Obama is obviously going to be the nominee and, logically, women should unite behind him at the top of the ticket. Logic doesn't always trump emotion, however. And I'm more concerned about women staying home than I am of them voting for McCain. Honestly, I think the majority of those who supported Clinton will get over it and support Obama. He just has a tightrope to walk getting them to his table. Impeach Bush.
Apologies. I should have read more closely. But, as far as running for President, she won't get another chance until 2016 -- unless Obama loses.
Nothing to it! thumbs, I honestly think you can relax. This was her one shot. By 2016, she'll be too old. The only scenario I can imagine Hillary Clinton running again would be as a successful, two term Vice-President, and I'll be shocked if Barack Obama picks her. Impeach Bush.
So much for a concession. She basically riled up her supporters and gave them hope that she'll continue onward saying she hasn't made any decision and wants to hear from them. She doesn't know how to quit.
I think Hillary made a mistake by not conceding tonight. Also, her attitude was not conciliatory at all. From my standpoint, it's just the latest demonstration of her personality flaws that have been on full display throughout this whole campaign.
I know I am classless for my unrelenting attacks on the Wicked Witch of the East. I'll be even less classy in responding to my own post (Today, 08:19 AM #17) to say "I told you so."
My goodness, people really do hear what they want to hear. I thought Clinton took a remarkably conciliatory tone. Listen to the opening remarks of her speech, and tell me that's a candidate running for office. That's a candidate acknowledging she'd been beaten, and that it's a formality at this point. The exact paperwork date is irrelevant in the context of the larger theme of what she said. Take off the blinders, and listen to the words. She's beaten, and she acknowledged as much. It's over.
Everyone on every major network - Obama supporters or not - disagreed. They all say the tone was completely wrong, and would piss off Obama and his people. The fact that when her supporters were chanting "Denver", she basically encouraged it, is not conciliatory. The fact that she consistently mentioned that she won the popular vote (even though she only leads it if you take out 4 caucus states) was not conciliatory. As the CNN people said, it was a silly attempt to try to rally her supporters and put pressure on Obama. The timing IS relevant - because it was immediately before Obama's speech and after McCain's speech that tried to woo her supporters, and having her supporters on board when Obama launches his general election campaign would be helpful. Instead, she riled them up to think that she's still in it, and now to those people, it appears that Obama is still trying to "steal" the nomination and short-circuit the process. Sorry to say, but it was all around a ridiculous performance. The only people who have defended it on the networks are Clinton's top supporters. ON CNN, for example, Carville defended it while all 8 or 9 other analysts, including Republicans, thought it was nonsensical and had no idea what the purpose was.
I watched CNN as well. With all due respect, it's going to take more than 5-8 analysts -- a ridiculously small sample size in the greater context of a presidential election -- to convince me of what most people believed. I watched every second of that speech, and cannot for the life of me see how Clinton "encouraged" the Denver chant, or how any rational person could listen to that speech and believe that she's still in it. The purpose was to concede without officially conceding, and to offer a reminder of what she could bring to him as a Vice President. I think you'd have to have a pretty biased view to come out with something different. Now, Obama's speech was brilliant.
Huh? The first words out of her mouth were ones of congratulations to him and his campaign! She didn't technically use the word "win" -- but the intent was beyond obvious. I'll also note that it's to the media's best interest to promote as much controversy as they can and stir the pot as much as possible, for obvious reasons. In this case, it's a significant reach.
Her first words were purely perfunctory because they were drowned out by the tone of the rest of her speech. Talk about hearing what you want to hear...
These were her words: "Sen. Obama has inspired so many Americans to care about politics and empowered so many more to get involved," she said, saying she was "grateful" for his work. "It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him just as it is an honor to call him my friend, and tonight I would like all of us to take a moment to recognize him and his supporters," she said, to cheers. They didn't address anything about him winning or anything of the sort. Just that he excited people and we should recognize that. And then she went to say that she has more votes, has decided nothing, and when her supporters started chanting "Denver!", she just remained quiet, letting them go on instead of trying to move on, or settle them down, or anything of the sort. Politicians do it all the time - when Obama supporters booed Clinton during the Edwards endorsement, he said "no no" and silenced them. She did nothing of the sort. "My goodness, people really do hear what they want to hear."
