I wouldn’t give Clinton the credit of looking out for anyone else than herself until after the General election is over.  No matter what she says between now and then.  She has given no reason believe what she has said or will say. 

but the look on ole Bill’s face behind her when she was giving her Winning Speech in Indiana today tells much.  Course he was awake this time - so things are looking up.  

Excellent analysis.  As I noted elsewhere, I think Hillary’s toast.  But, she has the potential to position herself to be a very strong candidate and possible winner in 2012 if she follows your suggested course of action and graciously withdraws now.  Another argument in her favor in 2012 would be the election of an elderly Republican, who probably would step down or be asked to step down - so her age would be less of an issue.  I think the reasons she is most likely to ignore such wise course are her ambition and sense of entitlement (’The nomination was mine and Obama stole it!’), and hubby, who sees her election as vindication of his administration. 

I suspect you are correct - Mrs. Clinton goes kicking and screaming all the way to the convention, helping Obama lose the general election in a very ugly campaign.  She would be likely to be very badly though of in 2012, but I really don’t think she is looking that far ahead. 

Fact: 2002 HRC: "I am hundred percent behind my president"Fact: Obama: 1840      HRC: 1684  delegates Though there is no way mathematically for her to win looking at the remaining contests and numbers, I dont think she would concede in coming weeks. Her eagerness is above all the odds, she can not accept the defeat, this is her character and a one that distracted my vote from her even if I could have overlooked the controversial war approval voting in 2002 which I really truly cant. She even could not acknowledge her mistake in this vote; well known "had I known it game". The fact of the matter is that you should have known better particularly when 1/3rd of the Americans, all world was crying out loud and suggesting common sense and what was so obviously wrong in the flawed convincing strategy of neo-cons. Ok, this is not the subject of the post, I cant help myself to go back and mention my frustration about her vote and quote of being behind the president hundred percent.  He gave a great speech last night in NC. He was smart pointing out the fact that even though there were bruises on both sides in this nomination process, at the end, all should vote for whoever the candidate is and he also acknowledged that he is not perfect (implicitly reminding Reverend Wright controversy).  Next, she is going to invest into counting Michigan and Florida delegates even though DNC boycotted their representations before the elections and people knew the rules. But she is ready to do anything but accept defeat. Guess what: even if she’d be able to do that which in the land of law would be very unlikely, she can not win at all.

Hillary won Indiana by nearly 2 percent (1.8 percent) and Obama won North Carolina by nearly 15 percent (14.7 percent). Reporters and commentators should be consistent by using the ‘nearly’ numbers or rounding up to margins of 2 percent and 15 percent.

Next, she is going to invest into counting Michigan and Florida delegates even though DNC boycotted their representations before the elections and people knew the rules. But she is ready to do anything but accept defeat. Guess what: even if she’d be able to do that which in the land of law would be very unlikely, she can not win at all.

And don’t forget HRC at one point agreed with the decision.  Of course that was before her campaign was displayed for the incompetence it is legendary for.

My guess is that she’ll attempt to use similar logic to argue for staying in rather than getting out. The argument she’s been making all along is that she’s the more electable candidate in the general election, and I’ll bet she’s plotting now to prove this one way or the other (either by getting the supers to bend or to show them the evidence that she was right all along when Obama fails to win because of the electoral map on election day.) Then she’ll use the fact that she stayed in it till the end to argue that she was doing this for the good of the party, if only they’d seen that it would have been better to run with her. My guess is that she’ll point out how much she sacrificed, the huge loans she made to her campaign to keep it going, etc, as evidence of her commitment to what she felt was best for the party.

Why do you hate America?  It’s clear that by Hillary winning IN she’s obviously more able to beat Obama than he is able to beat her.  Consider for a moment where Indiana is on the map.  It’s right next to Illinois, Obama’s home state.  Hillary was able to beat Obama next to his home state.  Sure Obama was able to win in NC, but look how far that is away from NY.  The numbers don’t matter… it’s all about how close you were to your opponent’s home state and your ability to win there.

