This is the first time in 3 years, I have added an entire column for my blog.
Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, wrote an incredible explanation of the Hillary Clinton downfall.
I'm not happy she is falling apart, although I am a Barack Obama supporter.
Still: Robinson says it all:
Clinton's Grim Scenario
Tuesday, May 27, 2008;
Page A13
If this campaign goes on much longer, what will be left of Hillary Clinton?
A woman uniformly described by her close friends as genuine, principled and sane has been reduced to citing the timing of Robert F. Kennedy's
assassination as a reason to stay in the race -- an argument that is
ungenuine, unprincipled and insane. She vows to keep pushing, perhaps
all the way to the convention in August. What manner of disintegration
is yet to come?
For anyone who missed it, Clinton was pleading her cause before the editorial board of the Sioux Falls, S.D., Argus Leader
on Friday. Rejecting calls to drop out because her chances of winning
have become so slight, she said the following: "My husband did not wrap
up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere
in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was
assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand
it."
The point isn't whether you take Clinton at her word that she didn't
actually mean to suggest that someone -- guess who? -- might be
assassinated. The point is: Whoa, where did that come from?
Setting aside for the moment the ugliness of Clinton's remark, just
try to make it hold together. Clinton's basic argument is that attempts
to push her out of the race are hasty and premature, since the
nomination sometimes isn't decided until June. She cites two election
years, 1968 and 1992, as evidence -- but neither is relevant to 2008
because the campaign calendar has been changed.
In 1968, the Democratic race kicked off with the New Hampshire
primary on March 12; when Robert Kennedy was killed, the campaign was
not quite three months old. In 1992, the first contest was the Iowa
caucuses on Feb. 10; by the beginning of June, candidates had been
battling for about 3 1/2 months -- and it was clear that Bill Clinton would be the nominee, though he hadn't technically wrapped it up.
This year, the Iowa caucuses were held on Jan. 3, the earliest date
ever. Other states scrambled to move their contests up in the calendar
as well. When June arrives, the candidates will have been slogging
through primaries and caucuses for five full months -- a good deal
longer than in those earlier campaign cycles.
So Clinton's disturbing remark wasn't wishful thinking -- as far as
I know (to quote Clinton herself, when asked earlier this year about
false rumors that her opponent Barack Obama is a Muslim). Clearly, it wasn't logical thinking. It can only have been magical thinking, albeit not the happy-magic kind.
Clinton has always claimed to be the cold-eyed realist in the race, and
at one point maybe she was. Increasingly, though, her words and actions
reflect the kind of thinking that animates myths and fairy tales: Maybe
a sudden and powerful storm will scatter my enemy's ships. Maybe a
strapping woodsman will come along and save the day.
Clinton has poured more than $11 million of her own money into the
campaign, with no guarantee of ever getting it back. She has changed
slogans and themes the way Obama changes his ties. She has been the
first major-party presidential candidate in memory to tout her appeal
to white voters. She has abandoned any pretense of consistency,
inventing new rationales for continuing her candidacy and new
yardsticks for measuring its success whenever the old rationales and
yardsticks begin to favor Obama.
It could be that any presidential campaign requires a measure of
blind faith. But there's a difference between having faith in a dream
and being lost in a delusion. The former suggests inner strength; the
latter, an inner meltdown.
What Clinton's evocation of RFK suggests isn't that she had some
tactical reason for speaking the unspeakable but that she and her
closest advisers can't stop running and rerunning through their minds
the most far-fetched scenarios, no matter how absurd or even obscene.
She gives the impression of having spent long nights convincing herself
that the stars really might still align for her -- that something can
still happen to make the Democratic Party realize how foolish it has been.
Clinton campaigns as if she knows she will leave some Democrats with
bad feelings. That's the Clinton way: Ask forgiveness, not permission.
But every day, as more superdelegates trickle to Obama's side, it
becomes a surer bet that she will not win. She and her family enjoy
good health and fabulous wealth. They'll be fine -- unless, while
losing this race for the nomination, Hillary Clinton also loses her
soul.
The writer will answer questions at 1 p.m. today athttp://www.washingtonpost.com. His e-mail address iseugenerobinson@washpost.com.
Although, I don't know Andrew Malcolm personally, I have been following his "Top of the Ticket" blog within the Los Angeles Times with stern interest during this political season.
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