I didn’t think it was this bad:
Clinton aides continued to insist that she will remain in the race even while confirming that she is $20 million in debt. “The voters are going to decide this,” senior adviser Howard Wolfson said on “Fox News Sunday,” acknowledging the $20 million figure. “There is no reason for her not to continue this process.” Wolfson said he has seen “no evidence of her interest” in pursuing the second-place spot on the Democratic ticket, contrary to rumors that she is staying in the race to leverage a bid for the vice presidential nomination.
Pretty soon we are talking about big money.
cleek
it’s only a flesh wound!
TR
Wow, that’s one fifth of the money they made this decade.
I guess vanity does have a price, after all.
El Doh
I read somewhere it costs $1mil/day to run a Presidential campaign (and still more if you employ Mark Penn?), so she’s hemorrhaging badly.
A good way to burn through whatever’s left of that $109mil, I guess.
The Other Steve
Ah ha! We finally have a MUP quote generator!
Neal
Yeah, what’s she going to do at this point? Bleed on Barack?
No, that was not intended to be sexist.
PeterJ
Mitt Romney ended up burning $42.3 million of his own money. Hillary and Bill really need to open their wallets or they will just get the silver in this competition too. But I seriously doubt that any candidate will take this gold from Romney (I bet he wished that he had kept his other gold instead though…)
Jon H
“No, that was not intended to be sexist.”
Anyway, she’s too old to do that.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
PeterJ beat me to the Romney comparison. The question still needs to be asked, though. Who’ll burn more when all is said and done: Mitt or Hillary?
Scott H
Hillary needs an intervention. Bitter and down $20 million is a K Street dream date.
Neal
Ouch.
Phoenix Woman
Somehow I doubt we’ll be seeing MyxiqfsewMcCain troll in this thread.
Rick Taylor
I’m annoyed she’s still raising from her supporters. In another thread, someone mentioned someone sending in nearly $500. If she wants to throw her own money away that’s one thing, but leading them to believe she still has a chance and raising money who don’t necessarily have a lot to spare isn’t right. Not to mention that there are other Democratic races, and some have been complaining the long Presidential primary is hurting fund raising for contest lower down the ticket.
EdTheRed
This is excellent news!!! For Hillary’s mortgage broker!!!
jake
Only elitists would say that’s a lot of money and anyway, Obama is forcing her to spend that money, he should pay her back!
In delegates!
/Hillsteric
srv
If anyone isn’t aware, she can go in the hole as much as she wants, because Barack and the DNC are going to have to settle that debt to get her concession/endorsement.
Jake
But she’s IN IT to WIN IT!!!
west coast
Talk about “Working for Change!” She meant her vendors…
Incertus
I don’t have a problem with it, Rick–at this point, any Clinton supporter who’s tossing money into the race has to be doing it knowing the odds. I think she’s marking time at this point–hanging in there in little more than name, taking the wins that are marked out for her, and sometime in about a week or so, after Obama passes the 2025 mark, will fade a bit. The money issue will be too much, and Obama has already started acting like the nominee, taking on McCain. Her traction is gone.
wasabi gasp
Time for a Bake Sale.
Arky Vaughn
How about a Clinton/Romney ticket? The “We’re blowing through our own money ticket”
TheFountainHead
MAKE THE BAD MAN STOP!!
happytalk
I think they pretty much have. They’re stuck in hair splitting mode, like they’ve been since Super Tuesday. Please, won’t they just go away.
Barbara
It’s actually not that easy for Obama to just “retire” her debt. As I understand it, the most likely scenario is for her to ask her GE donors (whose money she has not yet spent) to agree to roll over their donations to her senate campaign, which can then use them to pay off her primary debts. So that makes the picture considerably brighter for her than you might realize.
I actually think that Bill’s earning capacity goes down considerably whether she were the nominee or not. If she were, it would be unseemly for him to be getting so much money from so many interested parties (it might even be illegal in some cases, but I don’t know that area of the law very well). And yes, count me among those who believe that some of his speaking fees were being paid by people as a downpayment on potential influence over another President Clinton.
4tehlulz
Mittens. He will be the Veep because McCain won’t marry into the Romney fortune.
