Even as Hillary Clinton trails Barack Obama in pledged delegates, the popular vote, and number of states won, she has made it clear that she plans to stay in the race for the nomination. All of which brings me to this logical conclusion: It is time for Barack Obama to drop out.
If Clinton had the good of the Democratic Party in mind, she would have given up her bid the day after the Mississippi primary, which Obama won by 25 points. The delegate math was as dismal for her campaign then as it is now, even after Pennsylvania, and she was facing down a six-week gulf before the next election.
But Hillary Clinton isnt going to drop out. There simply isnt a function in her assembly code for throwing in the towel.
Obama, on the other hand, is fully capable of it. And if hes really serious about representing a new kind of politics, now is the time for him to prove it in the only meaningful way left. . . .
Obama drops out next week, stating that although he could almost certainly win the nomination by fighting it out until the convention in August, he is simply not willing to drag the party through a battle that will cripple its chances against John McCain. He then pledges to help support Sen. Clinton in her bidwith full knowledge that she will not take him up on the offer.
In one stroke, Obama will regain his messiah creds by making the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the party. His followers will be furious. The mere mention of Clintons name will provoke unspeakable acts. They will abandon Clinton in numbers sufficient to hand McCain the election in November.
Losing the presidency again after eight years of Bush will ruin the Democratic Party. It will become obvious that Clintons decision to stay in the race was the turning point in the election. The base will turn its wrath on party leaders like Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi, who failed to push Clinton out. Obama, as the de facto head of the party, will broker negotiations to install new leaders loyal to him. . . .
Don't think it'll happen, but it's a neat theory. I especially like the "ruin the Democratic Party" part.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/26/2008 16:47 ||
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Schadenfruede! There should a happy song about all of this.
For battle-weary Democrats, the big news out of Pennsylvania is pretty simple: Their nightmare continues.
In the seven weeks between the Texas and Ohio primaries in early March and Tuesday's balloting in Pennsylvania, the tone of both Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's campaigns became markedly more negative, and both candidates displayed new vulnerabilities that John McCain can easily exploit. The task of deciding which of those two exciting, precedent-breaking but seriously flawed contenders would give the Democrats the best chance of reclaiming the White House looks ever harder.
Despite a relatively narrow loss Tuesday in the delegate fight in the largest prize since Ohio and Texas, Obama is likely to be leading in both popular votes and convention delegates when the last primary results are counted June 3. But it is almost certain that he will be short of the number needed for nomination, leaving the final choice to the almost 800 superdelegates -- elected officials and party leaders.
And that is where trouble looms. Until now, Democrats have been congratulating themselves on a contest that has attracted millions of new voters. Many had become disillusioned with politics. Many were independents or converted Republicans. It seemed to bode well for November. But now all the worried Democrats can see are more and more first-time voters who will be frustrated and angry if their candidate is counted out in a process they neither sanctioned nor really understand.
For Clinton to win, the superdelegates would have to overrule the millions of voters who have flocked to Obama, including thousands of young people and African Americans, to whom he represents a fresh hope for the future. But as political pros, many of whom will be on the November ballot themselves, the superdelegates cannot ignore what Clinton achieved in winning such major electoral prizes as California, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and now Pennsylvania.
Obama's inability to win any of the major states except his home base, Illinois, and Georgia, where he could count on the black vote in Atlanta, is worrisome enough. His failure to mobilize and deliver the votes of blue-collar, middle- and lower-income white families that are the backbone of the traditional Democratic Party has to be even more concerning to the superdelegates, as are the gaffes that have begun to mar Obama's personal performance.
In weeks of struggle that he could have devoted to his uphill fight in Pennsylvania, Obama was unable to put to rest the controversies over his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his own misguided effort to offer an explanation of what he called "bitter" rural Pennsylvanians finding solace in religion, rifles and immigrant-bashing. How many votes that cost him on Tuesday is uncertain, but it clearly raised doubts about his penchant for distracting issues. And inexperience with the big time.
