Hillary’s best moment was her last answer, but it was only great because it was essentially a concession. And we all want a graceful concession.
Here’s the reality:
Texas 2/16-20 (no trend lines). 603 likely voters. Moe 4%.
Obama 47%
Clinton 48%
Ohio 2/16-20 (no trend lines). 611 likely voters. MoE 4%.
Obama 43%
Clinton 50%
And a couple more from Texas.
Rasmussen. 2/20 (2/14). 549 likely voters. MoE 4%.
Obama 44% (38)
Clinton 47% (54)
Constituent Dynamics. 2/17-19 (no trend lines). 1340 registered voters. MoE 4%.
Obama 45%
Clinton 46%
I think the Clintons know that it is over. If she’ll act with grace, I’ll give her some respect.
Those all have Clinton leading, sure within the MoE, but I want to see numbers after tonight’s debate.
And when in the Ohio one?
She MUST win these states by like 60%+ of delegates to justify continuing on. These numbers are indicative of another tie.
I agree.. it’s hard to make an argument for a delegate win if her final states are so close.
Those numbers will lag by nearly a WEEK. So the polls now are extremely encouraging, both for Texas and Ohio. It seems the campaign put Obama in Texas first, and next week he’ll be mostly in Ohio. So watch those numbers change dramatically.
Remember how close the pre-election polls were in Wisconsin…
I dont’ know what Josh Marshall is talking about:
What words?
Josh has everyone’s knickers in a twist. I hope he adds to his post soon.
The You Tube link is posted on DKos this morning.
‘the’, ‘are’, ‘and’ and ‘it’s’.
Totally lifted from Bill Clinton.
LOL, Fabooj!
And he answers, pointing out how silly this whole plagiarism thing is:
Might as well put this here too. A commenter over at Matt Yglesias’ post debate thread linked to Dan Drezner who pointed out:
Of course based on the earlier Bill Clinton speech.
maryb2004,
you’re quick. Great find. thanks for clearing that up.
as you wrote days ago. “stick a fork. She’s done”
this morning MSNBC has a piece on her campaign money woes…the lavish spending….
uh no
I don’t think I ever said that.
I read a concession into it, too. Agreed that the Clintons seem to know it’s over. I didn’t see the whole debate, only about the last ten minutes, but my sense of it was that Clinton was conflicted the entire time about which side of her campaign to go with — the “Hail Mary” group or the “Maintain Grace & Dignity” group. The former clearly failed, as she got booed for the Xerox comment, and the latter won out in the end.
I hope it stays that way. I think I’m like most people in that I don’t want to hate Hillary Clinton, knowing all of the garbage she’s had to put up with over the years from the right wing, but her campaign has been ugly and incompetent. Hopefully this will begin the process of putting an end to that.
That is well said. I don’t want to hate her either, although it’s hard to forgive her vote re Iraq. But John Kerry made the same vote, and I was able to forgive him. (Of course, he admitted it was a mistake in a way she never has.)
It is difficult to forgive her for that. I think she’s been stubborn on it, although, deep down, she knows she screwed up. But, again, stubbornness. Much of that is likely the product of years of trench warfare in politics, with the whole “never admit you were wrong” issue. That stubbornness is a key difference between Clinton and Kerry/Edwards — and I say that, bearing in mind that I’m not completely convinced of Edwards’s sincerity on that and many other issues.
You’re not alone. Something about Edwards never rang true for me, although he sure touched a lot of people. I just never quite bought his conversion from DLC voter to RFK wannabe.
Neither did I. I wanted to, and I thought Edwards might be a great pick, strategically, but he simply didn’t amount to a very strong candidate next to Obama. I’m convinced we have something potentially very special in Obama, and only question I have is, “Will he live up to it?” We all know he can achieve greatness, but will he? He’s, without question, one of the most talented politicians ever to set foot on the presidential stage, and he only seems to improve as a candidate. But now he’s got to beat McCain and make good on his promises. If he can do that, he’ll go down as one of the greats.
For now, he’s got to finish this with Clinton. But it is worth noting that that, alone, is an achievement few thought possible a year ago. As of now, he’s blown away even my own (very optimistic) expectations from a year ago.
