Hillary Clinton & The Power of Four
And so after enough “turning the corner” spin to level a small city, endless speculating over how many Republicans limbaughed over to vote for her and the effect that a most excellently timed “Saturday Night Live” appearance might have had, Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up a mere four delegates after the five primaries and caucuses last week and will lose more than that today in Mississippi.
That’s right, sports fans, four delegates.
This reality check seemed sure to get lost in the strum und drang over rezkos, red telephones, naftas, middle names beginning with “h” and rampant fearmongering, but then there has been another twist in this most improbable of campaign seasons even without the blessing of New York Times op-ed wordmeister Frank Rich, who took the weekend off:
Clinton’s haughty public declarations that she’s still the one and ferocious behind-the-scenes efforts to do anything short of kidnapping to woo committed Obama delegates while throwing everything at him in what was quickly dubbed a “kitchen sink” strategy are backfiring.
They are backfiring because most American reporters, while perhaps not as proficient in math as the Japanese, can count. They know that it is probable that Clinton will fall further behind Obama as the must-win Pennsylvania primary on April 22 looms larger, and that she will have to win that state by a landslide — which not even Punxutawney Phil believes that she can do — to remain competitive by the end of primary season.
Most of these reporters also know something else:
Clinton is desperate and the more she pushes back against Obama instead of trying to take the high ground the more she will be portrayed as the kind of person that Samatha Power described her in an unguarded moment.
This is not to say that the Obama campaign doesn’t have problems beyond now being short an outspoken foreign policy advisor. But if the candidate and campaign keep doing what they have been doing so well — staying on message and not getting rattled — it is hard to see absent a monumental gaffe or Clinton literally resorting to kidnapping delegates how they won’t maintain the upper hand.
Frank Zappa astutely remarked that “you can’t be two places at once when you’re nowhere at all,” and that becomes more apparent as the Clinton campaign unravels.
A delicious example: Clinton has claimed incessantly in recent days that Obama doesn’t have the chops to be a commander and chief while her spokespieces float the idea of him being her running mate.
All that and The Power of Four.
9 Responses to “Hillary Clinton & The Power of Four”
[...] Open Left wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptHillary Clinton & The Power of Four March 11th, 2008 by SHAUN MULLEN And so after enough “turning the corner” spin to level a small city, endless speculating over how many Republicans limbaughed over to vote for her and the effect that a most excellently timed “Saturday Night Live” appearance might have had, Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up a mere four delegates after the five primaries and caucuses last week and will lose more than that today in Mississippi. That’s right, sports fans, fo [...]
[...] The Moderate Voice – Domestic and international news analysis, irreverent comments, original reporti… added an interesting post on Hillary Clinton & The Power of Four [...]
I love the Obama Love, but I have a small question for all of you Obama Supporters:
Since Reconstruction there have only been two African-American Governors (Wilder & Patrick), three African-American Senators ( Brooke, Mosley-Brown & Obama ) and only 35 of 6667 elections in white majority US House districts have provided black winners since l966, and most of those were in unusually liberal districts, what leads you to believe that this country will elect an African-American President?
Who knows if they will or won't elect Obama? It's all up in the air right now. But I do believe that a defeatist attitude and thinking that we can't win so why try is a fast way to fail. I think that as a whole, we are ready for some big changes. How that measures up in the election is anyone's guess.
“Since Reconstruction there have only been <blah blah blah>”. Because as we all know, the during the entire time between the Reconstruction and now, absolutely nothing has changed in society, so it's entirely reasonable to extrapolate from the past to the likelihood of future events. Essentially, you're asking “If X hasn't happened before during some impressive sounding time frame, what leads anyone to believe that X is likely to happen in the near future?” Good argument.
In fact, anyone with at least two neurons in their skull to rub together could replace X with any number of past “firsts” and restate the above at a time just before the “first” occurred and see how well that holds in general.
Don Quijote is even more “race-conscious” [tm] than Superdestroyer when it comes to the nation's present as well as its future.
The truth is, hordes of us Americans have been ready to vote for Colin Powell, for example, for President for the past fifteen years or more.
And hopefully now you realize what a crazy idea that would have been!
It's obvious how things have been going,
http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_DConv0…
but Pennsylvania's primary hasn't happened yet, and Florida and Michigan are going to likely have to be accomodated somehow (hopefully within the rules, Demmies). The most itchy Obama fans need to contain their conceit for a few more weeks.
Don Quijote is even more “race-conscious” [tm] than Superdestroyer when it comes to the nation's present as well as its future.
Not “race-conscious”, just a realist!!!
We live in a country that is full of racists, it's in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. The Republican Party came to power based on Racism, and will stay in power thanks to Racism.
If it wasn't for Racism, the US would very likely look like Western Europe, but a large proportion of White America would rather eat Sh*t than give a plugged nickel to an African-American.
Ask yourself this question, why is it that while 15% of Americans are of African descent, that over 65% of Americans in prison are of African descent?
Why is it that African-American <a href=” http://www.cbcfinc.org/pdf/sobefs.pdf.“>economic status is substantially worse than that of European Americans?