There is a wonderful book that I would highly recommend all Obama supporters read called "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's about Abraham Lincoln's nomination and presidency. You will be floored by the similarities between then and now. Lincoln not only came out of nowhere as an unknown Illinois lawyer, but he snatched the nomination away from the candidate who was considered the de facto nominee by almost everyone in the country, including the media - a senator from New York named William Henry Seward. Lincoln was confident enough in himself as a leader that one of the first things he did was to give his greatest rival the top spot in his cabinet as Secretary of State. He then went on to give cabinet spots to the other two Democratic rivals for the nomination. They were an amazing team and the story of how Lincoln brought these men together is a story for today's campaign. These men not only disliked Lincoln, they disliked each other. But Lincoln was a confident and self assured leader and understood that these men all had something to offer. This "team of rivals" brought the country through it's darkest period in history and held the union together.
I believe Barack Obama is more like Lincoln than any other stateman I've seen him compared to. How he is dealing with the Clintons shows not only his own confidence and leadership skills, but demonstrates how he is staying focused on the issues, looking at needed results, and building the relationships he needs to in order to secure the White House in November and to lead the country in the next 4 years. I don't ever second guess Obama's strategy. I trust the source of his decision making because I believe his greatest strengths are his character, his conviction and his integrity. He has also surrounded himself with excellent advisors and strategists. Whatever he has chosen to do in moving forward in alliance with Bill and Hillary Clinton is because it is the best of the options he has.
Team of Rivals is also available as an audiobook read by Richard Thomas and you can download it on to an iPod from iTunes. It's a very moving work of history that will leave you confident than that Barack Obama is truly the Lincoln of our generation.
I'm telling you, she is not a leader, she is a divider! The only reason she is still in this is to cause as much damage as possible! Why, because she thinks she has a chance in 4 years! I'm certain that if the demecrats lose the white house this November they will only have the "Billary Machine" to blame!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24905193/
"Clinton's camp insisted Obama shouldn't get any pledged delegates in Michigan since he chose not to put his name on the ballot, and she should get 73 pledged delegates with 55 uncommitted. Obama's team insisted the only fair solution was to split the pledged delegates in half between the two campaigns, with 64 each."
From Maureen Dowd:
Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton. After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place. Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana slide, that she has a broader base, citing an Associated Press article “that found how Senator 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.” So how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black? Is the most ingenious way to turn the screw by not choosing her as his running mate, or by choosing her? It is, verily, a sticky wicket. One top Hillary supporter who is black warns that, despite the giddy dreams of some punch-drunk Democrats, a fusion ticket could backfire because “Americans can’t handle too much change at once.” But should Obama ignore that caution and appease Hillary fans by putting her on the ticket? As president, he could announce that, because Dick Cheney abused the powers of his office so grievously, taking the title “Vice” literally, he intends to shrink the vice presidency back to its “bucket of warm spit” Constitutional prerogatives — presiding over the Senate and taking over if the president goes under anesthesia. He might also neglect to give Bill (whose acronym would be SLOTUS, Second Lad of the United States) full White House access. Aside from the delight Bill would get from living at the Naval Observatory and having a huge telescope to window-peep with, there wouldn’t be much joy in Hillaryland. The lady-in-waiting would be surrounded by Obama disciples who disdained her for fighting dirty. And she would be miserable holding up the train of the young prince who usurped her dream, derailing the post-nup she had with Bill to trade places. As de facto veep for Bill, she had enough leverage over him, due to his shenanigans, to co-opt huge chunks of policy and personnel decisions. But in a return engagement with Obama at the top, could she really wake up every day in the back seat and wish him well, or would she just be plotting? (Fourteen vice presidents have ascended, after all.) Wouldn’t she be, in Monty Python parlance, the Trojan Rabbit behind the gates? On a positive note, maybe she could bring back all that stuff she pilfered on her way out. Obama’s other option, laid out by Teddy Kennedy on Friday, is to go with someone who wouldn’t be a big dark cloud over his sunshiny new politics. Teddy told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Obama should choose a partner “in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people.” That would be smart for another reason: Hillary has a strange, unnerving effect on Obama, and whenever he is around her, he’s unable to do his best. Probably, it’s because she’s furious, always shaking his hand off her arm, ignoring him, giving him the evil eye and emasculating him, and the Golden One is not used to such rough treatment. In the last few days, as Hillary has deflated and Obama and the Democrats have dashed for daylight, he has been more like his old self, flashing his all-is-right-with-the-world smile on the cover of Time, joshing and charming Democrats and Republicans as he wooed superdelegates on the House floor, taking on James Carville for insulting his manhood. “James Carville is well known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he’s talking about,” he told Terry Moran on “Nightline.” Obama will never be at his best around Hillary; she drains him of his magical powers. She’s Jane Jinx to him. It’s a similar syndrome to the one Katharine Hepburn’s star athlete and her supercilious fiancé have in “Pat and Mike.” The fiancé is always belittling Hepburn, so whenever he’s in the stands, her tennis and golf go kerflooey. Finally, her manager, played by Spencer Tracy, asks the fiancé to stay away from big matches, explaining, “You are the wrong jockey for this chick.” “You know, except when you’re around, we got a very valuable piece of property here,” he says, later adding, “When you’re around, she’s no good, she’s dead, see?” The best way Obama can punish Hillary is to reward himself. He’s no good around her, see?
Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton.
After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place.
Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana slide, that she has a broader base, citing an Associated Press article “that found how Senator 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.”
So how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black? Is the most ingenious way to turn the screw by not choosing her as his running mate, or by choosing her?
It is, verily, a sticky wicket.
One top Hillary supporter who is black warns that, despite the giddy dreams of some punch-drunk Democrats, a fusion ticket could backfire because “Americans can’t handle too much change at once.”
But should Obama ignore that caution and appease Hillary fans by putting her on the ticket?
As president, he could announce that, because Dick Cheney abused the powers of his office so grievously, taking the title “Vice” literally, he intends to shrink the vice presidency back to its “bucket of warm spit” Constitutional prerogatives — presiding over the Senate and taking over if the president goes under anesthesia.
He might also neglect to give Bill (whose acronym would be SLOTUS, Second Lad of the United States) full White House access.
Aside from the delight Bill would get from living at the Naval Observatory and having a huge telescope to window-peep with, there wouldn’t be much joy in Hillaryland.
The lady-in-waiting would be surrounded by Obama disciples who disdained her for fighting dirty. And she would be miserable holding up the train of the young prince who usurped her dream, derailing the post-nup she had with Bill to trade places.
As de facto veep for Bill, she had enough leverage over him, due to his shenanigans, to co-opt huge chunks of policy and personnel decisions.
But in a return engagement with Obama at the top, could she really wake up every day in the back seat and wish him well, or would she just be plotting? (Fourteen vice presidents have ascended, after all.) Wouldn’t she be, in Monty Python parlance, the Trojan Rabbit behind the gates?
On a positive note, maybe she could bring back all that stuff she pilfered on her way out.
Obama’s other option, laid out by Teddy Kennedy on Friday, is to go with someone who wouldn’t be a big dark cloud over his sunshiny new politics.
Teddy told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Obama should choose a partner “in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people.”
That would be smart for another reason: Hillary has a strange, unnerving effect on Obama, and whenever he is around her, he’s unable to do his best. Probably, it’s because she’s furious, always shaking his hand off her arm, ignoring him, giving him the evil eye and emasculating him, and the Golden One is not used to such rough treatment.
In the last few days, as Hillary has deflated and Obama and the Democrats have dashed for daylight, he has been more like his old self, flashing his all-is-right-with-the-world smile on the cover of Time, joshing and charming Democrats and Republicans as he wooed superdelegates on the House floor, taking on James Carville for insulting his manhood.
“James Carville is well known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he’s talking about,” he told Terry Moran on “Nightline.”
Obama will never be at his best around Hillary; she drains him of his magical powers. She’s Jane Jinx to him. It’s a similar syndrome to the one Katharine Hepburn’s star athlete and her supercilious fiancé have in “Pat and Mike.”
The fiancé is always belittling Hepburn, so whenever he’s in the stands, her tennis and golf go kerflooey. Finally, her manager, played by Spencer Tracy, asks the fiancé to stay away from big matches, explaining, “You are the wrong jockey for this chick.”
“You know, except when you’re around, we got a very valuable piece of property here,” he says, later adding, “When you’re around, she’s no good, she’s dead, see?”
The best way Obama can punish Hillary is to reward himself. He’s no good around her, see?
