Well…this is odd:
DALLAS — When reporters arrived at Hillary Clinton’s campaign plane, someone was missing — the candidate.
Officials for the campaign refused to say where Clinton was or why she was not making the flight to Ohio this evening. With the plane en route from Love Field, Clinton had no public events scheduled tonight in Ohio.
Clinton’s mystery disappearing act came, ironically, on a day where she had criticized her rival, Barack Obama, for being “missing in action” on critical issues involving foreign affairs.Aides said there was no health problem with Clinton. Her Secret Service detail also was not on the flight from Dallas.
The article goes on to say that the campaign denies she is headed to North Carolina to see John Edwards. Others have speculated that she is going to make a surprise appearance on tonight’s Saturday Night Live, that she may be getting Bill Richardson’s endorsement, or that she is ill.
I do know that she is supposed to be Jon Stewart’s Daily Show on Monday.
Update [2008-3-1 22:36:28 by BooMan]: From CNN:
(CNN) — Days before a crucial set of primaries, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton is expected to make a surprise appearance on this week’s “Saturday Night Live,” an entertainment industry source tells CNN.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is running a tight race for Democratic delegates with Sen. Barack Obama.
A spokesman for “Saturday Night Live” would not confirm the appearance, saying only, “It’s a live show; anything can happen.”
Wasn’t too hard to guess.
If she really is blowing off voters in Ohio to be on SNL, that shows a certain tone-deafness by her campaign. Furthermore, being on TDS is a waste of time for her – the demographic that watches the show would almost certainly be voting for Obama.
or she may has gone to meet Edwards. I’d be so pissed if he endorsed her. but OTOH she may have gone off to get her tax returns.
I be fine if she disappeared for the rest of the year.
On the sniff trail, Andrew Sullivan leads us to Althouse who questions subliminal message on the 3:00AM ad that Clinton aired:
On this business about “NIG” on the kid’s pajamas… Remember, this is Ann Althouse we’re talking about. If it came from anybody but her, I might be interested in reading further. But she is just plain nuts and will read secret meanings into anything that someone she perceives to be liberal might do. There’s a reason she’s a favorite over at Sadly, No.
Some have pointed out that the pajamas were probably “good night” on them.
I think Huckabee’s cross was intentional. This, even knowing what the Hillary campaign has done, seems like a coincidence.
Edwards’ chance to make a difference in the primaries was back before Super Tuesday. Since then lots of people had to choose between the two so here in California, for ex, his endorsement wouldn’t do any good. And I’m not sure if my state hadn’t voted that his endorsement now would in any way sway me.
Edwards’ best bet would be to push the presumptive nominee towards the more progressive positions where he can. An endorsement of Obama wouldn’t help Obama all that much and an endorsement of Clinton won’t rescue her campaign.
Where’s she is it’s up to NO GOOD in Texas. She wants to shut down the whole thing. First her camp requested a delay in reporting the results – for two whole fucking days.
Picture this on Tuesday
Ben Smith;
Does Hillary Clinton expect to remain a welcomed member of the Democratic Party?
Sounds like we’re getting towards the end.
My money’s on SNL.
CNN is speculating that she will make an appearance on SNL tonight, according to an “industry source.”
Does this mean that when she debates you have to watch SNL to understand what the hell she’s talking about?
Maybe she’ll be in the same segment that Huckabee did last week.
Hopefully everyone will see certain parallels in that.
then why send her plane to Texas empty? I suspect her internal polling is showing a crushing defeat in Texas and Ohio. She is at home working on her speech as she concedes the nomination to Obama.
Or: Hillary is at the local “check in to cash” to get a pay day loan to help finance her campaign.
She’s in TX best western concocting Hill-centric ‘mysteries’ to keep news focus on her.
I can hardly imagine anything less humorous than Hill on SNL.
I can, but I’d rather not. Honest.
Bush looking under his desk for a brain?
Bush looking into Putin’s eyes?
I was just over reading Ben Smith’s blog and found something really disturbing. The Dallas Morning News has obtained some “caucus training materials” from the Clinton campaign which advises her supporters to show up early and take control of sign-in and vote counting/reporting at caucus precinct sites. This is SOOO familiar from our experience in Nevada with the Hillary supporters at the caucuses. Unfortunately for her, it’s probably too little, too late because Obama’s people are probably prepared for these strong-arm tactics this time. But it’s still disappointing.
‘Disappointing’? It’s disgusting.
So will Hillary say, “Bitches get stuff done”?
Heh…. Unfortunately, there’s being a bitch – and there’s being fucking nuts. And I’d say the TX rigging behavior falls in the latter category, with a healthy dose of amoral thrown in.
It’s been many years since I watched Saturday Night Live. The brief clips I’ve seen over the (recent) years don’t make me think I have any reason to watch now, whether or not Clinton is on. Heck, I don’t think I’d watch if Obama or McCain were on.
What does she hope to gain by this? The demographic that watches SNL is overwhelmingly going for Obama, and I can’t imagine that a brief appearance on a late-night comedy show will make much difference.
It’s been a long, long time since Bill Clinton scored points by going on Arsenio Hall to play his sax.
I agree – except the part about Obama. I’d watch if he were on SNL. I admit it, though, I might watch clips of him reading the phonebook.
He’s been on…. I don’t have the link handy, it was from last year.
That entire show was horrible. The only thing that was funny was probably the first minute or two of TV Funhouse where a cartoon Obama tries to hide Jesse and Al.
I don’t know if it was even worth it for Hillary, she just had a two minute bit which wasn’t particularly funny. Rudy was on too and his part sucked.
Did I mention the show really sucked?
Her appearance is worth a post in itself for what it says about Democratic party politics before this year. The Dems have always suffered from a huge donation gap, on the order of 2:1. Because of that they have to go for free press, which means Clinton on MTV and now Mrs Clinton on SNL. It also meant that the Dems relied more than the thugs on the pundit talk shows. All of this made them more vulnerable to the snideness inflicted on every democratic candidate from Dukakis to Kerry.
The shoe is now on the other foot. Obama’s huge donor base, and his crushing defeat of a highly qualified and otherwise well-funded candidate means that the Democrats are no longer hostage to the likes of Tweety and Russert or WaPo or the NYT. Mrs. Clinton’s last hurrah last night was just that. The last hurrah for a kind of politics that the Democrats were forced to pursue during their years in the wilderness.