philliesphhan wrote:

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama."My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

So, she's officially off the deep end, I think.
link

I agree word-for-word with what she said, but have no idea what she meant: I don't understand it

Nor do I, and whatever comparison she was trying to make doesn't make relevant sense anyway. Kennedy had won 4 states and McCarthy 6 (1 of which I think after Kennedy was killed) so clearly the primaries weren't held at the same time as this year's. Her husband won 39 states in 1992, so I don't understand that comparison either.

All your base belong to us.

Well, the assassination reference is gratuitous, but I'm not sure why her comments are considered so obscure. Maybe it's a generational thing. I can remember when pundits were bemoaning the fact the conventions no longer decided the party nominee, that by the time everyone got together it was a fait accompli. Hillary, being slightly older than I am would certainly remember that environment. Clearly, both parties have continued to make efforts to continue this trend, so the fact that the nomination is still in question comes as a big surprise and is regarded as something 'bad" by a lot of people. I'm solidly in Obama's camp by now, but I don't care if the decision comes down to the convention, and I think the primary results show that Democrats as a whole haven't really come to a consensus. It actually strikes me as more "normal" and desirable than deciding in February. And I look forward to the drama.

Putting aside that the reference is stomach-turningly offensive--especially in the same week that the last Kennedy brother was diagnosed with a likely fatal ailment--the comparison makes no sense whatsoever.

I know that 1968 campaign pretty well. Its complexion changed at least four times, maybe five, in the same period that this year's has been essentially stable.

By early March this year, Obama had won 11 straight and had basically an insurmountable delegate lead. In '68, Gene McCarthy performed far better than expected against LBJ in New Hampshire on March 12 (two months later than it's held now). A few days after, RFK announced his candidacy. On March 31, LBJ told the country that he wouldn't be a candidate--which everyone knew meant that VP Hubert Humphrey would run.

But Humphrey didn't enter any primaries. You didn't have to back then, because the party chieftains--especially Daley in Chicago and Unruh in California--basically picked the nominee. He had the organizational backing; that figured to be enough. (The Clinton 1.0 strategy resembled this a bit.)

RFK's whole strategy was to win every primary he entered by large enough margins to convince the bigwigs (all of whom he knew well and who appreciated the lasting power of the Kennedy name/aura) that he was the best bet for November, and that not nominating him would spark a backlash. (Sort of like the Clinton 2.0 strategy.) McCarthy's strategy was... well, he didn't really have one. It's very questionable whether he really wanted to win; I think that if he didn't dislike both RFK and Humphrey, he would have dropped out. He'd made his point in New Hampshire. But he came to hate the Kennedys, and he beat them in Oregon. (RFK won Indiana. I think this year was the first since '68 that those two primaries were all that important.)

California was the big contest on June 4. Kennedy won, but it wasn't a rout. He was looking ahead to New York around June 19, where he did figure to win a big victory--that was pretty much it for the primaries. He'd make his case by an Obama-type strategy of going around the country, holding huge rallies and trying to show his popularity thusly.

There was no "magic number" of delegates then, except at the convention itself--and the state delegations mostly were controlled by the bigwigs, directly or through local allies. Not every state even had primaries or caucuses. In fact, it was the mishegas of '68, culminating in the tragic farce of the convention, which led to the McGovern Commission reforms that made the nominating process more democratic (and to McGovern himself getting the nod in '72, which didn't work out very well). The superdelegates, which came in after 1980, were meant to provide a strategic check on the voters making a "bad call" like McGovern or Jimmy Carter.

It's ironic that this year's contest probably will impel Democrats toward rules changes that centralize the process, walking back some of the earlier reforms. But the comparison between '68 and '08 is, like so much else the Clintons say, either implausibly stupid or characteristically disingenuous.

momadance wrote:I was just about to post that. All I can say is wow. May the conspiracy theories begin.

Oh wait..

Reading too much into this, she simply made a statement.

...while she quietly stuffed her gun back into her underwear...

I think maybe Hillary has "lost her bearings".

TenuredVulture wrote:I really like an Obama-Nunn ticket.

I often think that in choosing a leader, Obama is preferable to nunn.

swishnicholson wrote:Well, the assassination reference is gratuitous....

seems like it could only be gratuitous if in some other context the peculiar pairing of her husband's campaign history and RFK's assassination COULD be called for. danged if I can imagine one. "stomach-turningly offensive" has my vote

....but I don't care if the decision comes down to the convention....

