article tools: email | print | read more Eric Boehlert
History continues to unfold on many levels as the protracted Democratic Party primary race marches on, featuring the first woman and the first African-American with a real shot at winning the White House.
Here's another first: the press's unique push to get a competitive White House hopeful to drop out of the race. It's unprecedented.
Looking back through modern U.S. campaigns, there's simply no media model for so many members of the press to try to drive a competitive candidate from the field while the primary season is still unfolding.
Until this election cycle, journalists simply did not consider it to be their job to tell a contender when he or she should stop campaigning. That was always dictated by how much money the campaign still had in the bank, how many votes the candidate was still getting, and what very senior members of the candidate's own party were advising.
In this case, Howard Dean, the head of the Democratic National Committee, said he was "dumbfounded" by public demands for Clinton to drop out last month. (He now wants one of the candidates to quit after the final June 3 primary.) Yet lots of pundits have suggested that in a neck-and-neck campaign in which neither candidate will likely secure the nomination based on pledged delegates, Sen. Hillary Clinton must drop out before all the states have had a chance to vote.
I realize the political debate surrounding the extended Democratic campaign remains a hot one, with people holding passionate opinions about the delegate math involved and what the consequences for the Democratic Party could be. I'm not weighing in on that debate. I'm focusing on how journalists have behaved during this campaign.
And the fact is, the media's get-out-now push is unparalleled. Strong second-place candidates such as Ronald Reagan (1976), Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, and Jerry Brown, all of whom campaigned through the entire primary season, and most of whom took their fights all the way to their party's nominating conventions, were never tagged by the press and told to go home.
"Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history," wrote Steven Stark in the Boston Phoenix. "When Clinton is simply doing what everyone else has always done, she's constantly attacked as an obsessed and crazed egomaniac, bent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of her party."
Indeed, even after Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary convincingly last week, she awoke the next morning to read an angry New York Times editorial, "beseeching her to get the hell out of the race," as Howard Kurtz put it at washingtonpost.com. On the Times opinion page that day same, Maureen Dowd actually turned to Dr. Seuss rhymes to make her point: "The time is now. Just go. ... I don't care how."
And across town at the New York Daily News, a bitter Mike Lupica was steamed over the fact that Clinton "won't quit" the race.
Weeks earlier, New York magazine fretted about which senior Democrats would be able to "step in" and "usher Clinton from the race." Or if Clinton, obsessed with her own "long-range self-aggrandizement," would finally figure it out herself.
Meanwhile, Slate.com's snarky Hillary Deathwatch was created to document, day-by-day, the demise of her campaign, complete with a damsel-in-distress cartoon drawing of Clinton atop a sinking ship.
That represented just a fraction of the often offensive get-out-now proclamations that have become a staple of this campaign.
No longer content to be observers of the campaign, journalists now see themselves as active players in the unfolding drama, and they show no hesitation trying to dictate the basics of the contest, like who should run and who should quit. It's as if journalists are auditioning for the role of the old party bosses.
It's a new brand of political commentary that leaves some veteran journalists perplexed. "The idea that it's your job to tell candidates when to get out, and really trying to control the whole process -- putting it in the hands of the journalists or the reporters or the columnists -- I find that to be new and different," Haynes Johnson told me last week. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Johnson has covered more than a dozen presidential campaigns and is currently working on a book about the unfolding 2008 contest.
Johnson says he was astonished to read some early calls in March from the media for Clinton to get out of the race. He was stunned by "the pomposity and the arrogance of it."
Indeed, a very strange leap has been made this year by lots of media commentators who argue against Clinton's candidacy. Rather than simply detailing her deficiencies and accentuating the strengths of her opponent, which political observers have done for generations, time and again we saw pundits take the unprecedented step of announcing not only that voters should not support Clinton, but that she should also quit. She should stop competing.
More often than not, the analysis ends up resembling poorly argued temper tantrums. For instance, The New Republic's Jonathan Chait has written three essays about why Clinton must abandon her race for the White House, each increasingly petulant in tone. (We learned the "rationalizations" for Clinton's "kamikaze campaign" are "wretched.") Last month Chait wrote that Clinton's chance of winning the Democratic nomination this year were closer to Ralph Nader's than they were Barack Obama's or John McCain's. It's a reasonable comparison, if you ignore the nearly 1,600 delegates Clinton has amassed, compared with Nader's zero.
Chait also compared Clinton to former presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden, suggesting that if Biden could figure out when it was time to quit the race, why can't she?
Searching for candidates who did the right thing and went "gentle into that good night," Chait compared Clinton, whose campaign has secured nearly 14 million votes, to Biden, whose campaign ended abruptly in January after he received roughly 2,000 votes in the Iowa caucuses. That's who Clinton is supposed to emulate when ending her campaign run.
Quick note: I realize the press is not alone here and that scores of liberal bloggers have also loudly made the claim that the Clinton should drop out of the race. But there's a clear difference between the two groups, I think. Lots of liberal bloggers have a strong allegiance to advancing the progressive agenda and feel that to improve the party's chances in the fall, Clinton should give up. That's fair game, and that's part of an internal Democratic Party debate that continues to unfold.
And yes, journalists should report on that internal struggle, quote lots of players, raise all kinds of questions, and commentators should provide in-depth analysis about the ramifications. But what we're seeing this cycle -- and it's unprecedented -- is independent journalists taking it upon themselves to weed the presidential field by demanding one of the remaining candidates simply quit.
