the man who will eventually be the candidate of her own party?

Former Republican Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee felt similarly justified in staying in the race for the Republican nomination until Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., reached the majority threshold required for nomination. He contested the Texas primary vigorously, even though his earlier losses in South Carolina and Florida made it most unlikely that he could win the nomination. But he chose to run a positive campaign. He didn’t knock McCain. He just articulated the case for his own candidacy.

Hillary won’t avail herself of that option because it does not serve her long-term fallback position: a shot at the nomination in 2012. If Obama is elected this year, he will seek re-election in 2012 and Hillary would have to face taking on an incumbent in a primary in her own party if she wanted to run, a daunting task. But if McCain wins, the nomination in 2012 will be open. And it might be worth having.

McCain will be 76 years old and the Republican Party will have been in power for 12 years. Not since FDR and Truman has a party lasted that long in power. When the Republicans tried to do so, in 1992, they fell flat on their face.

Hillary is using white, blue-collar fears of Barack Obama to try to stop him from getting nominated or elected.

She is playing on his “elitism” by hammering him on blue-collar issues and is mincing no words in painting him as a stranger to blue-collar white America.

Hillary is attracting the votes of cops, firefighters, construction workers, union members. Are they in love with Hillary? They can’t stand her. But they are terrified of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and the various influences to which Obama seems to be subject. By playing on those fears, Hillary is undermining Obama’s ability to get elected.

This is not a byproduct of her continued candidacy — it is the goal.

She, the consummate realist, must know that she has no practical shot at the nomination herself after her numbing loss in North Carolina and her paper-thin margin in Indiana. But she welcomes the opportunity an ongoing candidacy offers to bash Obama and to drive a wedge between him and the voters he must have to beat McCain.

The question is how long Democratic primary voters and the party leadership let her go on hitting their ultimate nominee. Will they bring Hillary up short and speak out about the harm she is doing to their party’s prospects by way of her refusal to recognize reality?

Hillary doesn’t have to pull out. She is entitled to run in the remaining states. But she should curtail her negative campaign and adopt the Huckabee strategy: Maximize your own vote share, but don’t beat up the party’s nominee. Unless, of course, that is her goal all along.





© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

If she does keep Obama from winning the general election, I hope that Democrats hold her responsible and don't support her in 2012.

[nohil-billy]

I still firmly believe that Hillary is hanging around to pick up the pieces should another revelation surface regarding Obama's penchant to embrace anything or anyone radical. If Obama was a white candidate, he'd be gone. He's like a teflon coated David Duke.

Hillary has to be dumbfounded that not only has Obama survived the racist rants of his pastor, but that she and Bill came off looking like the race-baiters.

[WiseOne]

Now, I think the reason she is staying on is to HOPE Obama loses and try again in 2012, OR she is waiting for a sniper to get Obama. I hope Obama has some good security...he IS pissing Hillary off and we all know what that can lead to. IF he makes it through and wins, I will keep this site up for 2012 as I KNOW she'll try IF McCain wins.