Hillary won't drop out. Know why?

[5LD]

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Hill has jumped the shark.

[flockofseagulls104]

Hill herself is Bill jumping the shark.[/quote]

[JBillyGirl]

What RFK's assassination has to do with her staying in this campaign I have no idea. Nor do I understand what seating the entire delegation of Michigan and Florida (whose exclusion she apparently agreed to last year) has to do with the often-violent struggles for women's suffrage and civil rights or the brutal election in Zimbabwe -- highly questionable, in my mind outrageous connections she made just the other day. If she winds up as the nominee, I'll vote for her, but in my mind she's gone way off the deep end this week. If I were Obama, no way would I pick her to be my running mate.

[jarnon]

I'm sure all Hillary meant was that previous primary campaigns have lasted into June. She mentioned 1968 because we all remember that RFK was killed in early June. The comparison isn't valid, because so many states have moved their primaries earlier. And since Obama, if he becomes the first black nominee, will be an obvious target for psychos, Hillary's mention of RFK was insensitive.

[Bob Juch]

I hope that means she'll finally drop out in three weeks.

[mrkelley23]

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Hill has jumped the shark.

Right up there in class level with Mike Huckabee's lame attempt at a joke at the NRA mtg. last week...

[TheCalvinator24]

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Hill has jumped the shark.

Right up there in class level with Mike Huckabee's lame attempt at a joke at the NRA mtg. last week...

Ouch! Particularly because, IMO, Huckabee had managed to avoid such embarrassing gaffes.

[mellytu74]

Considering she's been talking about going all the way to the convention, she certainly could have referenced the Reagan-Ford convention fight in 1976.

And I think in her apology, it would have been nice to say something to the effect, "I certainly wish no ill will to either Senator or Senator McCain," as well as an apology to the Kennedy family.

[SportsFan68]

Considering she's been talking about going all the way to the convention, she certainly could have referenced the Reagan-Ford convention fight in 1976.

And I think in her apology, it would have been nice to say something to the effect, "I certainly wish no ill will to either Senator or Senator McCain," as well as an apology to the Kennedy family.

I agree with mellytu.

[BackInTex]

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Hill has jumped the shark.

Gee, you guys are tough on the old gal. I think she was just remembering when people were campaigning, still, for the party nomination in June. She brought up her husband, then Bobby being assasinated. I don't think she was thinking that "I should still be campaigning because someone may be shot and I don't want to give up until that won't happen". I think she was thinking that up to when he got assasinated, in June, Bobby had not won the nomination and was still campaigning.

[Beebs52]

I think everything has just gotten batshit crazy. No one makes any sense any more. I suppose if you're on camera 24/7 you're bound to make a stupid statement at some point. Sort of like coredumping your brain on a message board. Unfortunately, one must pay attention in this day and age, regardless of how old one is or tired one is, and not make crazyass statements.

They're all going to make crazyass statements.

But, yeah, she's jumped.

[peacock2121]

What BiT said.

[mrkelley23]

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Hill has jumped the shark.

Gee, you guys are tough on the old gal. I think she was just remembering when people were campaigning, still, for the party nomination in June. She brought up her husband, then Bobby being assassinated. I don't think she was thinking that "I should still be campaigning because someone may be shot and I don't want to give up until that won't happen". I think she was thinking that up to when he got assassinated, in June, Bobby had not won the nomination and was still campaigning.

I know that BiT is really tuned in to the mind of Hillary and everything, but I must disagree. Just as with the forced mistiness earlier this campaign season (gee, wonder why that hasn't been repeated?) I don't believe HRC ever does anything without a reason. As Melly and others have said, there were many other campaign seasons she could have referenced without throwing the RFK name out there. And for all the good things or bad things RFK did, if you mention his name, especially in conjunction with a presidential campaign, anyone old enough to remember 1968 will automatically think assassination.

Furthermore, I think Hillary was planning on getting a little bit more backlash when she talked about how she was in tune with the white voters in this country, and was disappointed that everyone didn't pounce on her for perceived racism. This last "gaffe" seems to me to be the latest in a string of attempts to keep her name out there in the free news.

[silverscreenselect]

Many people are unfamiliar with the details of the 1968 campaign but it does illustrate a valid reason why Hillary should stay in the race.

In 1968, only about 15 states had primaries, which stretched from early Feb (NH) to late June (NY). Most states had party conventions, often controlled by party bosses, who managed to get the delegates they wanted on board. It was very common in those days for candidates to do little actual campaigning before the voters.

After LBJ dropped out of the race (ironically, after he won the NH primary, albeit by a fairly narrow margin), Humphrey agreed to run as what everyone pretty much knew was a surrogate for Johnson. Kennedy also decided to run, and the antiwar vote was pretty much split between him and McCarthy. Due to the dynamics of the primary season, he and McCarthy swapped wins, usually in states in which the other did not campaign seriously. In the meantime, Humphrey was amassing a lot of delegates from the non-primary states, and his surrogate "favorite sons," like George Smathers in Florida, won a couple of primaries as well.