Yet, in pointing to those vulnerabilities in her rival, Clinton has heightened the most obvious liability she would carry into a fight against McCain. In an age of deep cynicism about politicians of both parties, McCain is the rare exception who is not assumed to be willing to sacrifice personal credibility to prevail in any contest. Then there's the war thing.
Clinton had seeded doubts about her own character long before this campaign began through her record as a polarizing figure, her secrecy and her obvious prevarications. But in the seven weeks between Ohio and Pennsylvania, a Post poll found shockingly high percentages of voters who regard Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy. The negative attacks she has launched against Obama have hurt him but equally have added to her reputation for opportunism.
That is why so many Democrats are praying for this divisive primary campaign to end. They sense, correctly, that the longer it goes on, the better it is for John McCain.
But how does anyone persuade the first serious African American candidate, the leader in every relevant measure of popular support, to abandon a historic candidacy?
And how does anyone persuade the first serious female candidate, the possessor of the best brand name in Democratic politics, and a politician who has battled back from seeming defeat at least three times already, that she should quit?
The Democrats have to resolve this somehow. The longer this goes on, the greater the costs in November.
I'm John McCain and I approve of this message.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/26/2008 08:58 ||
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Lesseee.... two lawyers... one a product of the Chicago political machine... the other a product/beneficiary of Arkansas politics... neither of them have any personal accomplishments outside of the political careers... two 'imperials'... both with baggage out the wazoo... one appeals to the hard left and the intelligentsia... the other to the political die/hard Democrat establishment... neither can genuinely connect with the Democrats' most significant voter demographic...
#2
It is amazing to me that no one is discussing the elephant in the room, proportional representation. If the donks had the traditional American system of first past the post, winner take all, there would be no problem. But the proportional selection of delegates assures that when there is an even match-up or a large multiplicity of choices, no decision gets made. I hope they keep this system. It's sort of like the Norks demonstrating the advantages of Stalinism.
#3
The donks can't win. Blacks wont vote for Hildabeast, cause they'll be spurned. Latinos wont vote for Obama, cause, well, he's black and they dislike blacks intensely. I don't think anyone has faced the facts that they have built an un-winnable horse race here.
#4
No no no, BigJim - surely the Dems are not that prejudiced? They're the party of The Little People™
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/26/2008 10:47 Comments ||
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It is amazing to me that no one is discussing the elephant in the room, proportional representation.
More like no one wants to discuss the elephant in the room. The problem caused by proportional representation was mentioned briefly about the time that the super-delegates became a factor, and then quickly dropped.
#6
Big Jim is right. The dems can't make hay out of this. The GOP, on the other hand can get full unification as soon as the blind candidate does what he has to do. From what I know about McCain, that will be never. That man is as stubborn as radioactive waste. He will not bend to connect with his own party. He will bend to befriend the liberals. In my opinion, McCain is a lunatic. His deck is missing a whole suit. And as history unfolds, we will make such a lunatic our leader.
#7
Old Chinese Curse.
"Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it".
Slamming McCain as a lunatic is well and good, but do you want either of the MORE lunatic opponents?
I see McCain as the lesser of three evils, worth voting in as Pres, BECAUSE the other opponents are abysmal, He's only "The best of a bad lot" no other reason.
We really need "None of the above" as a ballot choice.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/26/2008 14:23 Comments ||
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Again Robert Heinlein comes to mind in the personna of Lazarus Long. Vote: There may not be a candidate you wish to vote for but there is certainly a candidate you wish to vote against.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/26/2008 21:24 Comments ||
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wxj: In my opinion, McCain is a lunatic. His deck is missing a whole suit.
Which lunatic would you like to nominate Federal dictators-for-life judges? That's the question that's paramount in my mind. I think McCain is insufficiently conservative, but the Democratic alternatives are raving communists compared to him. Votes are seldom about ideal vs non-ideal alternatives. A lot of the time, they are about choosing the lesser of two evils.
China has been in the news of late over the Tibetan issue, which also impacts India in a major way.