It's quite easy to settle your supporters when you're the favorite, and you're being a gracious winner. It's another thing when your supporters are dealing with heartbreak, and have cast a ridiculous amount of votes and have donated a ridiculous amount of money. It's also a candidate-specific issue. Telling your own crowd no takes a certain amount of charisma to pull off, because you're walking a fine line between doing the right thing and giving the appearance of being so arrogant that you're spiting your own support. Some politicians do it; some don't, usually dependent on their gifts as a speaker. It's not something you can draw a conclusion from. What you left out was the undertone, which to me was the most noteworthy part. Why were her comments about Obama the first words out of her mouth? You can tell a lot about the greater context of a speech by the lede -- it's basically Rule 1 of speech writing. If she weren't trying to acknowledge his win, why not frame it around all that she had accomplished? Why not go for something about the historical significance and the campaign, as Obama did? Why in the world would she start her entire speech around what her opponent had done if the underlying intent wasn't to concede to him (without officially doing so)?
The Cat: The problem is that this is even open to debate. She had forever to prepare for this. It wasn't a surprise. On the night that she was mathematically eliminated, a night she had to have seen coming for a very long time, she ought to have been prepared and she ought not to have left that room saying she wasn't sure what she'd do next with her campaign. She's had weeks (at least) to negotiate terms, to begin to talk differently with her supporters and she's just refused to do it. Long after the math became impossible for her. She was played in and out of the room to Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down!" Tonight was Obama's only chance before the convention to give this sort of speech on TV in prime time and she stepped on it by refusing to do the honorable thing. It wasn't lousy to him; it was lousy to the party's chances in November (though I don't share Clinton's belief that those are in any jeopardy). The speech was inelegant, it was poor stagecraft and it further harmed her chances at a spot on the ticket which was the opposite of its aim. But honestly it's not that big a deal. I didn't expect her to do the right thing tonight. She has shown an incredible problem recognizing reality for a few months now and, though I do believe her craziness has rubbed off on her supporters (how any Dem woman could resent Obama or consider not voting for him given his record is utterly insane), reality does seem to finally be setting in. But now it's time for her to move on. She should have her meeting with Obama within the next days and endorse within the week. Anything less would really be pathetic.
How about a man who has surrounded himself with black separatists for the last 20 years talking about 'unity' and 'bringing people together'? Just pure, unadulterated claptrap. Total hypocrisy. The man responsible for an upcoming massive racial divide has been blowing smoke up his crazy zombie following's azzes for the last 16 months... and they've been soaking it in with a glazed smile on their blank-look faces... I thought the libs' essence was to scrutinize and demand the best? They have totally suspended their criteria for a candidate in choose the no-experience candidate in Obama. What does he have other that a promise (empty) of change? Yet these pseudo-intellectual libs are just sucked up in his marketing campaign. Makes no sense. Are they voting for him because of his resume? Or because he is not Hillary? My money is on the latter... What a sad sack pool of lib candidates this time around...
I want to say further, she has a job to do now. She promised to do it and the time for doing it came, at the very latest, tonight. She knew this was coming and that it was either coming tonight or within a week of tonight. She has known that for more than a month. Instead, she was introduced as "the next president of the United States" by her campaign manager, they played "I Won't Back Down" before and after her speech and she ended by saying she wasn't yet making a decision about what to do next. She doesn't know what to do?!! She's promised to support the nominee. We have one now. She knows that. And short of him dying or being led away in handcuffs, that will not change. She's now a little over an hour late doing the right thing and the clock is ticking. I don't want to hear one more single thing from anybody about how Obama has a lot of work to do to reach out to her supporters. He's been doing that and he did it very eloquently and generously tonight. She has a job to do. Now.
