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Yeah, you mocked me a couple weeks ago when I likened the current primary to a hostage crisis. Who is laughing now:

In a move that could foreshadow a public push from the Hillary forces to get Barack Obama to invite her on the ticket, Hillary’s top campaign fundraising official said in an interview that there’s a “risk” that Hillary’s political and financial supporters won’t get behind Obama in time for him to win in November if she’s passed over for the veep slot.

The fundraiser, businessman Hassan Nemazee, is Hillary’s leading finance chair and one of the most influential money men in the party. He’s the first prominent Hillary campaign official to raise the possiblity of an Obama loss should she not be invited on the ticket, and his comments suggests that this argument could emerge as central to any Clinton camp push to make her veep.

“There’s a desire on the part of the party to come together under any circumstances, and Hillary and her supporters will do everything in their power to help Obama win, should he become the nominee, whether or not she’s on the ticket,” Nemazee said to me this morning.

It is pretty clear what is going on- after the suffrage/Zimbabwe/civil rights/Florida 2000 nonsense of the other day, we see published reports that Bill Clinton is pushing behind the scenes for the VP slot for Hillary, Clinton surrogates are filing lawsuits (which will be laughed out of court), threats from prominent supporters that just any other woman on the ticket won’t do, and yet another push from the big money Clinton backers (remember the threats launched at Pelosi earlier this spring) as noted above shows what the clear game plan is- show the DNC and Obama what nuclear means, and now CNN is reporting there are formal talks under way to negotiate a spot for her on the ticket (both campaigns deny this report).

To unify the party, of course.

Take it away, Hilzoy:

I have been thinking about Clinton’s conduct ever since she compared her efforts to get the Florida and Michigan votes counted to abolitionists, suffragists, and the current crisis in Zimbabwe. I agree with Josh Marshall that her attempts to gin up resentment and a sense that the nomination was stolen from her are toxic. Even Ezra Klein, who has been a lot more open to Clinton than many people, has concluded that she is trying to ensure that Obama loses. Since then, there have been a lot of stories wondering what on earth she is up to. And while I haven’t heard what the NYPost describes as a “Groundswell Of Calls For O-Hill Union”, there has definitely been a groundswell of stories about that alleged groundswell, much of which seems to be coming from the Clinton campaign itself. There have also been a lot of stories asking: what does Obama need to do to keep her on board?

Note what’s missing here: any sense that Clinton herself is a responsible moral agent. People are writing about her as though she were a bomb that needed to be expertly defused, as opposed to a person who can govern her own life, and is responsible for her own choices.

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Instead, she’s throwing tantrums, making demands that she has no right to make, and threatening civil war.

I can’t imagine a better demonstration of why she should not be President or Vice President. Nor can I imagine a better demonstration of why some of us who are committed feminists are not happy with her as our standard-bearer. She lost. It happens. If she were an adult or a professional, she would deal with it. Apparently, she is neither.

I don’t know if there are actual negotiations going on, but the rest of this post is completely verifiable. She has shown that she will blow the party up if it suits her needs, and people should stop trying to analyze the Clinton campaign and listen to Rachel Maddow:

After the primary calendar has ended, Clinton’s campaign can only justify or explain her staying in the race if she makes the case that the Democratic Party still has not chosen a nominee conclusively. Clinton needs an argument that the game should go into extra innings. Overtime. Bonus round. Detention. Whatever. Clinton has now found that argument — she says she will not stop campaigning until the issue of the Florida and Michigan delegates is settled to her satisfaction.

The Florida/Michigan issue get settled, of course, by the Democrats’ Rules and Bylaws Committee… unless of course that committee’s decision gets appealed to the Credentials Committee… unless of course that decision, too, gets appealed… to the floor of the convention.

Do you see where this is going? If there is an open, unresolved procedural issue involving the Florida and Michigan delegations, Senator Clinton will be able to cite that as her justification for staying in the race until the convention even though she is not ahead in the nomination contest at the end of the primary calendar.

This is not about party, or country, or overcoming sexism and glass ceilings, or fairness, or following the rules, or even about counting every vote or whatever other bullshit the Clinton campaign chums the water with the next few weeks. This is not about principles, this is about Hillary.

Quite the victory for feminism.

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