I will cash in on some fine dinner/liquor bets if the decision is finalized at the convention, so yea

TomatoPie wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I really like an Obama-Nunn ticket.

I often think that in choosing a leader, Obama is preferable to nunn.

Nice.
I'll be the first to admit it - when you're at your very best, no one is better.

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama."My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

If something were to befall Obama where he couldn't continue, why would it make a difference whether Clinton dropped out? Does she really think she needs to stay in the race for the party to choose her under such circumstances?

You may have picked the least offensive part of the comments

dajafi wrote:RFK's whole strategy was to win every primary he entered by large enough margins to convince the bigwigs (all of whom he knew well and who appreciated the lasting power of the Kennedy name/aura) that he was the best bet for November, and that not nominating him would spark a backlash. (Sort of like the Clinton 2.0 strategy.)

I agree with this. So can explain to me again why Clinton's comments make no sense?

I guess everyone wants to jump on the assassination reference, and if people want to be shocked, appalled and disgusted, go ahead. But what she was actually saying was that "many nomination fights have extended into the summer, so I should be allowed to extend this fight into the summer, too." You can argue whether this is good, bad or indifferent for the party. But I don't see how it makes it seem like she has a screw loose unless you're looking at it from a vantage point of predetermined disgust.

I appreciate these explanations, because to a - let's say semi-informed? fine, uninformed - listener/reader, it does sound freaking crazy. It's not really jumping on the assassination reference; it's if you don't know the details of a forty year old campaign, the only conclusion is that she meant Obama might die between now and then.

swishnicholson wrote:

dajafi wrote:RFK's whole strategy was to win every primary he entered by large enough margins to convince the bigwigs (all of whom he knew well and who appreciated the lasting power of the Kennedy name/aura) that he was the best bet for November, and that not nominating him would spark a backlash. (Sort of like the Clinton 2.0 strategy.)

I agree with this. So can explain to me again why Clinton's comments make no sense?

I guess everyone wants to jump on the assassination reference, and if people want to be shocked, appalled and disgusted, go ahead. But what she was actually saying was that "many nomination fights have extended into the summer, so I should be allowed to extend this fight into the summer, too." You can argue whether this is good, bad or indifferent for the party. But I don't see how it makes it seem like she has a screw loose unless you're looking at it from a vantage point of predetermined disgust.

"Predetermined disgust" probably has some truth to it. But I try to call them as I see them, and I still think this makes no sense.

The reason it makes no sense is because if you're playing the RFK '68 strategy, it's not enough to win by lopsided margins in Arkansas, West Virginia and Kentucky--particularly considering the latter two are states that, if the Republican loses them, the Democrat isn't likely to "need" them because you're in the neighborhood of 450 EVs. (I know Bill Clinton won them both. But if you think about it, he didn't need them either--and he had Perot helping.)

She has a different and slightly better "electability" argument. (Such arguments are generally screwed up to start with--it's certainly plausible that Edwards and maybe even Dean would have won in 2004 where "electable" Kerry lost) but never mind that for now.) Clinton won impressive but not overwhelming victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two of the three universally recognized swing states, and probably would have had the same result in Florida, the third, if that race had been truly contested. (It wasn't, which is just one reason why her whinging about seating the delegates is as absurd as it is self-serving.) In OH and PA, there's polling to suggest that Obama will be, at the least, competitive in November anyway. Maybe Florida is more of a stretch (though his deficit is fairly small)--but he can plausibly argue that he puts Colorado, Virginia, and New Mexico into play, and more readily secures purple/bluish states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa where McCain runs even with or ahead of Clinton.

But the two biggest reasons the comparison doesn't work are, one, that June with almost all the contests over in 2008 is hugely different than June with big states remaining and the assumption that smoke-filled rooms would decide it in 1968; and two, that Obama as front-runner has already proven his electoral appeal--indeed, he's generated more RFK-like excitement than Clinton--on the campaign trail and in primary/caucus contests, as Humphrey never did up until November.

The comparison is absurd and, as the Clintons so often are, insulting to one's intelligence. The assassination reference is just in (characteristic) bad taste, but doesn't really affect the specious argument.

Re: Perot helping Clinton in WV...I mean freaking Dukakis won West Virginia. Clinton broke 50% once and came within 1.6% of it in 1992, beating GHWB by 13%.

