How Badly Does Hillary Clinton Want Campaign Debts Paid?

Why Hillary Clinton stays in the race for the Democratic nomination is just as interesting as how she will exit, and how she will pay off her staggering debts.  But the latter point is getting more attention now after an article appeared in US News And World Report.  And then the question is raised, does she even care about the money?

What I do not want to see happen is for any of the money that was raised by the small donors for Barack Obama go to pay for her failed bid for the White House.  In the discussions that are clearly going on behind the scenes, I trust that no such arrangement by the Obama campaign will take place.  While helping another candidate with debts is nothing new, those who gave small amounts to Obama did so for HIS race.  Any deal that does not meet the smell test would ill-serve him as he seeks funds for the fall campaign.

Experts disagree on whether or not Clinton will actually stick in the fight until the Democratic National Convention in August. But the date looms large for another reason—at least, if she hopes to recoup any of the millions she has sunk into the campaign. Thanks to a little-known provision in 2002’s McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill, a campaign must repay the loan to a candidate before Election Day. In this case, that’s the nominating convention. After the election has passed, a bankrupt campaign is limited to gathering just $250,000 from contributors, which means that modest sum is all it can give back to a candidate. In short, Clinton stands to lose $11,150,000. “If she wants to be repaid, she’d have to move on that between now and the national convention,” says former Federal Election Commission chairman Michael Toner. “Otherwise, it just becomes another contribution.” The campaign, meanwhile, has other debts to consider as well. According to her latest FEC filing, the Hillary Clinton for President campaign committee owes millions to vendors, including more than $4.5 million to Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, the consulting firm of her former chief strategist Mark Penn.

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That adds another wrinkle to her decision to stay in the race. Time is running out to pay off friends, allies, and vendors. Plus, by all accounts, Clinton’s most ardent supporters are tapped out, either unwilling or unable by law to donate any more. If she’s going to continue competing, she has to ask herself how many more millions she’s willing to spend in a quest many describe as increasingly quixotic. In short, how much does she care about the money? Politics guru Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia figures not much; after all, the Clintons earned $109 million since leaving the White House. “It’s like Michael Bloomberg spending a billion. Would he miss it? Is she going to miss $10 million? There’s only so much you can spend yourself anyway.”

Technorati Tags: HillaryClinton, Democrats, Election08, USNewsAndWorldReport, Campaigns

The Morning After The Primaries Proves America Is The Winner

It does not matter this morning if you are a Republican or a Democrat.  We all can agree on one thing.  It matters not if you supported Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.  We all can agree on one thing. 

There was a mood of excitement Tuesday night among the TV pundits and anchors as the hours drifted along, well after the sun had set.  As midnight approached votes were still being counted in Lake County, Indiana, causing the outcome to still be in doubt.   The audience felt the excitement as well, regardless of whether one supported Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.  The phrase ‘barn-burner of an election’ has meaning this morning, as the primaries last night again proved that politics can be exciting and unpredictable.  In spite of all the polls and punditry it still comes down to the will of the voters as reflected in the tabulation of the ballots.  No matter how long it takes the final result comes as the voters dictate. It all proves that our political process, despite flaws such as too much money polluting the outcome, does in fact work.  It works because so many Americans are engaged in the process and want a better country.

More important than which candidate won, is the fact that the election process this year has generated so many energized voters and hopeful Americans.  We often think of the political process as unwieldy and out of control, beyond the ability of one person to make a difference.  But this year as more states have played a pivotal role in the nominating process, the feeling that the civics lessons of our youth came to life has made many aware of the vital role they play in our democracy. 

The desire of voters to hear and see the candidates, and better understand the positions they have on the issues is remarkable to witness.  The huge audiences that turn out to see the candidates in large arenas are a powerful sight to behold.   But the small towns that never have witnessed a candidate in their community and suddenly have one shaking hands in the town square can only bring a smile to even the most cynical in our nation.  The political process works, and our democracy still can create the understanding within the citizenry about the notion of individual responsibility that so many have taken to heart this year.

