Hillary Should Keep Fighting; Here’s Why

Well, for what it's worth, none other than the head of the DNC thinks this goes on at least to PA.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/...

I think you miss the point of having HRC. She is a fighter, and she is very good at negative politics and campaigning. Perhaps what the country needs now though, after 7 years of w's negative approach, is a positive vision. That HRC may have, but she is basically a fear monger - vote for me because He is bad.

I was around during Kennedy's time and Obama has that same charisma and vision. It is time.

I truly believe this is a situation, for many people, where for those who understand, no explanation is necessary, for those who don't none will do...

A Must Read For Hillary.

Look at the horrible crap that this Obama website is saying about Mrs. Clinton. She should be made aware of this as soon as possible before the entire campaign falls off the cliff because of the rotten lies on this blog called www.matrix-evolutions.com. It starts with:

We endorse Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.
This is the most important election America will ever have, possibly the last if Obama is not elected.

The Revolutionary Party derives its politics from the equation for evolution we have imprinted on the flag. This function, which underpins our thinking, has been accepted by science for the last eighty years and we trust in it as well as true religious believers trust in God. Mathematics doesn’t lie. An analysis based on the equation indicates that the so-called war on terror will inexorably ratchet up to world war, a genuinely terrifying thought given a world heavily armed with nuclear weapons. For that reason we support Barack Obama as the only real anti-war candidate.

Hillary? In our opinion, she is the more all round competent candidate and has been upended by Obama to a great degree because he is trim and youthfully enthusiastic. But before Hillary came Bill, which should cause us to stop and think.

The value of our mathematics based analysis lies in its ability to objectively distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys. The technical aspects of the analysis make it slow reading for those without a science background, so we will give its conclusions first here and save the detailed reasoning for later.

Put simply, the Clintons are what is known in the political science textbooks as populists, those who achieve political success by playing to the people, to their needs and pains and wants. But there is a difference between patter and delivery. We are all familiar with artificial soda. The Clintons are like an artificial banana split, very likable, but with no real food value.

Recall President Clinton and his first lady. During their tenure America’s favorite political couple sang a song of health care delivery, but delivered rather on prison construction and on the number of police put on the streets. The Pew Report that came out the end of February said that one American in a hundred is locked up in a prison or jail. To put this into better perspective, the report said that America has 7 million people in jail or otherwise under the control of the penal system. This is 16 times more per capita than the communist People’s Republic of China, where, we are told, there is no freedom or human rights. Clinton legislature took America to the highest prison population in the world, a statistic historically associated with police states like Stalinist Russia and apartheid South Africa. This is not to say that America is a police state, of course, for if it were you’d have heard about it on the evening news.

Also notably absent in the media is another creation of the Clintons, the near million homeless people that wander the streets of Sacramento and Las Vegas and our other big cities. This sharp upsurge in homelessness came about inarguably as a result of Clinton legislature that ended LBJ’s war on poverty by terminating effective social protections for out of work people, something many more will become more familiar with as the stock market collapses from the cost of the war and the recession takes hold in full force.

What the Clintons did with prisons and police and welfare protection and NAFTA and failed to do with health care very much pleased the moneyed class and the conservatives. Our technical analysis objectively shows the Republican social and fiscal conservatives to be bad guys because their relationship to the working class and middle class is basically that of master to servant. This fact is also muted by populist politicians like the Clintons whose tax returns, were they to be made public, would show that they are members in good standing of the moneyed class too.

This deep secret of class control and abuse is also kept under wraps by the media, whose personalities are hired and controlled by the moneyed class. Other than the few raisins stirred into in the poison muffin of TV to make it seem fair, media people who don’t keep the secret of class control and the unhappiness of most of us that derives from it don’t last long on their jobs or are not hired to begin with.

The ones who do make the cut endlessly spout the lies of the so-called American Dream in one form or another. The power of the media to control people’s thoughts and actions in conformity with American ideology is difficult to assess for people who get their information primarily from the media, which is most people. This power of media to control thinking was dramatically illustrated towards the end of WWII in Germany just before the fall of Berlin as the Allied and Russian troops converged on the city. Most Germans even in those final moments still believed Hitler’s media propaganda that they were still winning the war.

In our own times, hidden by the media from public sight are facts about life readily observable even by doing something as simple as riding public transportation. Here the observer notes that the common people are unhappy, fear and personal failure showing clearly on their faces and in their behaviors. This effect of control and abuse in the workplace and at school is not made clear from TV where all the media personalities act through their endlessly smiling and bubbly days to show to the audience that America really is a happy place, the steady stream of mass murders in schools, workplaces and malls not able to be kept out of the news notwithstanding.

