Cruel World.

*sigh*

Still writing in my boy Gravel, and voting against repubs downticket.

Here's an excerpt of the email I got from her:

On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.

I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise.

When I decided to run for president, I knew exactly why I was getting into this race: to work hard every day for the millions of Americans who need a voice in the White House.

I made you -- and everyone who supported me -- a promise: to stand up for our shared values and to never back down. I'm going to keep that promise today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.

I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise.

So far it seems to me that even the lying AP is saying Clinton is exploring options to "keep her delegates." That's the key. Sure, delegates can always change their mind even if they move to Obama. But harder to change than stand where you are, no?

But even if the party somehow reassigns her delegates, that may still help Clinton. Because once more the party will be doing everything it can to make Obama unacceptable to a significant portion of the electorate. Like so many of his supporters, they seemed determine to do this.

I love this job!

i was not at all surprised by clinton's decision. her reputation is for hard-nosed political calculation.

but i was very disappointed.

i, too, wonder what am i supposed to do now?

see a politics grief counselor and HEAL?

turn my emotions on a dime?

i not good at doing that.

more importantly, i am developing a deep distrust of what will happen to american government with obama as president.

i don't like mccain one damned bit, but at least he is likely to be more traditional in his governance.

that an obama presidency will be

radical in some direction or another, as was the bush presidency, rather than steady-on in the best traditions of the democratic party,

that is my biggest fear.

that we will have to endure another 4 or 8 years of plowing up american political tradition to sate the thirst for

change for the sake of change

of a few foolish power holders, now democrats.

i've been wrong lot of times with political predictions. maybe i will be this time also.

keeping tabs on how an obama or a mccain presidency is carrying out its duties is a worthy activity.

Because my question would be: “And I get?”

And so far, the silence has been deafening

She gets nothing because she lost and is conceding. That's kinda the price a losing candidate pays.

I imagine someone knows how a campaign becomes "suspended".

I have this nagging feeling that someone is waiting for something to happen.

I love this job!

It's a new kind of politics!

To the contrary, candidates who lose the popular vote but are well-known often get their positions adopted. For example, John Edwards this year.
So, what does Obama want from Hillary?

that she did lose the popular vote, and if she did, it wasn't by much. The loser in such a remarkably close race has a very good hand to play in whatever negotiations take place. If he wants to win the election, Obama has no choice but to take her wishes and those of her supporters into account in exchange for her endorsement.

from 2000, about Bradley-- http://www.slate.com/id/1004841/

"... Bill Bradley may say he is retaining his delegates, but in the Democratic Party an official withdrawal severely weakens a candidate's power at the convention. Since he has withdrawn, Bradley will not be able to appoint supporters to the all-important convention committees, which determine the rules and the platform for the convention.

In addition, he will lose a significant number of the delegates already placed in his column by news organizations. In the Democratic primary process, one group of delegates from every state--the at-large delegates--is officially allocated late in the primary season. If a candidate drops out of the race, party rules dictate that his at-large delegates are to be distributed among the remaining candidates. In New York, for example, MSNBC News reported that Bradley earned 87 delegates. At the convention, this number will drop to roughly 70.

As a result, Democratic candidates, unlike their Republican counterparts, have a real incentive to "suspend" their campaigns, as opposed to ending them. In recent history, a number of Democrats have chosen to suspend their presidential candidacies, including Al Gore in 1988. ...

Accordingly, he(McCain) will be eligible for the same funds that are available to Bradley and any other major candidate who withdraws: money to help retire his campaign's debt and close his campaign's offices. ..."

(if you "withdraw" or "quit", money comes into play--not "suspension" for Democrats, i don't think.)

Trying to get Clinton's 18 million white and latino Democrat voters. They aren't nearly as good as those white Republican and Independent voters. I mean the old independents of course, not the new ones formed the last weeks.

That is because white and latino working class Democrats who don't vote for Obama are racist, whereas white and latino Republicans and Independents are not.

Since he isn't going to waste time trying to get Clinton's Democratic voters back, maybe they should ALL become Independents, then he will show them the love?

-----------------------------

Good night and good riddance!

If I had a nickel for every time I've said that myself....

This is Clinton's path to walk. I don't know what she knows, and I don't know what she's being told by others. For certain though, she now knows that many people she thought were her friends and supporters are not. For certain, she knows that some people whose judgment she trusted are incompetent. For certain, she knows she and Bill both made some big mistakes early. For certain, she is exhausted. That’s a lot to process.

What isn’t certain, for anyone but her, is what exactly she thinks she can do next. The notion that this campaign is “over” for her, as the MSM and BlogBoyz would have it, is absurd. It hasn’t even begun to wind down. As close as the race is now between McCain and Obama, Clinton is the make-or-break power. All of the other Democratic big power people can count, and all of them can clearly see the Electoral College numbers.

If Obama can’t make inroads in the constituencies that went for Clinton, he and the Party are in big trouble. They’re betting he can, but the only way they win that bet is if she is with them. They can’t afford for her say the hell with it and withdraw; the hard math of the Electoral College process dictates that. They, all of them, need her support; she has a lot of power now, and I expect her to use it.

The summer ahead is more than long enough for big change to occur. By suspending her campaign, which is what she will do, she keeps her finger in the game. She plays the role of loyal partisan in public, and waits. Quietly, behind the scenes, Harold Ickes plots. Just keeping in touch, Bill makes phone calls. Being supportive, Hillary works her ass off helping downticket candidates and raising money for the Party, insistently speaking out on what have traditionally been core Democratic issues to the Left of what Obama has been saying, all of it shoring up her cred.

John McCain and his 527s are going to lunge at the target – they should wait but it appears that they can’t help themselves – and start ripping and clawing and stripping the meat off of Obama’s bones. Obama, for the first time ever, will have a real gutter fight on his hands; in a bar brawl, cool and aloof gets your butt kicked. This is only the beginning of June; the nomination process is not over, not yet.

I'm feeling pretty heartsick right now.

I find it a bitter, and yet also utterly fitting, outcome that our party--the same one that’s failed us in so many ways for the past 7.5 years; that’s apparently all too willing to betray our core values and our platform; that never lifted a finger this season to defend Clinton against the unending disrespect and insults and was only too happy to let her be a convenient scapegoat--is now shoving her out of the race. And without even so much as a feeble attempt to show her as much decency and respect as has our purported adversary, McCain.

No apologies for all the harm they’ve caused; not even so much as a thought to whether maybe, just maybe, it’s they--rather than she--that is the problem. Instead, they kill the candidacy that’s been incredibly popular despite all their efforts to defeat her--and then expect her to right everything that's wrong about this season because of them, to boot.

All I feel right now for the Dem party is contempt and disgust.

with the adventuresome lads we have in politics these days (tom delay, newt gingrich, barack obama, karl rove, david axelrod)

it's always

full speed ahead to the next disaster,

aka, radical political action or policy.

examples?

1) invade and occupy iraq.

2) convert social security to a private enterprise basis.

right or left, it's just more radical political chic.