This election season has produced the ultimate reality TV show.  Tuesday night’s excitement was just the latest episode.  America can be proud.

Technorati Tags: BarackObama, HillaryClinton, Elections, Democracy, Media

HILLARY’S ‘DOUBLE DREAM’ DASHED: EXITS SHOW EASY OBAMA WIN IN NC

Here come the early exit polls results.

WORRIED ABOUT THE ECONOMY

The economy was on voters’ minds in Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Two-thirds of Democratic primary voters in Indiana and nearly as many in North Carolina said the economy is the most important issue facing the nation. That’s more than have said so in 28 previous competitive Democratic primaries with exit polls this year.

Only about one in five in each state said Iraq was the top issue, and even fewer picked health care from a list of three issues.

Four in 10 Indiana Democratic voters said the current recession or economic slowdown has affected their family a great deal. Nearly as many said that in North Carolina.

CROSSOVER VOTING

Indiana’s Democratic primary was open to all voters. About one in five said they were independents and one in 10 identified themselves as Republican. North Carolina’s Democratic primary was open only to voters registered Democratic or unaffiliated; nearly one in five voters in that contest called themselves independents.

DEMOGRAPHICS:

The exit poll estimated blacks made up about a third of voters in the North Carolina Democratic primary, about one in seven in Indiana. More than half of voters in both states were women, which is typical for Democratic primaries. About one in seven voters in Indiana and slightly fewer in North Carolina were under age 30; about a quarter in North Carolina and somewhat fewer in Indiana were over age 65.

Voting so heavy in Marion County, Indiana that is resembles a general election.  Republicans turning out for Hillary Clinton!

Turnout already is looking less like a primary than a general election. Based on reports from precincts, she said turnout may surpass the November 2006 election, when one-third of Marion County voters showed up, but might not be as large as the 2004 election, when nearly 54 percent of registered voters took part in the contest pitting President George W. Bush against John Kerry.

Four years ago, less than one in five Marion County registered voters showed up for the primary.

Everyone who loves the political drama that is unfolding today has been waiting for the early exit polling data.  The news is always leaked at about 4:00 P.M. (CT) and is usually a good (not perfect) barometer of where we are headed as the polls close, and votes are counted. 

Earlier today there was news that internal numbers for Hillary Clinton show that she may face up to a 15% defeat in North Carolina.  Barack Obama will do very well there according to most polling data. 

Other polling shows a tighter race in Indiana, but with Clinton leading.

Hillary Clinton’s inner circle now fears a stinging defeat is likely in North Carolina.

The campaign now believes a 15 point loss, or more, would not be surprising. Her team will work hard throughout the day to lower all expectations in North Carolina.

Technorati Tags: HillaryClinton, BarackObama, Election08, Democrats, IndianaPrimary, NorthCarolinaPrimary, DrudgeReport

The Race For The Democratic Nomination

From The Economist

Technorati Tags: PoliticalCartoons, HillaryClinton, BarackObama, Election08, Democrats, JohnMcCain

Hillary Clinton Playing Politics Like a Republican

How long might it take for liberal Democrats to support Hillary Clinton if hell were to freeze over and she became the Democratic nominee?  After today it will be longer than yesterday.  There just is no end to the horse-rot that comes from Hillary Clinton or her campaign as she grasps for anything she can grab in her zeal to be president.

This morning, George Stephanopoulos began his televised interview with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by asking if she could name a single economist who supported her plan for a gas-tax suspension.

Mrs. Clinton did not. “I’m not going to put in my lot with economists,” she said on the ABC program “This Week.” A few moments later, she added, “Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”

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But like every other candidate, Mrs. Clinton has a team of economists behind her policy positions. Is she dismissing their work? And in the coming weeks, how far will she take her anti-elitist argument? After all, the race will likely end up in the hands of the superdelegates — many of whom are, by definition, the Democratic Party elite.

Hillary is even talking like President Bush and uttered the small-minded phrase “are they with us or against us’ in a speech about the oil problem in America. 