And much as the ugly facts of our present existence are air brushed out in the media, so also is the future we realistically face. Not made clear is that the dollar is fast becoming as worthless as the paper it is printed on to keep the war going. Or that the stock market and the housing market will soon halve their value giving those who have been spared homelessness and jail to date a taste of these hells on earth firsthand. The Clintons will not care because they are a part of the apparatus that brought us to where we are at in America today.

Hillary should be given credit for being an ambitious and a profoundly adept social climber and a very talented actress, our American Evita. We have no problem applauding her for her personal successes. But she is never going to go against the wishes of the money class that created her and Bill and supported these two as their adorable political puppets. She will not stop this war.

Yes, she says she will, despite her voting for the war. And, of course, there are those of you that think that Hillary would never lie to us. But Bill said he would never lie to us, too. And he said it so well that I yet don’t believe he lied to us about Monica. Monica who? She never existed. That is how good an actor Bill is. And this suggests that his mate is no less of a self-serving liar.

Of course, transgressions are relative. Yes, the flag pin wearing conservatives are more disgusting than the Clintons. Who of us is not totally revulsed by the smell of a public rest room emanating from the Bible squeezing, boy hustling conservative senator from Idaho caught with his pants down? Nobody has caught Bill at something that viscerally gross yet. Still, what character is there in a first family when the head of the most powerful nation on earth sticks a penile object, not even his own, up some college kid’s vagina? If the Clinton presidency were a movie, they would not be playing the Star Spangled Banner in the background during that particular scene.

And to be completely and totally unkind – and very logical -- doesn’t it make you wonder about the guy’s wife? Really, does any intelligent female over the age of 22 think that Hillary actually felt bad about Bill and Monica? Judging from the observable obvious that Bill is no more than Hillary’s showboat, the best educated guess is that is Hillary is lesbian, a married one, not that unusual in modern America. If Hillary was mad about anything with Monica, it was that she didn’t get a shot at her too. Watch one of Hillary’s girlfriends surfacing soon to clarify Hillary’s preference as to penile object.

The smiling Clintons are so phony and so odd in this area that one would not be surprised to find that the unconfident Chelsea Clinton developed as such as a result of some form of child abuse. Chelsea does not look happy. Neglect by the Clintons is hardly to be overlooked as this ambitious pair had better things to pay attention to in their furious political rise to the top than their daughter. And sexual abuse is not to be totally ruled out either given Bill’s sexual tastes.

The best bet to end the war and end our American style police state is to vote for Barack Obama. Not for Hillary, who is sufficiently self-serving and devious that one would not be surprised to see her team up with Huckabee on a national reconciliation ticket to satisfy her political ambition. Hopefully Obama will not be removed by the ruling class by assassination or some such stratagem. But if so, and we dearly hope not, the Revolutionary Party is ready to offer a sensible replacement candidate. If enough people get in touch to say they are interested, I did run for President in 2000 as a write-in candidate and would consider it again. But only in the event that Obama is derailed by the conservatives, which we very much fear because these people would do anything to retain power....

Please quick tell somebody on Hillary’s campaign staff what is going on with these trashy Obama sites.
Martha Turner

There's been enough nastiness between Clinton and Obama supporters to power New York City for the next 10 years.

Truthfully, I like all three Senators running for POTUS for different reasons. Which is why I WILL NOT engage in the nastiness (your post doesn't count in that at all Damozel). My extended family is 51% Obama and 49% Clinton. And the way they have treated each other is a model for how other Clinton and Obama Supporters should treat each other: WITH RESPECT SINCE YOUR ON THE SAME DAMN SIDE!

Damozel:

None of the pundits worth reading are saying that Clinton should admit anything. What some of them are acknowledging that she has run out of road and should concede sooner rather than later.

You say that "I am resigned to having Obama as my candidate, but I hope Hillary will fight on."

From this I presume that you are not a member of the bow-out-gracefully school.

Hey, thanks for implying that I'm duped by empty promises of magic and, I don't know, free love or something. It's always good to insult your readers by at last the second paragraph. At least we keep the insults of fellow Democrats mutual this way.

With that emotional reaction out of the way, I agree that if Clinton (or Obama, if Clinton wins Texas and Ohio by, oh, 90%, and he falls behind by over 100 delegates) has a reasonable shot at winning, she should keep on fighting. The reason people who like Clinton just fine (which includes me) are suggesting that she should withdraw after today if she makes no substantial gains in delegates is because the more time we have to unify the party the better. If Obama had just lost every single primary and caucus for an entire month (11, I believe?) and then basically cut even in a couple big states, of course many Democrats would be saying that he should drop out for the bigger purpose.