Excellent point.  However, smart as she undeniably is, I don’t think Hillary is capable of taking the long view of anything. She’s consistently shown that in the campaign, where short term tactical considerations have been all that mattered.  The open invitation to chaos in 4 or 8 years from her repeated efforts to reward rule defying by Florida and Michigan is the best example, but not the only one.  The switch in Nevada from supporting convenient polling places for casino workers when she thought they would support her, to being against it when it looked like they’d support  Obama is another example.  Can she be in favor of making voting inconvenient for Democrats in the long run?  Of course not.  She doesn’t consider the long run. The stupid gas tax proposal is another instance.  Get your 30 bucks now, forget the real energy problem.  Proposing to "obliterate" Iran if they launch a nuclear attack on Israel is actually the worst of all.  You’re going to kill 50 million people, 25 million under the age of 15, because a half dozen leaders made a monstrous decision? No, of course she wouldn’t if it actually happened.  But the tactical goal of sounding tough and fanatically pro-Israel was worth it, she thought, the long-term stoking of anti-American paranoia being of no consequence in her thinking. So yeah, dropping out now is in her own best long term interest.  But she doesn’t think long term.  When she finally goes, it’ll be about the immediate  lack of money, not about any supposed future.

Ironically, I don’t believe for a second that Hillary’s ambition is any more blind or self-focused than Obama’s.  The only way you could know this is to know her personally.  I am betting you don’t at all.  I am absolutely a Hillary supporter and definitely won’t be voting Democrat this fall–for the first time since 1988.  Here’s what you don’t get–Obama is/was never going to win the general election.  That’s what many, if not most of us on the other side believe.  We just think it’s incredibly stupid to proffer an inexperienced candidate that have some real unanswered questions regarding his background against anyone except George Bush. Let’s not forget, Bush isn’t running again.  And while it might have been possible to tie him around any other republicans neck, it won’t be very easy at all to tie around McCain’s.  McCain, if anything, truly has been at the fore when it comes to questioning Bush’s policy and leadership.  I believe down deep that we have seized defeat from the jaws of victory. 

[admin]: Filthy racism erased, it will not be tolerated again.

Claudia, I think you’re missing the fact that the electability argument hinges on the electoral college, not just popular vote. You are noting an irony that isn’t necessarily there; you’re saying that it’s because people are afraid that too many other people who want to vote for Obama that they might withhold their own vote on the basis of electability.

That’s not necessarily the rationale though. The fact is that Obama’s support is higher in states that are pretty reliably Democratic states, and then higher among blacks in red states (whose numbers were high enough to be decisive in the primaries but won’t be in the general), while his support in some key swing states is much shakier than Hillary’s. Unless something major changes, for example, FL and OH will probably remain red in an Obama/McCain matchup, so then the question is which other states which voted for Bush will Obama be competitive in? Hillary had a decent chance at flipping FL and OH, so that even if McCain is competitive in some of the swing states that lean Democrat, she’d still probably have a decent shot at the electoral win.

That’s what’s so amazing- that so many Democrats seem to not realize that your party’s nominating scheme sets you up to have a candidate that at best performs well in the popular vote but not the electoral count, while the GOP scheme is set up the opposite way. And the superdelegates were put into the system to try to counterbalance that, but now when they could do what they were created to do they also realize they can’t do it without overturning the ‘will of the people’ and alienating huge parts of their base.

I could understand people making the argument that things will be so shaken up this time around that the traditional predictors won’t work, or that the fundamentals favor the Dems so much that you can take a risk, but instead of saying it that way so many people seem to not even understand the situation of how the nominating scheme either works to put forward the most electable or the most favored by interest groups who won’t be able to secure the win in the general election.  

The race is over. I think that the party insiders will not allow her campaign to challenge the Rules Committee on May 31st over the Florida/MI issue. They cannot risk their control and credibility. and it is obvious by now that he is the people’s choice. The results of the remaining elections will not change anything. Instead super delegates will start moving in the next few days as a message to her that it is over.  She and those around her are in such denial that it may take until WV and Kentucky to get the message. That would be a good and gracious time for her to concede - at a high point. If she doesn’t do it then and continues w/her nuclear option I look to see the Democrat Party leaders come down hard and ugly before she has anymore chances to muddy the water for the general election.

