Clinton steps back into the limelight. (Brian Zak/Sipa Press)
Clinton’s convention role
“Will Hillary outsmart Obama and take the nomination at the last minute?” asked Denis Keohane in American Thinker. Clinton has been phoning super delegates recently—if her name is in play, and just 120 of them happen to sit out the first ballot, “Obama does not get the nomination” without a fight. His “blunder” to push for Michigan and Florida’s pro-Hillary delegations to be seated in full only makes a Clinton upset a real possibility.
“If she’s not plotting to steal the nomination,” said Ron Rosenbaum in his blog, “she should immediately say to her delegates, I release you from your pledge; all I want is a prime time speech” at the convention. A Clinton upset at the convention isn’t a “realistic possibility,” but “I bet the thought has crossed her mind.”
Clinton and her supporters clearly have some “lingering bitterness” about the primary, said Karen Tumulty in Time, and allowing a “symbolic” convention vote for Clinton could be a cathartic “show of respect.” But even though she’s reportedly still “skeptical that Obama can win in the fall”—or even hoping he’ll loose—“Clinton is doing everything she is asked—and then some—to help” Obama win.
If she wants Obama elected, she should let the convention be about him, said The Economist’s Democracy in America blog. He’s shooting for “the perfect convention,” and with “impossibly high expectations,” Obama “needs it to be perfect, or close to it.” But “if Hillary tries to make it her show, watch as the Democrats squabble publicly,” and watch the press eat it all up.
Comment on this article
Recent comments | 3 total
If she were to do that, it would show her real character and ambition. It would be a clear sign of her arrogance and she would not deserve our respect as a democrat.
The Clinton's, like many others, know a lot about Obama tha tisn't fully public yet and that won't help his extreme political ambitions. So don't be surprised if she stands ready to step in when the Obama Mystique collapses and the rock star status is shown as the product of good lighting, massive sound system, and skillful makeup. He won't be the first such star to be discovered just mouthing the lyrics. Check out the profice in the edition of the New Yorker with the famous Obama cover. All that uproar about the cover was to keep our attention off the profile inside the magazine. Written by a liberal about a liberal and published in a liberal magazine, it nonetheless exposes some of the real--not so pure and not so outside--Obama. And it clearly describes how he did anything but implement CHANGE in Chicago politics to get where he is today.
I don't understand why Hillary didn't get penalized for staying on the ballot in Michigan, which is what allows her to be such a potential issue at the convention. All of the more popular Democratic candidates from Clinton to Bill Richardson made an agreement to remove their names from the Michigan ballot because of when they held their primary. Hillary reneged on her word at the last minute, and since she was the only name on the ballot besides Kucinich, Dodd, and Gravel, she won big in Michigan. She directly and intentionally went against the rest of her party for personal gain and no one said a word, and now her actions have given her the traction to cause a lot of problems. Her desperate Republicanesque attacks on Obama as she tried to pry the nomination out of his hands gave a perceived legitimacy to such gutter politics. It used to be the realm of the conservatives to mud sling and be as nasty as she became, and Obama would have been able to cast the Republicans in a more negative light as soon as they started making those attacks in the general election. However, once Hillary started up with the extreme mudslinging, such tactics just became part of politics in general again and the Republicans can no longer be shamed into actually debating issues instead of spreading innuendo. Hillary had a lot of votes during the primaries and those voices need to be heard, but Obama had more votes in the primaries and those voices count just as much. Hillary should be punished in some way for not standing by her word in Michigan, not rewarded for it.
digg del.icio.us stumbleUpon newsvine reddit furl