From Frank Rich:
ANOTHER weekly do-or-die primary battle, another round of wildly predicted “game changers” that collapsed in the locker room.Hillary Clinton’s attempt to impersonate a Nascar-lovin’, gun-totin’, economist-bashin’ populist went bust: Asked which candidate most “shares your values,” voters in both North Carolina and Indiana exit polls opted instead for the elite and condescending arugula-eater. Bill Clinton’s small-town barnstorming tour, hailed as a revival of old-time Bubba bonhomie, proved to be yet another sabotage of his wife, whipping up false expectations for her disastrous showing in North Carolina. Barack Obama’s final, undercaffeinated debate performance, not to mention the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s attempted character assassination, failed to slow his inexorable path to the Democratic nomination.“It’s still early,” Mrs. Clinton said on Wednesday. Though it’s way too late for her, she’s half-right. We’re only at the end of the beginning of this extraordinary election year. While we wait out her self-immolating exit, it’s a good time to pause the 24/7 roller coaster for a second and get our bearings. The reason that politicians and the press have gotten so much so wrong is that we keep forgetting what year it is. Only if we reboot to 2008 will the long march to November start making sense.This is not 1968, when the country was so divided over race and war that cities and campuses exploded in violence. If you have any doubts, just look (to take a recent example) at the restrained response by New Yorkers, protestors included, to the acquittal of three police officers in the 50-bullet shooting death of an unarmed black man, Sean Bell. This is not 1988, when a Democratic liberal from Massachusetts of modest political skills could be easily clobbered by racist ads and an incumbent vice president running for the Gipper’s third term. This is not the 1998 midterms, when the Teflon Clintons triumphed over impeachment. This is not 2004, when another Democrat from Massachusetts did for windsurfing what the previous model did for tanks. Almost every wrong prediction about this election cycle has come from those trying to force the round peg of this year’s campaign into the square holes of past political wars. That’s why race keeps being portrayed as dooming Mr. Obama — surely Jeremiah Wright = Willie Horton! — no matter what the voters say to the contrary. It’s why the Beltway took on faith the Clinton machine’s strategic, organization and fund-raising invincibility. It’s why some prognosticators still imagine that John McCain can spin the Iraq fiasco to his political advantage as Richard Nixon miraculously did Vietnam. The year 2008 is far more complex — and exhilarating — than the old templates would have us believe. Of course we’re in pain. More voters think the country is on the wrong track (81 percent) than at any time in the history of New York Times/CBS News polling on that question. George W. Bush is the most unpopular president that any living American has known. And yet, paradoxically, there is a heartening undertow: we know the page will turn. For all the anger and angst over the war and the economy, for all the campaign’s acrimony, the anticipation of ending the Bush era is palpable, countering the defeatist mood. The repressed sliver of joy beneath the national gloom can be seen in the record registration numbers of new voters and the over-the-top turnout in Democratic primaries.Mr. Obama hardly created this moment, with its potent brew of Bush loathing and sweeping generational change. He simply had the vision to tap into it. Running in 2008 rather than waiting four more years was the single smartest political decision he’s made (and, yes, he’s made dumb ones too). The second smartest was to understand and emphasize that subterranean, nearly universal anticipation of change rather than settle for the narrower band of partisan, dyspeptic Bush-bashing. We don’t know yet if he’s the man who can make the moment — and won’t know unless he gets to the White House — but there’s no question that the moment has helped make the man. For five years boomers have been asking, “Why are the kids not in the streets screaming about the war the way we were?” The simple answer: no draft. But as Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais show in “Millennial Makeover,” their book about the post-1982 American generation, that energy has been plowed into quieter social activism and grand-scale social networking, often linked on the same Web page. The millennials’ bottom-up digital superstructure was there to be mined, for an amalgam of political organizing, fund-raising and fun, and Mr. Obama’s camp knew how to work it. The part of the press that can’t tell the difference between Facebook and, say, AOL, was too busy salivating over the Clintons’ vintage 1990s roster of fat-cat donors to hear the major earthquake rumbling underground.The demographic reshaping of the electoral map, though more widely noted, still isn’t fully understood. From Rust Belt Ohio through Tuesday’s primaries, cable bloviators have been fixated on the older, white, working-class vote. Their unspoken (and truly condescending) assumption, lately embraced by Mrs. Clinton, is that these voters are Reagan Democrats, cryogenically frozen since 1980, who come in two flavors: rubes who will be duped by a politician backing a gas-tax pander or racists who are out of Mr. Obama’s reach. Guess what: there are racists in America and, yes, the occasional rubes (even among Obama voters). Some of them may reside in Indiana, which hasn’t voted for a national Democratic ticket since 1964. But there are many more white working-class voters, both Clinton and Obama supporters, who prefer Democratic policies after seven years of G.O.P. failure. And there is little evidence to suggest that there are enough racists of any class in America, let alone in swing states, to determine the results come fall. As the Times columnist Charles Blow charted last weekend, Mr. Obama’s favorable and unfavorable ratings from white Democrats are both up 5 points since last summer in the Times/CBS poll — a wash despite all the hyperventilating about Mr. Wright and Bittergate. (By contrast, Mrs. Clinton’s favorable rating among black voters fell 36 points while her unfavorable rating rose 17.) Gallup last week found that after the Wright circus Mr. Obama’s white support in a matchup against Mr. McCain is still no worse than John Kerry’s against President Bush in 2004.But this isn’t 2004, and the fixation on that one demographic in the Clinton-Obama contest has obscured the big picture. The rise in black voters and young voters of all races in Democratic primaries is re-weighting the electorate. Look, for instance, at Ohio, the crucial swing state that Mr. Kerry lost by 119,000 votes four years ago. This year black voters accounted for 18 percent of the state’s Democratic primary voters, up from 14 percent in 2004, an increase of some 230,000 voters out of an overall turnout leap of roughly a million. Voters under 30 (up by some 245,000 voters) accounted for 16 percent, up from 9 in 2004. Those younger Ohio voters even showed up in larger numbers than the perennially reliable over-65 crowd. Good as this demographic shift is for a Democratic ticket led by Mr. Obama, it’s even better news that so many pundits and Republicans bitterly cling to the delusion that the Karl Rove playbook of Swift-boating and race-baiting can work as it did four and eight years ago. You can’t surf to a right-wing blog or Fox News without someone beating up on Mr. Wright or the other predictable conservative piñata, Michelle Obama. This may help rally the anti-Obama vote. But that contingent will be more than offset in November by mobilized young voters, blacks and women, among them many Clinton-supporting Democrats (and independents and Republicans) unlikely to entertain a G.O.P. candidate with a perfect record of voting against abortion rights. Even a safe Republican Congressional seat in Louisiana fell to a Democrat last weekend, despite a campaign by his opponent that invoked Mr. Obama as a bogeyman.A few conservatives do realize the game has changed. George Will wrote last week that Mr. Obama was Reaganesque in the stylistic sense that “his manner lulls his adversaries into underestimating his sheer toughness — the tempered steel beneath the sleek suits.” John and Cindy McCain get it too, which is why both last week made a point (he on “The Daily Show,” she on “Today”) of condemning negative campaigning. But even if Mr. McCain keeps his word and stops trying to portray Mr. Obama as the man from Hamas, he can’t disown the Limbaugh axis of right-wing race-mongering. That’s what’s left of his party’s base.Now that the Obama-Clinton race is over, the new Beltway narrative has it that Mr. McCain, a likable “maverick” (who supported Mr. Bush in 95 percent of his votes last year, according to Congressional Quarterly), might override the war, the economy, Bush-loathing and the bankrupt Republican brand to be competitive with Mr. Obama. Anything can happen in politics, including real potential game changers, from Mr. McCain’s still-unreleased health records to new excavations of Mr. Obama’s history in Chicago. But as long as the likely Democratic nominee keeps partying like it’s 2008 while everyone else refights the battles of yesteryear, he will continue to be underestimated every step of the way.
ANOTHER weekly do-or-die primary battle, another round of wildly predicted “game changers” that collapsed in the locker room.
Hillary Clinton’s attempt to impersonate a Nascar-lovin’, gun-totin’, economist-bashin’ populist went bust: Asked which candidate most “shares your values,” voters in both North Carolina and Indiana exit polls opted instead for the elite and condescending arugula-eater. Bill Clinton’s small-town barnstorming tour, hailed as a revival of old-time Bubba bonhomie, proved to be yet another sabotage of his wife, whipping up false expectations for her disastrous showing in North Carolina. Barack Obama’s final, undercaffeinated debate performance, not to mention the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s attempted character assassination, failed to slow his inexorable path to the Democratic nomination.
“It’s still early,” Mrs. Clinton said on Wednesday. Though it’s way too late for her, she’s half-right. We’re only at the end of the beginning of this extraordinary election year. While we wait out her self-immolating exit, it’s a good time to pause the 24/7 roller coaster for a second and get our bearings. The reason that politicians and the press have gotten so much so wrong is that we keep forgetting what year it is. Only if we reboot to 2008 will the long march to November start making sense.
This is not 1968, when the country was so divided over race and war that cities and campuses exploded in violence. If you have any doubts, just look (to take a recent example) at the restrained response by New Yorkers, protestors included, to the acquittal of three police officers in the 50-bullet shooting death of an unarmed black man, Sean Bell.
This is not 1988, when a Democratic liberal from Massachusetts of modest political skills could be easily clobbered by racist ads and an incumbent vice president running for the Gipper’s third term. This is not the 1998 midterms, when the Teflon Clintons triumphed over impeachment. This is not 2004, when another Democrat from Massachusetts did for windsurfing what the previous model did for tanks.
Almost every wrong prediction about this election cycle has come from those trying to force the round peg of this year’s campaign into the square holes of past political wars. That’s why race keeps being portrayed as dooming Mr. Obama — surely Jeremiah Wright = Willie Horton! — no matter what the voters say to the contrary. It’s why the Beltway took on faith the Clinton machine’s strategic, organization and fund-raising invincibility. It’s why some prognosticators still imagine that John McCain can spin the Iraq fiasco to his political advantage as Richard Nixon miraculously did Vietnam.
The year 2008 is far more complex — and exhilarating — than the old templates would have us believe. Of course we’re in pain. More voters think the country is on the wrong track (81 percent) than at any time in the history of New York Times/CBS News polling on that question. George W. Bush is the most unpopular president that any living American has known.
And yet, paradoxically, there is a heartening undertow: we know the page will turn. For all the anger and angst over the war and the economy, for all the campaign’s acrimony, the anticipation of ending the Bush era is palpable, countering the defeatist mood. The repressed sliver of joy beneath the national gloom can be seen in the record registration numbers of new voters and the over-the-top turnout in Democratic primaries.
Mr. Obama hardly created this moment, with its potent brew of Bush loathing and sweeping generational change. He simply had the vision to tap into it. Running in 2008 rather than waiting four more years was the single smartest political decision he’s made (and, yes, he’s made dumb ones too). The second smartest was to understand and emphasize that subterranean, nearly universal anticipation of change rather than settle for the narrower band of partisan, dyspeptic Bush-bashing. We don’t know yet if he’s the man who can make the moment — and won’t know unless he gets to the White House — but there’s no question that the moment has helped make the man.
For five years boomers have been asking, “Why are the kids not in the streets screaming about the war the way we were?” The simple answer: no draft. But as Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais show in “Millennial Makeover,” their book about the post-1982 American generation, that energy has been plowed into quieter social activism and grand-scale social networking, often linked on the same Web page. The millennials’ bottom-up digital superstructure was there to be mined, for an amalgam of political organizing, fund-raising and fun, and Mr. Obama’s camp knew how to work it. The part of the press that can’t tell the difference between Facebook and, say, AOL, was too busy salivating over the Clintons’ vintage 1990s roster of fat-cat donors to hear the major earthquake rumbling underground.
The demographic reshaping of the electoral map, though more widely noted, still isn’t fully understood. From Rust Belt Ohio through Tuesday’s primaries, cable bloviators have been fixated on the older, white, working-class vote. Their unspoken (and truly condescending) assumption, lately embraced by Mrs. Clinton, is that these voters are Reagan Democrats, cryogenically frozen since 1980, who come in two flavors: rubes who will be duped by a politician backing a gas-tax pander or racists who are out of Mr. Obama’s reach.
Guess what: there are racists in America and, yes, the occasional rubes (even among Obama voters). Some of them may reside in Indiana, which hasn’t voted for a national Democratic ticket since 1964. But there are many more white working-class voters, both Clinton and Obama supporters, who prefer Democratic policies after seven years of G.O.P. failure. And there is little evidence to suggest that there are enough racists of any class in America, let alone in swing states, to determine the results come fall.
As the Times columnist Charles Blow charted last weekend, Mr. Obama’s favorable and unfavorable ratings from white Democrats are both up 5 points since last summer in the Times/CBS poll — a wash despite all the hyperventilating about Mr. Wright and Bittergate. (By contrast, Mrs. Clinton’s favorable rating among black voters fell 36 points while her unfavorable rating rose 17.) Gallup last week found that after the Wright circus Mr. Obama’s white support in a matchup against Mr. McCain is still no worse than John Kerry’s against President Bush in 2004.
But this isn’t 2004, and the fixation on that one demographic in the Clinton-Obama contest has obscured the big picture. The rise in black voters and young voters of all races in Democratic primaries is re-weighting the electorate. Look, for instance, at Ohio, the crucial swing state that Mr. Kerry lost by 119,000 votes four years ago. This year black voters accounted for 18 percent of the state’s Democratic primary voters, up from 14 percent in 2004, an increase of some 230,000 voters out of an overall turnout leap of roughly a million. Voters under 30 (up by some 245,000 voters) accounted for 16 percent, up from 9 in 2004. Those younger Ohio voters even showed up in larger numbers than the perennially reliable over-65 crowd.
Good as this demographic shift is for a Democratic ticket led by Mr. Obama, it’s even better news that so many pundits and Republicans bitterly cling to the delusion that the Karl Rove playbook of Swift-boating and race-baiting can work as it did four and eight years ago. You can’t surf to a right-wing blog or Fox News without someone beating up on Mr. Wright or the other predictable conservative piñata, Michelle Obama.
This may help rally the anti-Obama vote. But that contingent will be more than offset in November by mobilized young voters, blacks and women, among them many Clinton-supporting Democrats (and independents and Republicans) unlikely to entertain a G.O.P. candidate with a perfect record of voting against abortion rights. Even a safe Republican Congressional seat in Louisiana fell to a Democrat last weekend, despite a campaign by his opponent that invoked Mr. Obama as a bogeyman.
A few conservatives do realize the game has changed. George Will wrote last week that Mr. Obama was Reaganesque in the stylistic sense that “his manner lulls his adversaries into underestimating his sheer toughness — the tempered steel beneath the sleek suits.” John and Cindy McCain get it too, which is why both last week made a point (he on “The Daily Show,” she on “Today”) of condemning negative campaigning. But even if Mr. McCain keeps his word and stops trying to portray Mr. Obama as the man from Hamas, he can’t disown the Limbaugh axis of right-wing race-mongering. That’s what’s left of his party’s base.