Damozel, I think you've done an excellent job of explaining why you're supporting Hillary Clinton. She is your candidate of choice and you have every right to vote for her and express your views. I think she's an admirable, accomplished woman. But there are four main issues that are the root of her campaign troubles with primary voters.

The first is her vote to authorize force in Iraq. You say that she has stated she regrets doing so, and I've seen many others claim that she acted on her best judgment with the information she had at the time. Yet 23 other Senators (including several members of the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee and the Intelligence Committee) all had the foresight to vote against that bill. I'm not saying that the President must be perfect or omniscient, but when party leaders involved in the committees with the most in depth knowledge of an issue are clearly opposed to it, shouldn't she (and many others) have asked herself why they were against it? Doesn't it show better judgement and better sense to dig deeper into something as crucial as a vote to go to war instead of marching with the hawks?

Clinton also voted to support the Kyl-Lieberman amendment which, in my opinion, was more than just a mistake. Saber-rattling does not intimidate Iran, it only incites them to hate us more. Anyone who isn't deaf and blind to current events knows this. Our next President has a lot of cleaning up and fence-mending to do. Clinton's history as a hawk does not bode well for a more diplomatic executive.

She spends a lot of time going on about her vast experience. And there's no doubt that she is incredibly accomplished and a long-time public servant. But if she wants to tout 35 years of experience, she needs to open up her records from the 8 years she was First Lady, otherwise all we have is 7 years as a Senator and 35 years of being Bill's wife. It might also help if her campaign staff could name an instance when she successfully dealt with a crisis.

And lastly, her core problem is generational in scope and something that I don't think she can overcome, nor do I think she views it as an issue. She's an insider and a baby boomer and has a political style best suited to a very brutal kind of politics. A lot of Americans are just plain tired of the useless bickering that stalls everything worthwhile and allows for all kinds of pork projects which are basically bribes. Perhaps it's the young idealist in me, but I think we should be relying on meaningful compromises to pass legislation that all parties can be content with. You can't teach a sword to be a pen, and Clinton is certainly as brutally effective, intimidating, and purposeful as any sword. But the times ahead are going to require more finesse than strength and more diplomacy than force.

If Clinton takes the popular vote in Texas and Ohio today, Obama should recognize the inevitable, and just pull the plug on his campaign for the good of the party. After all, there will be no realistic chance of him winning the nomination if he can’t win in any of the big states, the momentum has shifted to Clinton, and he can't beat Clinton in states where he outspent her 4 to 1. Obama simply cannot win the nomination without superdelegates and superdelegates are going to be reluctant to support him with those problems. For the sake of uniity, for the sake of the party, Obama should cut a deal for the VP role and quit this divisive campaign.

As I understand it, no one is asking that she not go forward because she isn't a good candidate.

When one candidate is chosen, the other isn't rendered unworthy. It's not about her.

The argument is that it is bad for the party's chances in November and perhaps the party (and politics) generally. (And the candidates are running, in essence, to be the leader of the Democratic Party.)

I always was wondering why he never asked his delegates to go elsewhere........maybe now I know why........

http://www.draftedwards.org/

Shaun: You're right. I do not ascribe to that school.

SHAUN: You're right. I do not ascribe to the 'bow out gracefully' school. One way you find out who is the best candidate is by finding out who can stay on his or her feet longest under duress. Rock on, Hillary and Barry O. I have faith that the best one will prevail.

PACATRUE: To clarify, I most definitely wasn't talking about you.

ABA23 As i said, the Democratic party will have to take its chances. It's let me down repeatedly---and perhaps we Hillary supporters in Florida feel it more keenly than other voters. I don't hate McCain and I'm not impressed with Obama.

I'm not a party girl. I want the best man--or woman---for the job. RIGHT now, I think it's Hillary. I haven't YET seen anything to change my mind. If I have to accept Obama, I'll adapt. But he is MOST DEFINITELY not my choice for THIS election cycle.

AMANDA, you may be right. I don't know. That's what the political process will determine. If what you say is true, she won't win because she can't win because she won't be able to overcome what you say are her 'core problems.' But I---speaking as a member of the 'Fight on, Hillary!' contingent--- want her to go on trying. I set out my reasons for supporting her because I wanted to point out that there are reasons for preferring her and that I can explain mine. Obviously, she's made mistakes. I don't give the same weight as you do to those particular mistakes and I have my reasons for it. But I haven't succeeded in changing the minds of a single person who gives the reasons you gave for opposing her, so I'm content simply to leave it at 'agree to disagree.'