C Stanley, What is electability? When a candidate wins the party’s nomination, he proves to be electable. I understand your argument and I think you are making a very wrong correlation here, you are trying to correlate the results of Hillary versus Obama contest over the future McCain vs Obama contest. Your argument makes sense only if Hillary and her policy stand would be the same as McCain’s. The correlation would only then have some merit of significance. Needless to say that this is absolutely not the case.

I’d also say, if people backing Hillary would feel disfranchised when Obama gets the nomination and turn against him in the general election then McCain obviously gets lucky over the irrationale. But the same is also true for Obama supporters that could turn against Hillary in the general election if Hillary gets the nomination, albeit it is very unlikely. I dont suppose Democrats would be that stupid to betray their own party even if their favorate candidate loses the nomination process or would jeopardize anything to leave the presidency to McCain.

Judas, you prove my point about people not understanding the difference between popular vote and electoral votes. The strongest candidate among just the Democrats (and the independents or crossovers in states which allow that, which isn’t the majority) is not necessarily the same as the strongest candidate to run in the general election. You might have some states which lean heavily to one party or the other, from which a candidate might draw HUGE support in a primary- but the effects of that in the general aren’t going to be as large (doesn’t matter if you take CA by 1 vote or a million votes- you still get the same number of electoral votes for that win in the general election.) And then this is compounded by the fact that winning big in a state that is never going to swing for your party doesn’t help you in the least in the general election.

So you actually miss two things in your analysis: first, the fact that winning a general election takes more than just getting the support of voters from your own party (you seem to think that far more people are partisan loyalists than is actually the case), and second, that it takes winning the electoral college and not just the popular vote.

Wow, wish I had seen what someone below me wrote.  In re: Claudia.  The reason is because I and many like me do not believe that "the next best candidate" is Obama.  It’s nothing personal, in spite of many people want to believe. I will admit that most of his supporters commentary have made me embarrassed to be a Democrat and have given me confidence that a vote for Obama ratifies that sort of vitriol.  But at the end of the day, I truly believe Obama lacks the experience and believe that any objective comparison of his versus Hillary’s experience(s) would drive one to conclude his resume doesn’t stack up.  McCain, as I explained, is not Bush. He is a centrist–albeit to the right of me.  But then again, Obama is further left of me than McCain is right.  I really believe that centrist Democrats are a silent majority.

I dont think I prove anthing that mis-represents the current situation. Popular vote and electoral college is a very well understood topic, just how it’ll make the losing candidate a better contender in the general election than the winning candidate is the heart of the discussion. Try to explain that to me. What I am saying is that in the quest of your explanation, anything you’d say can not be more than a biased speculation, the hard fact is that the winner of the nomination process deserves to be McCain’s opponent.

"Winning big in a state thats never going to swing for your party doesnt help you in the general election" - Maybe it does maybe it doesnt. Winning big or small in small states does matter though in the general election. Right? Your second point that you think I missed the point is about getting the support of voters from other party, I am not saying anything otherwise, just how are you making the predicament for Hillary to be able to pick right wing or independent people more than Obama strikes me though. Look, it is all speculation to me, Hillary is not a particularly loved person by many within Dems or outside of Dems, same argument may be made for Barack for people who dont like to stomack to see a black person in the chief commander seat.

Would you also say that since Obama is favored mostly by educated people and since many of the voters in the general election is not up-to the intellectual level of Obama supporters thats why he has less chance than Hillary, I’d have no difficulty believing in that.

Judas, I’m not speculating based on how I think people think, I’m basing it on the polling data. You hear a lot about Obama pulling ahead of Hillary in the national polling, or how he matches up head to head with McCain vs. how she does, and there’s not a lot of difference (it’s all pretty much within statistical error.)

But when you start looking at the polling head to heads by state, it’s a different picture- there are some swing states where he’s more vulnerable than she is against McCain. That’s how it stands right now, and it certainly could change as the general campaign gets underway, so I’m not trying to make more of it than it really is. But just as it could change in the general election for Obama to pull ahead in those states that he’d need to carry, there are also some states that a Dem would expect to carry that he may not- so the general campaign could tilt it in the other direction to give McCain a substantial win, too. It’s going to come down to who runs a better campaign, IMO. But the irony is that the Dems shouldn’t have had to even break a sweat to win this one, and instead it’ll likely be at least a close election. And yeah, I think that says something about the relative ability of each party’s nomination process to produce the most electable candidate possible in any given cycle.

