The roar is becoming deafening: every newspaper says that Hillary Clinton’s race is run, that it’s time for her to concede that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee.
But will Clinton do it, or will she continue to campaign until the last gasp of the primaries season? And if she does concede in a timely fashion (if she hasn’t missed that boat already), then what next? Will she be offered the VP slot by Obama in an attempt to heal the breach, and if so will she accept it? If they ran an Obama-Clinton ticket, would it be the hoped-for dream team, or would it fail to excite a bitterly divided base enough to turn out on polling day, while solidifying opposition from the Coalition Against The Uppity even more?
Thoughts? Gut feelings? Dreams? Nightmares? Wotcha reckon?
Categories: media, Politics, relationships
96th Down Under Feminists Carnival 
Quick Hit: Links I’m loving today 
Quick Hit: OMG I don’t even… 
It’s time. 
Hoyden About Town 
I hated how shabbily Clinton has been treated by the powerbrokers in her own party. They were willing to take her seriously only so long as they had no viable male alternative. Something about it reminded me of the way women in general were treated at the end of WWII: when there were no men available it was conceded that a woman could do whatever job was necessary, but the minute any man who could fill the position could be found the woman was expeted to cede the place without a fuss, and be humble about it.
I’m hoping she holds out ’til the convention and makes her case to the superdelegates. She’s won the nationwide popular vote. And she’s much stronger than Obama in big states and in more moderate and conservative districts.
The way the U.S. electoral college is set up, it doesn’t matter if you can win by an 80% margin in San Francisco if you can’t get 51% of the vote in Bakersfield.
No matter who the Dem nominee is, in the general election, she or he will get the big liberal citieswhich are Obama’s strongholds. It’s a given. So it’s in the Dems’ best interests to nominate the candidate who can also take the purple districts away from the Republican nominee in November. And if you take a cursory glance at any electoral map, it’s glaringly obvious that Clinton’s the one who can do that.
The delegates Obama has over Clinton have the prerogative to change their minds, and I hope they do.
Re concession: she missed the boat about a month ago.
All the talk about fighting to the convention is putting her into serious political hock. If it is angling for a position in the Obama administration, it is exceedingly unlikely to work. If it is positioning for a meteor hitting Obama in the head, it is unnecessary.
Ted Kennedy lost a lot of party cred (and arguably sabotaged Carter in the general) by fighting all the way into the convention, why shouldn’t Clinton be asked to bow out gracefully now?
Re the VP slot: offering Clinton the VP spot doesn’t make any kind of political sense. She doesn’t make Obama competitive in an area of weakness either demographically or electorally. It hands the Republicans their best fund raising and GOTV ploy (mention Hillary and Republican wallets gush money). It just ain’t gonna happen.
One last note: Hillary was the Party Establishment nominee.
She had more superdelegates until very, very recently and they did not and still have not abandoned her.
The party did not force her out during her February-March losing streak. She continued to raise money and campaign hard right up to the end.
The party gave her a huge break by reneging on the agreement to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates.
I’d say the party has been incredibly restrained and respectful of Clinton, especially compared to the way Gary Hart was tossed overboard in 1984 or Ted Kennedy was in 1980 or Jesse Jackson was in 1988.
Jesse Jackson came under a lot of pressure in 1988 to release his delegates in the name of “unity” after he dropped out of the race. Not to mention that he didn’t get a lot of respect for doing as well as he did in the first Super Tuesday.
“Re the VP slot: offering Clinton the VP spot doesn’t make any kind of political sense. She doesn’t make Obama competitive in an area of weakness either demographically or electorally.”
Spot on.