Now that the Obama-Clinton race is over, the new Beltway narrative has it that Mr. McCain, a likable “maverick” (who supported Mr. Bush in 95 percent of his votes last year, according to Congressional Quarterly), might override the war, the economy, Bush-loathing and the bankrupt Republican brand to be competitive with Mr. Obama. Anything can happen in politics, including real potential game changers, from Mr. McCain’s still-unreleased health records to new excavations of Mr. Obama’s history in Chicago. But as long as the likely Democratic nominee keeps partying like it’s 2008 while everyone else refights the battles of yesteryear, he will continue to be underestimated every step of the way.
I am niether bitter nor angry here in PA. The love and community that I have experienced on the road with the campaign have been amazing.
But just you wait, if 'Billary' tries to steal this election from us. . . . then, I'll show you angry :-)
Let's show the World what positive changes a little righteous indignation can accomplish! Senator Obama's 'peaceful revolution' has already changed America!
My Presidential Choice is a Black Man, whose boss is a Jewish Carpenter!
From Frank Rich of The New York Times:
IT’S a nightmare. It’s the Bataan Death March. It’s mutually assured Armageddon. “Both of them are already losing the general to John McCain,” declared a Newsweek columnist last month, predicting that the election “may already be over” by the time the Democrats anoint a nominee.Not so fast. If we’ve learned any new rule in the 2008 campaign, it’s this: Once our news culture sets a story in stone, chances are it will crumble. But first it must be recycled louder and louder 24/7, as if sheer repetition will transmute conventional wisdom into reality.When the Pennsylvania returns rained down Tuesday night, the narrative became clear fast. The Democrats’ exit polls spelled disaster: Some 25 percent of the primary voters said they would defect to Mr. McCain or not vote at all if Barack Obama were the nominee. How could the party possibly survive this bitter, perhaps race-based civil war? But as the doomsday alarm grew shrill, few noticed that on this same day in Pennsylvania, 27 percent of Republican primary voters didn’t just tell pollsters they would defect from their party’s standard-bearer; they went to the polls, gas prices be damned, to vote against Mr. McCain. Though ignored by every channel I surfed, there actually was a G.O.P. primary on Tuesday, open only to registered Republicans. And while it was superfluous in determining that party’s nominee, 220,000 Pennsylvania Republicans (out of their total turnout of 807,000) were moved to cast ballots for Mike Huckabee or, more numerously, Ron Paul. That’s more voters than the margin (215,000) that separated Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama.Those antiwar Paul voters are all potential defectors to the Democrats in November. Mr. Huckabee’s religious conservatives, who rejected Mr. McCain throughout the primary season, might also bolt or stay home. Given that the Democratic ticket beat Bush-Cheney in Pennsylvania by 205,000 votes in 2000 and 144,000 votes in 2004, these are 220,000 voters the G.O.P. can ill-afford to lose. Especially since there are now a million more registered Democrats than Republicans in Pennsylvania. (These figures don’t even include independents, who couldn’t vote in either primary on Tuesday and have been migrating toward the Democrats since 2006.) For such a bitterly divided party, the Democrats hardly show signs of clinical depression. The last debate, however dumb, had the most viewers of any so far. The rise in turnout and new voters is all on the Democratic side. Even before its deathbed transfusion of new donations, the Clinton campaign trounced the McCain campaign in fund-raising by 2.5 to 1. (The Obama-McCain ratio is 3 to 1.)On Tuesday, a Democrat won the first round of a special Congressional election in Mississippi, even though the national G.O.P. outspent the Democrats by more than double and President Bush carried this previously safe Republican district by 25 percentage points in 2004. A Gallup poll last week found Mr. Bush’s national disapproval rating the worst (69 percent) for any president in Gallup’s entire 70-year history. For all his (and Mr. McCain’s) persistent sightings of “victory” in Iraq, the percentage of Americans calling the war a mistake (63) also set a new record. “I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings,” Mr. Bush joked on Monday night, when he popped up like Waldo on the NBC game show “Deal or No Deal” to root for an Army captain who was a contestant. But it turns out that not even cash giveaways to veterans can induce Americans to set eyes on this president. “Deal or No Deal” drew an audience 19 percent below its season average. The best deal for Mr. McCain would be for Mr. Bush to disappear into the witness protection program.But surely, it could be argued, the mud in the Democratic race will be as much a drag on that party’s eventual nominee as the incumbent president is on the G.O.P. ticket. The counterargument, advanced by Mrs. Clinton in justifying her “kitchen sink” attacks on Mr. Obama, is that the Democrats are better off being tested now by raising all the issues the Republicans will. It’s a fair point. The Wright, Rezko, Ayers, “bittergate” and flag-pin firestorms will all be revived by the opposition come fall. Voters should indeed see how Mr. Obama deals with them, just as Democrats also need to gauge how the flash points of race and gender will play out in the crunch. The flaw in Mrs. Clinton’s refrain is her claim that she, unlike her challenger, has already been so fully vetted that her candidacy can offer no more unpleasant surprises. “I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years,” she says. Perhaps the delusion that she has a get-out-of-scandal-free card comes from her unexpected endorsement from Richard Mellon Scaife, the nutty Pittsburgh newspaper publisher who once spent a fortune trying to implicate the Clintons in the “murder” of Vince Foster. Or perhaps she thinks Fox News will call off the dogs now that her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, is appearing in network promos endorsing its “fair and balanced” shtick.But the incessant praise for Mrs. Clinton’s resilience as a candidate by Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan and William Bennett reveals just how eager they are to take her on. The dealings of the Bill Clinton post-presidency, barely alluded to by Mr. Obama in his own halting bouts of negative campaigning, have simply been put on hold while the Democrats slug it out. Close observers of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and Fox News can already read Rupert Murdoch’s tea leaves, and not just those from China. “Clinton Foundation Secrets” was the title of The Journal’s lead editorial on Friday profiling a rogues’ gallery of shady donors. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters would argue that she’s so battle-tested she could fend it all off. She’s unlikely to get the chance. For all the nail-biting suspense being ginned up, the probable denouement remains unchanged. When the primary juggernaut finally ends — following picturesque day trips to Puerto Rico and Guam — the superdelegates will likely succumb to the math of Mr. Obama’s virtually insurmountable pledged-delegate total. There’s also a way that two super-superdelegates, the duo on the Democrats’ last winning ticket, could trigger a faster finale. Bill Clinton could do so by undermining his wife once more with another ill-timed, red-faced eruption. Al Gore could possibly do so with a well-timed endorsement before his party gets mired in yet another Florida recount.There’s only one way this can end badly, no matter how long it lasts. That would be if the loser, whoever it is, turns sore and fails to rally his or her troops around the winner. It’s all about “the way the loser loses,” as the Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who is neutral in the race, likes to say. While the Clintons are capable of such kamikaze narcissism, their selfish desire to preserve their own political future, if not the party’s, may be a powerful check on those impulses.On the way to the finish line, the prolonged primary race, far from destroying the Democratic candidates, may do more insidious damage to the Republican nominee, lulling his campaign into an unjustified complacency. The Democrats should “take their time — don’t rush,” the McCain aide Mark Salter joked last week. Yet his candidate, as the conservative blogger Ross Douthat pointed out, keeps bumping up against a 45 percent ceiling in the polls even now, when the Democrats are ostensibly in ruins. Mr. McCain is not only burdened with the most despised president in his own 71-year lifetime, but he’s getting none of the seasoning that he, no less than the Democrats, needs to compete in the fall. Age is as much an issue as race and gender in this campaign. Mr. McCain will have to prove not merely that he can keep to the physical rigors of his schedule and fend off investigations of his ties to lobbyists and developers. He also must show he can think and speak fluently about the domestic issues that are gripping the country. Picture him debating either Democrat about health care, the mortgage crisis, stagnant middle-class wages, rice rationing at Costco. It’s not pretty.Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience. The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.The Democrats’ unending brawl may be supplying prime time with a goodly share of melodrama right now, but there will be laughter aplenty once the Republican campaign that’s not ready for prime time emerges from the wings.
IT’S a nightmare. It’s the Bataan Death March. It’s mutually assured Armageddon. “Both of them are already losing the general to John McCain,” declared a Newsweek columnist last month, predicting that the election “may already be over” by the time the Democrats anoint a nominee.
Not so fast. If we’ve learned any new rule in the 2008 campaign, it’s this: Once our news culture sets a story in stone, chances are it will crumble. But first it must be recycled louder and louder 24/7, as if sheer repetition will transmute conventional wisdom into reality.
When the Pennsylvania returns rained down Tuesday night, the narrative became clear fast. The Democrats’ exit polls spelled disaster: Some 25 percent of the primary voters said they would defect to Mr. McCain or not vote at all if Barack Obama were the nominee. How could the party possibly survive this bitter, perhaps race-based civil war?
But as the doomsday alarm grew shrill, few noticed that on this same day in Pennsylvania, 27 percent of Republican primary voters didn’t just tell pollsters they would defect from their party’s standard-bearer; they went to the polls, gas prices be damned, to vote against Mr. McCain. Though ignored by every channel I surfed, there actually was a G.O.P. primary on Tuesday, open only to registered Republicans. And while it was superfluous in determining that party’s nominee, 220,000 Pennsylvania Republicans (out of their total turnout of 807,000) were moved to cast ballots for Mike Huckabee or, more numerously, Ron Paul. That’s more voters than the margin (215,000) that separated Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama.
Those antiwar Paul voters are all potential defectors to the Democrats in November. Mr. Huckabee’s religious conservatives, who rejected Mr. McCain throughout the primary season, might also bolt or stay home. Given that the Democratic ticket beat Bush-Cheney in Pennsylvania by 205,000 votes in 2000 and 144,000 votes in 2004, these are 220,000 voters the G.O.P. can ill-afford to lose. Especially since there are now a million more registered Democrats than Republicans in Pennsylvania. (These figures don’t even include independents, who couldn’t vote in either primary on Tuesday and have been migrating toward the Democrats since 2006.)
For such a bitterly divided party, the Democrats hardly show signs of clinical depression. The last debate, however dumb, had the most viewers of any so far. The rise in turnout and new voters is all on the Democratic side. Even before its deathbed transfusion of new donations, the Clinton campaign trounced the McCain campaign in fund-raising by 2.5 to 1. (The Obama-McCain ratio is 3 to 1.)
On Tuesday, a Democrat won the first round of a special Congressional election in Mississippi, even though the national G.O.P. outspent the Democrats by more than double and President Bush carried this previously safe Republican district by 25 percentage points in 2004. A Gallup poll last week found Mr. Bush’s national disapproval rating the worst (69 percent) for any president in Gallup’s entire 70-year history. For all his (and Mr. McCain’s) persistent sightings of “victory” in Iraq, the percentage of Americans calling the war a mistake (63) also set a new record.
“I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings,” Mr. Bush joked on Monday night, when he popped up like Waldo on the NBC game show “Deal or No Deal” to root for an Army captain who was a contestant. But it turns out that not even cash giveaways to veterans can induce Americans to set eyes on this president. “Deal or No Deal” drew an audience 19 percent below its season average. The best deal for Mr. McCain would be for Mr. Bush to disappear into the witness protection program.
But surely, it could be argued, the mud in the Democratic race will be as much a drag on that party’s eventual nominee as the incumbent president is on the G.O.P. ticket. The counterargument, advanced by Mrs. Clinton in justifying her “kitchen sink” attacks on Mr. Obama, is that the Democrats are better off being tested now by raising all the issues the Republicans will. It’s a fair point. The Wright, Rezko, Ayers, “bittergate” and flag-pin firestorms will all be revived by the opposition come fall. Voters should indeed see how Mr. Obama deals with them, just as Democrats also need to gauge how the flash points of race and gender will play out in the crunch.
