A bitter bitter day for Clinton… The Irish TImes calls on her to stand aside. May 19, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in US Politics.trackback
Difficult not to view the latest interjection by the Irish Times on the Clinton Presidential nomination campaign as most likely the straw that will break the camel’s back.
For forcefully it argues that:
While Clinton is expected to take Kentucky, the truth is she is electorally a dead man walking.
She has had some victories…
West Virginia, last week, was always going to be kind to her. In the end she defeated Obama by two to one in a state whose voters are 95 per cent white, a large majority poor rural or blue collar workers. They are God-fearing evangelicals, overwhelmingly gun supporters, less educated than most other states, and four out of 10 voters were over 60. Classic Clinton country - but with only 28 delegates at stake, too few to shake up the race even if she won them all. Under the system she won 20.
It accepts that she has made some progress using her own personal yardstick (and indeed there are those who argue - unlike the IT - that she has every right under Dem rules to take this all the way to the convention, and that considering the more bitter tone of recent months has been replaced with something approaching courtesy that she might as well, if only to ensure that her base joins with Obama’s base should she lose).
In defending her decision not to pull out now, Clinton is no longer relying on the argument that she can win a majority of ordinary delegates, but instead on a case pitched at the party leadership and the diminishing ranks of about 200 unpledged superdelegates concerning her electability: that she alone can beat John McCain in the key states like Iowa.
Nor can she hope to prevail against logic or rationality. Bravely they use the forensic detail available from US media sources for the past week or so to make their case:
Clinton does not have any choice about the argument she deploys, she’s lost the maths - Obama now has 1,896 delegates to 1,717 for Clinton. It will take 2,026 delegates to clinch the nomination and last week more than 30 superdelegates declared for Obama. He is ahead in the polls against her, and, they show, would beat McCain by a better margin. In the circumstances, the dubious argument that the superdelegates should defy the will of the party grass roots to save the party from itself may be fine in theory.
And they line up near-persuasive arguments made by a myriad of commentators on this and the far side of the water in recent time to underscore their determination to bring this contest to a close…
But, in practice, if that means denying the hugely inspirational, first serious black contender his crack at the title, the damage to the credibility of the nominating process, and consequent retreat from engagement of so many new voters, would probably make such an act deeply counterproductive.
And yet, even in the heart of this sad news for Clinton the Irish Times finds itself in a position to be generous, sort of:
There is no doubt that Clinton has fought a magnificent fight that has helped to redynamise the prospects of the party and would have made a tremendous candidate, even president.
Or perhaps… vice-President…
And a ringing declaration…
But the time has come to stand aside.
Can Hillary Clinton in all honesty now continue in light of these words from the Irish Times?
But will she read them? Will she read them?
Michael Barone says it still ain’t over. And he claims that the Obama camp claims it would have 2025 delegates by May 20. I don’t believe they’ve made any such claim. What they did say is that after Kentucky and Oregon he will have a majority of the elected delegates. RCP now shows Obama to have 1610 pledged delegates. Barone says Obama will probably get 17 delegates in Kentucky. If so he won’t have to wait for the Oregon results to come in: Appalachia will have put Obama over the 50 per cent mark.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/5/16/will-the-democratic-race-end-on-may-21.html
Its doubtful if Hillary will take the advice of the IT. More than likely she’s waiting for Niall O’Dowd’s opinion in the Irish Voice on Wednesday before she makes her decision.
And today, the former Klu Klux Klansman and Dean of the U.S Senate, the very senior Senator from W. Virginia, Robert Byrd, endorsed Obama.
The reality is that when the Democrats hand the nomination to Obama, a lot of them will do so in spite of an awareness that he is unlikely to beat John McCain. While Hillary is personally unpopular with perhaps the majority in the States, she can credibly argue she has more experience than Obama, and has met 80 foreign leaders in her capacity as First Lady. She is also a former director of Wallmart. The Gallup and Rasmussen polls tend to show her faring better against McCain than Obama, largely a function of the Reverend Wright, Bittergate and Bill Ayers affairs. I often feel that in our socially-liberal and increasingly secular societies in Europe including Ireland, that we are so out of touch with the kind of political-culture that exists in the United States, and which has handed the Republicans 7 out of the last 10 presidential elections. In 2004, many over here expected Bush to go down to defeat, and were palpably disappointed when it didn’t come to pass. I was less surprised. Having observed the US electorate and researched electoral trends in American politics, a number of things come to mind, that differentiate their political-culture from that of ours. In particular:
A: Religion is a huge issue over there, and by extension so are issues like gay rights, gay marriage, evolution vs Darwinism, and basically ‘moral values’ of the De Valeran kind.