ThymeZone
We should start a pool, and choose her Drop Out day.
I am picking Wednesday, May 21. Here’s my $10.
All proceeds go to the Save The Hard Working White Americans fund.
Incertus
Obama’s campaign is limited to the same donation limits everyone else is–$2300–and the DNC has neither that kind of money nor the desire to do her any favors, given how her fundraisers have tried, time and again, to pressure Dean into caving on FL and MI and he hasn’t.
Svensker
My bad — went to Talk Left and read some comments. The idea seems to be that Obama can’t win and Hillary can. But if she’s a better because she can win, why is she losing? Is there something I’m not seeing here?
Jen
A perusal of any media whatsoever will inform them that she doesn’t have a chance, but you can’t cure teh stoopid. It’s probably just coming out of their lottery budget anyway.
El Cid
I think west coast wins.
Dork
TZ is in Ponyville, apparently.
July 10th, at the earliest. Probably not before the convention.
Rick Taylor
It doesn’t look that way to me. She’s using racial tinged arguments to push her electability and right before the votes in West Virginia and Kentucky, and declaring loudly that Michigan and Florida have to be resolved in her favor. She quashed the Michigan compromise plan, while saying nothing less than giving her the votes from their and Obama none is satisfactory. Plus they’ve also said they don’t recognize the 2025 number; it’s 2209.
Maybe she’ll relent, but given all this,it looks to me like she’ll at least push it until the rules committee meet on May 31, to sort out Michigan and Florida. Anything less at this point would be backing down, and admitting she wasn’t serious about standing up against the disenfranchisement in those states, so she almost has to keep fighting until then.
I doubt she’d take it beyond that to the convention, but at this point she’s done so many things I never thought she’d do, I’m not as certain of that as I’d like
rob!
Oregon puts Obama (Oboregon?) over the top, he clinches the nom, Hillary gives a “we’re gonna go all the way!” speech that night, she concedes the next morning.
howard wolfson starts writing his book an hour later.
PeterJ
Obama can’t win in the GE, because he won the democratic primary due to votes from independents and republicans, two groups that aren’t needed in the GE. At all. Really. No need.
Also it’s a good thing to have republicans voting for you, but only if you are Clinton and the primary is held after the republicans have picked their nominee (so that they are free to do what some democrats did in Michigan).
Incertus
Unless I’ve missed something–and it’s entirely possible I have–she dropped that argument, at least publicly, a couple of days ago because of the massive backlash against her for doing it. Maybe she’s still making that case locally, but I’ve heard a lot less of it from her. Not that that’s stopping her online allies, but it’s hard to link their brand of stupid directly to her.
Jen
It’s along the lines of: he can win the Democrats’ Popularity Contest, but he can’t win the general because he’s too liberal/black/Muslim/JEREMIAH WRIGHT!!eleventy!, and they’re just trying to save us all from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, because they know better and they’ll just try to stop themselves from saying “I told you so” on Nov. 6.
I’m with Sadly, No. We could run Pauly Shore/Gallagher and win this one. The special elections are the canary in the coal mine for Republicans.
I always did like canaries.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Considering I’ve heard from one Hillbot that they’ll take the minority report out of the May 31st meeting, I’m inclined to agree.
On the other hand, I can completely see the DNC shoving her out of the airlock after May 31st. She’ll be relegated to Ron Paul status, like it or not.
Rick Taylor
June 1. After the rules committee meets. The only way I see it happening earlier is if it becomes clear Obama gets more delegates and more “popular vote” even counting MIchigan Florida as she wishes too.
AkaDad
Obama stole the nomination!
El Doh
According to one site I read, as far as I can make out, Obama was sexist by running against Hillary, this was “promoting the trainee guy over the experienced female”.
I guess that whole voting thing is just so passé.
ThymeZone
I sincerely doubt that. DNC and the Obama campaign will tell the army of contributors that Obama built up that their money is going to be used to settle Clinton campaign debt?
I don’t think so. That would be a very big mistake and would shut down the greatest political small-donor funding operation in history.
KRK
I keep falling off the schadenfreude wagon.
