It’s frustrating to read that Hillary and her surrogates, in public at least, are positioning that there’s a chance to win this thing. She now intends to poach Obama’s super-delegates.
Hillary’s favorite analogy is – “the frog has to be punched to see how far s/he can jump.” There’s also the analogy of the frog in a pot of water.
The water in this campaign’s pot is forming to a boil. We have been asking ourselves, should Hillary continue to fight, fight, fight instead of a gracious exit, who will turn up the heat?
The End is near as key supporters and staff turn up the heat on Hillary. Hillary goes out as the winning loser. When Hillary loses, she wins on fuzzy math and ignoring of the rules.
The Public Stance
Clinton weighs next Move after victory
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won another overwhelming victory over Senator Barack Obama on Sunday — this time in Puerto Rico — even as many Democrats, including some of her supporters, suggested it would be best if she dropped her threat to battle on past the end of the primary voting on Tuesday.
“There’s nobody taking Hillary’s side but Hillary people,” said Donald Fowler of South Carolina, a former national party chairman and one of Clinton’s most prominent supporters, referring to her campaign’s suggestions that she might seek to challenge the way the party resolved the fight this weekend over seating the Michigan and Florida delegations. “It’s too bad. She deserves better than this.”
In a telephone interview Sunday from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Clinton still raised the possibility that she would challenge the party’s decision on seating those delegates. “Well, we are going to look at that and make a determination at some point,” she said. “But I haven’t made any decision at this time.”
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“Most Clinton supporters are filled with bewilderment that this is happening,” said Governor Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania. “We are willing to go on, and we understand the inevitability of this, but we are filled with disappointment and amazement: Why haven’t these results caused the superdelegates to come around?”
Hillary Clinton today: “It is not over ’til it’s over”
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By most accounts, it is over.
Clinton’s political obituary has been written many times. “The End” declared the online Drudge Report under a photograph of Clinton campaigning in Puerto Rico at the weekend.
The same campaign trip inspired a headline on the online magazine Salon.com saying: “Clinton seemed to be campaigning in an alternate reality.”As the nomination moved likely beyond Clinton’s reach, her staff was busily declaring her victorious.
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The Clinton campaign, which wants to convince superdelegates that she is the stronger candidate against McCain, hoped to use the Puerto Rico result to support its argument but lower-than-expected turnout weakened the case.
Other cracks were appearing in a campaign that had stayed remarkably optimistic despite the political reality.
The cracks are visible.
The punch has come from Hillary’s key supporters
“It would be most beneficial if we resolved this nomination sooner rather than later,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a high-profile superdelegate who backs Clinton. “The more time we have to get through a general-election period and the more time we have to prepare in advance of the convention, the better.”
TPM: Hillary-Backer Vilsack: She Should Concede Defeat After Tuesday
“In a blow to any hopes Hillary Clinton might have of continuing the fight for super-delegates after Tuesday, a top supporter is now saying she should admit defeat after the voting is all over.”
and
Politico’s Ben Smith
Clinton camp converging on New York Tuesday, and shedding staff
Members of Hillary Clinton’s advance staff received calls and emails this evening from headquarters summoning them to New York City Tuesday night, and telling them their roles on the campaign are ending, two Clinton staffers tell my colleague Amie Parnes.
The advance staffers — most of them now in Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana — are being given the options of going to New York for a final day Tuesday, or going home, the aides said. The move is a sign that the campaign is beginning to shed — at least — some of its staff. The advance staff is responsible for arranging the candidate’s events around the country.
With the future of her campaign in doubt, Clinton hasn’t announced her plans for the final election night of the primary cycle or beyond, but the aides said she would stage her election night event in New York City. Her entourage is currently expected to wake up Tuesday in New York and to arrive in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night.
So ignore Clinton’s public stance. The deathwatch is on… and should end in 45 hours.
