Hillary's Gaffe

[elfs]

I think there's been a lot of overwrought angst on the trail about Hillary's latest gaffe, her pointing out that the Democrats in 1968 didn't have a party nominee until the leading candidate was shot and killed. Olbermann was certainly overwrought, and so have others been.

Hillary Clinton doesn't want a Democrat to be president. Hillary Clinton wants Hillary Clinton to be president. If she stays in the race, she hurts her party's chances and the odds of a Democrat, even her, get smaller and smaller but they remain non-zero. If she stays in the race until the convention, she might be able to sway enough superdelegates to go her way. At that point, with only two months to go (and the Republican's own convention, complete with "convention bounce"), she'll have a non-zero chance of becoming president.

If she drops out now, she has a zero chance. And to her, a small chance is a lot better than zero chance.

I think she finally said out loud what's been obvious for a while now. I think it was a Freudian slip, and a big one, something that's been on the minds of her and her campaign staff for a while now: one of the few factors left in her calculation. She's staying in because there's a chance-- and there have been credible death threats, just go read Stormfront-- that someone will take a shot at Barack Obama. The fact that people have made credible death threats against her black opponent has to factor in to her calculations. She's staying in the race and tearing apart an entire political party because there's a chance (and chance is all she's got) the guy in the lead might get killed.

She is engaged in amoral political calculation of the worst kind. She didn't say "I hope he does" or "I wish someone would do it," she just said out loud what really shouldn't have been said, and showed that she's banking her career on it. She's not vicious or mean, she's just horribly, terribly, stupidly vain.

Comments

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

And it is doubly callous because she could drop out and not really change anything. If she dropped out, then Obama got shot, she could easily step back in as the next logical candidate for the party. So that's not even a half-assed reason to stay in the race.

She's pissing me off enough that I'm getting irrational and having moments of "I'd vote for McCain out of spite if she's the candidate".

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Well, the other small chance she's banking on is having enough sway at the convention to push him out of the race. She's hoping that Team Hill will will finally get its shit together before Team <<O>> completely steamrolls her, and the Clinton Machine will have the kind of backroom strength that it needs.

Team <<O>>

[urox.livejournal.com]

Team Rambaldi? (sorry :) )

[urox.livejournal.com]

I was already saying that I'd vote Green if she steals the election. I can't stand to have another politician (says what they think people want to hear and then does whatever they want once they're elected) in office. And she's been so vile in her campaign techniques. Jon Stewart scared me for a moment when he suggested a McCain/Clinton ticket. You'd get the religious zealots AND the ignorant swing voters (the ones that are afraid of black people and worried about the Hussein middle name) for a possible majority.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

If it had just been an off-the-cuff random comment, I'd agree with you.

The thing is, this isn't something she "finally" said; it's apparently something she's said a few times now. And she (the one who actually holds Robert Kennedy's senate seat) said it (this time) just days after Kennedy's brother was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and only a few weeks before the anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination, and the 2008 California primary, where Obama *will* be campaigning.

What, is she trying pull a King Henry II?

[danceswithlife]

The California primary was a few months back. Our elections in June are local stuff.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

"Terribly, stupidly vain" sounds a lot like hubris, and with the world in the state it's in, I think hubris is the worst possible trait for a leader.

[fallenpegasus]

Surely you didnt just notice recently the truth of those last four words?