Here’s an interesting tidbit posted yesterday at BlueGrassRoots:
Warren Terra
I don’t know where I read this – possibly on TalkingPointsMemo, but there are two critical points I picked up from someone‘s reporting of the relevant campaign finance law:
1) As Incertus commented above, Obama’s campaign can only contribute $2300 to her campaign like everyone else, so if his campaign wanted to retire her debt it could only doing so by asking Obama supporters to donate directly to her campaign.
2) Apparently, there are two categories of campaign debt: debt to outside parties (caterers, Mark Penn, whatever) can be repaid at any point in the future, so Chelsea Clinton’s grandkids could be soliciting donations to Clinton’s 2008 primary campaign for this purpose if necessary. However, after the convention, only $250,000 can legally be repaid to the candidate for money they loaned to their own campaign.
The second point is a critical one, and it raises a couple of corollaries:
a) If Clinton wants help restoring her own personal finances, she needs to seek it soon – although as it would have to come from thousands of individual donors in response to a request from Obama, she’d likely have to ask graciously.
b) One reason she may be still in the race, and that her debt is rising so dramatically, is that she may not be paying any debts to vendors or service providers, and only repaying herself instead; after all, she has years to repay the vendors but only months to repay herself.
ThymeZone
So, the presumptive nominee, with all that insider power, all that money, all those connections, all that president by injection experience, all that womanly glass ceiling support, all that red phone readiness … lost to a “trainee guy?”
Wow, next to the complete destruction of healthcare reform in this country for firteen years and counting, that’s got to be her biggest fuckup ever, doesn’t it?
Davis X. Machina
Talk of 2025 like it’s some sort of cut-off is simply unrealistic.
Even if he serves two terms, Obama’s done by 2016.
KRK
Name’s kind of redundant, isn’t it?
4tehlulz
Wow. That’s just evil, if true. I think she could take the financial hit a bit better than some of her vendors.
cleek
we passed a panhandler in NYC one day who asking for donations to the “United Negro Pizza Fund”. we thought it was clever enough give him a couple bucks. gotta reward talent!
El Doh
I was itching to post a “despite her holding every advantage…” type response, but I’m trying not to throw fuel on the fire right now…
The same thread the following comedy gold:
KRK
This mindset is rampant among the more ardent Clinton supporters who’re all about gender (recognizing that there are other categories of ardent Clinton supporters). This encapsulation of the race fits with the actual experience of many women of Clinton’s generation: the eminently qualified, long-standing, somewhat older female employee gets passed over for the big promotion in favor of the charming, flashy, resume-thin, young male who effortlessly integrates into the male power structure through golf games, happy hour, “like me when I was his age,” etc.
The problem is that, however many women who may have actually experienced this in their work, it’s not Hillary Clinton’s story. Clinton is “The Man”; but they can’t see it.
Zifnab
Third. She did throw her weight behind the whole Iraq War thing.
John S.
My prediction: June 6th.
Obama will have the majority of delegates soon (May 20), Hillary we be dealt a sobering blow by the DNC (May 31), she’ll vow to fight on until all the people have their vote (June 3), the remaining superdelegates throw their lot in with Obama pushing him over the fictional 2200 mark (June 4-5), Hillary wails and gnashes her teeth for a bit then bows out at the end of the day Friday (to minimize the humiliation).
Andrew
Black people.
SATSQ.
demimondian
Really? Gosh, I’m in IT to make a living.
Andrew
Also, think about how many small business are going to get fucked by the Clinton campaign. I guarantee you that Penn and the other scum bags will get paid. I doubt that the mom and pop catering business or local promoter will be so lucky.
Incertus
Forget where I read it, probably the GOS, but I understand that most vendors in Indiana were working on a strictly cash basis, because they’d heard the stories coming out of Ohio about the Clinton campaign not paying its bills or even returning phone calls.
demimondian
Actually, just for completeness and accuracy, campaign committees are still limited to the older limit, $2K. The individuals limit was raised to $2.3K a couple of years ago to keep up with inflation.
jake
$15 on June 3rd. Proceeds go to The Enslave the Hard Working White Americans Fund.
Jen
Well, yeah. If I was an unpaid caterer or something, I’d be bustin’ my hump for Obama at this point.
In God We Trust. Clintons pay cash.
