By staying in the race, the message Hillary is sending to the Republicans and indpendents right now is that although she has no chance of becoming the nominee, is that she's willing to take Obama down with her and hand the presidency to McCain, rather than give up. This gives the republicans gerat hope that they can win in November, which translates into more and more conservatives moving to the McCain camp instead of being passive, more money for McCain and more positive energy for the right wing. if independents sense that the Democrats aren't united, they will move toward McCain, and that would hand him the white house. Untill now, the Clinton/Obama race has benefited obama, but from now on, it will energize the right wing and discourage indepemdents, who usually lean republican anyway, from voting for the Democratic candidate. It's clear that the Clintons have chosen the scorched earth strategy which is designed to hand the presidency to McCain rather than let Obama unite the party and win the presidency. The talk of how a continuation of the race would toughen Obama up and get him ready is silly nonsense. Obama is extremely bright and is perfectly aware of what's coming from the direction of the right wing once he's the official nominee. His people are erady and prepaired for the swiftboating, lies and provocations. He shouldn't waste anymore energy and money fighting the Clintons.

Another thing-I live in the San Francisco bay area, the most Democratic and progressive region in the nation. I keep hearing from moer and more Hillary supporting progressive, people who only a few months ago said they would rather leave the country than live through another Republican president,that if Obama is the nominee, they would vote for McCain to ensure that Obama is defeated and Hillary is the undisputed Democratic nominee in 2012. To them, the nomination belonged to Hillary and Obama has stolen it from her. It would take many months to heal that kind of bitterness. If Hillary continues her scorched earth policy and takes this fight, which she has no chance of winning to the convention, there won't be enough time to heal the rift. Moreover, the republican would deploy the Manchurian Candidate, Obama/Osama the Muslim tactics and informing the public that this is fraudulaent right wing propaganda would take many months and a frightful amount of money. If Hillary leaves Obama little time to fight the right wing slime machine, this election is lost. The fact that Hillary is staying in the race and has actually intensified her attacts on Obama means that her camp has decided to take him down with her.

A rational candidate stays in the race as long as he/she has a chance of winning. Hillary has no chance whatsoever. The fact that now, when it's mathematically impossible for her to win, she has increaed her attacks on Obama to a level of all out hysteria, means she wants him to lose in November so she becomes the undisputed Democratic candidate in 2012. Ralph Nader runs for president in order to defeat the Democrats and punish them for not adopting all his ideas. Hillary is now running with a very similar state of mind-to ensure that Obama loses in November so the Democratic party acknowlwedges its mistake in daring to prefer Obama to her turns to her and make her the certain nominee in 4 years. Every person voting for Hillary at this stage of the game is essentially voting for an Obama defeat in 2008 so hillary can be unopposed in 2012.

earlier today i had an insight into the mind of a hillary rabid supporter. my next door neighbor is a former 60's radical, a veteran of the university of california anti-vietnam demonstrations, voter for bobby kennedy, eugene mccarthy and jessie jackson. her front lawn is covered with hillary signs and her toyota hybrid has about 4 hillary stickers. she told me this morning that the democratic nomination belonged to hillary and was stolen from her by obama, who should've waited until hillary's second term as president to run. she promised to vote for a republican for the first time in her life should pobama become the nominee. she said that after 4 years of mccain, things will be so horrible that the nation will beg hillary to save it from the republicans and she will become the modern day FDR. i keep hearing variations on this insane notion from many hillary supporters.

watch her mocking Obama today and you'll see the Real Hillary Clinton:selfish,hateful, arrogant and full of herself and a self od entitlement, ready to bring Obama down because he had the nerve to take what belonged to her. No one should be surprised though:she has always been a Republican pretending to be a Democrat. Even Mitt Romney, another phony, knew that when you don't have a realistic chance of winning the nomination, you leave the race gracefull, but not Hillary, who has no grace and cares nothing about the country, only her naked ambistions. She has poisoned millions of her supporters who would now rather stay home or vote for McCain, just to see Obama, who took her devine right, the nomination, away from her, lose and have her run again in 2012.

I voted for Obam in the California primaries because Hillary voted to aurhorize Bush to invade Iraq, because she had been involved in many senate votes that enabled Bush/Cheney to continue the Iraq occupation, because she is a corporatist democrat-basically Republican Lite and because I believe that her claims to be highly experienced and ready from day one are bogus- most of her experience is as the spouse of a successful politician. Her gender had nothing to do with my vote. It's high time for the US to have a female president, I just don't believe that Hillary's record, pro war, pro imperialistic tendencies and dubious integrity, entitle her to be the Democratic candidate. Now if Barbara Boxer were running...