The flaw in Mrs. Clinton’s refrain is her claim that she, unlike her challenger, has already been so fully vetted that her candidacy can offer no more unpleasant surprises. “I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years,” she says. Perhaps the delusion that she has a get-out-of-scandal-free card comes from her unexpected endorsement from Richard Mellon Scaife, the nutty Pittsburgh newspaper publisher who once spent a fortune trying to implicate the Clintons in the “murder” of Vince Foster. Or perhaps she thinks Fox News will call off the dogs now that her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, is appearing in network promos endorsing its “fair and balanced” shtick.
But the incessant praise for Mrs. Clinton’s resilience as a candidate by Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan and William Bennett reveals just how eager they are to take her on. The dealings of the Bill Clinton post-presidency, barely alluded to by Mr. Obama in his own halting bouts of negative campaigning, have simply been put on hold while the Democrats slug it out. Close observers of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and Fox News can already read Rupert Murdoch’s tea leaves, and not just those from China. “Clinton Foundation Secrets” was the title of The Journal’s lead editorial on Friday profiling a rogues’ gallery of shady donors.
Mrs. Clinton’s supporters would argue that she’s so battle-tested she could fend it all off. She’s unlikely to get the chance. For all the nail-biting suspense being ginned up, the probable denouement remains unchanged. When the primary juggernaut finally ends — following picturesque day trips to Puerto Rico and Guam — the superdelegates will likely succumb to the math of Mr. Obama’s virtually insurmountable pledged-delegate total.
There’s also a way that two super-superdelegates, the duo on the Democrats’ last winning ticket, could trigger a faster finale. Bill Clinton could do so by undermining his wife once more with another ill-timed, red-faced eruption. Al Gore could possibly do so with a well-timed endorsement before his party gets mired in yet another Florida recount.
There’s only one way this can end badly, no matter how long it lasts. That would be if the loser, whoever it is, turns sore and fails to rally his or her troops around the winner. It’s all about “the way the loser loses,” as the Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who is neutral in the race, likes to say. While the Clintons are capable of such kamikaze narcissism, their selfish desire to preserve their own political future, if not the party’s, may be a powerful check on those impulses.
On the way to the finish line, the prolonged primary race, far from destroying the Democratic candidates, may do more insidious damage to the Republican nominee, lulling his campaign into an unjustified complacency. The Democrats should “take their time — don’t rush,” the McCain aide Mark Salter joked last week. Yet his candidate, as the conservative blogger Ross Douthat pointed out, keeps bumping up against a 45 percent ceiling in the polls even now, when the Democrats are ostensibly in ruins.
Mr. McCain is not only burdened with the most despised president in his own 71-year lifetime, but he’s getting none of the seasoning that he, no less than the Democrats, needs to compete in the fall. Age is as much an issue as race and gender in this campaign. Mr. McCain will have to prove not merely that he can keep to the physical rigors of his schedule and fend off investigations of his ties to lobbyists and developers. He also must show he can think and speak fluently about the domestic issues that are gripping the country. Picture him debating either Democrat about health care, the mortgage crisis, stagnant middle-class wages, rice rationing at Costco. It’s not pretty.
Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience.
The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.
The Democrats’ unending brawl may be supplying prime time with a goodly share of melodrama right now, but there will be laughter aplenty once the Republican campaign that’s not ready for prime time emerges from the wings.
How to make the argument that Obama is the better leader without arguing the merits of a woman in The White House? Try this one: Hillary Can't Win. Hillary does not have moral authority and the next president of the United States cannot win it back unless she or he has personal moral authority going into The White House. I think Hillary is on a fantasy power trip...some have said she feels entitled to the presidency and I think there's truth in that, but I don't think this drives the picture home as vividly as it has appeared on our TV and computer screens very recently...there have been quite a few instances of Hillary's lying and the latest would be her heroic visit to Bosnia...I guess if you are for Hillary you will cut her some slack there... Because of my background and training, I get my most reliable information about honesty from how people use eye-contact and body language, and what I saw in the ABC debate was disturbing...I wonder if you noticed it?...I'm talking about how Hillary's eyes went out of focus and roamed around like, forgive the metaphor, the eyes of people who have been blind all or most of their lives. I dated a blind man, so I had alot of opportunity to have conversations with someone who never made eye contact with me. It's normal in a blind person, but in a sighted woman who wants to be president, it's deeply disturbing to me. I'm not saying that eye-contact is the only measure of a person's honesty and integrity, but I am saying that in the context of Hillary's career and her handling of her campaign, her wild-eyed performance the other night made me wonder if she has any integrity. She has shown that she is a fabulist...she can spin the flimsiest piece of dust into a full-blown story of epic proportions...and by epic, I mean variously being the righteous hero or the wronged hero, but never being the hero who takes full responsibility for her actions, looks herself in the eye, and sees how she can be a better leader. Hillary's admission that she lied about Bosnia had strange phrases that twisted themselves in any direction but to say, "Yeah, I am responsible for my behavior." I have yet to see Hillary say, simply and humbly, yes, I behaved falsely. The closest she came was "I did not say what I knew to be true." Why didn't she? Oh, lots of reasons, but not because she realized that she had lost her bearings. She said she was "embarrassed." I knew I would not support Hillary when I realized I wouldn't be voting for this woman whom I thought I knew, but rather would be voting for Billary and putting the Clintons back into The White House. I don't have a problem with women getting where they are with the help of their husbands, because, let's face it, successful men do depend on wives who make huge and completely unrecognized contributions to their careers as well as to their daily well-being. But the Billary phenomenon is a different beast and I've even given it a name: Billary the Magic Dragon. IMO, Hillary and Bill are joined at the hip psychopolitically. Coming together to defend their embattled relationship and their political legacy is what drives the fierceness of Hillary's campaign. I perceive a need, almost an addiction, to power. Try to imagine Hillary or Bill NOT puffed up and you might see what I mean. We actually have had a few minutes of a real Hillary and I sincerely wish she had stayed with her smaller, realer self. But, there I was, seeing Billary the Magic Dragon in contrast with this Barack Obama guy who could somehow move people and keep his bearings. It's critically important to have a president who does not and cannot lose his bearings, no matter what is being asked of her or him. I'm not talking about the stubborness of George W. Bush. I'm talking about knowing when you are coming from your deepest, best self, and knowing when you are bullshitting. Hillary is so far gone, I have to liken her to an addict. Yes, I'm saying that she and Bill are addicted to lying "for the greater good" as well as to preserve themselves and the Clinton legacy. That's why I've started to say Hillary Can't Win. I think the Democratic party knows the difference between Hillary and Barack, and I think they see a leader/healer/uniter in Barack and a do-or-die politician in Hillary, case closed. We don't need more bullshit. Try to imagine Hillary making a speech the equivalent of Barack's race speech, Hillary speaking from what I call a naked, vulnerable, painful and extremely powerful place. This naked and painful place I'm talking about is where you discover that you have real moral authority. Barack has it. Hillary does not. The United States has lost its moral authority in the world community, and for good reason, imo. Hillary cannot win it back. Barack can.
very truly yours, MadamaAmbi, Interview4Obama, ArtistsWriters4ZeitgeistObama
I'm part Swedish and in the old country we have a saying: "rise like the sun, fall like a pancake." This reminds me of Bill and Hillary Clinton's arrogant campaign for the White House. Their sense of entitlement is baffling. Plainly, it's never occurred to them that, given a legitimate choice, the people might have something to say about the matter. Sen. Clinton insolently continues to dismiss every state Sen.Obama wins as insignificant, blythely dissing voters in her own party (!) So I'm glad Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama was a pie in Billary's face. It tickles me that even though it's yesterday's papers the Clintons still can't let it go. On that note, here's a perfectly delicious read from the AP:
Former President Clinton is still smarting over New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama.During a private meeting with California Democrats this past weekend, Clinton grew red-faced as he talked about how he expected Richardson, who was a member of Clinton's Cabinet, to back Hillary Rodham Clinton for the presidential nomination or at least stay neutral, according to several people who attended.Instead, Richardson endorsed Obama late last month, calling him a "once-in-a-lifetime leader.""He sort of gets a little redder and redder and redder, but he wasn't off the deep end as I had seen him in the past," said Inola Henry, an uncommitted superdelegate. "It was sort of like, 'Gee, I'm a martyr.' He seemed more hurt than anything."Clinton used his appearance at the state Democratic Party convention in San Jose to lobby California's 21 uncommitted superdelegates to support his wife.After posing for a group photograph with the former president, superdelegate Rachel Binah told Clinton she was disappointed that one of his allies, strategist James Carville, had compared Richardson to Judas after he endorsed Obama.Clinton, according to several people present, distanced himself from Carville's remarks. But he went on to say that he had not expected Richardson to endorse the Illinois senator, especially since the New Mexico governor had invited Clinton to Santa Fe to watch the Super Bowl on Feb. 3."He did say he certainly had been led to believe that he was going to get the endorsement," Henry said Wednesday. She was one of about 15 superdelegates — some uncommitted, others backing Clinton — who attended Sunday's meeting with Clinton before he addressed the convention.Aleita Huguenin, another superdelegate, remembered Clinton saying, "We thought he'd let us know if he did an endorsement." But Huguenin said the comments about Richardson were "a minor blip in the whole meeting."According superdelegate Chris Stampolis, Clinton said only that Richardson had promised not to endorse Obama, saying, "'He told me to my face five times he would not do that.'"Binah did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but she previously told The Associated Press she supports Clinton. Other superdelegates interviewed by the AP said it was Binah's statement that prompted Clinton's comments about Richardson's decision.Pahl Shipley, a spokesman for Richardson, said his boss never promised to endorse Hillary Clinton."He never told the president or anybody else, for that matter," Shipley said. "The governor respectfully disagrees with the president."Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, endorsed Obama on March 21, shortly after the Illinois senator gave a speech about race. It was a blow to the Clintons because of their long association with Richardson, who served as Clinton's energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations.Clinton's campaign declined to comment, except to say the former president was in California to promote his wife's candidacy."President Clinton discussed the importance of this election with Democratic Party members and how after 46 primaries and caucuses, by virtually every measure, this election remains a very close race," campaign spokesman Luis Vizcaino said in a statement. "President Clinton is incredibly popular in the Golden State, and the convention was a great opportunity for him to speak directly with members of the California Democratic Party."Bob Mulholland, a spokesman for the state party who attended the private meeting, said Clinton expressed himself passionately but insisted the meeting was productive."I left the meeting feeling this was great," Mulholland said. "The guy had time to talk to us about the campaign."
Former President Clinton is still smarting over New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama.
During a private meeting with California Democrats this past weekend, Clinton grew red-faced as he talked about how he expected Richardson, who was a member of Clinton's Cabinet, to back Hillary Rodham Clinton for the presidential nomination or at least stay neutral, according to several people who attended.
Instead, Richardson endorsed Obama late last month, calling him a "once-in-a-lifetime leader."
"He sort of gets a little redder and redder and redder, but he wasn't off the deep end as I had seen him in the past," said Inola Henry, an uncommitted superdelegate. "It was sort of like, 'Gee, I'm a martyr.' He seemed more hurt than anything."
Clinton used his appearance at the state Democratic Party convention in San Jose to lobby California's 21 uncommitted superdelegates to support his wife.
After posing for a group photograph with the former president, superdelegate Rachel Binah told Clinton she was disappointed that one of his allies, strategist James Carville, had compared Richardson to Judas after he endorsed Obama.
Clinton, according to several people present, distanced himself from Carville's remarks. But he went on to say that he had not expected Richardson to endorse the Illinois senator, especially since the New Mexico governor had invited Clinton to Santa Fe to watch the Super Bowl on Feb. 3.