Lavocat
Man, you just made my day, maybe even my week!
By all means, Hil, STAY IN THE RACE!!!!!
By the time Obama wraps this up officially, the IRS will OWN yer ass!
Martin
Good to know that in spite of a steady budget deficit that she won’t back down from remaining in an unwinnable battle.
That’s the kind of leadership and judgement that she offers. Good thing there’s nothing that the President is responsible for that parallels her current campaign situation.
KRK
McAuliffe on Meet the Press yesterday:
Like it would have killed the guy to say “Yes, absolutely.”
Ripley
She’s going into debt over here, so we don’t have to go into debt over there!
err…
priscianus jr
You know, based on the facts available to us, this just doesn’t add up.
Either Hillary and Bill are totally deranged, pissing away multi millions of $ on something that to most sane observers, cannot succeed — or else, someone is willing to bankroll her quixotic campaign indefinitely. And to what end? True, HILLARY is the one who’s lending money to her own campaign, presumably because no bank would do it, but she must expect to get it back, or at least to get something back that’s worth upwards of 20 mil to her. That person or group cannot give her the money straight out, because that would break campaign finance laws.
The idea of Obama’s campaign paying it, even if there is some sort of “hush money” rationale to it, or to put it too kindly, “peace offering.” still strikes me as bizarre. After all, it’s really Obama’s supporters who would be footing the bill for Hillary’s onslaught on their champion.
I just don’t get it.
El Doh
Can a campaign declare bankruptcy?
I assume a campaign is a separate legal entity from the individual?
Rick Taylor
John asked this very same question, less delicately, here:
All the arguments I’ve heard fall along the lines of, the general election will be run by different rules and with a larger electorate than the primary election, and success in the primaries does not indicate success in the general. For example, Michigan and Florida don’t count in primary, but they’ll certainly count in the general.
This sort of reasoning leads them to look for other metrics according to which Hillary Clinton is winning, and identifying those as what will lead to success in the general election. Hence it’s now held that caucuses are far inferior to primaries. All those small caucus states Obama won are unimportant, as they’ll vote Republican in the general anyway. This is where all those dismissals of small states come from; Hillary wins the big states. If it were a winner take all system in each state, Hillary would win. Etc.
This is what’s lead her off the cliff; I’m electable because harding working white Americans support me. Since hard working black Americans don’t support her in large measure, she’s lead to arguing that it’s the hard working white Americans who’s votes are crucial for any nominee, and that should be taken into account when the super-delegates make their choice. Boil it down, and it’s white votes are more important than black votes for determining electability, and that should figure into the super-delegate calculus.
Rick Taylor
John asked this very same question, less delicately, here:
All the arguments I’ve heard fall along the lines of, the general election will be run by different rules and with a larger electorate than the primary election, and success in the primaries does not indicate success in the general. For example, Michigan and Florida don’t count in primary, but they’ll certainly count in the general.
This sort of reasoning leads them to look for other metrics according to which Hillary Clinton is winning, and identifying those as what will lead to success in the general election. Hence it’s now held that caucuses are far inferior to primaries. All those small caucus states Obama won are unimportant, as they’ll vote Republican in the general anyway. This is where all those dismissals of small states come from; Hillary wins the big states. If it were a winner take all system in each state, Hillary would win. Etc.
This is what’s lead her off the cliff; I’m electable because harding working white Americans support me. Since hard working black Americans don’t support her in large measure, she’s lead to arguing that it’s the hard working white Americans who’s votes are crucial for any nominee, and that should be taken into account when the super-delegates make their choice. Boil it down, and it’s white votes are more important than black votes for determining electability, and that should figure into the super-delegate calculus.
Dennis - SGMM
Clinton will stay in until she’s exhausted every avenue to the nomination. She and her husband are in it for the vindication of insider politics and the salvaging of the Clinton brand. The Clintons will stop at nothing. She’ll be dragged kicking and screaming “I am the people’s choice! I demand a recount using my numbers!” off of the rostrum at the convention after which she and Bill will vacation for the duration of the general election.
El Doh
I’m still at a loss as to why Clinton’s supporters are so convinced the AA vote will turn out to vote for her if the super-delegates select her over Obama when Obama has a pledged delegate lead.
