Vice President Clinton?

May 8, 2008

Why would a smart woman like Hillary Clinton continue her campaign when the odds are against her? In her public appearances as a newly cast woman of the people she says she is doing it for us. If so, thanks but no thanks.

Speculation assigns her pertinacity to other motives. Some are guessing that she is continuing to campaign as a means of crowbarring herself into being chosen as the vice-presidential candidate. According to this line of thought, the longer she campaigns the more she binds white women of a certain age to her and can argue that unless she is on the ballot they will be so disaffected that they will stay home on election day.

Others whisper that she hopes by soldiering on to make a deal with the Obama campaign that, in return for a.) her withdrawal and b.) her promise to stump for him against McCain, her campaign debts will be taken care of and she will be repaid the money she loaned herself. She does have a reputation for grasping for a buck.

Clinton Drops Stump-Speech Criticism of Obama

May 8, 2008

During a quick campaign swing into West Virginia, which appeared to have been organized mainly for the purpose of stifling rumors that she will quickly exit the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton on Wednesday restructured her standard stump speech to remove overt criticisms of Barack Obama.

As with her muted victory/concession speech after losing Tuesday's North Carolina primary and barely scraping through the Indiana contest on Tuesday, the New York senator sounded party-unity and anti-Republican themes rather than stressing her differences with the now likely Democratic nominee.

Clinton's speech also dropped references to staying in the race "until the convention" and instead indicated that she was in it "until we have a nominee." That line echoes former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's comments from the latter stages of the Republican nomination race and leaves open the prospect of exiting the competition at a point when:

The Clinton Campaign is Broke

May 7, 2008

Don't misread the reports that Hillary Clinton has fronted her presidential campaign another $6.4 million.

This is not onward-to-victory money.

This is keep-the-lights-on money. And it has already been spent.

Clinton One Step Closer To Exit

May 7, 2008

Most reporters are bad at math, but I can still count. Hillary Clinton won by 214,000 votes in Pennsylvania and netted eight delegates, according to CNN. Barack Obama won North Carolina last night by 233,00 votes and picked up fourteen more pledged delegates than Clinton. Hillary's narrow win in Indiana--by 18,000 votes and two additional delegates--will not be enough to slow Obama's momentum or check his math.

Clinton will likely stay in the race until June 3, but the contest effectively ended last night. The question is not if Obama will be the Democratic nominee, but when.

The primary entered what I like to think of as a clarifying moment in the past few weeks. For months people said there were few legitimate differences between Obama and Clinton. Yet ever since Ohio, the wonky, centrist, empirically-minded Senator from New York transformed into a rough-and-tumble cultural populist: courting downscale whites almost exclusively, slamming Obama from the right on guns and Bill Ayers, siding with John McCain on the gas tax, scoffing at economists and threatening to obliterate Iran. Like the Republicans, she went after Obama's patriotism, "elitism" and former pastor, thus validating the right's attacks. "She may continue the campaign, but the harsh attacks are over," the Politico's Mike Allen predicted this morning. We'll see. As polls closed last night, Clinton adviser Harold Ickes--stealing yet another page from the GOP playbook--warned of an "October surprise" with Obama.

Barack Obama's Very Good Primary Night

May 6, 2008

The last really good primary night for Barack Obama was February 19, when the senator from Illinois won the Wisconsin primary by a 58-41 margin.

Since then, the candidate who has been on the verge of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination for so very long has struggled to "close the deal."

He did not close it Tuesday night.

'A Change is Gonna Come'

May 6, 2008

American Idol finalist Syesha Mercado had just finished singing Sam Cooke's 1964 classic "A Change is Gonna Come" when Obama strode onto the stage in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Syesha wept, as she reminded Randy, Paula and Simon of the civil rights movement which fueled Cooke's song, life and power.

Obama spoke of the change that was coming --the attacks, the rightwing playbook, and he worked to inoculate himself with power, passion, and words that soared.

Key Voting Blocs Boost Obama in Indiana

May 6, 2008

So Barack Obama is back. The results on Tuesday did not provide the "game changer" Hillary Clinton so desperately needed. Instead, Obama built on his leads in delegates and the popular vote. His aides pointed to May 20 as the day when he will clinch a majority of elected delegates, essentially becoming the party's presumptive nominee. And that's not all.

In Indiana, Obama improved his support across several key demographics, despite a bruising month of attacks on his pastor, patriotism and populism. Compared to Ohio and Pennsylvania, he generally drew more votes from white women, Catholics, gun owners, households earning under $50,000 annually, voters prioritizing the economy, and voters without a college degree. A Democratic field operative sent in this graph of Obama's performance in the three states:

Indiana, NC Exit Polls Reveal Deeply Divided Dems

May 6, 2008

There are no clear results yet from Indiana or North Carolina.

But there is some bad news for the Democrats.

Among those who told exit pollsters in both states that they had voted in the Democratic primary, half said they would not for Barack Obama if he is the party's nominee against John McCain this fall.

Polls Suggest Tuesday May Settle Nothing

May 5, 2008

The last round of polling data for Tuesday's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina suggests that the contests are incredibly volatile.

This means that the contests could produce surprises all around.

In Indiana, where Hillary Clinton is supposed to be ahead, a late poll by the Zogby group puts Barack Obama in front narrowly, 44 percent to 42 percent.

The Era of Gutter Politics

May 5, 2008

Too long, too sleazy, too expensive. That's how a friend described the Democratic primary this morning and I couldn't agree more.

It all started off so inspiring---the Democratic field as a whole was the best in years, and Obama and Clinton in particular were two intelligent, skilled, historic candidates. It was a win-win situation for the Democratic Party. And then, soon after the voting started, the race descended into the gutter.

There's a whole lotta blame to go around. You can blame the Clinton campaign for playing the race card against Obama and pushing every ridiculous guilt-by-association. You can blame right-wing hatchet men for inventing lie after lie about Obama and for smearing the Clintons for twenty years. But much of the blame rests with the so-called mainstream media, particularly tv pundits, for manufacturing scandal after scandal, and then endlessly repeating the coverage under the guise of "news."