Hillary Clinton wins Pennsylvania primary
And on it goes...
With a victory in Pennsylvania of 10% Hillary has pulled off exactly what she needs to be able to keep going, fending off calls for her to step down from the Democratic hierarchy.
She now has to hope that this victory is enough to prompt an influx of cash into her campaign which is at this point $10 million in debt.
Of course, realistically, Clinton has achieved bugger all. Even a 10% lead over Obama in Pennsylvania will only net her around 16 delegates in a contest in which she already trails Obama by around 150 delegates.In a passionate speech, Clinton rejected calls from inside the party to bring the protracted contest to an end by standing down. "Some counted me out and said to drop out," she said. "But the American people don't quit. And they deserve a president who doesn't quit either."
She said it was "long road" to the White House, and appealed for funds for her cash-strapped campaign, which is carrying a debt of $10m, in contrast with the millions Obama has raised.
"Tonight, more than ever, I need your help to continue this journey ... We can only keep winning if we can keep competing with an opponent who outspends us so massively," she said.
Coming into today, the odds that Clinton would catch Obama in pledged delegates were very small. Now they're zero. Before Pennsylvania, Clinton needed to win each remaining primary with 65 percent of the vote to close the gap. Even though she won Pennsylvania, that figure is now just over 68 percent. (Try it on the calculator below by dragging the red bar at the top to the right.) Furthermore, the state with the most remaining delegates is North Carolina, where Obama leads in the polls by about 20 points. Assuming he nets at least 20 more of the state's 115 delegates, Clinton needs 80 percent of the vote in each of the other eight remaining primaries to catch up.And so the lost cause continues, with Hillary staggering on, hoping that Obama's campaign will somehow self implode. And where does this leave Hillary regarding her plan to round up the remaining super delegates?
Instead, let's look at a rosy but vaguely realistic scenario for Clinton: Let's say she whittles Obama's lead in North Carolina down to 10 points and grabs a 10-point victory in every other state. This would leave her behind by 132 pledged delegates, give or take a few, depending on how the cards fall in Pennsylvania. This means Obama would need 342 of 794 total superdelegates to reach the majority needed for the nomination. According to DemConWatch, 231 have already promised their support to Obama, so he would need 111 more supporters from the pool of 308 superdelegates that remain uncommitted—36 percent. Put another way, Clinton would still need to convince 64 percent of uncommitted superdelegates to go her way, even in this generous scenario.I wonder if money will continue to flow towards such an obviously lost cause? For that's the greatest danger facing the Hillary campaign this morning. She might be refusing to accept reality, but how many people can she convince to part with hard cash to back her obviously lost cause?
Yesterday, Hillary made some of her most hawkish comments to date, comments which literally took the breath away of any Democratic supporter.
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," she told ABS news . "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."I'm not sure why Hillary feels the need to make such provocative statements, especially as Israel is itself a nuclear power entirely capable of defending itself from any nuclear attack, but - in making such statements - Hillary is only succeeding in dragging this campaign further into the mud. I never thought I'd see the day when a Democratic candidate would be campaigning by threatening to "obliterate" another country.
Even the New York Times, which backs Hillary, has said her campaign was worse that the "mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it." They have concluded that her tactics do "nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election."
Her tactics are simply disgusting. If Obama can be attacked for campaigning on a message of "hope", I'll still root for him any day over a candidate who campaigns on a message of "nuclear obliteration".
At the beginning of this campaign I was willing to root for and to support either Democratic candidate, but I have no hesitation in saying that Hillary now repulses me. The things that come out that woman's mouth simply beggars belief.
Click title for full article.
No comments:
Post a Comment