Several Clinton supporters I’ve spoken to in RL have told me they’re sure the AA vote would turn out and vote, and I just can’t see it.
cleek
538 runs all the numbers available, and Obama’s still winning. Obama doesn’t get FL, but he gets IL. Clinton doesn’t get Minnesota, NV or CO, but gets OH, etc.. and he’s still beating her. the places she leads but he doesn’t in are offset by places he leads in but she doesn’t. and they’re both losing to McCain, at this point.
none of the Hillary supporters’ arguments are worth a shit.
cleek
unlike Hillary supporters, AA’s are presumed to be loyal to their party .
isit2009yet
Bob Barr just announced….
ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jGwp22QlX2kmePoy02e4pTBLwWwAD90K62U80
w vincentz
I’ll go with the day after PR.
As of today, super delegates:
Obama…277
Clinton…276.5
ThymeZone
Valid point. Thank you.
Dennis - SGMM
This is good news for McCain.
Andrew
What year?
PK
Actually these are the type of people who get what they deserve. If they are so brain dead that they will shell out $500 to a multi millionaire who is too full of herself to reallize she has lost the nomination, then they deserve to loose the money.
I have no sympathy for people who are too dumb to inform themselves and act rationally.
I don’t get it-how dumb do you have to be to believe that Obama is a muslim, or that Iraq was behind 9/11, or vote for Bush a second time despite evidence that the country was going down the toilet, or that UFOs are real or any other piece of crap that people delude themselves into believing.
PeterJ
If she does this, then she can forget running for the presidency again or for that matter re-election. Choosing to repay her own loans before settling the debts, I think there’s a couple of ads there…
KRK
According to DCW, it’s 277 and 270.5. Obama has picked up two so far today and should be getting another one at noon Central when the Idaho party chair announces.
ThymeZone
Their spreadsheets suck. Are they using Supercalc?
John S.
LOL
You guys are funny.
Warren Terra
Well, no. It has been suggested upthread that the small vendors are on a cash basis with the Clinton campaign these days; but in every one of the monthly updates that’s been released the Clinton campaign had huge debts outstanding to Mark Penn’s polling firm and to other large service providers. The unpaid debts to small apolitical vendors were infuriating but didn’t add up to a significant fraction of the campaign’s debt.
KRK
Make that noon Mountain.
As Bob Cesca notes, there’s a big market for robot insurance out there.
Zifnab
I think Clinton has a bigger, better political machine than Obama. If this were ’00 or ’04 or ’12, I think she’d have him dead in the water. But a combination of factors – frustration with Iraq coming to a head, a general disgust with Washington Insiders, record political activism, etc – is giving Obama an artificial boost that doesn’t normally appear in American politics.
All that said, the idea that Clinton can win in ’08 while Obama can’t is just laughable. Take any combination of the numbers you want and you have to skew the hell out of them to make either candidate a loser. Clinton mobilizes a huge base and trumps states like Pennsylvania and Ohio with ease. Obama turns bright red states purple just by showing up on the ballot.
The difference between Obama and Clinton is that Clinton solidifies the base while Obama blazes new trails. Texas, for instance, becomes competitive with Obama on the ballot. Colorado becomes competitive. New Mexico starts looking a great deal bluer. You don’t get that with a Clinton campaign.
Down ticket races benefit hugely from an Obama run. And, given the tactics embraced by Senate Republicans, we will need as many blue Senate seats as we can take. Likewise, the Blue Dogs in the House can continue to tie Pelosi’s hands without a stronger progressive presence. New Democratic candidates tend to be anti-war and more populist than their Congressional elders. They tend to shake things up. Obama gives a boost to all these candidates.
At the end of the day, we shouldn’t be worrying about whether we can retake the White House. We should be interested in how to best maximize our gains.
Of course, if this wasn’t a landslide election year, Clinton probably would be the safer and more prudent pick. Like Kerry was in ’04. :p
Jake
You have to love this from one of the recent TalkLeft posts of Jeralyn:
Apparently only meaningless repetition of Clinton talking points is permitted.
Jake
I agree with the bigger part. Better? Not so much.