To put Sino-Indian relations into perspective, it is necessary to look at from a historical as well as a strategic context. Let me begin from the Second Opium War in1860 in which Indian troops took part. Four brigades of British and Indian infantry (Sikh Regiment, Madras Regiment, Bombay Native Infantry and the Ludhiana Rifles) and one cavalry brigade, which included Probyns Horse, took part in these operations, in which the Summer Palace in Peking was sacked and looted. I recall a Chinese general telling me in 1957: We, Chinese, will never forget that Indian troops took part in the sacking of the Summer Palace.
In 1904, Indian troops were part of the Younghusband expedition that seized Lhasa. The Tibetans were forced to accept two trading posts, protected by Indian troops, in the Chumbi Valley. These were subsequently withdrawn after China moved into Tibet.
In 1913 / 1914, during the Shimla Conference, talks bogged down as the Chinese refused to accept the creation of an inner and outer Tibet. Ivan Chen ,the Chinese representative, declined to sign the McMahon map, and merely initialled it. From 1920 onwards the British started progressively moving into parts of what is now known as Arunachal Pradesh. In 1937, the first Survey of India map was published, showing the border as per the McMahon line. The previous Survey of India map of 1937 showed the inner line in Arunachal as the boundary. In 1938, the proceedings of the Shimla Convention were published at the insistence of British administrator Olaf Kirkpatrick Kruuse Caroe.
In 1949, the Communist Chinese forces moved into Tibet.
In April 1951, Major Bob Kathing with an armed detachment moved into Tawang and took over the administration of the district. In April 1954, the five principles of peace were formulated with the Chinese. Hindi Chini bhai bhai was the slogan of the day. (Indias ambassador to China, KM Panikkar, had erroneously conveyed to the Chinese that India recognises Chinese sovereignty over Tibet instead of suzerainty, saying he could not explain to them the difference between the two!) In 1959, there was unrest in Tibet, the Chinese cracked down and the Dalai Lama fled to India. In 1960, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai proposed to India that China would retain the Aksai Chin region in the northwest and in return would accept the Mcmahon Line line in the east. This was rejected by India, and China claimed suzerainty over Bhutan. The Forward Policy was accelerated by India, and this was strongly objected to by the Chinese. On October 20, 1962, China invaded India.
On November 21, 1962, China withdrew from Arunachal but stayed on in Aksai Chin. During the 1965 India-Pakistan war, our troops withdrew some 700 yards from the Nathu La (under Chinese threats). In 1967, skirmishes took place at Nathu La. (September 4 with 18 Rajput and October 1 with the 7/11 Gurkha Rifles)
In 1975, I ordered the occupation of the heights east of the Nathu La in order to dominate the pass. From 1981 to 1987, there were 8 rounds of fruitless Indo-Chinese talks. In 1988, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited China, and signed agreements on cooperation in the fields of science and technology and civil aviation. In 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited China. In July 2007, the Nathu La was reopened for inter-border trade. Strategically, China has built a railway line to Lhasa and is extending it to the Chumbi valley. China is rapidly developing the infrastructure in Tibet. New airfields and roads are being constructed in the vicinity of the Indian border. China dams the Sutlej River and talks of building a dam across the Tsang Po (Brahmaputra). China and Pakistan are widening the Karakoram Road and intend to connect it to Gwadar Port in the Gulf of Oman in order to give China access to the Arabian Sea. China is working for closer ties with Pakistan, as also with Bangladesh.
Presently, China is likely to increase its influence in Nepal after the Maoists assume power. China has obtained from Burma the use of naval bases in the Bay of Bengal. China has embarked on a large scale expansion and modernisation of its armed forces including its nuclear arsenal and their delivery means.
