Letters to the Editor
Picko
Published Letters: 265 Editor's Choice: 11
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Hillary the fighter
[Read the article: Clinton: "The tide is turning"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"We need a fighter, we need someone that will go the distance for America, we need your leadership more than every today."
Actually we could have used some of that leadership during the seven years Hillary was a New York Senator. But sadly Hillary proved herself little more than a follower. What did she and her husband do to oppose Bush during that time?* Not much. Imagine what might have happened if they had fought against the Bush agenda as aggressively as they've fought against Obama!
Of course, what would have been in it for them?
*(Just compare the Clintons' obsequiousness towards with Bushes with the stands Al Gore- and, hell, even Jimmy Carter - have taken as Bush critics and you'll start to see why that old crank Richard Mellon Scaife decided to let bygones be bygones and endorse Hillary.)
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"Now we're off to Indiana and North Carolina."
[Read the article: Clinton: "The tide is turning"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... to get our asses kicked.
Which is what usually happens when Hillary doesn't start out twenty points ahead in the polls...
Do this woman's numbers ever go UP?
She reminds me of the Red Queen in THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS:
"... you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
And her husband reminds me of Humpty Dumpty:
"When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
(Come to think of it, there's probably more than one person in her campaign who reminds of Humpty Dumpty...)
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cabick
[Read the article: Clinton: "The tide is turning"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Granted those things could happen, but if they don't, are you going to be satisfied if your candidate doesn't win the nomination?
Because let's face it:
Hillary is not going to win North Carolina. It has one of the highest African-American populations in the U.S., and it has a large share of highly educated upscale voters because of the Research Triangle (with the highest concentration of Ph.D. per capita in the U.S.)
Obama is currently up by five points in Indiana. The demographics in that state are not stacked in Hillary's favor as they were in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which seems to be main reason she managed to pull off convincing victories in those states.
She'll probably win Kentucky and West Virginia because, you know, she is really popular in Appalachia. She'll probably win in Puerto Rico as well.
Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota seem like the kind of states Obama does well in. The most recent poll in Oregon has Obama up by ten. Montana and South Dakota are in regions that have gone solidly for Obama so far.
She did manage to narrow the popular vote gap by 200,000 votes tonight, which is a huge leap forward, but she's still behind 300,000 popular votes even if you include Florida. Which means she needs one and a half more Pennsylvanias in order to catch up. Now, if you consider the fact that the entire populations of West Virginia, Kentucky, South Dakota, Montana, and Oregon combined do not equal the population of one Pennsylvania, you can see how much she has to rely on Indiana and North Carolina (which combined are slightly bigger than Pennsylvania in population).
Again, North Carolina, he looks to win decisively - by probably as large a margin as Hillary won Pennsylvania, unless African Americans and educated elites suddenly abandon Obama en masse for a candidate whom they have hitherto shown no love for. So that erases maybe half or more of her gain in the popular vote from PA (NC has about 2/3 the population of PA). So it's time for a Hail Mary in Indiana, a state in which both candidates are currently essentially tied (with Obama marginally up).
And Hillary's campaign is starved for funds.
Now what you're saying could happen - but if you look at the math it looks a lot like wishful thinking. She's not even netting very many pledged delegates out of Pennsylvania, and this is her last chance to make a big grab, since most the rest of the states are what Hillary's people like disparagingly to call "small states."
OK, so you say that of the 100 remaining undecided superdelegates, 10% said that they felt obligated to follow popular vote or delegate lead. So that gives 90 delegates at play for Hillary if she loses both. Now estimate how uniformly these up-for-grabs delegates would have to swing towards Hillary for her to pull off the nomination. Even if they cut 75%/25% in Hillary's favor (unlikely), she nets 35 delegates (since presumably the 10% which said they were obligated to follow popular vote/delegate lead would have swung to Obama).
Honestly, at this point, I don't think superdelegates are looking for reasons to support the Clintons, so your argument that they will use Florida as an excuse to defy the voting results seem a tad implausible. Even people who you might normally expect to be Clinton partisans - such as Robert Reich, who was a friend of the Clintons dating back to Oxford and Yale and was Bill's Secretary of Labor - are endorsing Obama.
You say that Clinton can't be knocked lower than she's been in the last few weeks, but she actually shows a breath-taking propensity to sink lower and lower even when you think she's hit rock bottom. A recent poll showed her less popular in her adopted home state of New York (where I live) than either McCain or Obama. If I were her, I would start worrying about my Senate seat!
If I were a superdelegate and I looked at the terrible campaign Hillary has run - how she has squandered a huge lead in the polls, huge financial assets, and whatever good will a lot of Democrats bore towards the Clintons - only to barely survive against an inexperienced challenger, I would wonder if her team is the best place to put my hopes for success in the general election.
But maybe you're right - maybe everything will magically turn around and I will be stuck unenthusiastically pulling the lever for Hillary come the fall. i guess time will tell.