Rick Taylor
That is the big question. I can understand why her supporters would assume that; I would have too if I didn’t read more blogs and follow political news closer than is really healthy for me, so that I’m aware of her most recent statements. But what on earth does Clinton think she’s doing? P. Lukisiask made the argument a while back that the reason Obama was ahead in the primaries was that Clinton was campaigning in a way designed to build support for herself in the general election, she was looking ahead while Obama was being short sighted. But the reverse is true here; in a long shot effort to attain the nomination, she’s shooting herself in the foot for the general. And then you’ll here her supporters talking about how ungrateful the African American community has been, and how they’ve done so much for them, and you want to scream, please please please please go home!
nightjar
From CNN
Maybe her plan is to adopt Cheney’s declaration of a sovereign VP office and claim her own little country inside the White House.
Rick Taylor
I suppose this means that pointing out that having super delegates over-ride the pledge delegate count and the official popular vote after Hillary argued her electability through her appeal to hard working white Americans is going to skew voter turn-out wouldn’t be welcome?
Andrew
I don’t agree with bigger or better.
Obama has a much larger on the ground effort and superior fund raising from many more people. Clinton has a bunch of powerful buddies who max out at $2300.
dmbeaster
cleek:
My all time favorite snarky panhandler was a white guy in SF who occupied a trash can, and held a card saying “white trash.” Even took a picture of him (after donating, of course).
El Doh
She’s had more access to machines in the “big” states. Of course, those machines will be working for the nominee regardless of who it is.
Well, unless you put credence in the “She’s running now to win in 2012” theory.
Dennis - SGMM
KRK, thanks!
The Other Steve
And that’s why she’s not winning. Because many are sick and tired of safe and prudent.
I want to vote FOR someone. Not against.
Earl
Could somebody tell me what GOS means? I keep seeing it in posts, usually referring to a journal on kos.
Thanks,
Earl
Rick Taylor
Meh, forget I posted that. I should be leaving them alone.
El Doh
GOS = Great Orange Satan, aka DailyKos.
Dennis - SGMM
“Great Orange Satan,” an appellation attached to the Daily KOS website.
cleek
GOS = Great Orange Satan = Kos
ksamiami
Ha Ha Ha. Did anyone get the donate now e-mail from the DNC today? Here is the text.
I’m Phil Murphy, Finance Chair of the DNC. I’m responsible for making sure our Party has the funds it needs to stay competitive.
I wanted you to see these two clips that were posted on Politico.com this week…
John McCain will raise over $7 million tonight at a high-dollar New York fundraiser, his largest one-event haul yet during the campaign, according to sources familiar with the expected haul.
McCain raises over $2 mil in Michigan … So said John Rakolta — a former national finance chair and ubiquitous presence around Mitt Romney during the primary — last night at the suburban Detroit funder for the GOP nominee.
In the past 48 hours, John McCain raised over $9 million for his campaign and the Republican National Committee. While we’re choosing our nominee, the Republican machine is working their way across the country, raising money and expanding their bank accounts.
What are they going to do with that money? Attack. As soon as we have our nominee, they’ll unleash a flood of expensive negative attacks to try to define our candidate.
That’s why we have to be ready for anything — we can’t let them Swift Boat us right out of the gate.
Can you make a contribution to offset the $9 million John McCain has raised the last 48 hours? We need to be able to defend our candidate from the Republican machine as soon as it kicks into gear:
democrats.org/NoSwiftBoat
Everywhere John McCain goes his handlers are organizing fundraising receptions, catering to special interests and lobbyists. It’s straight out of the George Bush and Karl Rove playbook.
While our primary continues, we can’t afford to let John McCain and the Republican machine get a financial advantage. Help us and our nominee stay competitive.
Thanks for your support.
Phil Murphy
Just FYI, I wrote back saying that until Obama is the nominee, they don’t get a penny, esp. since the Clintons don’t think that wealthy, educated white Democrats need a president anyway…
PeterJ
Give her Number One Observatory Circle, it’s toxic anyway, Cheney has been living there since 2001. She can call it Clintonia or something.
Dennis - SGMM
Because in these inflationary times America needs three presidents.