The Han-isation of Tibet is proceeding rapidly, and there has been a ruthless crackdown on the native Tibetans. China is flexing its economic muscles. China is acquiring mineral, oil and commodity resources on a global basis to fuel its rapidly expanding industrial base. China's main import from India is iron ore, a commodity that is in demand internationally. In return, China exports consumer goods to India. China still occupies Aksai Chin and has persisted in its claims to Arunachal Pradesh. China also claims some 360 sq km of Bhutanese territory . (India has since 1949 unilaterally guaranteed its commitment to the defence of Bhutan .
In conclusion, China is emerging as a potential security threat to India.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/26/2008 10:08 ||
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A tourist at the ruins of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing
Posted by: john frum ||
04/26/2008 10:15 Comments ||
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Indian and Chinese troops face off at the border, 1962
Posted by: john frum ||
04/26/2008 10:15 Comments ||
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China is emerging as a potential security threat to India.
Understatement of the year. Why are the Indians such slow learners in politics?
#4
Understatement of the year. Why are the Indians such slow learners in politics?
Because the Indian trope, ever since the Brits conquered South Asia, is that white Europeans are the only imperialists ever to walk the face of this earth. Iranians, Afghans and South Asians were never imperialists, and Chinese, not being white, are, of course, not imperialists, either.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/26/2008 14:22 Comments ||
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"The overall picture is infinitely more complex than the anti-Bush narrative of the Iraq war would suggest."
Karl Rove's fiendish plots even extend into Asia.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/26/2008 16:32 Comments ||
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Besides Indonesia and Malaysia, respect for the US has never been higher in the Far East and Oceana. The "Clash of Civilizations" thesis should be deemed proven.
#4
M: Besides Indonesia and Malaysia, respect for the US has never been higher in the Far East and Oceana.
That's mainly the Muslims being petulant that we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and ethnic Chinese siding with China over Tibet. Once China takes over chunks of Filipino territory, the Muslim parts of Malaysia and Indonesia will start to appreciate Uncle Sam a lot more.
Last week, Time magazine featured on its cover the iconic photograph of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. But with one difference: The flag has been replaced by a tree. The managing editor of Time, Rick Stengel, was very pleased with the lads in graphics for cooking up this cute image and was all over the TV sofas, talking up this ingenious visual shorthand for what he regards as the greatest challenge facing mankind: "How To Win The War On Global Warming."
Where to begin? For the past 10 years, we all have, in fact, been not warming but slightly cooling, which is why the ecowarriors have adopted the all-purpose bogeyman of "climate change." But let's take it that the editors of Time are referring not to the century we live in but the previous one, when there was a measurable rise of temperature of approximately 1 degree. That's the "war": 1 degree.
If the tree-raising is Iwo Jima, a 1-degree increase isn't exactly Pearl Harbor. But Gen. Stengel wants us to engage in pre-emptive war. The editors of Time would be the first to deplore such saber-rattling applied to, say, Iran's nuclear program, but it has become the habit of progressive opinion to appropriate the language of war for everything but actual war.
So let's cut to the tree. In my corner of New Hampshire, we have more trees than we did 100 or 200 years ago. My town is over 90 percent forested. Any more trees, and I'd have to hack my way through the undergrowth to get to my copy of Time magazine on the coffee table. Likewise Vermont, where not so long ago in St. Albans I found myself stuck behind a Hillary supporter driving a Granolamobile bearing the bumper sticker "TO SAVE A TREE REMOVE A BUSH." Very funny. And even funnier when you consider that on that stretch of Route 7 there's nothing to see, north, south, east or west, but maple, hemlock, birch, pine, you name it. It's on every measure other than tree cover that Vermont's kaput.
So where exactly do Time magazine's generals want to plant their tree? Presumably, as in Iwo Jima, on foreign soil. It's all these Third World types monkeying around with their rain forests who decline to share the sophisticated Euro-American reverence for the tree. In the Time iconography, the tree is Old Glory, and it's a flag of eco-colonialism.