Prior to GWB winning it twice, the only times Republicans won it since FDR was elected president were Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan's landslide reelections.

I think Dems would be well shy of 450 before West Virginia came into the picture.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:I appreciate these explanations, because to a - let's say semi-informed? fine, uninformed - listener/reader, it does sound freaking crazy. It's not really jumping on the assassination reference; it's if you don't know the details of a forty year old campaign, the only conclusion is that she meant Obama might die between now and then.

See, I didn't grab that at all, and even after watching the video again I don't think that is what she was trying to put across. I think dajafi's explication of the differences between 1968 and 2008 are spot on, although probably not pertinent to the Clinton campaign whose basic strategy boils down to "Just win, baby" and who will gladly cherry-pick historical tidbits to support her case whether they apply or not.

I do still have some questions as to whether Obama has truly established his "electoral appeal" given his recent stumbles, and whether these difficulties hint at any buyer's remorse among delegates who may have voted earlier in the process, although I fervently hope he will be the nominee and am at least 95% sure this will be the case.But I don't have any resentment in Clinton playing out the string and hoping that Democrats will eventually (misguidedly, in my opinon) turn to her.

Sure, it's just the opinion section of that noted rightwing rag, the Philadelphia Inquirer, but Hillary has the numbers:

Commentary
In most inclusive count, Clinton has the numbers
By Jonathan Last

Inquirer Editorial Board

Lost in the excitement of Barack Obama's coronation this week was an inconvenient fact of Tuesday's results: Hillary Clinton netted approximately 150,000 votes and is now poised to finish the primary season as the popular-vote leader. In some quaint circles, presumably, these things still matter.

...

Would it matter if Clinton were the undisputed (or even disputed) popular-vote winner? That's hard to say. The question is, matter to whom? The superdelegates will determine the nominee and there's no telling what will sway them. They have no objective criteria from which to make their decisions. But if they were to deny the popular-vote champ the nomination, there is a real question of whether Democratic voters would reconcile themselves to the decision. As it is, much of the talk about Democratic defections in November has been overstated.

Partisan voters almost always come home after their candidate loses. The problem arises when a candidate's supporters believe that their guy (or gal) didn't lose. Expect the chorus calling for Clinton's withdrawal to grow louder over the next week, with people insisting that she has no "path to victory."

Clinton's path is both obvious and simple: Win the popular vote and force Barack Obama and his cheerleaders to explain why that doesn't matter.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/ ... mbers.html

Hillary with her new politcal strategist?

TomatoPie wrote:Sure, it's just the opinion section of that noted rightwing rag, the Philadelphia Inquirer, but Hillary has the numbers:

Commentary
In most inclusive count, Clinton has the numbers
By Jonathan Last

Inquirer Editorial Board

Lost in the excitement of Barack Obama's coronation this week was an inconvenient fact of Tuesday's results: Hillary Clinton netted approximately 150,000 votes and is now poised to finish the primary season as the popular-vote leader. In some quaint circles, presumably, these things still matter.

...

Would it matter if Clinton were the undisputed (or even disputed) popular-vote winner? That's hard to say. The question is, matter to whom? The superdelegates will determine the nominee and there's no telling what will sway them. They have no objective criteria from which to make their decisions. But if they were to deny the popular-vote champ the nomination, there is a real question of whether Democratic voters would reconcile themselves to the decision. As it is, much of the talk about Democratic defections in November has been overstated.

Partisan voters almost always come home after their candidate loses. The problem arises when a candidate's supporters believe that their guy (or gal) didn't lose. Expect the chorus calling for Clinton's withdrawal to grow louder over the next week, with people insisting that she has no "path to victory."

Clinton's path is both obvious and simple: Win the popular vote and force Barack Obama and his cheerleaders to explain why that doesn't matter.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/ ... mbers.html

This is the same stuff that's been written, and said by her supporters, for a while. And Florida and Michigan are included

If "popular vote" were the criterion, Obama would have campaigned differently--spent time in, say, New York and California before Super Tuesday, rather than caucus states... some of which don't even release their popular vote totals (and all of which I think the Clintons discount because, well, because it doesn't help their argument).

What they're saying is akin to a football team that loses a game 23-21, then argues that because they scored three TDs to the other side's two TDs and three field goals, they actually should get the win.

I saw on another site that someone described the Clinton campaign as the Insult Your Intelligence Tour. Wish I'd thought of that.