Hillary Has Given Up!
Hillary Clinton hasn't publicly conceded the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama, of course. But I have seen a new piece of evidence indicating that she has given up, that her actions show she is no longer acting primarily to win the election, but rather to position herself better if she loses. (Psychologically, her closing speech last night has been widely discussed as possibly hinting at the same thing.)
What's the news? She has sent out invitations to
The other interpretation of this news is that she's so broke that she must maximize income even at the cost of not being in relevant states with upcoming primaries. This is different, but almost as good news for Hillary's opponents to right and left – and almost as disheartening to her supporters. It is at least as telling on this score as the news that she has recently loaned her campaign $5 million of her "personal" money.
Most likely, both things are true: Hillary is now more interested in getting her $5 million back than she is in maximizing her chances of winning. She is no longer fighting for the nomination.
In the interests of full disclosure, I do not support Hillary Clinton, or indeed the Clintons. I am willing to consider that this might be due primarily to my antipathy to their ideological position, or even to subconscious sexism on my part, but I think it has more to do with their being unusually dishonest and crooked for politicians at their level. (I voted against her – for Obama – in the primary, and would vote against her in the general election, but I do not know if I can vote for either Obama or McCain in the general if that is the choice.)
3 comments:
Seems you may have another choice.....Ralph!
Hillery does have some good ideas but she is to much a nannycrat for my taste.
Obama, though he has great oratory with the ability to present ideas we all can get behind, seems to lack the details. And we know what they say about the details and who is in them. At some level he makes me uneasy to the point he scares me.
Maybe I'm just to picky and expect to much from our brokin system but I don't see any shinning knight coming to our rescue in the foreseeable future.
I have yet to be convinced that Clinton has, or expresses, any more details than Obama; or that her "experience" as First Lady can be seen as a net plus, given that her only clear leadership role was her disastrous, nepotistic and legally questionable position as unconfirmed faux acting HHS Secretary (i.e., botching health care "reform").
I think her campaign was just as much of a disaster, for all kinds of reasons. Both Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich had scathing pieces in the Times this week, both of which support your claim that she doesn't necessarily offer more detail than Obama, and that her experience to date isn't a plus. My guess is that that's where you'll stop agreeing with them on things, but they're worth a read for sure.
As for me, I've been turned off by her connections to lobbyists (she's way tighter than Obama; it's particularly glaring in this campaign), the way she tried to get the Michigan/Florida results to count toward (a sign of real lack of integrity when you look into the details).
Plus, let's face it: she's as polarizing as they come. As I commented over on Amy's blog, she would only make the red-blue divide stronger. We can do better.
And, yeah: she's giving up.
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