And which obscure island has it been planted on? In Haiti, Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was removed from office April 12. Insofar as history will recall him at all, he may have the distinction of being the first head of government to fall victim to "global warming" or, at any rate, the "war on global warming" that Time magazine is gung-ho for. At least five people have been killed in food riots in Port-au-Prince. Prices have risen 40 percent since last summer and, as columnist Deroy Murdock reported, some citizens are now subsisting on biscuits made from salt, vegetable oil and (mmmm) dirt. Dirt cookies: Nutritious, tasty and affordable? Well, one out of three ain't bad.
Unlike "global warming," food rioting is a planetwide phenomenon, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Ivory Coast to the tortilla rampages in Mexico and even pasta protests in Italy.
So what happened?
Well, Western governments listened to the ecowarriors and introduced some of the "wartime measures" they've been urging. The EU decreed that 5.75 percent of petrol and diesel must come from "biofuels" by 2010, rising to 10 percent by 2020. The United States added to its 51 cent-per-gallon ethanol subsidy by mandating a fivefold increase in "biofuels" production by 2022.
The result is that big government accomplished at a stroke what the free market could never have done: They turned the food supply into a subsidiary of the energy industry.
When you divert 28 percent of U.S. grain into fuel production, and when you artificially make its value as fuel higher than its value as food, why be surprised that you've suddenly got less to eat?
When you divert 28 percent of U.S. grain into fuel production, and when you artificially make its value as fuel higher than its value as food, why be surprised that you've suddenly got less to eat? Or, to be more precise, it's not "you" who's got less to eat but those starving peasants in distant lands you claim to care so much about.
Heigh-ho. In the greater scheme of things, a few dead natives keeled over with distended bellies is a small price to pay for saving the planet, right? Except that turning food into fuel does nothing for the planet in the first place. That tree the U.S. Marines are raising on Iwo Jima was most-likely cut down to make way for an ethanol-producing corn field: Researchers at Princeton calculate that, to date, the "carbon debt" created by the biofuels arboricide will take 167 years to reverse.
The biofuels debacle is global warm-mongering in a nutshell: The first victims of poseur environmentalism will always be developing countries. In order for you to put biofuel in your Prius and feel good about yourself for no reason, real actual people in faraway places have to starve to death. On April 15, the Independent, the impeccably progressive British newspaper, editorialized:
"The production of biofuel is devastating huge swaths of the world's environment. So why on Earth is the government forcing us to use more of it?"
You want the short answer? Because the government made the mistake of listening to fellows like you. Here's the self-same Independent in November 2005:
"At last, some refreshing signs of intelligent thinking on climate change are coming out of Whitehall. The Environment minister, Elliot Morley, reveals today in an interview with this newspaper that the Government is drawing up plans to impose a 'biofuel obligation' on oil companies ... . This has the potential to be the biggest green innovation in the British petrol market since the introduction of unleaded petrol."
Etc. It's not the environmental movement's chickenfeedhawks who'll have to reap what they demand must be sown, but we should be in no doubt about where to place the blame on the bullying activists and their media cheerleaders and weather-vane politicians who insist that the "science" is "settled" and that those who question whether there's any crisis are (in the designation of the strikingly nonemaciated Al Gore) "denialists."
All three presidential candidates have drunk the environmental kool-ethanol and are committed to Big Government solutions. But, as the Independent's whiplash-inducing U-turn confirms, the eco-scolds are under no such obligation to consistency. Finger-in-the-wind politicians shouldn't be surprised to find that gentle breeze is from the media wind turbine, and it's just sliced your finger off.
Whether there's very slight global cooling or very slight global warming, there's no need for a "war" on either, no rationale for loosing a plague of eco-locusts on the food supply. So why be surprised that totalitarian solutions to mythical problems wind up causing real devastation? As for Time's tree, by all means put it up: It helps block out the view of starving peasants on the far horizon
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/26/2008 16:08 ||
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And unless people understand that GOD is in charge of the thermostat in this world, then they will never understand anything bigger than the tiny little bubble can they live in.
#2
From where I'm sitting, in Chicago, global warming is the solution, not the problem. 10 to 15k yrs. ago, my yard was under a few hundred yards of ice. Talk about a tough winter.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