Clinton sent out a mailer this weekend attacking Obama on guns.  There is no level that she will not stoop in a Democratic primary to snatch a few votes.

Technorati Tags: HillaryClinton, BarackObama, Election, IndianaPrimary, NorthCarolinaPrimary, Election08, Democrats

Prediction For North Carolina, Indiana Democratic Presidential Primary

Each primary night this year we thought that the results would somehow move the Democratic nominating process to a point where the eventual nominee would be known.  Once again, for better or worse, depending on your point of view, we will not know where the nomination will fall on Tuesday night after the North Carolina and Indiana Democratic primaries are held.  If you are a political junkie such as myself, this election cycle is like eating chocolate brownies covered with raspberry sauce every day!   As a Democrat who understands the needs of the nation, I know the necessity of wrapping the process up, and having a party nominee that can win in November.  But we will not know the nominee on Tuesday night.  But since I am enjoying this campaign I thought I would add a few thoughts and early predictions for the May 6th contests.

In the nearly two weeks since the Pennsylvania primary if has been a series of tumultuous blows and counter-blows as the Barack Obama campaign was forced to deal with the remarks of Reverend Wright.  At a time when Hillary Clinton was capitalizing on a new found populist message regarding gas prices and a cozy relationship with the “bubba vote’, Obama was scrambling to tamp down the daily news stories over his former pastor.  He will have a full-blown interview on “Meet The Press” with Tim Russert Sunday morning, and will have a chance to round the rough edges off a hard week.  But the only way to blunt the hard news these past weeks is with convincing wins for Obama on Tuesday.  I do not see that in the cards.

It is imperative that Barack Obama score above the expectations in order to stop the hemorrhaging in the minds of the superdelegates about his nomination.  While North Carolina has long looked favorable for him, and still does, he must show that he has not lost ground by allowing Clinton to close the gap and come in with a close second.  Sadly I do not think that will happen.  Where Obama had enjoyed a double-digit lead over Clinton, he now has been reduced to the single numbers in some polls.

The real prize however is in Indiana where the once tight race has opened in Clinton’s favor. The key will be the blue-collar voters that seem more than willing to give the nod to Hillary “where is my gun and shot of whiskey” Clinton.  I may disagree with her on issues, but I do not discount her ability to morph into whatever the campaign requires.  That will prove handy to some extent if she is eventually the Democratic nominee.  However, that concession in no way speaks to the more principled stand and demeanor that I think most want, and need, from a president.  Clinton is seen in poll after poll to lack the integrity and truthfulness test.  In the end, should she become the nominee, after the war and economy are debated endlessly, this character issue will weigh on the mind of the voters and pose as her biggest problem.  McCain will use this flaw over and over again to his advantage, if Clinton were to be the nominee.

In Indiana I will be watching the number of Republicans who switch over to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton, knowing that she is the weakest candidate to face John McCain.  Meanwhile independents are more likely to line up for Obama.  It seems that voters who are not Democrats could select the winner in Indiana.

I do not predict a sweep of the contests for either candidate.  If Clinton were to win both North Carolina and Indiana her rival Barack Obama would still have more delegates, and the struggle would continue as he fights to be the nominee.  I have long argued the eventual nominee will be the person leading with the most elected delegates.  The problem with Clinton doing well at the end of the nominating process is that the superdelegates are getting mighty nervous.  I do not discount the major news event that a sweep for Clinton would create, but I do not think superdelegates can overturn the will of the powerful forces that have made Obama all but the nominee, without a fissure so deep and wide in the party that the only outcome would be a GOP victory in November.  A Clinton sweep would be a blow to the Obama campaign, but not one that would necessarily prove to be the end for him.   (By this time some readers may think I never give Clinton a break….I actually like her but think her campaign style and tactics are slimy.)

However, if Obama were somehow to sweep the two states on Tuesday it would then be the end for Clinton’s White House dream.  If Obama could sweep after the two weeks he has endured, then a clear message so loud will have been sent that even the Clinton household would understand it.

