Ten Things to Remember on Tuesday Night

Hillary Clinton will win Pennsylvania.

Arguments over the meaning or meaninglessness of her win will dominate MSM and stretch bandwidth to its breaking point. Bloggers and pundits will dust off their favorite boxing metaphors: "Hillary's off the ropes!" "Obama can't land the knockout!" Hillbots will rejoice, Obamabots will panic, and McCainbots will watch Murder She Wrote and go to bed at six-thirty. I'll probably write a scathing post attempting to prove that Hillary is the devil incarnate. We'll all lose our minds.

In hope of preventing some of this hysteria (especially my own), I thought it'd be helpful to keep a few things in mind during Tuesday night's results -- from Hillary's "victory" speech to the blizzard of spin that's sure to follow:

1. Remember that there's no way Hillary can become the nominee without a superdelegate coup -- which would alienate a generation of young Democrats and dangerously fracture the party.

2. Remember that her campaign leaked internals showing an eleven point lead (as a means of firing up her supporters and getting out the vote). Therefore, any win smaller than eleven points should be considered a disappointment by her own assessment.

3. Remember that every time Hillary begins a sentence with "you know," or "my opponent," the next thing out of her mouth is a lie.

4. Remember that when Clinton surrogates say "this proves Obama can't win the big states," they're ignoring the fact that he actually won more delegates in Texas -- not to mention twice as many states as she has.

5. Remember that when the pundits argue that Obama can't win in white rural areas because they broke for Hillary, they're ignoring the fact that he won (in alphabetical order): Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

6. Remember that when Hillary talks about who will be "better against John McCain in the fall," she's talking about the fall of 2012.

7. Remember that Hillary's campaign is $10M in debt, while Obama's has more than $40M in cash on hand.

8. Remember that Hillary's lead in Pennsylvania was as a high as 26 points only a month ago.

9. Remember that Hillary's late Pennsylvania rebound was forged in the fires of negativity and fear-mongering.

10. Remember that the only manufacturing job Hillary ever brought to Pennsylvania was the manufactured notion that she was a middle-class, whisky-swilling duck killer, and not an anti-union multi-millionaire.

Comments

[apoyo]

Obama has already made history. That's what irks the clintons. He will have better ink in the history books. There will be a slew of books analyzing how he ran and managed this campaign, not just the number of donors, and the number of dollars but the fact that he did it without big money.

If the nomination is stolen from him or if he loses the general election because of Hillary giving the republicans their talking points this country,as well as the world, will suffer even more.

That will also go into the history books.

[mikijackson]

At least the writer of this pre primary hit does not have any pretenses to objectivity. By the, way, she is a politician, not the devil. So is Obama. Politicians are usually in league with the devil, but they lack his integrity. Obama is a politician. She will not be the nominee, we all agree, so why is everyone so worked up? Let the Hillary obsession go, ignore her, it is unhealthy to obsess about her, it fosters divisiveness, it helps McCain. Do not help McCain. Obama is a politician.

I am just counting these primaries off until the end of this torture. The current primary system hurts Democrats.

I am still wondering how Obama is able to raise so much money, as a little known candidate, from the first. It's not all idealism money or small personal contributions.

Follow the money - Deep Throat

[revjmike]

Obama gets those contributions by inspiring the "little guy" (old and young...I am 63) to donate to a political campaign for the first time in their lives and others to donate as well.

The word INSPIRE is what is missing from the Clinton campaign. In 1992, Bill was inspiring. By 1998 he was EXPIRING, sucking the oxygen out of the country with his shenanigans, not just the Monica thing.

Now Hillary is trying to cause the Democratic win to expire by her shenanigans while just trying to get elected.

Devil incarnate? No. That's just an image of the real Hillary, not the real Hillary. She could teach the Devil a thing or two.

