It's a longshot but at some point Obama could do the honorable thing and drop out----"I cannot drag my perceived radical church in to this general election at the cost of the entire party, both my supporters and Senator Clinton's. The stakes are too high in this election."

Check out Jeffrey St. Clair's piece in this week's Counterpunch. He says that the Clintons are aiming to so damage Obama that he can't win against McCain. The calculation is that Hilary will be 69 in 2016, probably too old to run, and McCain will be a one-term president which will open it up for Hillary in 2012. St. Clair points out that that was Reagan's strategy against Ford in 1976 and it worked against the one-term Carter. Interesting thought.

I don't think that an article that plots out HRC's victory based on Obama screwing up can be considered to be very much different than other articles that say she can't win.

"What Clinton is going to need is for Obama to suffer a collapse in polls . . . "

Is this supposed to pass for insightful commentary?

You are a true culture warrior.

I thought the Times piece was far more balanced than the Salon recap. Nagourney paints a pretty accurate picture of the state of the race, and the long odds Hillary faces. Unlike Salon, Nagourney provides reasoned background, conceding Hillary has virtually no valid arguments that don't boil down to the usual Fear. For instance, he points out quite clearly that Hillary's win in Michigan will NEVER count for squat... outside of old-Iraq and the new Russia, one-candidate races are meaningless.

HRC camp needs to join the reality-based community. Unless she's willing to disenfranchise actual voters, and destroy her party, it's over. I support her sticking it out, to give folks in PA, NC, OR, et al the opportunity to express their voice, and if she manages to overtake Obama in delegates in those states, I'm all for her taking the nomination. But when she loses those delegates, and still trails in popular vote, I'd ask her supporters to face facts, and Hillary to get back to work in the Senate. Tearing the party apart to get your way may be great TV, and good enough for the Clintons, but America deserves better.

And Wes: If you call whatever form of defeat Hillary manages to attain in the end (a faux popular vote win, a faux "big state" win, a faux electability win etc) victory, let her have it. A party that elevates it's electoral failures to nomination deserves whatever it gets. Fortunately I don't think the Supers are nearly as anxious to trash the party and crap their own bed as Hillary is, so the point is moot. If your crowd manages to steal this election, you can keep the party too.

And many, many Democratic voters are still expressing their preference for another candidate.

Ahem: "many, many"? Sure, there are people who might wish that Edwards, Kucinich, Biden, et. al., were still in the race for the Democratic nomination. Or Gore. Or Jesus H. Christ, for that matter. But the columnist's little twist of prose here seems to imply that a significant chunk of the electorate is unhappy with the two remaining candidates. Clearly, this is not the case.

Perhaps the intention of that passage was to poison the well and set the stage for a Clinton run again in 2012?

C'mon, superdelegates: quit waiting for your sweetheart deal from the Obama or Clinton campaign, do what's good for the Party and pull your collective heads from your nether regions, already! This is getting ridiculous!

I don't' how it is is possible for Hillary to win. Even if MI and Fl had been counted she would still be behind in pledged delegates. Frankly Obama will come up in the polls in PA the last 2 weeks before the election, and will win in high population districts like he always does. Even is she does win in Pa, he will still be ahead in delegates. Hillary would have to win all the remaining states by 65% and she has very few wins by 65%.Seh didn't even win her own state by hat much.

If the super delegates cannot see that Obama is the best candidate for the Democrats at this time then the party is in trouble. We need and infusion of new voters and leaders in this party and now is the time to more forward. Obama is brining in new voters, plus he is bringing back progressives who have not voted in years. Hillary represents the "old guard" of the party. You can see that by the supporters who appear on TV on her behalf.

It's a longshot but at some point Clinton could do the honorable thing and drop out----"I cannot drag my sense of entitlement in to this general election at the cost of the entire party, both my supporters and Senator Obama's. The stakes are too high in this election."

And pigs could fly, if they were birds.

If the delegate count (&etc) was reversed and it was Obama who was this far behind, this would all be over already.

How ironic that the one thing people seem to admire most about Clinton--her tenacity--could potentially be the undoing of the Democratic party. With so much stacked against her and Obama's nomination almost certain, she really should concede. The public would have more respect for her and she would be known as the candidate who was noble enough to put the good of the party before her own mad ambitions. As ugly as things are now--and as exasperated all Democrats are by this situation--both campaigns will no doubt become more vicious as the weeks progress. I don't think anyone wants to endure that.

Obama 08

I love it. It wasn't but just a little while back that these Obama supporters thought that he would give a warm and fuzzy speech every now and then, all democrats would step aside, then he would give a few more warm and fuzzy speeches and he'd get 60 percent in the general.

Welcome back to planet earth.