Me neither, but I’m not convinced of the sincerity of any of the current and former candidates, and Edwards was the only one talking like an actual radical leftist. I was a little less put off by his immense personal wealth than some people — FDR was, of course, a member of the upper classes, and that didn’t stop him from sticking it to the Man in the name of helping regular people. He was branded as a traitor to his class for it, much as John Edwards was pooh-poohed by the establishment this time around.
For better or worse, though, the question of his sincerity is one we will probably never have a chance to definitely resolve.
Well, people do change. RFK grew from 1960 to 1968.
Nevertheless, even when a politician says what I want to hear I still don’t automatically trust him/her.
Big Top Democrat over at TalkLeft knows who the winner is:
“I thought Hillary whupped him good.”
Better than “lynched” I guess. 😉
Was Edwards line. From Politico:
Yeah, you’re right. I remember when Edwards said that.
Someone over at dKos says that her story that meeting people and wanting to help them is what keeps her going is similar to something in one of Bill’s 1992 speeches.
Her ending comments very close to what John Edwards said some time ago…he credits Politico for the original quote.
aww you mean HIllary’s best answer was plagiarized when just minutes earlier she accused Barack of the same?
The perfect ending to her campaign.
Does it at least end the plagiarism silliness?
All the Clinton supporters online are now saying it’s not a big deal and that they’ve always thought the plagiarism thing was silly.
after she got booed for the xerox moment and she realized she needed to end the plagiarism lines.
Good job Hillary.
My local news is showing an NBC story covering the debate and it just spent the most time on the plagiarism exchange – very even handed (although they cut the clip before she was booed). They didn’t show any of her closing moment. Interesting.
i guess the xerox moment overshadows the final moment.
Well, that’s very convenient. They’re right, of course…finally. It is silly. It didn’t help that Obama laid her out when she went at him on plagiarism.
The real story is that Obama did all he needed to do tonight and more, as I see the highlights. And the big-picture story is that it seems Obama has done what nobody else has done: He beat the Clinton Machine in a presidential campaign (which, I’m convinced, is why the Republicans can’t help but give him props).
This guy is good. And I’m glad Democrats seem to have figured out what they have in him.
Tonight it was more muddy than usual which lines were written for her and which were her own. The xerox line she delivered halfheartedly. Then the close reminded me of an offset line to Bill’s earlier peculiar threat to the TX voters that it was on their heads if she didn’t win TX. I just got the feeling she was left with just delivering scripts because that close approached tearful.
Too bad, I missed it all. I was at a meeting all night.
Just noticed CNN is re-running debate right now if anyone missed it.
We went out to a seafood buffet with my mother-in-law and three of her kids, including my wife, two of our kids and all of our grandkids. It sounds to me like Clinton did a good job, maybe a little better than Obama, but she needed a knockout she certainly didn’t get.
It sounds to me like maybe, just maybe, she sees the end is near. I certainly hope she bows out gracefully. It would be best for the country and best for the party.
Oh boy, here comes Tweety.
The 2000 kids who walked to the polls this week, just to show that “yes they can?”
Like several other commenters, I want to like Senator Clinton. But every time (like after her close last night) that I warm up to her again, one of her staff members does something repugnant and I ask: “Why can’t she control them?” I’d love to see her just dump Mark Penn this week, but my bet is he has a golden parachute she can’t afford to pay.
I’ve scoured her position papers and Obamas. The real differences are only in method and attitude. I guess I’m still voting for attitude.
“There’s got to be a morning after…”
Newfound respect for Obama – the man patiently put up with that paper flying up for 2 hours. Each time it would rise up from his memo pad he would calmly put it down without breaking his train of thought. What was with airflow in that place, and why did it hit his side more than hers? Did her 35 years of experience teach her how to keep the paper down? Was the paper drawn into the cult of Obama like so many of us?
Leave it to CNN to not only do something like that, but not even fix it. You can not convince me that none of the camera men saw that and no one was called to fix it. Yes, that was some patience, because 5 min. in, I was screaming at the paper and the a/c.
Unless the pollsters have changed the assumptions on “likely voters” those numbers may indicate Obama wins in almost every state. Because the independent and republican cross over voters (in states that allow them to vote) could tilt this in the same way they have done in other states.