I know, I know. You’ve been waiting for weeks and it still hasn’t happened. He’s won primary after caucus after primary after … well, you know the history of his victories as well as I. From South Carolina to Louisiana, from Washington State to Washington, D.C., from Wisconsin to Maryland to Virginia to Hawaii. It’s been an impressive run, you have to admit. And now he is even out raising Senator Clinton in campaign contributions by a large margin. Not to mention a significant lead in the popular vote, pledged delegates and total delegates.
Still, what if he loses tonight? Three states, two states or even one? I think we all know the answer to that question, don’t we? Sadly, it will be time to say goodbye to the fairy tale. The power of words will have succumbed to the power of negative ads warning of 3 am phone calls. It will be time for Senator Obama and his campaign to come to grips with the inevitable decision he will be forced to make. Time to acknowledge that the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of new voters energized by his campaign are not enough to outweigh the combined force of Dean Broder and the Beltway 500, and all those dedicated Clinton campaign consultants, strategists and informal advisers, not to mention her coterie of wealthy supporters, caring corporate lobbyists (lobbyists are people too!) and others with establishment ties.
In short, it will be time for Barrack Obama to go. Time to bow to the inevitability of another Clinton comeback. Time to accept that he while has a pretty face, a stirring and eloquent voice, a message that resonates with millions of Americans, Americans who seek real change not dynastic successions, who seek new ideas not 100 years of the same old wars, foreign and domestic, he simply doesn’t have what it takes to be the next Democratic President of the United States of America.
He doesn’t have the last name of Clinton.
So Senator Obama, please, do the right thing if you should lose any primary contest tonight. Graciously concede the nomination to the person for whom it was intended all those many months ago when our betters in the Washington Establishment first anointed her the inevitable Democratic nominee. Please don’t continue to tear the party apart by giving Senator Clinton the opportunity to smear you in negative ad after negative ad in the coming months. Don’t allow yourself to be demeaned by a process where your integrity is called into question because Louis Farrakhan endorsed you, or because your middle name is Hussein (which must mean you are either secretly a Muslim or Saddam Hussein’s cousin) or because a conservative Canadian government leaks a story about you to the press, that, while lacking any substance, permits the pundits of the media to tear the very flesh from your bones. Go back to the Senate where someday maybe they may let you chair your very own committee.
Who knows, with any luck, a gracious exit now could earn you a spot in the next Clinton cabinet. How does Secretary of Housing and Urban Development sound to you, eh? Nice little sinecure for all your efforts. And as for your millions of campaign volunteers and supporters, I’m sure they will be just as enthusiastic in supporting Hillary for President as they were for you. Don’t give them another thought. They’re only little people after all. “Yes we can” was a nice slogan, but we all know that in politics, the battle goes to the person who is in it for themselves, the person with the most blind ambition and the ruthlessness to match it.
So please, Senator Obama, should you not win every primary tonight, please, do the right thing. Just quit.
(I’m not Hillary Clinton, but I’m sure she approves of that last message).
