Hillary: It Ain't Over Yet!
In a defiant speech ignoring Barack Obama's historic win as the first African-American to become a presidential nominee -- a giant step toward righting our horrific racist past, precisely 200 years since the slave trade was abolished in 1808 -- Hillary Clinton delivered a Valedictory speech initiating a 'write in' campaign to force Obama into offering her the Veep spot or to redeem her and her husband's legacy.
Of course, for Mrs. Clinton, her decision not to concede was all for the 'good' of those "invisible voices" she claims to represent -- Latinos, women, and working class voters. She didn't mention black voters.
The tone of her speech was so laden with self-preservation and self-aggrandizement that one wonders what Kool-Aid she's been drinking these past three months that has brought her to the end of her run for the presidency but not the end of her self-deluded power plays.
Instead of taking her loss like (dare I say it?) a man, she told her basement audience at Baruch College in Manhattan, "I will be making no decisions tonight....The question is where to go from here?"
She ended by asking her supporters to write in to tell her what to do: www.hillaryclinton.com and we know they'll tell her to fight on to Denver.
Led by Lanny Davis, there will also be a campaign by her supporters to pressure Obama to make Hillary his running mate. If he does give in to this latest 'Clinton campaign' they will weaken him. If he can't stand up to Hillary Clinton and her creepy cohorts, he can't stand up to the tough guys around the world.
Clinton supporters were blasting emails to the talking heads on television during Tuesday night's campaign coverage protesting: "Give her time. Tonight should be her night." They're deluded too.
She's had months to get ready to concede, but instead kept firing at Obama with her Gatling-gun surrogates, most especially former President Bill Clinton, who just yesterday blamed Obama for the recent unflattering Vanity Fair article and all the other 'unfair' press she's received since the Iowa caucuses.
Another email rushed into CNN. "She deserves to be treated with respect."
Why doesn't she respect the party rules and the delegates -- elected and superdelegates -- that have put Obama over the top to make him the presumptive nominee? Why can't she respect Barack Obama and leave center stage?
Obama needs to focus on McCain and not on Hillary's shenanigans and dark-hearted strategies to create a co-presidency with Obama. The time for redeeming her and her husband's legacy has long past.
Clinton expressed no desire to disband or bring her army of supporters under the party tent, insisting on preserving her powerbase and forcing Obama into offering her the Vice Presidential spot or some other position she wants.
The Obama campaign has to be displeased as Hillary was introduced as the "Next president of the United States" before she took the stage in New York and delivered one of the least gracious speeches on record, completely ignoring the historicism of the moment when the first black man becomes his party's nominee.
It's doubtful this tough and unreasonable position will yield the results Mrs. Clinton desires.
While John McCain was busy blasting Barack Obama in New Orleans and the Clintons refusing to suspend their campaign and promising more offensive attacks, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was basking in the glory of his moment -- and extolling the virtues of and the trustworthiness of the American people -- when he announced to a crowd of 17,000 happy supporters in St. Paul, Minnesota:
"I will be the Democratic nominee."
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I just hope I don't hear the Clintons talking about "popular vote" on Saturday. And I really don't want to hear about Clinton's 18 million followers. I think she needs to start talking about the 36 million people who voted in the Democratic primaries that will be voting Democratic in November.
HIlliary does not have the leverage she thinks she does. Because an awfully lot of Republicans voted for her . . . .TO MESS UP THE PROCESS! She thinks she is loved and all-powerful, but she is really just a victim of REPUBLICAN DIRTY TRICKS.
Please, please please. Read my lips...No more Clintons. P u h l e e s e.
It's time for Obama to put his foot down. After all, the article's I read..."He's now in charge."
you could not say a bad thing about the clintons around me until i was going to vote for any one of them obama or hillary no matter what the out come whould have been and i am a black man but a democart 100% but when i say my heros like bill and hillary shut us out as a race and in so many words that we did not matter any more becuase we voted for a black man and in her speach she did not even mention black voters and to say hard working white voters and latinos and white women that voted for her is the ones that matter is a insualt to all blacks we have allways be hard working remember the slaves i don't like to go there but don't put us down as nothing becuase we voted for our own now that we was not use this time the latinos are your new puppets my respect for you is gone for every you you and bill has been a fake all along it' a sad day for america
Nicely phrased article. The egocentrism of the Clinton's is just staggering. The time for "making nice" to the Clinton supporters has long past. They have ignored and spat upon every attempt by the Obama campaign and the media to ease the pain of this defeat for her. She had many many chances to make a graceful exit and preferred to go into debt rather than do the adult thing and face reality.