At the time of the Cal primary, Humphrey had amassed a substantial lead among delegates although he hadn't been on a single primary ballot. In the last primary before Cal, McCarthy beat RFK in Oregon, the first time the two had tangled head to head and the first time a Kennedy had ever lost an election before voters. Had Kennedy lost Cal as well, his campaign would have been finished. However, with a win in Cal, and a probable big win in NY coming up as well, he could have made a case at the convention that he had the momentum, he had won the big states and he was the "people's choice." Of course, he never got his chance.

The point is that RFK was not a front runner whose death gave other candidates a chance they wouldn't have had otherwise. He was trailing and realistically had about a 20-30% to win the nomination. Instead, a lot of Democrats, including me (in high school at the time) and, I'm sure, Hillary, felt that if he kept fighting he would somehow turn it around at the convention. His death was completely devastating to a lot of us and, on top of MLK's death and the residual effect of JFK's death, soured a lot of people on the Democratic party, leading to the riots and the debacle at the convention.

Hillary knows Democratic history far better than a lot of the morons who are screaming about this statement of hers. If she is forced from the race, a lot of people will react as the voters did in 1968, although not with rioting, but with their ballots in November. When I think of the 1968 campaign, the RFK assassination is the first thing that comes to mind, and not because RFK's death gave other candidates a "second chance" but because it deprived him and a lot of the rest of us of the chance to make their case.

Obama supporters conveniently ignore history over and over again when it suits their purposes and choose to look to find ways to cast statements by the Clintons in the worst possible way and then feign shock at hearing them. 1968 is the best analogy to the present campaign that one could bring up as an example for why Hillary should continue her campaign, and if you want to jump on her for the way she phrased it (completely understandable to me as someone who experienced the whole thing from a somewhat similar vantage point as Hillary), while continuing to give Obama pass after pass on outright lies in response to direct questions, then it's another case of ignoring history at one's peril.

[mellytu74]

1) If she wanted accurate, she would have talked about the 1976 Republican convention.

She's spoken about going all the way to Denver.

Certainly, the parallels to Kansas City are FAR more pertinent that either Bobby Kennedy OR Bill Clinton in June.

A lack of delegates, popular votes, a committed base of supporters for the candidate who was trailing.

2) As sss points out, the Senator from New York used June as a timeframe, nothing more.

However, the Senator from New York has been using the story of her husband's campaign for months now. She used it in Philadelphia in late March, a good three weeks before the Pennsylvania primary.

Trouble is, it's not really true. And, the Senator from New York, being the good history student she is, knows it.

Because of the primary schedule in 1992, Bill Clinton had the nomination sewn up by March, when everyone but Jerry Brown had dropped out.

3) The Senator from Illinois has said several times now that he does not believe the Senator from New York intended any offense.

I believe the Senator from Illinois.

[Beebs52]

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Hill has jumped the shark.

Gee, you guys are tough on the old gal. I think she was just remembering when people were campaigning, still, for the party nomination in June. She brought up her husband, then Bobby being assassinated. I don't think she was thinking that "I should still be campaigning because someone may be shot and I don't want to give up until that won't happen". I think she was thinking that up to when he got assassinated, in June, Bobby had not won the nomination and was still campaigning.

I know that BiT is really tuned in to the mind of Hillary and everything, but I must disagree. Just as with the forced mistiness earlier this campaign season (gee, wonder why that hasn't been repeated?) I don't believe HRC ever does anything without a reason. As Melly and others have said, there were many other campaign seasons she could have referenced without throwing the RFK name out there. And for all the good things or bad things RFK did, if you mention his name, especially in conjunction with a presidential campaign, anyone old enough to remember 1968 will automatically think assassination.

Furthermore, I think Hillary was planning on getting a little bit more backlash when she talked about how she was in tune with the white voters in this country, and was disappointed that everyone didn't pounce on her for perceived racism. This last "gaffe" seems to me to be the latest in a string of attempts to keep her name out there in the free news.

I just want to say that your avatar looks like Merv. In a big way.

[silverscreenselect]

Whether you count the Florida and Michigan delegations or not, the fact is that Obama cannot win the nomination without the vote of the super delegates and they are free to vote for whomever they please and to change their vote any time until the actual balloting (as a few of them have done).

They are not obligated to vote for Obama because he has more votes or more delegates. They may choose to do so (and they probably will) but they can change their minds and Hillary has the right to press her case up until he convention if she chooses. Ted Kennedy was much further behind than Hillary is but he kept campaigning up to the convention and acted pretty much like a horse's rear end at the convention when he made his appearance. So was Jerry Brown in 1992. Both of them had been mathematically eliminated before the convention; Hillary has not.

Again, the Democrats are trying to rewrite the unwritten rules to get Hillary to drop out at a time when it should be increasingly obvious that Obama has big problems and they are getting bigger. Hillary is not the reason Obama was so unpopular with the voters in WV and KY; she only provided the opportunity for this unpopularity to manifest itself in a rather stark fashion come election day.

The Democratic rules are bizarre and anti-Democratic. The proportional voting rules the way they are and the caucuses have served to give Obama a lead far in excess of what the popular vote should entitle him to. The superdelegates are just one more version of the anti-Democratic rules the Democrats have set up, but it's one that might (although it probably won't) work to Hillary's advantage.