So with all these thoughts and views what are my predictions?

I think that Obama wins by 6 % in North Carolina.

Clinton wins with 8 % in Indiana.  A more conservative and blue-collar crowd that has no ability to process the Obama phenomenon will prove to be Clinton’s gift. 

Technorati Tags: Predictions, NorthCarolinaPrimary, IndianaPrimary, BarackObama, HillaryClinton, Election08, Democrats, JohnMcCain

The Problem Is Not With Reverend Wright, But With Republican Operatives

I have argued here on this blog that the type of political tactics which allows for the Reverend Wright matter to dominate the whole of America is troubling.  Barack Obama suffers as the result of the GOP working over-time to demonize him, the one candidate they fear most in the fall campaign.

Now comes a well written national article that adds on to that theme.  THIS IS A MUST READ!

Not all of what Wright says is comforting.

His views are not universally appealing, nor are they or should they be seen as unassailable.

But, for the most part, they are well much within the mainstream of American religious and political discourse.

The problem is not Jeremiah Wright.

The problem is a contemporary political culture that has come to rely on character assassination as an easy tool for reversing electoral misfortune — and a media that willingly invites manipulation.

Let’s not forget how Wright became an issue in the 2008 presidential race. Republican operatives, fretful about their party’s political fortunes, decided that the only way to weaken the candidacy of Wright’s longtime parishioner, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, was by suggesting the Democratic presidential front-runner was in the sway of an anti-American radical.

That end was achieved by separating out from long and thoughtful sermons regarding matters biblical and political seemingly offensive phrases and then inviting the Grand Old Party’s media echo chamber to repeat the sound bites until they became conventional “wisdom.”

This is a classic guilt-by-association maneuver, played out so aggressively in the current circumstance that it would make Joe McCarthy blush. But it has worked, at least in part because people of good faith have not taken the time to assess and appropriately answer the charge that Obama’s connection to Wright confirms the candidate to be either a closet radical or, worse yet, a dupe of some free-floating, ill-defined but still frightful fringe.

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Wright can be unsettling, thought-provoking, often right and sometimes wrong. But he is neither anti-American nor unpatriotic.

In more ways than Republican and now Democratic critics seem prepared to admit, Wright is the embodiment of an American religious and political tradition of challenging the country’s sins while calling it to the higher ground that extends from the founding of the republic. No less a figure than Thomas Jefferson — who constructed that wall of separation between church and state but who worried a good deal about questions of the divine — worried openly about the retribution that would befall a nation that permitted slavery.

“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other,” wrote Jefferson in 1781’s Notes on the State of Virginia, where he asked, “(Can) the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

The wrath of God brought down on a country that permits slavery? A nation damned by its original sin? God damn America?

America has been blessed from its beginnings by champions of liberty, by abolitionists and civil rights marchers, by suffragists and union organizers, by anti-imperialists like Mark Twain and challengers of the military-industrial complex like Dwight Eisenhower. Necessarily, these patriots have said some tough things about American leaders and policies. They have acknowledged flaws that are self-evident. Yet, they have not done so out of hatred. Rather, they have loved America sufficiently to believe it can be as good and as just as figures so diverse and yet in some very important ways so similar as Thomas Jefferson and Jeremiah Wright have taught us.

Technorati Tags: BarackObama, HillaryClinton, Election08, Democrats, ReverendWright

Bill Clinton Harming His Image As He Fights For Hillary Clinton

I have often disagreed with the more centrist and moderate positions that President Clinton took while serving in the Oval Office.   Apart from those differences I always knew Bill Clinton to be an expert politician with well-honed skills for speaking to the needs and desires of the electorate.  Even members of the GOP had to admit he was a master politician. 

And then came 2008.

What has happened to the former President is hard to say.  But the facts are clear.  He has proved to be race baiting when emphatically stating to his audiences made up of mostly white people, that they are somehow different from those that vote for his wife, Hillary Clinton.