There are winners and losers in every campaign. It is not the winner's job to make the loser's happy. It is only the winners job to be gracious and to get on with the job ahead of them. It is the loser's job to step-aside and give the winner their day in the sun.
i am one of the hillary supporters for whom she spoke. understand that she did barck a favor. on tuesday night, when i saw the superdelegates staging the whole thing to give him the nomination that evening even as he lost one more state by double digits, i was reading to send a donation to john mccain. when hillary spoke, i decided to give myself a few days.
the whole thing was so contrived, that keith olbermann broke into the mccain speech to pronounce that at that moment obama had gone over the top. give me a break.
never, i repeat, never has a dem nominee been declared a victor on the last primary day as he lost a contest by double digits and the non-anointed one had won the popular vote (even without counting MI).
the only rational result is to take this to the convention.
never, I repeat, never have a group of so-called democrats been so petty and irresponsible that they would keep trying to change the rules, try to convince everyone they're being fair, forget that a lot of people voted for their candidate only because Rush Limbaugh told them to, threaten to vote for John McCain because they don't really give a damn about a woman's right to choose, only caring that they have their way, everyone else be damned.
the only rational result is to ignore them.
They are probably just Republican dirty tricksters anyway.
She is not happy with who beat her . There has never been a campaign the likes of her's . The original campaign manager MP is the largest lobbist in D.C. and some of the lobbist working with J Mc work for MP. So does WJC . That Columbian deal MP and WJC are working on is an example . While she was promising jobs for workers here they are making deals to out source jobs . That billion dollar big drug company deal to supply aids drugs to African nations was also one of WJC's deals which was a case of real meanness . She , WJC , and J Mc are tied together at the hip . She was campaigning to get herself or J Mc in the WH so they could continue business as usual . The Democratic Party means nothing .
Agreed. Keep telling the truth about Senator Clinton and her shameless surrogates.
This is exactly what we expected of Hillary! She has conducted herself in this manner during the entire campaign! I admire Obama's character trait: humble and complete gentleman. Move on Obama and don't be pressured into choosing a VP who is not your FIRST choice.
Obamans should be content with their candidate's victory and not continue to sound contentious and rambunctious. I know you really want to see Hillary eat crow, but I think it is more in the party';s interest to close ranks. I write this as a Clinton supporter who intends to vote for Obama and his running mate, whoever that may be, in November.
This time calls for us to apply a loose paraphrase of Abraham Lincoln's words: ".....with malice toward none and charity toward all.....let us bind up our wounds.....(and) let us strive on to finish the work we are in..." That work is the ousting of the Republicans so that the nation may return to the path of righteousness once more.
I whole heartedly agree with you.
It is most depressing to see Hillary Dems saying that they will now be voting for JMc, but I spose we have to realize that that type of irrational behavior is something far out of our hands.
She couldn't have possibly united the people, she couldn't have possibly united the party. She couldn't even unite herself with her own party's running opponent. This to me shows bad leadership ~ at any level.
She fought the wrong fight.
The very claim by the Hillary supporters who refuse to believe she lost that Obama "respect" her now is plain absolute nuts. He has respected her the whole time she has dis respected him in every way possible and when she couldn't do the job on him in the most bloody nasty way she sent in a surrogate to do the job for her. These very "supprters" who have stood outside and protested when the party representatives met to bring a sanity to the whole mess made by the two states that made their own rules had no respect for the process. These very same people that no matter what the numbers and how insane the potential was for Hillary to get the most numbers she could to beat Barack's delegate count refused to show any small piece of respect for him and how he had gone so very far as a black man in this country who racist still reside. So when the word respect comes up spoken by the clinton supporters who have shown none to the man who has overcome adversity Hillary has never known I am sickened. What happened to the fair primary election we as US citizens speak so very proudly of to the world? The selection of the "other" candidate not their own is no excuse to fight on for the loser.
Your absolutely right. And your attitude will lose the election for Obama.
No matter what's happened you as an Obama supporter need to realize that you need Hillary and her base of supporters to win in Nov. If you demand "respect" or some other concession after a hard fought campaign is over, you won't get it, the party will stay divided, and McCain will win.
Your man won. Get over your indignance and do your part to unify the party.
Good piece. Beverly Davis, undoubtedly one of the best writer on Huffpo.
Now as the Clintons finally fade out of history, maybe we can get on with change, As VP she would bring baggage that the Dems don't need . This isn't about anything but, Hillary trying to steel the limelight one more time. History will forget the ungracious losers, but, remember the non winners for there way of helping the party to move on, All of Hillarys supporters are welcome to vote for McCain, if they want to vote for another loser, But, this is the time to heal Americas wounds, the winner in all this is the people, I was unsure about Obama, and it took 6 months of listening to his speeches to understand the candidate,and make up my mind who to vote for, Hillarys supporters are Americans too, and will understand Obama, If we can just get Hillary to do the right thing.
By claiming her to be president and not knowing the truth and coming out of the basement and learning that Obama was the president, it lends more creedence to their way of thinking that Hillary was robbed of being president while giving a speech.
Never before have I been imbarrased by a potential nominee. I wonder how JFK JR. would have acted but I am absolutely certain it would have been with class. You can take tthe lady out of Arkansas but the Arkansas remains in the lady like a tweed hat or a brown pair of frayed socks....totally devoid of class!
Don't blame Arkansas for Hillary. She's a transplanted Yankee LOL. A southern lady wouldn't be caught dead behaving like HRC...
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