DWSUWF, (whew, not an easy name to remember!), was that tongue in cheek? My impression is you are saying that Obama should withdraw from the campaign to win the Democratic nomination when he's won the majority of Democratic primaries and caucuses, and has more delegates than any other Democratic candidate, because his victories aren't in the biggest states??

Woodnsoul,

I understand your point. As I recall, both candidates were positive until Iowa. I was comfy with both of them at that point.

Then again, you seem to believe that Obama's campaign has been above going negative. I think that he's been plenty negative, just in a largely passive and surrogate-dependent way. (And I'm NOT counting either candidate's challenging of the other's record, as I don't consider that negative).

Two examples deeply bothered me.

Just after Iowa, I saw Obama create the false impression that experience and change are mutually exclusive -- they're not. His own words strongly implied that if Hillary goes to the White House, the nation will suffer the same ills that it has under Bush.

In the process, he further (largely via the media's help) strongly implied that Hillary is a useless Old Worlder and corrupt, while he is coming to the table with clean hands. I'd call that negative (and in a big, fundamental way).

What bothered me most (partly because it set the tone for the campaign) was when Obama's surrogates and prominent supporters labeled Hillary a racist over the MLK comment -- which clearly was not a slight about MLK but rather a positive statement that she would be helpful to reformers like MLK -- who DO IN FACT need presidents and legislatures to codify their ideals into law.

The only person who could have stopped the momentum of that feeding frenzy was Obama, himself. Instead, he chose to benefit from the media's (and his surrogates'/supporters') emotional and untrue cries of racism over the MLK remark. Stealthy and passive-aggressive as the tactic was, it WAS negative.

I've worked on a dozen or so political campaigns (largely state and local). Very rarely is silence in response to accusations against an opponent something that just happens: it's usually a heavily discussed and calculated choice.

Damozel mentions that she hasn't changed the mind of a single person who gave the reasons Amanda gave, so she must 'agree to disagree'. I've been reflecting on both internet/blog debates as well as debates such as this in general. It think it's rare to unheard of for anyone on any side to actually change their mind in the middle of a debate -- unless it's a trivial matter (where to eat dinner) or someone is particularly powerful or important (hey, boss, senator, new girlfriend, you're right!). Instead, persuasion seems to be more of a seed-planting event. You give good reasons and try not to offend the other person. Almost always the person immediately rejects those reasons, but sometimes later they revisit them and, after they've cooled off, think through them again on their own and decide maybe there's some merit. This is one of the primary reasons one has to keep a cool head (like I did not in my first comment) and remain open to the other person. If someone feels they are being attacked personally, they rarely get past that to look at the actual content of the message.

ABA 23,

If Hillary waits until after Pennsylvania (which has more delegates than Ohio) before considering dropping out, the party would have about 6 and 1/2 months to repair rifts. If she drops out tomorrow, the party will have about 8 months.

If the party can't come together in 6 and 1/2 months, what makes you think it can come together with an extra month and a half?

"Damozel mentions that she hasn't changed the mind of a single person who gave the reasons Amanda gave,"

"her core problem is generational"

Yes, it's hard for Hillary to change her age.

That's what botox is for, casual! ;) (Of course, Amanda gave several other reasons as well that weren't about age.)

Math isn't that hard.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/118240/output/print

Hard to see how she can possibly get back in this under even the most positive scenarios.

If you doesn't win both TX and OH by at least 8% and probably 10% she's going to be pressured.

Damozel: Glad to see you are back with your Hill Shilling craziness. Jill seems to be lost to the aeries and Holly is blogging from a padded cell, so it's up to you to keep the silliness going with at least a pretense of objectivity, Bravo!

And to celebrate that math, a little bit of arrogance and deprecation towards the opponent............

TO: Interested Parties

From: David Plouffe, Campaign Manager, Obama for America

RE: The Real Meaning of March 4th



......................................


While the Clintons gamely continue to try to move the goal posts, at some point there has to be a reckoning. It is a very simple question – what is their path to secure the nomination? No amount of spin can change the math. We look forward to their tortured answers on Wednesday morning.

Replying to Cupples:

It is true enough that 1 1/2 extra months of fence mending would probably be inconsequential. But there are other factors, not the least of which is that the inevitably escalating negativity between increasingly rancorous Democratic camps may sour an electorate that a mere few weeks ago was ecstatic about both its choice and its chances. Perhaps more importantly, it's a huge blow to the survivor's financial resources. And all the while Sen. McCain smooths over his own disgruntled party factions.

(For the record, I'm not arguing one way or the other; my point was only that those calling for Sen. Clinton's withdrawal are not doing so because they think she shouldn't be or isn't qualified to be the nominee, so Damozel's (and others') perfectly understandable and justifiable reasons to support her candidacy are somewhat beside the point.)