B: Since 1968, the former Confederate (in the Civil War) region known as the South (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and sometimes West Virginia (which seceded from the Confederacy in the war) too have nearly always uniformly voted for the Republicans. This reflects the lasting segregationist-backlash against the Democrats in the region after President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act enfranchising the Blacks who were oppressed by ‘Jim Crow Laws’ in this region. It also reflects the fact that this is the most religious part of the country and as such is alienated from the increasingly liberal national party. 75% of elected officials in state politics in this region are still Democrats, but that reflects the fact that Southern Democrats tend to much more conservative than the national party - a fact highlighted by the successful House elections of Travis Childers and Don Casayoux in Mississippi and Louisiana in recent weeks. Historically, no Democrat has won the White House without winning at least one Southern state, and Obama is behind in every single one of them vs McCain in polls, while Clinton - partly because her husband and former president was governor of Arkansas - leads in most polls in that state as well as Florida and West Virginia. She also leads in Ohio, which nearly always votes for the winning candidate. Obama is also behind there. The omens do not look good in that context for Obama - whom the National Review calls America’s most liberal senator.
C: A lot of us forget its not the popular vote that chooses the US president. It’s the Electoral College, a body in which each state has a number of members called “Electors”. Whoever wins the state wins the Electors, and the Electoral College then meets and chooses a president. This means - as in 2000 - that you can win the popular vote and lose the election. In that context the important thing is winning key swing states in order to reach the magic number of 270 needed to win. If its a tie of 269 each, then the House of Representatives divides into state delegations and each delegation votes for a candidate for president, with what the majority of House state delegates wants being the outcome of the contest. At present, the Democrats have 26 of the delegations, so in a tie, the Democrat would become president, especially as the new Congress doesn’t meet until inauguration day. Obama is behind in all the big swing states that have gone Republican since 2000 like Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky and Nevada. He is also behind in New Hampshire, which even Kerry won in 2004. Clinton leads in all but Missouri, Kentucky and Nevada, but she is much closer in the polls to McCain in those states that he is.
Dick Morris, a Republican who was an advisor to Bill Clinton as president and later to Republican Senator Trent Lott, has said that following recent controversies, Hillary is now the strongest candidate. I concur.
Current polls as to what will happen in November are of very little use. We just don’t know. However its a misconception to believe that Obama needs a win in the South. The following article offers some insights. Paul Maslin looks at long-term voting trends and demographics and concludes:
“Clearly, and I’m being cautious, I think it’s going to be a close race. If Obama wins the 255 votes in the states where he’s favored, then to get to 270 he needs to choose from the following menu: 1) Win Ohio, which takes him to 275; 2) win in the West — Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, for 274; 3) win the three N’s (Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire) for 269, plus one other state; or 4) win two of the three N’s and either Colorado or Virginia.
The bottom line is that 270 is achievable, provided the Democratic ticket keeps all of these 17 states in play as long as possible. And it looks like it can. Obama has the money to fight in the truly purple states and force his opponent to defend some of the redder ones. For the moment, McCain doesn’t have the money to respond in kind. Obama can stretch McCain’s scarcer resources. He can also improve the Democratic Party’s odds of breaking through and winning its first Electoral College majority in a dozen years.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/05/16/270/
Difficult not to view the latest interjection by the Irish Times on the Clinton Presidential nomination campaign as most likely the straw that will break the camel’s back.
Eh… actually it’s not difficult not to view it that way at all. What the Irish Times, or the Irish in general, think of events in America really isn’t the biggest concern for people over there. I doubt Niall O’Dowd’s opinion would be decisive either.
Wednesday, it’s a joke post, I’m taking the piss at the IT making ringing declarations… being way behind US opinion on the matter, saying it when its safe to do so and trying to be even handed when its clearly in thrall to Obama…
hence the impassioned plea at the end… in italics no less
Sorry, that’s what I get for posting before coffee
WBS, I’m glad to hear that you were taking the piss. Like Wednesday I wasn’t sure. I thought the comments in the editorial about Clinton’s blue collar supporters smacked of typical smug elitism.
Apologies, a chairde, I was just a bit irked at the IT’s late entry to all this…
Couldn’t agree more that the tone of the piece was insufferable - a sort of ‘we don’t know how they get to the polling booth…’ approach.
CL, I’d think that’s about right. We just can’t tell how Obama or Clinton would fare up against McCain. That said, and I’ve mentioned it before, he’s looking old. Certainly a lot older than his 2000 run.
Y’arr, I hear the Skibbereen Eagle also has a strongly worded editorial on this matter