Genine
She actually lost that vote on her own. The majority of African-Americans backed Clinton before she started losing her mind.
So many people assume that black people will vote for a black candidate and that’s just not true. I know from experience and from data that reflects that. There are many factors that go into the reasons behind that. One reason that gets touted (and that has been my experience as well) is the thought that a black man just cannot win, so why throw that vote away? I used to hear that all the time and I still hear it from some my relatives that are still backing Clinton.
Things only started to change when Obama actually started picking up momentum. Then once that started happening, Hillary started losing her mind. It all spiraled and now Clinton is in the position that she is in now with AA’s.
As for AA’a voting in the GE if Clinton is the nominee (which I doubt), I think a lot of AA’s will still vote for her. I don’t think they’ll particularly like it, but they’ll do it nonetheless. Let’s face it, McCain will be a lot worse and that is well known. Yes, Clinton has dismissed the AA community and that’s going to be felt for a while. But there’s a difference between being dismissed and disrespected and being fucked up the ass with a barbed horse’s dick. But I can see, maybe, a larger number of AA’s staying home on Election day, rather than vote for Clinton.
But that’s just my take on it. I hardly speak for the entire AA community.
El Doh
Obama unelectable, my ass:
El Doh
… and to follow myself on, this dovetails neatly with this ABC finding
and Gallup finding that:
cleek
it’s not a national election, though: it’s a state-by-state election. take a look at 538. McCain’s still beating them both, state-by-state.
4tehlulz
ARRGGGH! CAN’T UNSEE! FUCK YOU INTERNET FUCK YOU
john b
yeah, but when were these polls taken? i would assume many of the states shown haven’t been polled extensively (or recently).
not to mention, mccain’s numbers will certainly go down when more attention is paid to him.
El Doh
538’s one of my regular reads.
Gah. It’s changed since I looked earlier. Then Obama was just 0.6 behind then.
Dennis - SGMM
538 is a great site, thanks for the link. McCain is benefiting at present from the lack of having to actually campaign. He’s appearing before friendly audiences and telling them what he thinks that they want to hear. Once the general election campaign begins in earnest he’ll plummet. His ties to Bush are concrete overshoes.
cleek
some of them are quite old, true. but it’s still not a nationwide election: nationwide popular vote doesn’t count for anything but bragging rights.
hopefully.
4tehlulz
If you count up the state-by-state runs where he wins more than 50% of the time, he has 280 delegates right now; that’s not bad this far out from November.
PeterJ
They also polled Hillary Clinton’s association with Bill…
He’s as toxic as Wright, thus less than Bush, but he also makes 18% more likely to vote for his wife.
As a last desperate move, maybe Hillary should go for a divorce?
Z
I think the reason that so many hard core Clinton supporters think that AA’s will turn out for her is because they are as tone deaf and racially insensitive as she is. When she uses the race card, they don’t see it. When Bill or Hill say things that are patently offensive, they don’t get it. When she treats AA voters dismissively, it doesn’t register with them.
In fact, when Obama supporters point out how shamefully the Clinton’s are treating AA voters, those Clinton supporters jump up and down and say, ‘OMGZ! Obama supporters is hazing race cardz!’ You can’t make the blind see, particularly when they refuse to believe they are blind.
Sleeper
I think as tempting as it is to pick on places like TalkLeft, we should leave them to work through their disappointment alone. I’ve been commenting there for a week or two and those are not happy people. Lots of genuine shock that the media/the DNC/Wall Street/ungrateful voters are rigging the election for a sure loser (is Pelosi doing it on purpose?). Threats to vote for McCain, who, after all, is only just being conservative to get support, he’s really much, much more moderate deep down, don’t you know. Praising Fox News for being the only pro-Hillary news source. Comparing the DNC making decisions about Michigan and Florida to voter suppression in the 1960s South. Anything bad said about Clinton or her campaign is automatically sexist. etc.
There are some nice people there and a lot of really, really angry ones. More than anything, it’s important for Clinton to find a way to drop out and make these hardcore supporters stay in the game and not try to doom us to Bush’s third term out of spite.
r€nato
That’s why, if you ever do business with any political campaign… COD. Period.