"He did say he certainly had been led to believe that he was going to get the endorsement," Henry said Wednesday. She was one of about 15 superdelegates — some uncommitted, others backing Clinton — who attended Sunday's meeting with Clinton before he addressed the convention.
Aleita Huguenin, another superdelegate, remembered Clinton saying, "We thought he'd let us know if he did an endorsement." But Huguenin said the comments about Richardson were "a minor blip in the whole meeting."
According superdelegate Chris Stampolis, Clinton said only that Richardson had promised not to endorse Obama, saying, "'He told me to my face five times he would not do that.'"
Binah did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but she previously told The Associated Press she supports Clinton. Other superdelegates interviewed by the AP said it was Binah's statement that prompted Clinton's comments about Richardson's decision.
Pahl Shipley, a spokesman for Richardson, said his boss never promised to endorse Hillary Clinton.
"He never told the president or anybody else, for that matter," Shipley said. "The governor respectfully disagrees with the president."
Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, endorsed Obama on March 21, shortly after the Illinois senator gave a speech about race. It was a blow to the Clintons because of their long association with Richardson, who served as Clinton's energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations.
Clinton's campaign declined to comment, except to say the former president was in California to promote his wife's candidacy.
"President Clinton discussed the importance of this election with Democratic Party members and how after 46 primaries and caucuses, by virtually every measure, this election remains a very close race," campaign spokesman Luis Vizcaino said in a statement. "President Clinton is incredibly popular in the Golden State, and the convention was a great opportunity for him to speak directly with members of the California Democratic Party."
Bob Mulholland, a spokesman for the state party who attended the private meeting, said Clinton expressed himself passionately but insisted the meeting was productive.
"I left the meeting feeling this was great," Mulholland said. "The guy had time to talk to us about the campaign."
Just when I thought HRC couldn't be any more corny she outshines herself with this gem: "Rocky and I have a lot in common."
Her speechwriter should be arrested. Hillary's single-mindedness and egoism is more reminiscent of Max Cady (see photo) than Rocky Balboa.
From the AP:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton says she has something in common with legendary film boxer Rocky Balboa — she's not a quitter.Recalling a famous scene on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the 1976 Oscar-winning film "Rocky," Clinton said that ending her presidential campaign now would be as if "Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those art museum steps and said, 'Well, I guess that's about far enough.'""Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people," Clinton said in excerpts of prepared remarks to be given Tuesday to a meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.Clinton warned that Democrats won't have an easy time against Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain in the general, and implied that her rival for the nomination, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, may not be up to the task."The Republicans aren't going to give up without a fight," Clinton said. "And no matter how beautiful your rhetoric, the Republicans aren't going to turn off their attack machine — it doesn't have an off-switch.""But one thing you know about me is that when I say I'll fight for you, I'll fight for you," the New York senator said. "I know what it's like to stumble. I know what it means to get knocked down. But I've never stayed down, and I never will."In recent days, Clinton has made an issue of calls from Obama backers for her to abandon the Democratic race. They've argued that Obama holds the lead in the delegate count and a protracted Democratic primary would damage the eventual nominee."Now, this is one of the most important elections we've ever had. There is so much at stake. But just as it's getting time to vote here in Pennsylvania, Senator Obama says he's getting tired of it. His supporters say they want it to end," Clinton said.Obama refused on Saturday to go along with other Democrats who are calling for Clinton to drop out of the race."My attitude is Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants," he said.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton says she has something in common with legendary film boxer Rocky Balboa — she's not a quitter.
Recalling a famous scene on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the 1976 Oscar-winning film "Rocky," Clinton said that ending her presidential campaign now would be as if "Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those art museum steps and said, 'Well, I guess that's about far enough.'"
"Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people," Clinton said in excerpts of prepared remarks to be given Tuesday to a meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.
Clinton warned that Democrats won't have an easy time against Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain in the general, and implied that her rival for the nomination, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, may not be up to the task.
"The Republicans aren't going to give up without a fight," Clinton said. "And no matter how beautiful your rhetoric, the Republicans aren't going to turn off their attack machine — it doesn't have an off-switch."
"But one thing you know about me is that when I say I'll fight for you, I'll fight for you," the New York senator said. "I know what it's like to stumble. I know what it means to get knocked down. But I've never stayed down, and I never will."
In recent days, Clinton has made an issue of calls from Obama backers for her to abandon the Democratic race. They've argued that Obama holds the lead in the delegate count and a protracted Democratic primary would damage the eventual nominee.
"Now, this is one of the most important elections we've ever had. There is so much at stake. But just as it's getting time to vote here in Pennsylvania, Senator Obama says he's getting tired of it. His supporters say they want it to end," Clinton said.
Obama refused on Saturday to go along with other Democrats who are calling for Clinton to drop out of the race.
"My attitude is Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants," he said.
From the ramussenreports.com:
Senator Hillary Clinton's lead in the Pennsylvania Primary is shrinking. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Pennsylvania shows Clinton leading Barack Obama by just five percentage points, 47% to 42%. For Clinton, that five-point edge is down from a ten-point lead a week ago, a thirteen-point lead in mid-March and a fifteen-point advantage in early March.Support for Clinton slipped from 52% early in March, to 51% in mid-month, 49% a week ago, and 47% today. During that same time frame, support for Obama has increased from 37% to 42%.Obama recently received a key endorsement from Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey and has also spent more on television ads than Clinton. If Obama is able to pull off an upset in the Keystone State, it would effectively end the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Obama currently leads Clinton nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. However, while an Obama victory could end the nomination battle, Clinton remains ahead in the state and recently demonstrated her ability to finish strong in the Ohio and Texas Primaries.Tensions clearly remain in the contest. If Obama is nominated, just 56% of Clinton supporters say they are likely to vote for him against John McCain. Forty percent (40%) of Clinton voters in Pennsylvania say they are not likely to vote for Obama.On the other hand, if Clinton is nominated, just 67% of Obama supporters say they are likely to vote for her against McCain. Twenty-nine percent (29%) are not.Just 21% of Pennsylvania's Primary Voters say that Clinton should drop out of the race while 18% would like Obama to leave. Those figures are similar to results from a recent national survey. Fifty-one percent (51%) in Pennsylvania say it's very likely the contest will not be resolved until the convention in Denver. That figure includes 61% of Clinton voters and 38% of those who support Obama. Overall, another 33% say a convention decision is Somewhat Likely.Forty-seven percent (47%) say they have followed news stories Very Closely about Clinton's Bosnia misstatements. Another 27% have followed those stories Somewhat Closely. Overall, 19% consider that issue to be Very Important in their voting decision. That figure includes 6% of Clinton supporters and 36% of Obama voters. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Pennsylvania voters say that most politicians lie or embellish the truth when discussing their own accomplishments. Only 12% disagree.Clinton voters, by a 64% to 26% margin, believe that American society is generally fair and decent. Obama voters are evenly divided—45% hold that optimistic view while another 45% say society is generally unfair and discriminatory.Among voters who say the economy is the top voting issue, Clinton maintains a sixteen-point lead over Obama. Among those who view the War in Iraq as the top issue, Obama has a seventeen-point advantage. Among those who say health care is most important, 48% prefer Clinton and 40% choose Obama. Overall, 54% say the Economy is most important, 19% say it's the War in Iraq, and 10% say Health Care.In the Keystone State, Clinton is now viewed favorably by 74% of Likely Democratic Primary Voters, Obama by 73%.A separate survey found that both Democrats are in a competitive race with John McCain for Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes. Nationally, McCain currently leads both Democrats in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Looking at the Electoral College, the race is essentially a Toss-Up.Just 3% of Likely Democratic Primary Voters rate the economy as good or excellent while 70% say it's in poor shape. Just 2% say it is getting better while 91% say the economy is getting worse. Nationally, the Rasmussen Consumer Index shows that consumer and investor confidence has fallen to the lowest level of the past seven years.Rasmussen Markets data just prior to release of this poll shows that Clinton is overwhelming favored to end up victorious in Pennsylvania (current prices: Clinton 83.7 % Obama 17.0 %). Overall, the Markets give Obama a 81.7 % chance to win the Democratic nomination while expectations for a Clinton victory are at 15.6 %. Numbers in this paragraph are from a prediction market, not a poll. Using a trading format where traders "buy and sell" candidates, issues, and news features, the Rasmussen Markets harness competitive passions to provide a reliable leading indicator of upcoming events. We invite you to participate in the Rasmussen Markets. It costs nothing to join and add your voice to the collective wisdom of the market.This telephone survey of 730 Likely Democratic Primary Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports March 31, 2008. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
Senator Hillary Clinton's lead in the Pennsylvania Primary is shrinking.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Pennsylvania shows Clinton leading Barack Obama by just five percentage points, 47% to 42%. For Clinton, that five-point edge is down from a ten-point lead a week ago, a thirteen-point lead in mid-March and a fifteen-point advantage in early March.
Support for Clinton slipped from 52% early in March, to 51% in mid-month, 49% a week ago, and 47% today. During that same time frame, support for Obama has increased from 37% to 42%.
Obama recently received a key endorsement from Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey and has also spent more on television ads than Clinton. If Obama is able to pull off an upset in the Keystone State, it would effectively end the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Obama currently leads Clinton nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. However, while an Obama victory could end the nomination battle, Clinton remains ahead in the state and recently demonstrated her ability to finish strong in the Ohio and Texas Primaries.
Tensions clearly remain in the contest. If Obama is nominated, just 56% of Clinton supporters say they are likely to vote for him against John McCain. Forty percent (40%) of Clinton voters in Pennsylvania say they are not likely to vote for Obama.
On the other hand, if Clinton is nominated, just 67% of Obama supporters say they are likely to vote for her against McCain. Twenty-nine percent (29%) are not.
Just 21% of Pennsylvania's Primary Voters say that Clinton should drop out of the race while 18% would like Obama to leave. Those figures are similar to results from a recent national survey. Fifty-one percent (51%) in Pennsylvania say it's very likely the contest will not be resolved until the convention in Denver. That figure includes 61% of Clinton voters and 38% of those who support Obama. Overall, another 33% say a convention decision is Somewhat Likely.
Forty-seven percent (47%) say they have followed news stories Very Closely about Clinton's Bosnia misstatements. Another 27% have followed those stories Somewhat Closely. Overall, 19% consider that issue to be Very Important in their voting decision. That figure includes 6% of Clinton supporters and 36% of Obama voters. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Pennsylvania voters say that most politicians lie or embellish the truth when discussing their own accomplishments. Only 12% disagree.
Clinton voters, by a 64% to 26% margin, believe that American society is generally fair and decent. Obama voters are evenly divided—45% hold that optimistic view while another 45% say society is generally unfair and discriminatory.
Among voters who say the economy is the top voting issue, Clinton maintains a sixteen-point lead over Obama. Among those who view the War in Iraq as the top issue, Obama has a seventeen-point advantage. Among those who say health care is most important, 48% prefer Clinton and 40% choose Obama. Overall, 54% say the Economy is most important, 19% say it's the War in Iraq, and 10% say Health Care.
In the Keystone State, Clinton is now viewed favorably by 74% of Likely Democratic Primary Voters, Obama by 73%.
A separate survey found that both Democrats are in a competitive race with John McCain for Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes. Nationally, McCain currently leads both Democrats in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Looking at the Electoral College, the race is essentially a Toss-Up.
Just 3% of Likely Democratic Primary Voters rate the economy as good or excellent while 70% say it's in poor shape. Just 2% say it is getting better while 91% say the economy is getting worse. Nationally, the Rasmussen Consumer Index shows that consumer and investor confidence has fallen to the lowest level of the past seven years.