“She’s in it for you and she’s in it because of you. People like you have voted for her in every single state in the country.” People like you. The phrase hung in the air and the room quieted. Clinton didn’t say what the people who voted for Obama were like, but the suggestion was that they were somehow different.

Bill Clinton has often been a hindrance to the campaign team of Hillary Clinton and his missteps, which are clumsy and more noticeable given his true abilities, makes the headlines. 

His role has come at a cost — to morale among some campaign staff, relations inside the Democratic Party and with African-American leaders, and in the view of some, his own legacy. He has lost considerable credibility with many party leaders, who, as “superdelegates” to the party convention, will be crucial in determining who is the Democratic presidential nominee.

At several moments in the campaign, Mr. Clinton has raised hackles with offhand remarks. He offended some African-Americans when he compared Sen. Obama’s eventual victory in the South Carolina primary to Jesse Jackson’s victory there 20 years earlier. Some black leaders considered that a slight against Sen. Obama’s success.

A few weeks ago, he tried to explain away Sen. Clinton’s remarks about a trip to Bosnia, in which she mistakenly said she faced sniper fire when getting off a plane. Instead of clarifying the matter, Mr. Clinton bungled his explanation of how his wife had made the slip, putting renewed attention on an issue the campaign had wanted to put behind it.

When Bill Clinton makes blunders about race, and then pretends not to know that he has stepped over the line, it is then that it is most obvious that winning at all costs has taken a toll on the long-term image for the former President.  And as others note there is a price to be paid.

“I mean, who ‘played the race card’ on President Clinton?”  House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C Clyburn said, referring to comments made in an interview Clinton gave to WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and later denied making. “What does he mean by that unless he is trying to send some kind of signal on race?”

Clyburn, the highest-ranking African American in Congress, has remained neutral throughout this contest, but he has continually expressed concern about the tactics of the Clinton campaign.

“I am concerned … that the conduct of this campaign could very well make the nomination not worth having,” Clyburn told Fox. ““Our party is much bigger than Bill Clinton. It is much bigger than Sens. Clinton or Obama. It is a party that is here to serve the American people. … And I don’t want to see us conduct a campaign in such a way that it does irreparable harm to our being able to do that. When this campaign is over, if Hillary Clinton is the nominee, she cannot get elected president if 25 to 30 percent of black people vote for McCain. She is going to have … to have that same 92 percent of black people that Obama [has] now. And if [Obama] is the nominee, he is going to need her help and her husband’s help getting white voters that he is not now getting. And I don’t see how you can go back to these people and get them to vote for the nominee if you have done all these things and said all of these things about him during the campaign … because you are not going to be able to reverse field in the middle of general election.”

 

 

Technorati Tags: JimClyburn, BillClinton, HillaryClinton, Election08, Democrats, BarackObama, Racism, TheNewYorker, ABC

Will The ‘Bradley Effect’ On Barack Obama Put Al Gore In The White House Campaign?

With the issues that face the nation as a result of Republican ineptitude along with their callous disregard for the truth, there is little reason that a Democratic nominee should not win the White House this year.  But as we prepare for about two more weeks of a bitter fight leading up to the primaries on May 6th between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, we know that this will only produce more dust and confusion about the outcome of this nominating process.  Democrats everywhere must wonder what is happening to our November goal?  More importantly what is running through the minds of the powerful forces that run the Democratic Party?

One of the concerns that many have talked about for weeks is the ‘Bradley Effect’, or the ‘Ford Effect’ named after two prominent black democratic candidates who found themselves wining in the polls only to face racism from voters in the voting booths.  Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. both had huge poll numbers as voters said they would vote for them.  They were on the way to winning as Governor of California and the Tennessee U.S. Senate seat respectively.  But once voters were in the privacy of the voting booth things changed.  America still has a very deep seated problem with racism.  We like to pretend we are above it in certain ways, but sadly we are not.  The results in the Pennsylvania Primary show us why that is true.

