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Um, I think I know the answer
May. 7th, 2008 09:51 amHillary Clinton's two arguments against Barack Obama amounted to two things:
* His unelectability due to recent damage to his campaign by non-issues such as Jeremiah Wright (someone who seemed simply to be saying uncomfortable truths until he performed his circus act two Mondays ago) and his comments about bitterness (an unfortunately poorly phrased statement whose subtext was basically correct).
* Her popular vote victories, which while not technically more important in the nominating process, would be used as ammo to support the above argument. Until last night she's claimed Florida and Michigan in those popular vote totals as they put her over the top.
Now she's only over the top in her audacity. The problem is both talking points have been soundly rendered irrelevent last night yet she still presses on. She doesn't make Rocky look like a pansy, she makes T-1000 look like John Connor.
In every scenario I've come up with, most of which give her generous 75% victories in the remaining contests, she can't claim the delegates neccesary to win. Even if she got all of those delegates, she'd still need a sizable amount of the superdelegates left to take the nomination. Reinstating Florida and Michigan probably wouldn't even net her popular vote victories after the contests are over in June.
Her goal now is clear: destroy Barack Obama by any means neccesary so that she may run again in four years. In doing so she will surely destroy her own political career. She's like Kruge in Star Trek III clinging to the edge of a cliff. On one side is a volcanic death, on the other the enemy's hand offering rescue. The path she's taking now is to pull Obama into the volcano. If I were Obama I'd probably yell "I--HAVE HAD--ENOUGH OF--YOOOOUUU!" But that's not his style. He'll pull her up from the mouth of the volcano and work with her in his new administration to create change in the way government works. That's why I'm not running for office and he is. Once he creates more transparency in government, he can begin to make the lives of the American people better.
Until then, he needs to win this thing. He's stil vulnerable in that he puts more trust in the American public than is typical of any politician. He trusts that they'll look past non-issues such the number of pieces of flair on his blazer lapel. But the hard truth is that as a country we've grown drastically more superficial and intellectually lazy as time has moved on in the last fifty years or so. The thing about his speeches is that he's not saying he'll be the one to provide solutions to all of our problems. He's saying it's neccesary for us to take ownership of our lives and our country. Because it involves work it's not as sexy a campaign, but it's a more honest one. The only way to change the world is for the people of the world to feel empowered and eager to change it. If, and this is a massive "if," he can convince people of that then it won't matter how many Jeremiah Wrights there are he'll win in a landslide.
* His unelectability due to recent damage to his campaign by non-issues such as Jeremiah Wright (someone who seemed simply to be saying uncomfortable truths until he performed his circus act two Mondays ago) and his comments about bitterness (an unfortunately poorly phrased statement whose subtext was basically correct).
* Her popular vote victories, which while not technically more important in the nominating process, would be used as ammo to support the above argument. Until last night she's claimed Florida and Michigan in those popular vote totals as they put her over the top.
Now she's only over the top in her audacity. The problem is both talking points have been soundly rendered irrelevent last night yet she still presses on. She doesn't make Rocky look like a pansy, she makes T-1000 look like John Connor.
In every scenario I've come up with, most of which give her generous 75% victories in the remaining contests, she can't claim the delegates neccesary to win. Even if she got all of those delegates, she'd still need a sizable amount of the superdelegates left to take the nomination. Reinstating Florida and Michigan probably wouldn't even net her popular vote victories after the contests are over in June.
Her goal now is clear: destroy Barack Obama by any means neccesary so that she may run again in four years. In doing so she will surely destroy her own political career. She's like Kruge in Star Trek III clinging to the edge of a cliff. On one side is a volcanic death, on the other the enemy's hand offering rescue. The path she's taking now is to pull Obama into the volcano. If I were Obama I'd probably yell "I--HAVE HAD--ENOUGH OF--YOOOOUUU!" But that's not his style. He'll pull her up from the mouth of the volcano and work with her in his new administration to create change in the way government works. That's why I'm not running for office and he is. Once he creates more transparency in government, he can begin to make the lives of the American people better.
Until then, he needs to win this thing. He's stil vulnerable in that he puts more trust in the American public than is typical of any politician. He trusts that they'll look past non-issues such the number of pieces of flair on his blazer lapel. But the hard truth is that as a country we've grown drastically more superficial and intellectually lazy as time has moved on in the last fifty years or so. The thing about his speeches is that he's not saying he'll be the one to provide solutions to all of our problems. He's saying it's neccesary for us to take ownership of our lives and our country. Because it involves work it's not as sexy a campaign, but it's a more honest one. The only way to change the world is for the people of the world to feel empowered and eager to change it. If, and this is a massive "if," he can convince people of that then it won't matter how many Jeremiah Wrights there are he'll win in a landslide.