I've said it before, but Hillary's continued presence in the race is the only thing that has kept the Republicans somewhat off Obama. If she does drop out, they will lay the heavy lumber into him and it won't be pretty. The Democrats traditionally have a death wish come election time, but this year, they have really outdone themselves.

[Ritterskoop]

I am still wishing we referred to all candidates by their surnames, or all by their first names. It lessens the effect of having a first-ever female candidate to refer to her by her first name and the others by their surnames.

If we said Hillary and Barack, that would be fine. But we say Hillary and Obama, and I don't like it. I have not liked it for months.

[TheConfessor]

I am still wishing we referred to all candidates by their surnames, or all by their first names. It lessens the effect of having a first-ever female candidate to refer to her by her first name and the others by their surnames.

If we said Hillary and Barack, that would be fine. But we say Hillary and Obama, and I don't like it. I have not liked it for months.

I've noticed that too, but I don't think it's intended to show disrespect to Hillary Rodham Clinton. I think people would just call her Clinton, except it would cause confusion about which Clinton they were referring to. For the Bushes, people sometimes resolved the issue by calling them Bush 41 and Bush 43. So maybe we can refer to Bill and Hillary as Clinton 42 and Clinton 44.

[mrkelley23]

I just want to say that your avatar looks like Merv. In a big way.

Brother and sister, separated at birth?

When the ill-fated Tonks, whom we got from the animal shelter, was diagnosed with feline leukemia, we knew we had to get another kitty. We gave up on Animal Control, who apparently can't afford to do much testing of animals, and went with the Humane Society. Fortunately or unfortunately, two of the young two-footers in our household couldn't agree on which replacement for Tonks they liked best, so we wound up with three total:

Moony, who was the subject of my most recent avatar, and who has now been declawed in front, partly for midnight transgressions against the kitchen cabinets.

James, who had a very unfortunate shave job when we got him that made him look like a scraggly alley cat.

And Lily, in the current avatar, who is the youngest (4 or 5 months), smallest (3.5 lbs or so), and most humorous. And you're definitely right about her twin-ness to Merv.

[hf_jai]

I am still wishing we referred to all candidates by their surnames, or all by their first names. It lessens the effect of having a first-ever female candidate to refer to her by her first name and the others by their surnames.

If we said Hillary and Barack, that would be fine. But we say Hillary and Obama, and I don't like it. I have not liked it for months.

I've noticed that too, but I don't think it's intended to show disrespect to Hillary Rodham Clinton. I think people would just call her Clinton, except it would cause confusion about which Clinton they were referring to. For the Bushes, people sometimes resolved the issue by calling them Bush 41 and Bush 43. So maybe we can refer to Bill and Hillary as Clinton 42 and Clinton 44.

It's bothered me from the beginning too, and I try (but frequently forget) to keep to some sort of parallelism when I write.

I used to be very adamant about not referring to Hillary by her first name at all. I agree that it diminishes her, and by that diminishes the very idea of a woman president. But then it became clear that she wants to be called Hillary in the campaign. I don't think it has much to do with being confused with her husband, but that she feels, probably correctly, that her image is hard and unapproachable and that having people think of her by her first name makes her seem more human.

So anyway, I have given up and call her Hillary most of the time. She has a right to decide how she wants to be called, for whatever reason. And while I think it's stupid and wrong that voters put such high store on whether their president is a likable, one of the guys, have a beer with sort of person, I do think it's true.

[Bob Juch]

Bill and Hillary Clinton, when they first reached the White House, set a new standard of the politically active spouse.

It was almost like they were "co-presidents". So much so that the two of them were known by one name: "Billary".

Now that Hillary is running to get back into the Oval Office, the roles would be reversed. In the unlikely event that she makes it, and Hillary would have "top billing", their presidential name would have to be reversed too.

Yep: they'd be Hillbilly.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

I am still wishing we referred to all candidates by their surnames, or all by their first names. It lessens the effect of having a first-ever female candidate to refer to her by her first name and the others by their surnames.

If we said Hillary and Barack, that would be fine. But we say Hillary and Obama, and I don't like it. I have not liked it for months.

I think any of BHO's names might suggest a foreignness on his part. I shall just refer to him as Junior, and JSM as Trip.

[PlacentiaSoccerMom]

The signs that Hillary sold for her campaign all say Hillary on them. (I still have one on my front lawn.)

My own feeling is that she wanted to distance herself from Bill and wanted to run on her own merits, that's why she is Hilllary and not Clinton.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

I am still wishing we referred to all candidates by their surnames, or all by their first names. It lessens the effect of having a first-ever female candidate to refer to her by her first name and the others by their surnames.

If we said Hillary and Barack, that would be fine. But we say Hillary and Obama, and I don't like it. I have not liked it for months.

I think any of BHO's names might suggest a foreignness on his part. I shall just refer to him as Junior, and JSM as Trip.

In the event that it is McCain v. Hillary, I shall just call her T, short for T-1000 or T-Xdepending on which version Terminator/Terminatrix you prefer.