[janmB]

ASK what is the JOB of the superdelegates ? Not to follow the CROWD or why even have them ?
All that crap about OBAMA came out just a month ago cause the MEDIA was shut-down.
Now we still don't know anything much about him cause he hasn't accomplished anything significant. All we know is for 20 years he listened to I HATE AMERICA sermons by UNCLE Pastor Wright and possibly had a "friendship" with Ayles the USA terrorist. Ms Obama was never proud of the USA even after getting a FREE education ---not until she got a platform as a Mrs. Candidates wife.
WHO CAN WIN and go HEAD TO HEAD WITH MCCAIN. ? MRS CLINTON CAN.
OBAMA hasn't done ANYTHING special.

[DougPA]

Number 3 should be expanded: Any response that starts with a cackle is a whopper that even Hillary can't imagine anyone will buy.

[ljschwabtx]

AMEN! That was a doozie last night in response to Keith's question about Richard Scaife's endorsement. Her maniacal laughter is always a red flag. And to accuse Obama of the negative campaigning and say that she just wants to concentrate on the issues! Why does she continue to insult our intelligence and expect us to not notice?

[PrdAmerican]

We'll all lose our minds....

too late, I already have....PP­Ppppfffttt­...slobber­, slobber...­Pppbfft...

Clinically dignosed: HRC Induced Psychosis

[stlswest]

I like the preemptive approach. That's exactly what's about to happen.

Your #7 point is interesting. People in our society vote in two ways. 1) With a ballot, and 2) With our dollars. Obama's ability to attract dollars as well as votes, says a lot about who Americans want as their next president.

[Vnd]

Yeah, all that bundled money, isn't it grand?

[divaatty]

Well, Hillary could always just violate campagin finance laws like she did when she was running for Senate. Just ask Peter Paul.

[bobdob]

"Hillbots will rejoice, Obamabots will panic"

Obamabots will not panic. Obamabots will groan in pain. This race has been endless. The Clintons are the sorest losers on the planet.

[BingoAmerica]

And a few other things to remember...

1. Poll out today in USA Today: Clinton beats McCain 50%-44%. but Obama only beats him 47%-44% among registered voters.

2. The Republican trash is officially starting against Obama. If he or his supporters think Hillary has been negative, just wait for this. Floyd Brown, who created the Willie Horton ads that killed Dukakis, is now set on Obama - http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1733873,00.html. This is what Hillary has been talking about - she has TONS of experience dealing with this garbage but Obama has NONE.

3. Obama has outspent Hillary at least 3-1 in Pennsylvania and is still going to lose.

4. Young people and African Americans have been voting Democrat more and more in recent elections - but seniors, catholics (no recent President has won without winning Catholics), women and hispanics have been trending towards Republicans. Democrats NEED to win these four groups in the fall and guess what, Hillary wins these groups and Obama loses them.

5. The primaries are not over. If Hillary wins the nomination it is not a coup. Democracy has not been overthrown. You act as if Obama has already won it and no matter what happens, if Hillary wins it will be illegal, stolen or morally corrupt. Superdelegates are free to make their own minds free of the primary results - just ask Ted Kennedy or Richardson who are NOT supporting the candidate the people of their states voted for.

[bobdob]

"Obama has outspent Hillary at least 3-1 in Pennsylvania"

You know, this is the lamest possible excuse and I hear it continually from the Clinton campaign. Is this what we should expect when she loses to McCain? "Well, of course John McCain won the election--he outspent me by over three to one."

Hillary needs to stop blaming her problems on Obama and accept responsibility for her loss. It's HER fault that she's being outspent, and it's HER fault that she's losing. Obama is beating her because he's better than her.

[BingoAmerica]

It's true - it's her fault she's being outspent but here's something to think about beyond how much Koolaid you'll drink today:

Why is Obama going to lose a mid-west state in which he's outspent his monsterous, whorish opponent who has no experience or morals and no chance of winning the nomination?

Please explain this to me.