Once the campaign is over, you’re SOL unless you have a special relationship with a higher-up.
r€nato
I am exceedingly skeptical anything like that will happen. Remember how the talk was a year or so ago that evangelicals would never in a million years vote for McCain, and might split off to vote for a third-party candidate?
Didn’t happen. Nah ga hapn now with Hillary supporters. You’d have to be really determined to cut off your nose to spite your face, to help McCain pick two more SC justices of the Scalia/Alito mold.
KRK
In a refreshing indication of sanity on one of the angry-stage-of-grief blogs, when a commenter taunted that Obama clearly doesn’t understand women because Clinton’s strongest supporters are post-menopausal women who don’t need to worry about abortion rights anymore (!!) so the Supreme Court isn’t a big issue, s/he was promptly smacked down by other commenters.
Sleeper
I think Republicans are used to lining up behind leaders, though. I think the Clinton supporters (of whom I used to be one) are just narcissistic enough to try it, though. Not all of them, but enough of them. Just so they can blame Obama if he loses in November.
Soylent Green
That’s fine with me as long as she never gets a visa to visit the United States.
I’ll take June 5. She can’t go till all the votes are in (closing out her silly popular vote argument) and her FL/MI shenanigans have met their end.
Just Some Fuckhead
Many Republican strategists believe that evangelicals not voting for Bush in ’92 cost him reelection.
Poor analogies aside, the HRC folks have revealed themselves to be inept political strategists, and delusional beyond the standard set by the religious right who are now viewed as coldly cynical in regards to their political ambitions. So I’m of the opinion the majority of HRC supporters will do whatever they can to cause Obama to lose in November.
We need to remember there is much more at stake in 2008 than the Presidency and win or lose with Obama we can win so much bigger with downticket races.
Tim C.
“Didn’t happen. Nah ga hapn now with Hillary supporters. You’d have to be really determined to cut off your nose to spite your face, to help McCain pick two more SC justices of the Scalia/Alito mold.”
Actually I’m not so sure. Democrats tend be a lot more ‘independent’ (read as fratricidal) than the good little fascists in the GOP who shut up and do what their told.
The Disgruntled Chemist
I gave a few bucks to a guy in San Diego who had a sign saying “have ugly wife, need beer”.
Rick Taylor
I agree entirely; it’s one of the reasons I think Obama is more electable than Hillary in the general. What’s most important isn’t the gaffes they make or the skeletons in their closet (no politician is going to be an infallible saint); what’s important is how they respond when they are attacked or when they do make a gaffe.
Obama made his ill-conceived bitter comments, and he addressed them, pushing home the points he wanted to make while regretting how he’d made them. Hillary and Bill made their a few slightly ill considered remarks about race and. . . did nothing. And here we are.
Tom
At what point are vendors and the like giving Clinton in kind contributions knowing that they won’t be repaid? I would be very hesitant to give HRC any business–event coordination, hotels, transportation without cash up front. I wonder if any journalists are looking into who is owed the cash. Are these supporters who don’t care if they get paid or neutral parties getting hosed? Probably a little of both.
Soylent Green
“Out of weed” works for me, usually gets a buck or two. I appreciate honesty.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
John S. already snagged my preferred date for teh pool, June 6th. Oh well, the early bird gets the worm.
As a bonus, I predict she will work in some sort of metaphorical reference to D-Day – Hillary as the 101st Airborne staging a risky and daring landing behind enemy lines to do the hard work of softening them up before the main invasion force lands on Obamaha beach. That’s what she’s doing in WV and KY as we speak.
Notorious P.A.T.
Thank you. Lost in all this “white voter” nonsense is that Obama won Iowa, which made him a legit candidate and caused other voting blocks (such as black voters) to flock to him.
I would say black voters are more likely to vote for Hillary than Hillary’s hardcore supporters are to vote for Obama simply because black Americans are much more reality-based than the “Obama is a racist tool of the patriarchy!” crowd.
PS: The Obama campaign has no intentions of bailing out the Clinton campaign.
Clinton Team Acknowledges $20 Million Debt
Chuck Butcher
$20M wouldn’t take me over 40 years of ass bustin to make. That would only be almost all of a working life. Oh hell, I’m soooooo glad she can identify with me.