Clinton camp in two minds over exit plan

I'm sorry, but I find this bloody ridiculous. Barack Obama is now only 45 short of the 2,118 delegates he needs to seal the Democratic nomination and we hear that there are discussions in the Clinton camp about when to gracefully throw in the towel.

Some of her team are pressing her to bow out gracefully and endorse Barack Obama. But die-hard loyalists are advocating she put her campaign on hold, hang on to her delegates and wait to see what turns up between now and the Democratic convention in August.

Clinton has organised a party in her home state, New York, to mark the end of the primary season with tonight's contests in South Dakota and Montana.

At her party she will thank her campaign workers for their efforts over the past five months. An insider said he would be shocked if she used the occasion to concede, insisting she had not yet made a final decision about her next move.

On Sunday Clinton refused to disclose her intentions. "We'll see when Tuesday and the day after Tuesday comes," she said. "My political obituary has yet to be written, and we're going forward. It's not over till it's over." But her campaign sent out emails to some staff advising them they were being laid off as of tonight.

I've said before that I no longer think a dignified exit is possible for the woman who has clung on far longer than she ever should have done, but to fail to concede now is simply silly.

The super delegates will declare soon enough and make the decision for her, surely it would be better before that point to gracefully concede, rather than wait until your defeat is written into stone by others?

However, disgracefully, some of her supporters are putting forward their reasoning as to why she should not concede.

Even her fiercest supporters accept Obama will pass the magic number - if not tonight then very soon after that. Their last-ditch strategy is for her to hang on until the convention, when the nominee is formally adopted, in the hope that some scandal will be unearthed by then that would so damage Obama that he would haemorrhage support from superdelegates. Some Clinton voters have also threatened to lead a mass exodus of women from the Democratic party.

So, she might refuse to concede defeat in the hope that some scandal might break and derail the Obama campaign? So we now have a fellow Democrat hoping that a scandal might hit the presumptive Democratic nominee? Could this entire affair possibly have less class?

"I think its pretty clear that she is not conceding." Elleithee said, "I think its pretty clear that she is staying in this race. She is going, in the coming days, to be aggressively courting uncommitted superdelegates aggressively courting unpledged delegates, making the case to them that she is a candidate best ready to take on John McCain."

When asked directly when Clinton will step aside, Elietthee told reporters, “as she has said dozens and dozens of times she is in this race until we have a nominee...Until there is a nominee she is going to try to win support."

He continued “until there is a nominee we are going to still work to become that nominee. When asked when they would determine a nominee would be selected –- because the Clinton campaign has refused to accept fully the 2,118 number –- Elleithee said, “we're exploring -- she has said before she wants to have this to be resolved before the convention -- we are reviewing our options.”

Eliethee continued, “We do not expect that a nominee will be clear tomorrow night … she is mostly going to be working the phones and meeting with these delegates."

When asked why Clinton was spending tomorrow in New York at an event the campaign is calling a "victory party," Clinton’s spokesperson said, “it’s a good way to close out this phase of the campaign is come to New York bring all of her supporters together, have a big celebratory election night party as we move into the next phase of the campaign which is obviously the courting of these delegates.”

Her entire campaign has been horrible, so why am I remotely surprised that it's going to end horribly as well?

Her supporters continue to live in a fantasy world where victory is always possible and probably just over the next hill.

It's the exact same mindset that Bush and McCain use to justify continuing to stay in Iraq. "Things just might improve any second now", so let's not "cut and run".

Hillary and her supporters are just as distanced from reality as the administration they hope to replace. Now that's saying something.....

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Tags: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, US election 2008, Democratic presidential nominee