I simply can’t believe the speech Hillary gave tonight. It was a campaign speech, for goodness sake! She had all her classic themes in tow. “I’m the stronger candidate,” “I have the popular vote,” “I don’t give up,” “We won the swing states,” bla-bla-freaking-bla. No conciliatory tone. No congratulations to Obama for winning the nomination, not even an acknowledgment of it. She basically just congratulated him for competing. And those maniacs in her audience chanting “Denver! Denver! Denver!” gave me chills of dread.
What I got from tonight is this is far from over and, as has been reported just about everywhere tonight, taking the focus off what should have been Obama’s night and his alone I might add, Hillary’s vying for Veep. I suspect overtures in that direction will be made to her from Obama’s camp, especially now that she’s put it out there that she’s interested. I simply don’t see how the issue doesn’t get confronted at this point.
So, the debate is what can Obama realistically do to thwart Hillary’s efforts to bulldoze her way onto his ticket without alienating her supporters or causing her to take the battle all the way to the convention? Should he just acquiesce and give it to her?
Hell no. Obama does not need a megalomaniacal loose cannon for a running mate. No good could come out of it. He’ll continue to maintain a conciliatory tone. Hopefully, the superdelegates will do the heavy lifting and put an end to this craziness. I’m hoping Hillary comes to her senses in a day or two.
There’s absolutely nothing he can do to prevent her from using her political weight to make a vice president bid. He can either deny it to her, alienating a lot of her supporters and giving all of us something to look back at in hindsight after he loses the election and say “what was he thinking?!” or he can give it to her, and mildly annoy a lot of the people who supported him through the whole campaign.
If he’s as smart as I think he is, we will see an Obama/Hillary ticket. He has nothing to lose from giving her the spot, and he seriously risks his presidential campaign if he doesn’t.
I don’t know. Using tactics like that to basically force her way on to the ticket may turn a lot of people off. It certainly is turning me off. She offered him the VP spot remember? What a farce that was.
Common sense and politics don’t go hand in hand, but seriously, someone needs to just tell her to give it up. Its over. She lost. Nobody like a sore loser.
He has to placate her fanatical supporters somehow. I’m not sure I believe that she really wants the Veep spot. I think his best bet would be to pay her campaign debts, promise to make UHC central in his administration and choose a woman (Sebelius, or perhaps McCaskill)as his running mate.
I know some Obama supporters might not like the idea of him paying of her campaign debt, but in terms of realpolitik, it’s an investment in the general election and it’s preferable to putting her on the ticket (though a cabinet position would probably be palatable).
I’m at work and i have a meeting in about 15 minutes, but i just quickly read over this article.
Thats nice to know, but this is just plain silly…
Then why bother offering it? I suppose its a nice gesture, but it seems like silly to me. But then i generally lie people to just say what they mean without a lot of fancy dancin’.
And this part:
Now thats stupid. I’m sure Obama wouldn’t chose a VP just to spite Clinton, so if it is another woman, tough shit for Clinton. Deal with it. If he feels she’s qualified for the job who freaking cares if its a woman? (Well, I’m sure some do, but you know what I mean).
Are you kidding? It was a concession speech. She hit her usual talking points so she can get one last push in donations, but otherwise her message above all was party unity and a Democratic victory in 08. I’m sorry her praise for Obama wasn’t as glowing as his was in return, but I think it’s pretty clear that she’s done.
Honestly, if she wasn’t about to give up, why would she even allow room for the thought? She doesn’t know what she’s going to do next? Name a single moment in her campaign (hell, her career) where she’s sounded more unsure.
I know she’s been a headache for a long time, but come on. The Clinton campaign is finished, and there’s no need for a Fork Hillary 5.
What would Don Corleone do? And does anyone know if Hillary owns a racehorse?
If I’d had any thoughts that maybe she was the right candidate, her actions of the last few weeks have done them in. Now her absolute refusal to face reality has gone from nutty diva to worthy of Dick and Dubya; how would she act with a failed foreign policy or disastrous UHC plan that she wouldn’t admit was flawed?
And so help me gods of punditry and populism but a year ago I really respected Bill Clinton. I never thought he was flawless, I thought he was a political creature from his conception onward, and the pardoning of the billionaires was something I couldn’t defend, but I respected him as a politician at least; has the man just flat out lost his mind? (I don’t think the Vanity Fair affair hurt Hillary’s campaign [too late and all that] but damned sure didn’t help.)
Ah well, hopefully in 24 hours she’ll have acknowledged the miracle weapons aren’t coming, demolished the model of the new capitol city of Hillaropolis, ordered the arrest and execution of Carville for treason, and come out of seclusion with her lips drawn back in something like a smile to congratulate Obama.
I don’t trust HRC at all and with her on the ticket, I will vote Libertarian. Having her as VP is a huge risk for Obama… as Hill and Bill would be co-VPs and the temptation of having something “happen” to Obama might just be too much for the Clintons to pass up.
Legacy-wise, this is about as solid of a chance as Hillary has right now of securing her name in the history books of America. First black president and first woman vice president? C’mon! I’d be loathe to take her non-concession at the 11th hour to be representative of any kind of mental deficiency. Really, for some reason it seems like when we start talking about politicians we lose all sense of reason and insight.
If this were not such a contentious nomination, I’d be willing to bet that posters would be chastising each other left and right for making such weak assumptions.
No, I think the reference is to these comments by the junior Senator as reported here and as commented on by Olberman here. Give his rant a good 1:30 in and you will possibly understand. The point being she seemed to justify staying in with the idea that RFK was assasinated in June of 68, so why should she bow out now?
Sorry if you don’t like the cites I used but this was reported in a variety of media at the time she made these ill advised comments. At the least this is an amazingly poor choice of words. I personally think it was disgusting to even bring the idea up.
But then it could just be Clintonian wishful thinking…
That is a silly opinion to hold. She gave examples of times when the primary race lasted into June, in order to justify her decision not to drop out earlier. She was saying “why should I drop out, when this race is even CLOSER than previous ones, which lasted longer?” The reference to the assassination was because it happened during a primary that was not decided before June.
She wasn’t suggesting that she wasn’t quitting because she thought Obama might be assassinated. That’s just ridiculous.
That seems a little lopsided. I’ve heard a lot of horror from Obama supporters over the very idea of Hillary as Obama’s Vice-President. I doubt many would vote for McCain, but I could see them staying home and not voting at all if he picks her.