Rasmussen Markets data just prior to release of this poll shows that Clinton is overwhelming favored to end up victorious in Pennsylvania (current prices: Clinton 83.7 % Obama 17.0 %). Overall, the Markets give Obama a 81.7 % chance to win the Democratic nomination while expectations for a Clinton victory are at 15.6 %. Numbers in this paragraph are from a prediction market, not a poll. Using a trading format where traders "buy and sell" candidates, issues, and news features, the Rasmussen Markets harness competitive passions to provide a reliable leading indicator of upcoming events. We invite you to participate in the Rasmussen Markets. It costs nothing to join and add your voice to the collective wisdom of the market.
This telephone survey of 730 Likely Democratic Primary Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports March 31, 2008. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
The Billary Theory at work...
READY TO BE THE NEXT QUARTERBACK FOR THE PACKERSIn a news conference today, Deanna Favre announced she will be the starting QB for the Packers this coming year if her husband Brett retires. Deanna asserts that she is qualified to be starting QB because she has spent the past 16 years married to Brett while he played QB for the Packers. During this period of time she traveled extensively with him to away games, became familiar with the definition of a corner blitz, and is now completely comfortable with other terminology of the Packers offense. A survey of Packers fans shows that 50% of those polled supported the move. Does this sound idiotic and unbelievable to you? Well, Hillary Clinton makes the same claims as to why she is qualified to be President and 50% of Democrats polled agreed. Yet, she has never run a City, County, or State. When told that Hillary Clinton has experience because she has lived for 8 years in the White House, Dick Morris stated “so has the pastry chef”.
READY TO BE THE NEXT QUARTERBACK FOR THE PACKERS
In a news conference today, Deanna Favre announced she will be the starting QB for the Packers this coming year if her husband Brett retires. Deanna asserts that she is qualified to be starting QB because she has spent the past 16 years married to Brett while he played QB for the Packers. During this period of time she traveled extensively with him to away games, became familiar with the definition of a corner blitz, and is now completely comfortable with other terminology of the Packers offense. A survey of Packers fans shows that 50% of those polled supported the move.
Does this sound idiotic and unbelievable to you?
Well, Hillary Clinton makes the same claims as to why she is qualified to be President and 50% of Democrats polled agreed. Yet, she has never run a City, County, or State.
When told that Hillary Clinton has experience because she has lived for 8 years in the White House, Dick Morris stated “so has the pastry chef”.
Source
Sounds like Senator Clinton may soon be in need of a blindfold and a cigartette. From Politico:
Hoping to avoid a summer-long bloodbath for the Democratic presidential nomination, some party leaders such as Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen have urged a convention of superdelegates in June, after the caucuses and primaries are over. The idea sounds exotic, but recent public declarations and Politico interviews with top Democratic officials have made clear that something like what Bredesen proposed is already underway — not with a big meeting but with an intensifying series of exchanges among party elites. The early voting in this virtual convention is bad news for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her hope that Democratic leaders will settle the nomination is starting to come true — with Barack Obama so far emerging as the beneficiary. After a 10-day slog of self-inflicted wounds and fatalistic headlines for Clinton, these party elders are clearly tilting against her hopes for keeping the nomination contest open indefinitely. The Democrats’ virtual convention is taking place publicly, with statements like the remarkable comment by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that Clinton should get out now, and semi-publicly, with background comments made by top operatives to the media. It is taking place also in private entreaties by e-mail or phone — the modern equivalent of smoke-filed rooms — as advocates for Obama urge an early end to the race and Clinton backers plead for time and warn about his general election vulnerabilities. This weekend Clinton vowed to push on, perhaps for several more months, in hopes of an eventual victory at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August. This means her main strategic imperative, in addition to winning the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, is to slow and, if possible, reverse the parade of Democratic luminaries in recent days urging that the contest be wrapped up by spring rather than stretching into summer.The dynamic shows another way that Clinton’s strategy is working — once again with different consequences than she wants. Clinton is succeeding, many party operatives believe, in exposing Obama's potential general election vulnerabilities, concerns that would be amplified considerably if she scores a convincing win in Pennsylvania. But the general effect of these doubts — at least so far — has been to inspire unease with her continued campaign, rather than second-guessing about Obama's front-runner status. Some Clinton backers such as commentator and former consultant James Carville dismiss these anxieties, saying there is little danger from an intramural contest and that Obama, even if he does emerge as the nominee, should be prepared for far rougher stuff from Republicans in the fall. Former President Bill Clinton told California Democrats convening in San Jose this past weekend to “chill out” and that continued competition is a “good thing” for the party’s prospects in November. But it is clear that Hillary Clinton’s run of luck in recent days, including her own stumbles over an exaggerated account of a visit to Bosnia as first lady, has not helped her cause in playing for time. Clinton retains a lead among the superdelegates, who — because neither she nor Obama will likely win enough elected delegates to clinch the nomination — will determine the outcome. But the restlessness of party leaders has become unmistakable in recent days. So, too, has been the premise — sometimes unstated, sometimes explicit — that it is Clinton’s ambitions rather than Obama’s that would have to yield in the name of party unification. In a recent Politico interview, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) reiterated his stance that he will not take sides in the primary race. But he added that he believes that by early June all the superdelegates should come to a decision on whom to pledge their vote. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, meanwhile, set an unofficial deadline of July 1. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that something "will be done" to resolve the race before the convention. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she is confident a decision will be made "before the convention," so Democrats can go in unified. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), an Obama supporter and a former general chairman of the party, told National Journal that party leaders need "to stand up and reach a conclusion."Another Obama backer, 2004 Democratic nominee Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), said on ABC’s “This Week”on Sunday: “I think the superdelegates ought to decide early, perhaps earlier than July. … Every day gives John McCain the opportunity to build momentum for the general election.”Describing the mood in Washington, a top Democratic strategist who supports Clinton said: “There’s a little bit of a deathwatch going on. Instead of, ‘Who’s going to win?’ the chatter is, ‘How’s it going to unfold?’”The strategist added: “There is general panic among Democrats. The big question is: Does she walk to the door, or is she shown to the door?”The reason some Democrats believe Clinton needs to be escorted from the race is not that they dispute her claims that the race is agonizingly close. It is that they see few scenarios in which she can finish the primary calendar ahead in elected delegates or the popular vote. By this logic, denying the favored candidate of African-Americans — the party’s most loyal constituency — if Obama is ahead could rupture the party.Clinton is not moved by these claims. Close advisers to her emphasized over the weekend that she is going nowhere — not simply as a matter of politics but of personal temperament. Like her husband, she is constitutionally averse to quitting.What’s more, her public argument that she is the more electable candidate is only a pale version of her private thoughts and those of Bill Clinton. They firmly believe that Obama is unready to face a general election or, if he wins, a presidency that would follow.For now, her party is hoping that the public pressure on her to step aside will create a backlash that will further fire up her most zealous supporters, especially women.“The more she can let this threat hang over the process, the more leverage she has,” a former Clinton administration official said.On Friday, Obama was talking about the nomination race in the past tense. “There are some people who felt like: God, when is this thing going to be over?” he said at a Pittsburgh rally. “It’s like a good movie that’s lasted too long. But the truth is that this has been a great campaign, a great primary season. It’s been hard, it’s been tough.”But wary of the possibility that pushing Clinton out could backfire, he has begun saying calmly that she’s free to stay in as long as she likes.And she may take her time, vowing in a Washington Post interview on Saturday to stay in as far as the convention: “I know there are some people who want to shut this down and I think they are wrong.”A senior adviser to Clinton argued at length that the race is still very much in play.“The press corps seems to have it in their mind that this race is done,” the adviser said. “Either you guys can’t count or you want it done.”The adviser asserted that the campaign is gaining traction with its argument that Obama would have electability problems in the fall and might weaken other Democrats running on his ticket.“It is our read that many of the remaining superdelegates are increasingly concerned about whether or not — as attractive a candidate as he is, as strong as a spokesman as he is — is this guy going to be carrying our district? I don’t think many candidates are looking forward to the Republican ad where ... his minister is saying, ‘God Damn America.’“People are making [individual] calculations,” the adviser added. “They don’t know which way to jump.”In the past 10 days, however, Clinton has steadily lost ground. Democrats’ private grumblings became public warnings.It started March 21, when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — who was appointed to two Cabinet posts by Bill Clinton — endorsed Obama after holding off when it would have helped him most, right before the Hispanic-rich Texas primary.Three days later, in what some Obama strategists believe may eventually be seen as the death blow, Clinton had to admit she had repeatedly exaggerated when claiming to have landed in Bosnia under sniper fire as first lady. It was an unnecessary gilding of the lily, tainting video of her in a military setting that otherwise would have been very positive.In another indignity, Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who had vowed to remain neutral, joined the Obama bandwagon on Friday.Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) did the same on Sunday.This gathering momentum has forced the Clintons into Hail Mary arguments, causing even some confidants to wonder about their logic or real aims. Bill Clinton recently pointed out that she was ahead in the popular vote in primaries, as opposed to caucuses — essentially saying she’s ahead in contests she has won.“They’re trying everything, and nothing is sticking,” said a Clinton family adviser. “It is possible she’s trying to leverage all this into a spot on the ticket.”
Hoping to avoid a summer-long bloodbath for the Democratic presidential nomination, some party leaders such as Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen have urged a convention of superdelegates in June, after the caucuses and primaries are over. The idea sounds exotic, but recent public declarations and Politico interviews with top Democratic officials have made clear that something like what Bredesen proposed is already underway — not with a big meeting but with an intensifying series of exchanges among party elites. The early voting in this virtual convention is bad news for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her hope that Democratic leaders will settle the nomination is starting to come true — with Barack Obama so far emerging as the beneficiary. After a 10-day slog of self-inflicted wounds and fatalistic headlines for Clinton, these party elders are clearly tilting against her hopes for keeping the nomination contest open indefinitely. The Democrats’ virtual convention is taking place publicly, with statements like the remarkable comment by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that Clinton should get out now, and semi-publicly, with background comments made by top operatives to the media. It is taking place also in private entreaties by e-mail or phone — the modern equivalent of smoke-filed rooms — as advocates for Obama urge an early end to the race and Clinton backers plead for time and warn about his general election vulnerabilities. This weekend Clinton vowed to push on, perhaps for several more months, in hopes of an eventual victory at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August. This means her main strategic imperative, in addition to winning the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, is to slow and, if possible, reverse the parade of Democratic luminaries in recent days urging that the contest be wrapped up by spring rather than stretching into summer.
The dynamic shows another way that Clinton’s strategy is working — once again with different consequences than she wants. Clinton is succeeding, many party operatives believe, in exposing Obama's potential general election vulnerabilities, concerns that would be amplified considerably if she scores a convincing win in Pennsylvania. But the general effect of these doubts — at least so far — has been to inspire unease with her continued campaign, rather than second-guessing about Obama's front-runner status. Some Clinton backers such as commentator and former consultant James Carville dismiss these anxieties, saying there is little danger from an intramural contest and that Obama, even if he does emerge as the nominee, should be prepared for far rougher stuff from Republicans in the fall. Former President Bill Clinton told California Democrats convening in San Jose this past weekend to “chill out” and that continued competition is a “good thing” for the party’s prospects in November. But it is clear that Hillary Clinton’s run of luck in recent days, including her own stumbles over an exaggerated account of a visit to Bosnia as first lady, has not helped her cause in playing for time. Clinton retains a lead among the superdelegates, who — because neither she nor Obama will likely win enough elected delegates to clinch the nomination — will determine the outcome. But the restlessness of party leaders has become unmistakable in recent days. So, too, has been the premise — sometimes unstated, sometimes explicit — that it is Clinton’s ambitions rather than Obama’s that would have to yield in the name of party unification. In a recent Politico interview, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) reiterated his stance that he will not take sides in the primary race. But he added that he believes that by early June all the superdelegates should come to a decision on whom to pledge their vote. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, meanwhile, set an unofficial deadline of July 1. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that something "will be done" to resolve the race before the convention. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she is confident a decision will be made "before the convention," so Democrats can go in unified.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), an Obama supporter and a former general chairman of the party, told National Journal that party leaders need "to stand up and reach a conclusion."
