If you are an Obama supporter worried about her holding the Party hostage, here's some facts that may make you rest easier:
- Even though she trounced Obama in Puerto Rico, per tunesmith at DailyKos she underperformed:
Before the Puerto Rico primary, Hillary Clinton needed 79.24% of the remaining delegates (uncommitted + edwards delegates) in order to claim the nomination. She had 1876.5, and there were 303.5 remaining delegates. She needed 79.24% of them to reach 2117.Now, after winning Puerto Rico, she has 1914.5 delegates, with 248.5 remaining. She now needs 81.49% of the remaining delegates. That's a higher percentage than before winning Puerto Rico. She got a lot today, but she didn't even get the bare minimum to hold steady. She fell further behind today - her nomination is even less likely than it was before.
- Although Harold Ickes and her most hardened anti-Obama supporter may claim that the Democratic rules committee somehow hijacked her chance at the nomination by one vote, for anyone who's been following with a remotely open mind, per hudson at MyDD the facts are different. It is, actually, her own darn fault:
That contest was won fair and square by Barack Obama -- with a lot of help from the inept Clinton campaign. So let me try to list just a few of the votes and other events which collectively "changed everything" for Hillary Clinton -- changed her candidacy from one of inevitability, to one that has embarrassed many who once supported both her and her husband's political careers...
1) Hillary voting to give Bush the power to wage a falsely-justified war;
2) Hillary relying on tired establishment figures such as Mark Penn, Harold Ickes, Terry McAuliffe and Howard Wolfson to steer her strategy and message;
3) Hillary deciding to neglect the Iowa caucuses, until it was too late, giving Obama a huge national burst of publicity and momentum;
3) Hillary failing to prepare for the possibility that the contest would not be decided by the votes cast on Super Tuesday;
4) Hillary failing to comprehend the new nature of campaign fundraising in the internet era, until it was too late;
5) Hillary losing eleven straight votes in states after Super Tuesday;
6) Hillary failing, despite her decades in politics, to understand the importance of a robust 50-state grassroots strategy;
7) Hillary refusing to recognize that caucus voters send delegates to the Democratic National Convention, too;
8) Hillary committing gaffe after gaffe (from Tuzla to RFK) which made Obama's job much easier than it needed to be;
9) Hillary going negative on Obama early and often, causing even some of her own supporters (such as the editorial board at the New York Times, which endorsed her) to call on her to cool her rhetoric -- calls she ignored, further alienating core voters;
10) Hillary using divisive code words and faux-populist posturing in an attempt to divide the Democratic party against itself for her own gain, thus alienating superdelegates, including those on the Rules committee;
11) Hillary losing two out of three contests to an opponent she wrongly underestimated;
12) And most importantly, the millions and millions of votes cast for Barack Obama "changed everything" -- more, by any rational and unbiased measure, than were received by Clinton.
- If you're looking for change, i.e. true progressive leadership, per Peggy Drexler at HuffPo it's not Sen. Clinton:
She supported the Defense of Marriage Act, she co-sponsored a flag burning amendment, she voted to send our sons and daughters into the meat grinder of an unnecessary war. And with close to 70 percent of women in most polls favoring stricter gun control laws, what are we to make of her snuggling up to the NRA with tales of her childhood shooting lessons?
That Defense of Marriage Act vote is the one that always gets me when talking to gay Clinton supporters, the ones who claim they may not vote for Obama in the General Election. When are they going to feel, like the African-American community, that the Clinton transaction can end up seeming one-way?
- She hasn't been vetted -- Obama just never went after her. Or Bill. The Republicans will. They've been planning to, building their portfolio against them, for the past four years.
Without excerpting and exacerbating here, I'm linking to two more aggressive pieces. One is the article in Vanity Fair that the Clinton team, Bill's, is already objecting to. Todd S. Purdum covers all the stuff you haven't been hearing about Bill Clinton, i.e. the fast crowd he runs with, his main benefactors and their links all the way to the Kazakhstan dictatorship, his post-op behavior issues and then the way he's always used people, without taking responsibility for himself.
Think of the monumental amount of GOP media distraction that's being shortcircuited here, that we won't have to bathe in -- unless, of course, Obama makes her his running mate.
- The other piece, by Paul Abrams at HuffPo, lists In Bowing Out, 7 Things Hillary Clinton Must Say to Meet the Standards Set by Hillary Rosen. I leave it to Sen. Clinton to prove me wrong, but I think she will not fulfill 1, 2, 5 & 6. The others I expect she'll be fine with, should she bow out gracefully, this week or next.
And, lastly, something that may not be a fact, but is lovely to contemplate:
- Per Diane Francis at HuffPo, Obama will crush McCain, and why:
1. McCain is McBush and Bush has an approval rating of 28%. In a country that has been roughly 50-50 in the last two Presidential contests, that means that 22% of those who voted Republican are likely to stay at home or vote for the Democrats. If so, that's a landslide for Obama.
2. McCain is having trouble getting the support of the religious crazies in his party and as he panders to them, he alienates the independent, or secular, voters he needs to win.
3. McCain is having trouble getting money from Republican-Bush donors because they know the Party's over for awhile. As he panders and leans on Bush for money, he alienates the independents.
4. Cindy McCain. Her abject refusal to publish her financial net worth, or income levels, is totally unacceptable for the wife of a Presidential candidate. Even John Kerry's wife disclosed information.
5. John McCain's health, not his age. He has Stage 2a melanoma in his declining years...This is a condition which must be checked constantly.
I'd give additional reasons, the foremost of which is that Obama knows how things work now and McCain is not only not up to speed, he's not smart enough to get so in time to save America, even from the diminishment that his Party has gotten us. Obama is, in essence, running all-cylinders on the cutting edge of contemporary business.
It's not Mac vs. PC.
Obama is Google. John McCain is IBM.
As in mainframe.
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