When exit polls for the Pennsylvania primary came out late Tuesday afternoon showing a puny lead of 3.6 points for Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama, Democratic leaders who desperately wanted her to end her candidacy were not cheered. They were sure that this overstated Sen. Obama’s strength, as exit polls nearly always have in urban, diverse states. How was it possible, then, that Sen. Clinton, given up for dead by her party’s establishment, won Pennsylvania in a 10-point landslide? The answer is the dreaded Bradley Effect.

Prominent Democrats only whisper when they compare Obama, the first African-American witha serious chance to be president, with what happened to Los Angeles’ black Mayor Tom Bradley a quarter of a century ago. Exit polls in 1982 showed Bradley ahead for governor of California, but he actually lost to Republican George Deukmejian. Pollster John Zogby (who correctly predicted Clinton’s double-digit win Tuesday) said what practicing Democrats would not. “I think voters face-to-face are not willing to say they would oppose an andan African-American candidate,” Zogby told me.

If there really is a Bradley Effect in 2008, Zogby sees November peril ahead for Obama in blue states. John McCain is a potential winner not only in Pennsylvania but also Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and can retain Ohio. But there seems no way Clinton can overtake Obama’s lead in delegates and the popular vote. For unelected super-delegates to deprive Obama of the nomination would so depress African-American general election votes that the nomination would be worthless. In a year when all normal political indicators point to Republican defeat on all fronts, the Democratic Party faces a deepening dilemma.

As Democrats ponder this situation there is again the idea that perhaps a third way can be found to stir all the hearts of the Democratic Party and bring unity for the fall campaign.  That way is found in the candidacy of Al Gore.  After all, he won the White House once before.

In the wake of Barack Obama’s defeat in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, the Democrats have a huge problem. On the one hand, they have a front-runner who hasn’t won a single one of the major primary states other than his own, who’s a neophyte on the national scene, and who has enormous difficulties attracting the white, non-college educated voters he needs to win. On the other, there’s Hillary Clinton - a candidate who has greatly diminished her stature on the campaign trail, who faces huge liabilities of her own (in part because of her gender and in part because of Clinton fatigue), and whose chances of winning in November would require her to thread an Electoral College needle.

Furthermore, the long, bitter campaign has produced an untenable result: a large portion of each camp’s supporters now say they are unlikely to support the intra-party rival should their candidate not win the nomination.

Therefore, if the Democrats want to have their best chance to win an election in November that six months ago it looked like they couldn’t lose, they may have only one option at this point: they can turn to Al Gore.

In truth, Gore would be a stronger candidate in November than the two front-runners. He knows what it’s like to run in a tough presidential campaign, which, as we’re finding out with Obama, is a huge advantage. He is, after all, a Nobel Prize winner; he has the advantage of now running from outside Washington even though he’s as experienced as John McCain; and he might be able to pick off a Southern state or two. He’s already won once - with an asterisk. And he could put the electoral focus back on the economy and the Republican record of the past eight years - which it will rarely be as long as Clinton or Obama is the nominee.

Sure, Gore’s entry would obviously not be greeted with waves of enthusiasm by Obamasupporters. Still, he is quite popular with one of the Illinois senator’s principal constituencies: the young.

Where the Democratic Party heads, and on what shoulders the responsibilities will be placed, is not certain this morning by any means.  But the needs of the nation are paramount.  The removal of the entire Bush and Company team and mentality must be our goal this year.

Technorati Tags: BradleyEffect, TomBradley, HaroldFord, HillaryClinton, BarackObama, Democrats, Election08, AlGore

 

Dick Morris Predicts The Way Barack Obama Gets The Democratic Party Nomination

I really find Dick Morris slimy.  And yet……he is not a stupid man.  I have come to respect his views, even though I feel like grabbing a shower after I see him on television where he provides his insights.

Morris has made it known for some time that Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party nominee.  And after the Pennsylvania Primary he has again written why he still holds to that view.

But don’t expect the open primaries of Indiana and North Carolina to behave like Pennsylvania’s geriatrics. Both states are younger, especially North Carolina, and independents can vote in each primary. (North Carolina is where a lot of the young people who fled Pennsylvania winters and job losses ended up).