[dct19]

1. the polls change on a daily basis

2. republicans will attack Hillary with the same level of vitriol and venom (why the fukk are we supposed to scared of their smears)

3. she was leading by 26 points, she had the incumbent governor and the entire democratic machine behind her, and she has limited funds because she stinks at budgeting, and raising money

4. hispanics are not trending republican, a large percentage of black people will not vote for her if she is the nominee, a democrat cannot take the WH without high black voter participation

5. at the end of the primary process she will have lost in number of states, popular vote and number of delegates, if the superdelegates still give her the nomination they will seriously injure the democratic party

[BingoAmerica]

1. True. The point is - more Americans would vote for Hillary than Obama vs. McCain.
2. The difference is HIllary is ready....dozens of books have been written about her. We know her skeletons. We don't know about Obama. Nor do we know how he'll handle the attacks.
3. Hillary was once winning in every state because everyone knew her. Of course she was going to drop.
4.No President has won recently without the Catholic vote. However you can win without high African-American turnout - look at Bush in 04.
5. She will have closed the gap and won all the big states. Obama has already taken superdelegates who rejected the popular votes of their party and he seems content with that. Plus if Florida and Michigan aren't counted it will seriously injure the party even worse.

[Dustee]

OH PLEASE! I am so tired of these republican scare tactics, Hillary Robot Clinton has been using. Give it a break! Is that all the Republicans know?

Eight years of trying to scare the American people is enough - move along!

[dlkincaid]

You are probably one of those persons who 8 years ago believed BUSH - idiots come around at least every eight years. Obama is not going to win - Hillary either with the help of the MSM, but you don't have to believe me - JUST WAIT.

[estreya]

Obama has been able to outspend her because he's gotten more contributions than any other candidate in history. And that, by the way, is yet another method by which one can calculate a victory. If a donated dollar is a vote, and i submit to you that it is, Obama's winning by a landslide.

[BingoAmerica]

That's a joke.

If the primary season worked like the general, winner take all, Hillary would have won months ago in a landslide.

[McFlipFlop]

1) Overall, Clinton is losing to McCain in the polls, while Obama beats him. It's never statistically accurate to use just one poll. Try looking at averages of recent polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_clinton-224.html

2) Yawn. Hillary has so much baggage, and many more negatives for the Rethugliecons to attack. Have you seen, "Hillary, the Movie?"

3) And in the beginning of the primary season, Hillary had the most money, and lost. Money is certainly not the only factor. Clinton's lead in PA used to be 26%. Obama has now used money to campaign there, and it has worked.

4) This comment is wrong in so many ways, it's not worth taking on. You are obviously not a statistician. The largest disparity, in terms of voter groups, between Clinton and Obama is education.

5) You missed the point. It wil take 2/3 of the supers to go Hillary's way to give her the win. This 'coup' is highly unlikely.

[BingoAmerica]

If all of this is true please explain to me why Obama is going to lose Pennsylvania?

I've never heard an intelligent response to this.

[Vnd]

And I’ll remember:
1. There’s no such thing as a superdelegate coup. As per the rules, superdelegates vote as they see fit and it gets added to the total; they’re just part of the process.
2. Don’t get all your news from Drudge.
3. Obama’s “ums” and “uhs” always precede evasions and spin.
4. The popular vote.
5. It’s easy to deluge a small state with money.
6. Hillary will be the nominee in 2008.
7. Hillary’s got deep pockets, if need be.
8. It’s amazing what 10 million in advertising will buy you.
9. Obama and his campaign seem just as comfortable rolling around in the mud.
10. Better to elect a whisky-swilling duck killer than an effete snake-oil salesman, any day of the week.

[jcause28]

It odd how so many people can be led by fear and negativity. No wonder this country is in the shape its in.

[SDMack]

Don't be too worried by what you see in comment threads on political blogs. We are the lunatic fringe. Most Americans have real lives and aren't reading any of this BS.