Another Obama backer, 2004 Democratic nominee Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), said on ABC’s “This Week”on Sunday: “I think the superdelegates ought to decide early, perhaps earlier than July. … Every day gives John McCain the opportunity to build momentum for the general election.”
Describing the mood in Washington, a top Democratic strategist who supports Clinton said: “There’s a little bit of a deathwatch going on. Instead of, ‘Who’s going to win?’ the chatter is, ‘How’s it going to unfold?’”
The strategist added: “There is general panic among Democrats. The big question is: Does she walk to the door, or is she shown to the door?”
The reason some Democrats believe Clinton needs to be escorted from the race is not that they dispute her claims that the race is agonizingly close. It is that they see few scenarios in which she can finish the primary calendar ahead in elected delegates or the popular vote. By this logic, denying the favored candidate of African-Americans — the party’s most loyal constituency — if Obama is ahead could rupture the party.
Clinton is not moved by these claims. Close advisers to her emphasized over the weekend that she is going nowhere — not simply as a matter of politics but of personal temperament. Like her husband, she is constitutionally averse to quitting.
What’s more, her public argument that she is the more electable candidate is only a pale version of her private thoughts and those of Bill Clinton. They firmly believe that Obama is unready to face a general election or, if he wins, a presidency that would follow.
For now, her party is hoping that the public pressure on her to step aside will create a backlash that will further fire up her most zealous supporters, especially women.
“The more she can let this threat hang over the process, the more leverage she has,” a former Clinton administration official said.
On Friday, Obama was talking about the nomination race in the past tense. “There are some people who felt like: God, when is this thing going to be over?” he said at a Pittsburgh rally. “It’s like a good movie that’s lasted too long. But the truth is that this has been a great campaign, a great primary season. It’s been hard, it’s been tough.”
But wary of the possibility that pushing Clinton out could backfire, he has begun saying calmly that she’s free to stay in as long as she likes.
And she may take her time, vowing in a Washington Post interview on Saturday to stay in as far as the convention: “I know there are some people who want to shut this down and I think they are wrong.”
A senior adviser to Clinton argued at length that the race is still very much in play.
“The press corps seems to have it in their mind that this race is done,” the adviser said. “Either you guys can’t count or you want it done.”
The adviser asserted that the campaign is gaining traction with its argument that Obama would have electability problems in the fall and might weaken other Democrats running on his ticket.
“It is our read that many of the remaining superdelegates are increasingly concerned about whether or not — as attractive a candidate as he is, as strong as a spokesman as he is — is this guy going to be carrying our district? I don’t think many candidates are looking forward to the Republican ad where ... his minister is saying, ‘God Damn America.’
“People are making [individual] calculations,” the adviser added. “They don’t know which way to jump.”
In the past 10 days, however, Clinton has steadily lost ground. Democrats’ private grumblings became public warnings.
It started March 21, when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — who was appointed to two Cabinet posts by Bill Clinton — endorsed Obama after holding off when it would have helped him most, right before the Hispanic-rich Texas primary.
Three days later, in what some Obama strategists believe may eventually be seen as the death blow, Clinton had to admit she had repeatedly exaggerated when claiming to have landed in Bosnia under sniper fire as first lady. It was an unnecessary gilding of the lily, tainting video of her in a military setting that otherwise would have been very positive.
In another indignity, Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who had vowed to remain neutral, joined the Obama bandwagon on Friday.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) did the same on Sunday.
This gathering momentum has forced the Clintons into Hail Mary arguments, causing even some confidants to wonder about their logic or real aims. Bill Clinton recently pointed out that she was ahead in the popular vote in primaries, as opposed to caucuses — essentially saying she’s ahead in contests she has won.
“They’re trying everything, and nothing is sticking,” said a Clinton family adviser. “It is possible she’s trying to leverage all this into a spot on the ticket.”
While the cool cat’s away, the Hillary mice will play. As Barack Obama was floating in the pool with his daughters the last few days in St. Thomas, some Clinton disciples were floating the idea of St. Hillary as his vice president. She can’t win without him, said one Hillary adviser, and he can’t win without her. They’re stuck with each other. It’s one of my favorite movie formulas, driving the dynamics in such classics as “A Few Good Men,” “The Big Easy” and “Guys and Dolls”: Charming, glib guy spars and quarrels with no-nonsense, driven girl, until they team up in the last reel. He spices up her life, and she stiffens his spine. And soon they hear the pitter-patter of little superdelegate feet, who are thrilled not to be pulled in two directions anymore. And everybody’s happy. Or are they? A couple of weeks ago, when Hill and Bill mentioned the possibility of a joint ticket, it was an attempt to undermine Obama and urge voters and superdelegates to put Hillary on top; the implication was that this was the only way Democrats could have both their stars, and besides, it was her turn. The precocious boy wonder had plenty of time. But with the math not in her favor, her options running out, Bill Richardson running out and her filigreed narrative of dodging bullets in Bosnia and securing peace in Northern Ireland unraveling, could Hillary actually think the vice presidency is the best she’ll do? One Hillary pal said she wouldn’t want to go back to a Senate full of lawmakers who’d abandoned her for Obama. And even if she could get to be majority leader, would it be much fun working with Nancy Pelosi, whose distaste for the Clintons has led her to subtly maneuver for Obama? Maybe The Terminator is thinking: if she could just get her pump in the door. Dick Cheney, after all, was able to run the White House and the world from the vice president’s residence, calling every shot while serving under a less experienced and younger president. And Observatory Circle is just up the street from where Hillary now lives. But, aside from Barack and Michelle Obama’s certain resistance, would it fly? Many Hillary voters are hardening against Obama, and more and more Obama fans are getting turned off by the idea of dragging down the Obama brand with Clinton dysfunction. “No drama, vote Obama” placards and T-shirts are popping up at Obama rallies, and one of his military advisers dubbed him “No Shock Barack.” It’s hard to imagine that after spending her whole life playing second-fiddle to a superstar pol, Hillary wants to do it again. She’s been vice president. Could the veep talk be a red herring? A ploy designed to distract attention from the Clintons’ real endgame? Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain. If McCain only served one term, Hillary would have one last shot. On Election Day in 2012, she’d be 65. Why else would Hillary suggest that McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama, and why else would Bill imply that Obama was less patriotic — and attended by more static — than McCain?Why else would Phil Singer, a Hillary spokesman, say in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that Obama was trying to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. “When it comes to voting, Senator Obama has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of nope,” he said, adding, “There’s a basic reality here, which is we could have avoided the entire George W. Bush presidency if we had counted votes in Florida.” So is Singer making the case that Obama is as anti-democratic as W. was when he snatched Florida from Al Gore? Some top Democrats are increasingly worried that the Clintons’ divide-and-conquer strategy is nihilistic: Hillary or no democrat. (Or, as one Democrat described it to ABC’s Jake Tapper: Hillary is going for “the Tonya Harding option” — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival.) After all, the Clintons think of themselves as The Democratic Party. When Bill and Dick Morris triangulated during the first term, it was what was best for Bill, not the party. In 1996, when Bill turned the White House into Motel 1600 for fund-raisers, it was more about his re-election than the re-elections of his fellow Democrats in Congress; in 2000, the White House focused its energies more on Hillary’s Senate win than Al Gore’s presidential run.And even Clinton supporters know that Bill does not want to be replaced as the first black president, especially by a black president with enough magic to possibly eclipse him in the history books.
While the cool cat’s away, the Hillary mice will play.
As Barack Obama was floating in the pool with his daughters the last few days in St. Thomas, some Clinton disciples were floating the idea of St. Hillary as his vice president.
She can’t win without him, said one Hillary adviser, and he can’t win without her.
They’re stuck with each other.
It’s one of my favorite movie formulas, driving the dynamics in such classics as “A Few Good Men,” “The Big Easy” and “Guys and Dolls”: Charming, glib guy spars and quarrels with no-nonsense, driven girl, until they team up in the last reel. He spices up her life, and she stiffens his spine. And soon they hear the pitter-patter of little superdelegate feet, who are thrilled not to be pulled in two directions anymore.
And everybody’s happy. Or are they?
A couple of weeks ago, when Hill and Bill mentioned the possibility of a joint ticket, it was an attempt to undermine Obama and urge voters and superdelegates to put Hillary on top; the implication was that this was the only way Democrats could have both their stars, and besides, it was her turn. The precocious boy wonder had plenty of time.
But with the math not in her favor, her options running out, Bill Richardson running out and her filigreed narrative of dodging bullets in Bosnia and securing peace in Northern Ireland unraveling, could Hillary actually think the vice presidency is the best she’ll do?
One Hillary pal said she wouldn’t want to go back to a Senate full of lawmakers who’d abandoned her for Obama. And even if she could get to be majority leader, would it be much fun working with Nancy Pelosi, whose distaste for the Clintons has led her to subtly maneuver for Obama?
Maybe The Terminator is thinking: if she could just get her pump in the door. Dick Cheney, after all, was able to run the White House and the world from the vice president’s residence, calling every shot while serving under a less experienced and younger president. And Observatory Circle is just up the street from where Hillary now lives.
But, aside from Barack and Michelle Obama’s certain resistance, would it fly? Many Hillary voters are hardening against Obama, and more and more Obama fans are getting turned off by the idea of dragging down the Obama brand with Clinton dysfunction.
“No drama, vote Obama” placards and T-shirts are popping up at Obama rallies, and one of his military advisers dubbed him “No Shock Barack.”
It’s hard to imagine that after spending her whole life playing second-fiddle to a superstar pol, Hillary wants to do it again. She’s been vice president.
Could the veep talk be a red herring? A ploy designed to distract attention from the Clintons’ real endgame?
Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain.
If McCain only served one term, Hillary would have one last shot. On Election Day in 2012, she’d be 65.
Why else would Hillary suggest that McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama, and why else would Bill imply that Obama was less patriotic — and attended by more static — than McCain?
Why else would Phil Singer, a Hillary spokesman, say in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that Obama was trying to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. “When it comes to voting, Senator Obama has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of nope,” he said, adding, “There’s a basic reality here, which is we could have avoided the entire George W. Bush presidency if we had counted votes in Florida.” So is Singer making the case that Obama is as anti-democratic as W. was when he snatched Florida from Al Gore?
Some top Democrats are increasingly worried that the Clintons’ divide-and-conquer strategy is nihilistic: Hillary or no democrat.
(Or, as one Democrat described it to ABC’s Jake Tapper: Hillary is going for “the Tonya Harding option” — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival.)
After all, the Clintons think of themselves as The Democratic Party. When Bill and Dick Morris triangulated during the first term, it was what was best for Bill, not the party. In 1996, when Bill turned the White House into Motel 1600 for fund-raisers, it was more about his re-election than the re-elections of his fellow Democrats in Congress; in 2000, the White House focused its energies more on Hillary’s Senate win than Al Gore’s presidential run.
And even Clinton supporters know that Bill does not want to be replaced as the first black president, especially by a black president with enough magic to possibly eclipse him in the history books.
Sen. Patrick Leahy is suggesting that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton abandon her White House run.The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and six-term Vermont lawmaker said there is no way that Clinton is going to win enough pledged delegates to get the nomination. Leahy told Vermont Public Radio, in a show that aired Thursday, that Clinton ought to withdraw and should be backing Sen. Barack Obama. But Leahy said that's obviously a decision only Clinton can make.In a statement issued Friday, Leahy — who has endorsed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination — said Obama's lead appears to be insurmountable and that Obama's endorsement by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is the latest sign of how the race is going."Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to. As far as the delegate count and the interests of a Democratic victory in November go, there is not a very good reason for drawing this out. But as I have said before, that is a decision that only she can make," Leahy said in the statement.