Over the next two weeks, we’ll be treated to much hoopla about how the Democratic race is once again up for grabs. Then, on May 5, Hillary’s hopes will be dashed once more.

And then? After the votes are counted in all the primaries, look for the Gang of Four - Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and John Edwards - to join together and issue a challenge to the superdelegates: Make up your minds.

Together, they’ll probably demand that these appointed delegates commit to one candidate or the other by mid June. And since the primaries will have lifted Obama over 1,900 delegates (elected and super), he’ll only need about 100 more, out of about 300 uncommitted superdelegates.

Their hands forced, enough superdelegates will go to Obama to put him over the top - he’ll be the candidate.

Technorati Tags: DickMorris, BarackObama, HillaryClinton, Election08, Democrats, NorthCarolinaPrimary, IndianaPrimary

Hillary Clinton’s Win in Pennsylvania Gained By Dirty Tactics At Expense Of Barack Obama

The idea that the Democratic nomination should be Hillary Clinton’s, and that her right to that goal is paramount above the needs of the party and the nation, is hard to understand.  Granted there needs to be within the heart of every candidate the idea that they are the best for the position for which they campaign in order to make it through the daily grind of the race.  That is, I suspect, only a natural feeling.  If a candidate did not feel so strongly that they were superior to the opposition the race should never have been attempted.  But when ego and power becomes the driver of the campaign at the expense of the greater good, than we need to examine that candidate even more closely.  That is where we are this morning after the conclusion of the Pennsylvania Primary where Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama 55% to 45%.

The issue is how she won in yesterday’s primary.  By ripping Barack Obama, who many Democrats feel will be the eventual nominee this fall, she only gives ammunition to the Republicans who drove the nation off the road during the past two terms of President Bush’s time in office. 

Despite Clinton’s victory in the state, overall expectations were on Obama’s side. Fifty-five percent said they expected him, not Clinton, to be the party’s eventual nominee.  And Obama supporters were more confident: just 5 percent of his supporters thought Clinton will win the nomination; by contrast, 22 percent of Clinton supporters said they think Obama will be the nominee.

By undermining Obama in such harsh and deep ways, when she knows full well there is no way she can become the nominee, she is feeding the opposition talking points for the fall.  In addition, she is driving a wedge through the Democratic Party that may not be so easy to mend after she has finally been defeated from her seemingly never-ending quest to chase a dream.  Two-thirds of voters in exit polling in Pennsylvania felt that Clinton attacked Obama unfairly.

Bigger needs and issues, from the Iraq War to the recession that grips the nation, should be the topics that are brought home to the dinner tables of the voters.  Instead a steady stream of ‘nasty’ is wrapped in campaign bunting by the Clinton forces and presented as political discourse.  The whole nation suffers by her tactics.

The fact that Barack Obama leads in the national polls, and has more delegates and popular votes, gives no good reason for superdelegates to view Clinton with more enthusiasm now then they did before her six-week trek through the mud of Pennsylvania.  She has taken the Democratic Party on a path no thoughtful or wise party elders wish to travel. 

We are where we were before Pennsylvania.  Barack Obama is ready to be the nominee, and qualified to be President of the United States.

Who will tell Hillary Clinton it is time to exit the stage?

Technorati Tags: BarackObama, HillaryClinton, PennsylvaniaPrimary, Democrats, Election08, IraqWar, PresidentBush, ABCNews

 

No Democratic Debate For Katie Couric And CBS News

I was hoping that Katie Couric would get a Democratic primary debate on CBS so all the major anchors would have an equal opportunity to pose questions and enlighten the nation during the process of this primary season.

CBS’ hopes for a primary debate, have been officially dashed. The North Carolina Democratic party announced they are canceling plans for Sunday’s debate because they could not get a commitment from Sen. Barack Obama. The face-off was to be moderated by Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer with a plum spot after 60 Minutes.

Technorati Tags: HillaryClinton, BarackObama, CBS, KatieCouric, DemocraticDebates