[OrionGal]

Hillary has LOST the nomination.

Hillary has LOST the nomination.

Hillary has LOST the nomination.

It's been over for WEEKS.

[mightbesane]

Well, I guess that settles it.

[BingoAmerica]

Last time I checked the primary season wasn't over til June. Afraid of democracy?

[DSully]

Seriously? Snake oil saleman? Did you just get the internet? Barak Obama went to Harvard law. He gives good speeches AND has great policies. Clinton is the candidate of big corporation money who tells you she isn't.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but she has no fear or telling lies directly to your face and then laughing them up on Leno. I mean, Bosnia once would be one thing. But she told it over and over. And she funded her own campaign with money paid to her husband by the Columbia government. Clinton is the biggest sheister ever and I feel sorry for the individuals to obtuse, perhaps uneducated, to see through her constant "telling them want they want to hear strategy."

Also, the superdelegates will be glad to leave Clinton. If she eaks out a win today she is done, otherwise it ends the day after North Carolina. You may not be smart enough to do the math, but the superdelegates are. They know Obama has won, but they can't come out and put away Clinton if she is claiming she is still in the race or it will alienate her silly supports.

[barphyle]

Well said - DSully!

[mckenna]

Thank you! I couldn't have said it better. I was for Hil until I watched how she has conducted herself during this whole campaign. What a huge disaapointment! I waited my whole life for a female Prez and this goes to show ya...women can be just a full of $&^%% as men. :-)

[new logic]

U forgot Illinois

[J E Mugford]

There is a bigger point to remember:
Hillary complains about Obama's spending when his spending comes from millions of small donors
The electorate has awakened, and like the beast of fables, once the beast is awake, it will have its way...and the way is clear.. Obama as president, a freshman class in congress that is progressive democrat, and the elimination of negativity from the electoral scene.

[AWest]

Thank you! I like the way you think. My day's a little brighter now, and it's much appreciated.

I think, more than anything, we need to get back to making a habit of making each other feel good.

Then, of course, there's the healing our country to do...

[OrionGal]

SO true - thank you for pointing this out -

Isn't it great to have a candidate like Obama that has joined us all Together!

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

After Super Tuesday I was prepared to dig in and watch a tight, stressful, but fairly dignified race between Obama and Clinton, all the way through Puerto Rico and maybe the convention. True, Clinton had already used some low-blow tactics in Iowa ("roll of the dice"), New Hampshire (last minute mailers questioning Obama's pro-choice record), and South Carolina ("Jesse Jackson"), as well as her fake victory celebration in Florida. But "she'll do anything to win" sounded more like hyperbole at that point, and I understood the enthusiasm that Clinton's supporters felt about her.

So a hard-fought, long battle is not the problem. The problem is that Clinton didn't have a post-Super Tuesday strategy, lost eleven straight contests mostly by huge margins, and therefore resorted to desperate, dirty tactics in order to make up the deficit.

And the question I ask is: why? Clinton has to win two-thirds of the remaining delegates just to catch up, which means winning a larger percentage of the popular vote because of the way delegates are divided between the candidates.

She is dragging us through this depressing race not so much because she can win but because she is afraid to lose. Such an historic woman candidate should not be humiliated. But she should also not degrade herself with the type of campaigning she has used since Wisconsin. It doesn't help anyone-- except John McCain.

And after tonight it will go on. And on. And on.

[AWest]

Sort of like the film Groundhog Day, isn't it?

Perhaps, as Bill Murray did, we can finally wake up one morning in Pennsylvania. Perhaps even this morning.

[BingoAmerica]

"She is dragging us through this depressing race not so much because she can win but because she is afraid to lose".

Tell that to the people of Pennsylvania who are going to vote for her today. She's going to win despite being outspent 3-1 by Obama.

Don't blame Hillary, blame HALF the party and ALMOST ALL of the big states who have voted for her.