Sen. Patrick Leahy is suggesting that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton abandon her White House run.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and six-term Vermont lawmaker said there is no way that Clinton is going to win enough pledged delegates to get the nomination. Leahy told Vermont Public Radio, in a show that aired Thursday, that Clinton ought to withdraw and should be backing Sen. Barack Obama. But Leahy said that's obviously a decision only Clinton can make.
In a statement issued Friday, Leahy — who has endorsed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination — said Obama's lead appears to be insurmountable and that Obama's endorsement by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is the latest sign of how the race is going.
"Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to. As far as the delegate count and the interests of a Democratic victory in November go, there is not a very good reason for drawing this out. But as I have said before, that is a decision that only she can make," Leahy said in the statement.
A lot of people I've spoken to seem to have written off a potential win in Pennsylvania due to Wrightgate and Clinton muscle. The Obama campaign however, isn't giving up without a fight. Whether or not Billary wins Pennsylvania in the primary, it's important for Senator Obama to raise his profile there for the general election. From Sasha Issenberg:
On the eve of his six-day bus tour of Pennsylvania, Barack Obama is bringing in a new operative to lead his efforts in the state. Paul Tewes, who directed Obama's impressive win in the Iowa caucuses, will take over the Pennsylvania campaign from Jim DeMay, according to campaign sources. Tewes could not be immediately reached for comment.Obama's national campaign has come under criticism from supporters that his defensive strategy in Pennsylvania -- designed largely to limit Hillary Clinton's ability to run up her popular-vote total -- was tantamount to conceding the state. Even before Tewes's appointment was confirmed today, campaign officials had hoped that the extended bus tour -- a commitment Obama's campaign has not made to an individual state since Iowa -- and a sizeable advertising buy over the past week would help to quell internal skeptics."My guess is it's a smokescreen, I don't think it changes the strategy at all," said one Obama fundraiser in Pennsylvania. "I think a lot of people were catching wind of the fact that they were writing off Pennsylvania."
On the eve of his six-day bus tour of Pennsylvania, Barack Obama is bringing in a new operative to lead his efforts in the state.
Paul Tewes, who directed Obama's impressive win in the Iowa caucuses, will take over the Pennsylvania campaign from Jim DeMay, according to campaign sources. Tewes could not be immediately reached for comment.
Obama's national campaign has come under criticism from supporters that his defensive strategy in Pennsylvania -- designed largely to limit Hillary Clinton's ability to run up her popular-vote total -- was tantamount to conceding the state.
Even before Tewes's appointment was confirmed today, campaign officials had hoped that the extended bus tour -- a commitment Obama's campaign has not made to an individual state since Iowa -- and a sizeable advertising buy over the past week would help to quell internal skeptics.
"My guess is it's a smokescreen, I don't think it changes the strategy at all," said one Obama fundraiser in Pennsylvania. "I think a lot of people were catching wind of the fact that they were writing off Pennsylvania."
This is a satire (for those of you who take these things too literally, I thought I should point this out).
In an interview with a conservative Pennsylvania newspaper yesterday, Hillary Clinton took the opportunity to address an issue that she has studiously avoided discussing in public during the current Presidential campaign. Over the past year the media has gingerly tiptoed around the 800 pound gorilla in Hillary Clinton's baggage (mixed, non-biblical metaphor intended), Bill Clinton's record of indiscretions culminating in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
When asked about her public humiliation as First Lady, Hillary cautioned "It's a very personal matter." However she went on to say that if she had known what Bill was like from the start: "He would not have been my husband. You don't choose your family, but you choose what marriage you want to be in."
Meanwhile, on her 70th college campus visit in Indiana promoting her mother's candidacy, Chelsea for the first time discussed her part in Tuzlagate in response to a question from a pro-Clinton student at Butler College in Indiana. Recalling her visit to Bosnia with her mother in 1996 when she was 16 years old, Chelsea said she and her mother were "very disappointed" by the fireworks display they had been promised at the airport. She had gotten over it however, but was even more miffed the following year upon hearing that U2 had put on a concert in Sarajevo in 1997 which Bono declared "Belongs to the Future". "And all I got was Sinbad and Cheryl Crow. Can you believe it?"
Ms. Clinton would not answer a question about whether she is on paid or unpaid leave from the Avenue Capital Group, a New York hedge fund whose co-founder Marc Lasry has been a major contributor to Democrats over the years, but also has donated to George W. Bush's campaigns. There is no evidence the FEC is investigating Chelsea's status, which could constitute a significant donation to the Clinton campaign far in excess of the limits permitted by law.
When asked to comment on Chelsea's remarks about the disputed nature of the trip to Bosnia, campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson explained: "Chelsea Clinton, unlike her illustrious parents, is not a politician. So you cannot expect her to misspeak as well as they do."
Why wasn't the truth good enough for Hillary Rodham Clinton?That's a question worth considering as the former first lady tries to contain damage to her credibility after getting caught exaggerating the danger of her 1996 trip to Bosnia. Two others: Is there a pattern of embellishment? And is she held to a higher standard than her rival, Barack Obama?The answers: Yes, she's held to a higher standard and, yes, she does exaggerate her credentials. Perhaps she's driven by insecurity; Clinton must think her resume needs padding to reflect "35 years of experience" and the promise to be "ready on Day One."Otherwise, the truth would have sufficed.The fact is that Clinton and her entourage were warned in advance that Bosnia was hostile territory and that there had been sniper fire reported in the hills surrounding the tarmac at some point before the trip. As a journalist on the trip, the story I wrote began, "Venturing to the front lines of the Bosnia peacekeeping mission, Hillary Rodham Clinton greeted U.S. troops today and heard horror stories about the region's devastating civil war."It continued: "Security was tight � fighter jets accompanied her DC-17 cargo plane to Tuzla � but officials said the first lady took no extraordinary risks on the trip."In her biography, Clinton wrote about the reports of snipers in the hills and said she met with local children on the tarmac, adding that the gathering was cut short by security concerns. All plausible, and a mission to be proud of.But during a speech last week on Iraq, Clinton stretched the truth to the breaking point. "I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia and ... there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the first lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."Hogwash. The truth is:� There was no sniper fire.� Nobody ducked for cover.� Bad weather, not security concerns, kept her husband from making the same trip a few months earlier.Clinton and her aides stood behind the story � which she has told more than once � until video surfaced showing the former first lady, her daughter, Chelsea, and their entourage strolling off the plane and walking calmly across the tarmac."I made a mistake," she said Tuesday. "That happens. It proves I'm human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation."To be sure, Clinton is not the first American to pad a resume. She's not even the only candidate for president to do so.Obama has exaggerated his role in reaching a compromise in the Senate on immigration as well as his authorship of a bill to address the housing crisis. Voters need to weigh such distortions when they consider whether the freshman senator from Illinois truly is a new breed of politician.What makes Clinton's situation unique � and the Bosnia embellishments so damaging � is the fact that the New York senator has built her candidacy on the illusion of experience. Any attack on her credentials is a potential Achilles heel.As first lady, she did not attend National Security Council meetings, did not receive the presidential daily briefing on terrorism and other threats and did not have a top level security clearance. Her foreign trips were glorified goodwill tours, a collection of photo opportunities and sightseeing trips. Still, Clinton was an exceptionally active first lady who knows more than most about what it takes to be president. So it must drive her nuts when Obama and his allies dismiss her role. Their condescension must make it harder for Clinton to accept the fact that hers was a largely ceremonial job, especially after her ill-fated attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system. And so the best explanation for her Bosnia embellishment may be this simple, and this human: She's overcompensating. That would explain why it wasn't good enough to say she visited Northern Ireland five times and urged the rivals to make peace. No, Clinton claims she "helped bring peace to Northern Ireland." She didn't just urge the Macedonian government to open its borders to refugees. No, she "negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo." Polls show that voters wonder about Clinton's honesty and authenticity. The Bosnia story plays to that character issue. As former Vice President Al Gore could tell her, once the media and voters start doubting a candidate's integrity, every episode that fits that narrative gets blown out of proportion. Gore never said he invented the Internet; his mistake was to place himself more centrally than warranted at the creation of the technology. But such nuance was lost on people who voted against him in 2000.
Why wasn't the truth good enough for Hillary Rodham Clinton?
That's a question worth considering as the former first lady tries to contain damage to her credibility after getting caught exaggerating the danger of her 1996 trip to Bosnia. Two others: Is there a pattern of embellishment? And is she held to a higher standard than her rival, Barack Obama?
The answers: Yes, she's held to a higher standard and, yes, she does exaggerate her credentials. Perhaps she's driven by insecurity; Clinton must think her resume needs padding to reflect "35 years of experience" and the promise to be "ready on Day One."
Otherwise, the truth would have sufficed.
The fact is that Clinton and her entourage were warned in advance that Bosnia was hostile territory and that there had been sniper fire reported in the hills surrounding the tarmac at some point before the trip. As a journalist on the trip, the story I wrote began, "Venturing to the front lines of the Bosnia peacekeeping mission, Hillary Rodham Clinton greeted U.S. troops today and heard horror stories about the region's devastating civil war."
It continued: "Security was tight � fighter jets accompanied her DC-17 cargo plane to Tuzla � but officials said the first lady took no extraordinary risks on the trip."
In her biography, Clinton wrote about the reports of snipers in the hills and said she met with local children on the tarmac, adding that the gathering was cut short by security concerns. All plausible, and a mission to be proud of.
But during a speech last week on Iraq, Clinton stretched the truth to the breaking point. "I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia and ... there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the first lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
Hogwash. The truth is:
� There was no sniper fire.
� Nobody ducked for cover.
� Bad weather, not security concerns, kept her husband from making the same trip a few months earlier.
Clinton and her aides stood behind the story � which she has told more than once � until video surfaced showing the former first lady, her daughter, Chelsea, and their entourage strolling off the plane and walking calmly across the tarmac.
"I made a mistake," she said Tuesday. "That happens. It proves I'm human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation."
To be sure, Clinton is not the first American to pad a resume. She's not even the only candidate for president to do so.
Obama has exaggerated his role in reaching a compromise in the Senate on immigration as well as his authorship of a bill to address the housing crisis. Voters need to weigh such distortions when they consider whether the freshman senator from Illinois truly is a new breed of politician.
What makes Clinton's situation unique � and the Bosnia embellishments so damaging � is the fact that the New York senator has built her candidacy on the illusion of experience. Any attack on her credentials is a potential Achilles heel.
As first lady, she did not attend National Security Council meetings, did not receive the presidential daily briefing on terrorism and other threats and did not have a top level security clearance. Her foreign trips were glorified goodwill tours, a collection of photo opportunities and sightseeing trips.
Still, Clinton was an exceptionally active first lady who knows more than most about what it takes to be president. So it must drive her nuts when Obama and his allies dismiss her role. Their condescension must make it harder for Clinton to accept the fact that hers was a largely ceremonial job, especially after her ill-fated attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system.
And so the best explanation for her Bosnia embellishment may be this simple, and this human: She's overcompensating.
That would explain why it wasn't good enough to say she visited Northern Ireland five times and urged the rivals to make peace. No, Clinton claims she "helped bring peace to Northern Ireland."
She didn't just urge the Macedonian government to open its borders to refugees. No, she "negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo."
Polls show that voters wonder about Clinton's honesty and authenticity. The Bosnia story plays to that character issue. As former Vice President Al Gore could tell her, once the media and voters start doubting a candidate's integrity, every episode that fits that narrative gets blown out of proportion.
Gore never said he invented the Internet; his mistake was to place himself more centrally than warranted at the creation of the technology. But such nuance was lost on people who voted against him in 2000.