BTW, one of the places I’ve found to try to evaluate the electoral configurations is this site:
http://www.270towin.com

They have a really cool map feature which defaults to the basic swing state configuration (those states that are pretty much in the bag for either party are marked in red or blue) and then you can click on the remaining states to make them red or blue and see how that affects the odds- when you click on enough states so that only 12 are left, it calculates the mathematical probability of each party getting to 270, based on the current polling data in the remaining states. You do have to keep in mind that if you start clicking on the ones you think your party will take, but don’t ‘give’ any to the other side, then it skews it tremendously so that it looks like your guy is a shoo-in. So, click on ones you think that Obama will take and ones you think McCain will take (you can also look at the link for that state to see how it’s leaning at the moment, and view the historical data of how the state usually goes.)

The scariest part is I was clicking on some that I thought were reasonable assumptions and came up with an electoral tie. Can anyone even imagine how that would go down?? Yikes.

For Clinton to (be able to) run in 2012, I see three ways:

1) McCain beats Obama in the coming general elections (magnifying and carrying her electability point over to 2012).

2) Obama wins now, but subsequently has four very poor years in the White House; the country is disillusioned.

3) Obama wins now, but, God forbid, passes away at the end of his term (not even giving his VP a partial incumbancy advantage).

Does anyone really think Clinton can unseat a successful and living fourty-something Pres. Obama in 2008? Imo, it is either now or in 2016 (or never) for Clinton. And, Claudia, I think your Clintonian reason to concede now is a bit baseless thus. (Not that I don’t want her to concede; the sooner the better for me; I am eager to see how Obama holds up against the Republican machine.)

C Stanley, when I studied web site http://www.270towin.com you have given, based on its statistical significance interval and the uncertainty to predict future elections partially tied to candidates’ yet to be seen campaign and debate performances,  it was not hard to come up with question marks in their estimations. Check http://www.270towin.com/2008_polls/mccain_clinton/ versus http://www.270towin.com/2008_polls/mccain_obama/ MA and FL is made a swing state for the latter, i.e., for Obama comparison, if I just change that the paired comparison favors Obama. So it is really not much telling as what the polling is suggesting at the moment to my opinion. Thanx for finding this website though. I already   bookmarked it.

the one thing for certain.  People supporting her future senate races and other supporters will pay off her loans - making certain she has made a profit from this race.

Interested…. if she were to withdraw, she could probably reach some quiet understandings for Obama’s financial backers to contribute some to her.

lol I doubt it, but either way, she made sure she charged her campaign interest for the money loans.   Tells a lot about what she felt about her campaign.

Rumor is that Clinton will not withdraw unless the Obama campaign agrees to pay her campaign debts–several millions of which is Clinton’s own money–AND concede to her a major share of convention/platform influence.

People need to wise up to The Game As It Is Really Played. Delegates are also the ones who establish the party platform for the next four years. It’s not ALL about being the candidate, it’s also about internal factions affecting the platform and grabbing a share of the internal party power for the next four years, and steering the resulting goodies towards THEIR factions for those four years. We are not just watching the fight for the nomination–we are also watching the biggest factions ("Progressives" versus "DLC/Centrist") of the party duke it out for bargaining chips at the convention, and for the subsequent resulting power and perks. That internal division of power and perks applies even if the nominee loses the general election.

As point person for the DLC/Centrist faction, there is no real reason at all for Clinton to concede at this point even if she knows she won’t win the nomination. Unless the party leaders and the opposition faction agree to give HER faction some outsized influence at the convention, the power play for Clinton and for the DLC/Centrist faction is to continue fighting, to grab more sway and more delegates for the control-of-the-party intramural scrimmage coming up.

No matter how the final nomination result comes in, and no matter the result in November, Clinton and her faction(s) benefit in the long run from continuing to fight and gain delegates. Unless and until the other party faction(s) cede that to her faction(s), she can and will keep right on rolling, stacking up convention chips.