What a trashy smear, Martha. That site has nothing to do with Obama. Shall we find a trashy site by someone who favors Hillary and claim it as hers here? Cmon, this is a site for intelligent people who don't buy that kind of junk.

Don't forget as well that, as any non-liberal can remind you and as any conservative should be able to remind you, that change [grin] is not the same as improvement. One does not cause, much less guarantee, the other; what you believe or hope [grin] the probability to be is something else altogether.

Damozel,

I assume that you think that Senator Clinton should fight on so we can see more like this?

“I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. Sen. John McCain has a lifetime of experience that he’d bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.”

Where she endorses the Republican candidate above her fellow Democrat? Or has she secretly switched parties?

Oh, and a quote from a Washington Post article that Joe linked to provides another reason for Hillary to fight on.

Republicans hope the race continues. "It's not a matter of splitting the party as much as it is providing us on the GOP side of the aisle with talking points and ammunition for the fall campaign," wrote Republican Neil Newhouse. "While the length of the Democrats' race certainly has captured the attention and interest of the electorate, the longer this goes on, the better chance [John] McCain has in November."

Aba23,

Pushing Hillary out before Pennsylvania might help the party in one sense, but it could tear the party apart on another front.

Some Hillary supporters will downright resent the party (some will even resent Obama) if the party pushes her out when it SEEMS that she might still have a chance. (Remember, most voters aren’t familiar with “delegate math.”)

The calls for Hillary to drop out (Jonathan Alter advised her to do it BEFORE TX/OH) already remind some Dems of Bush's tactics here in Fla during the 2000 recount: essentially, "Gore -- give up, move on, and let me have an easy win."

That's expected from Bush/Rove, but it's NOT what Dems are supposed to be about. If the party appears to do that to Hillary, it could create a whole new wave of Independents.

Remember also, many Dems PERCEIVE McCain as a liberal or centrist (as do many Independents). Many voters who FEEL that the party cheated them out of an honest primary contest might not have a problem voting for McCain (or staying home).

Reality plays a part in voter behavior, but so do perceptions (even erroneous ones).

Now add to the mix that Florida MIGHT hold a second primary for Dems (which would give average voters the sense that Hillary still has a chance). Gov. Crist supports the idea, and I suspect that our overwhelmingly Republican legislature will support it (for the same reason that Limbaugh told Rs to vote for Hillary in Texas today).

Honestly, I don't know if Michigan is still considering a second primary.

My point is that most Hillary supporters likely think that she still has a chance, and making them feel disenfranchised could cause major problems for the party (and for Obama, if he wins the nomination).

You know, I didn't see it that way. I think the comment could easily be interpreted as racist.

I think a really good example of negativity turned positive is the Red Phone commercial.

I really don't like fear mongering and think HRC is doing a lot of it.

Cupples, all you say is true.

But nobody is going to "push" her out of the race. No one has that power, except perhaps a united cohort of superdelegates. If, as you posit, party leaders attempted to do so (before writing were clearly on the wall), that would indeed (and rightly) not be taken lightly by her supporters.

Stray voices from the punditocracy as always are not going to influence anyone to do anything. It is her decision, but a good part of this judgment call, their argument goes, has to be based on a bigger picture and a long-range view.

COSMO: Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.

ABA23,

Of the 795 un-pledged delegates, 258 are congressmen, and 27 are governors. Some may not want to vote differently from their constituents, and some won't care. I don't know the breakdown. Then there are 411 "DNC members": I don't know how many are elected state or local officials.

All of that adds up to a major wild card in terms of the total-delegate count -- which is another reason I think it's premature for party big-wigs or Obama's campaign to call for Hillary to drop out now. Also, 23 are district party leaders and 76 are "add-ons." I don't know what those last two categories mean.

The mere existence of un-pledged delegates suggests that the system is , by its nature, not 100% democratic (if they were dolled out proportionately, there'd be no point in having them). In short, I don't think the aim of un-pledged delegates is necessarily to directly reflect the pledged-delegate breakdown.

The democratic element in the equation is that the pledged delegates number about twice as many as the un-pledged ones.

I'm NOT saying that I agree with this, just describing it.

Obama has a good argument re: pledged delegates. Clinton has a good argument about having won more big states, because they tend to be more important in November.

If Dems from larger states feel "cheated" by party bigwigs and operatives (un-pledged delegates), I suspect they'll take it out on the party.

I could be wrong [I'm shrugging now.]

Dam: COSMO: Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.

And therein lies your problem.