[WHusseinLA]

There is no way that the superdelegates will overturn the process and fracture the party. You need to accept that.

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

I'll give her Massachusetts, but New York is her home state, which she won by a much smaller margin than Obama won Illinois (a big state), and California will go Democratic anyway. Besides, in California, 40% of the votes were cast a month before the primary and more than two-thirds of those went to Clinton. Obama won Missouri and Virginia, and remember Kerry and Gore won a lot of big states and they never became president. Democrats need to win some of those small, insignificant, un-Democratic caucus states which the Clintons sneer at if they are going to win back the White House.

[ProgressiveBum]

So what if makes a net gain of a few delegates in PA? It won't even come close to solve her math problem. She's a cooked goose, stick a fork in it!

[soundfury]

The only thing the MSM wants is for the circus to make it to every state and town. That is why they've been plugging Hillary so feverishly for the past two months or more. Tonight will bring the same results it brought in Texas and Ohio, and they will bore us to death with the spinning and the churning and the regurgitating.

If we all suddenly shut off our T.V. sets and showed them who's really the boss, maybe we'd finally have a real winner here, and we all know who's been winning.

Let the masses think on their own, and stop with the mind control.

[ThatSharkeyGeezer]

Thanks for the list of facts that will get us through tonight.

But damn, it's hard to put up with this charade. I just can't wait to put on my gold spandex leotard and run through the streets singing, "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead!"

[LABC]

LOL!! Don't forget your baton! :)

I appreciated the list too - I've got "Hell's Kitchen" and the Capitals hockey game to get me through the night.

[SeaOats]

8. Remember that Hillary's lead in Pennsylvania was as a high as 26 points only a month ago.

This fact is ignored by the traditional media, and I'll be clinging to it for sanity's sake throughout this hideously long day :)

[RIBassist]

"6. Remember that when Hillary talks about who will be "better against John McCain in the fall," she's talking about the fall of 2012."

This is funny, but also scary. Two months ago Clinton's own advisors gave her a 10% chance of winning the nomination. In national polls of Dems likely to vote in November, Obama is leading Clinton by 10+ points. As recentliy reported here at HuffPo and elsewhere, the Clinton campaign is beyond broke... she was deeply in debt going into April ($10 million in the red) and her situation has likely worsened since then. Much of the MSM is still trying to convince their audience that this is a horse race (gotta keep those ratings up and ad revenues flowing), but the fact of the matter is, the process was over after Superduper Tuesday. Clinton lost, Obama won.

So why is Clinton willing to go many more millions of dollars in debt and ruin her political legacy along with her husband's on a race that is unwinnable?

Because her only goal at this point is to ensure that Obama loses to McCain in November. In her own deluded world, that is how she will prove to the party that she should have been the nominee, and that she must be the nominee in 2012.

The sad reality is that Dems will blame her for an Obama loss, and she will be lucky to retain her Senate seat. She will NEVER be POTUS.

[DSully]

I agree she has made so many blunders and said so many lies, the republicans would just love to tear her apart in the fall. She is completely unelectable and if Obama didn't want her voters, his kitchen sink strategy could sink her battleship for ever. I mean, all you would have to do is run commericals show her blatant lies about Columbia, NAFTA, Bosnia, and Northern Ireland over and over. But Obama can't do so, or else he risks losing her voters in the fall.

[JesusHC]

What I find incomprehensible, is that HRC despite running under the Democrat banner, behaves, and panders to the proclivities of the hard core conservatives. I find this highly disturbing, doesn't anybody else? At this point it seems clear to me that the base of HRC supporters have surrendered reason in favor of mindless passion.

[EspritDeVoltaire]

I have been pointing out this issue, as well as her Senate voting record, for several weeks. I find it more than disturbing.

It appears Senator Clinton has reversed the paradigm and created the Manchurian Electorate.

[RI]

Agreed. In terms of campaigning, she is now a better fit for the republican V.P. roll than the democratic Pres.