And no, this is not part of some larger liberal media conspiracy where the Beltway press is desperate to elect a Democrat and that's why so many journalists are anxious to get Clinton to quit -- because it might help the party's chances in November. The truth is, as The Daily Howler noted last week, the Beltway media's love affair with John McCain only grows deeper and more affectionate with each passing day.
This is more about media arrogance and unleashed elitism.
In the past there was always an assumption among journalists that candidates had earned the right to decide when they should quit. Journalists also respected the fact that candidates represented a sizable portion of the primary voting public and that the candidates owed it to their supporters to fight on, that there was a symbolic significance for the candidates -- and their supporters -- to persevere.
With Clinton, though, the press seems to have almost complete disregard for the 14 million voters who have backed her candidacy, as well as the idea that she is their representative in this race. Instead, they treat her entire campaign as some sort of vanity exercise in which voters do not exist.
And if pundits do acknowledge the Clinton voters, it's often with baffling ignorance, the way Time's Mark Halperin claimed many of Clinton's supporters would be "relieved" and "even delighted" if she dropped out. Really? Delighted? Halperin offered no proof to back up the peculiar notion.
But again, the point here worth stressing from a journalism perspective is that this is all brand new.
Looking back at history, it's hard to find evidence of the same media response to Ronald Reagan's failed 1976 presidential campaign. Taking on President Gerald Ford, Reagan lost more primaries than he won, and Ford won a plurality of the popular vote, but neither man had enough delegates to secure the nomination. So the campaign went to the GOP convention, where Ford prevailed. The bitter battle did nothing to damage Reagan's reputation (in fact, it did quite the opposite), in part because the media did not collectively suggest the candidate was acting selfishly or irrationally. Instead, Reagan walked away with a reputation as a resilient fighter who stood up for his conservative values.
And what about Sen. Ted Kennedy's doomed run in 1980? He trailed President Jimmy Carter by more than 750 delegates at the end of the primary season and insisted on fighting all the way to the convention, where he tried to get committed Carter delegates to switch their allegiance. The press did not spend months during the primary season ridiculing Kennedy, in a deeply personal tone, for remaining in the race.
And what about Gary Hart in 1984? He and Walter Mondale split the season's primaries and caucuses evenly, and neither had the 2,023 delegates needed to secure the nomination. Superdelegates eventually determined the winner. (Sound familiar?) Mondale had many of them locked up even before the campaign season began, so after the final primary between Mondale and Hart was complete, it was obvious that Mondale was going to be the nominee because Hart could not persuade enough superdelegates to change their mind and support him.
When Hart took his crusade all the way to the convention, the media did not form a posse and decide it was their job to get Hart to quit for the good of the party. (And the press certainly didn't form a posse in March to start pushing Hart out of the race.) Nor did the press collectively suggest that Hart had an oversized ego that had turned him into a political monster.
That new media standard has been created exclusively for Hillary Clinton.
And where were the catcalls in 1988 for Jesse Jackson to ditch his quixotic run before all the primary votes had been tallied? He finished with 1,200 delegates, nearly 1,400 behind Michael Dukakis, yet soldiered on all the way to the convention without having a prayer of winning the nomination. There were few if any media drum sections trying to pound him out of the race.
Or Jerry Brown in 1992? He continued his campaign against Bill Clinton through June despite the fact he tallied fewer than 600 delegates. (By contrast, Hillary Clinton has won approximately 1,600 delegates so far.) Brown's attacks at the time were far more personal and bruising than anything we've seen this cycle. As The New York Times reported on June 2, 1992, Brown "put his party on notice that he intends to carry his politics-is-corrupt, Clinton-is-unelectable message to the Democratic National Convention in New York in July, and beyond." Brown also told the Times that voting for Clinton was like buying a ticket on the Titanic.
At the time, Clinton was actually polling in third place nationally, behind President George H.W. Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot, so why wasn't the press in a frenzy demanding that Brown drop out of the race because he was hurting his party's chances in November?
If you look at Reagan and Kennedy and Hart and Jackson and Brown, those men all ran competitive races. But toward the end of the primary season it was clear most of them had no mathematical chance of winning the nomination. (Reagan was the exception.) Yet none of them was told collectively by the press to go home. Nor were they routinely depicted in the media as being self-absorbed.
Today, Clinton does have a chance to win. Yet she has been told by the press to go home and to get over herself.
It's unprecedented.
_______
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Well it's good that
That wasn't your " usual rant about Hillary"
That wasn't your " usual rant about Hillary"...
'A'-Men! !cewillir!
'Thadt' !DUDE!/!DUdDETTE! Should BE...
'A' Journalist...'Par'e-'X'-Cell`Lawnce!?!
THE 'MEDIA' has 'BeeN' SOLD...'LocK', 'StocK' and 'Barrel'...
To 'the' Corporate 'E'-Lite 'Power' Structure!'!Hey!' (THEY),
'Figure' Yifff'n 'Ruppperttz's (False) Newz's 'NetWork' CAN...
'Out' & 'OUT' Lie to THEIR 'UN'-Ingelligent 'Masses'...WHY
the' HELL Can't 'the' REST of 'the' MmmmS/MEDIA...
'Take' on 'The' Role of 'Public' INSTRUCTOR-in-'Chief'!
And...So 'iT' Goesz's with 'the'...Mentally...
'Apathetic'/AND/'LazY' Amurrri`Kan 'City'-Zenz's...
wphhgg
];@!
'Yeah' I k`Now! I 'Promised' to 'CLEAN' Up 'Me' Literary
sss`Style...I 'Just' CAN't 'Q'-uit j'Yet!?! SORRY! 'iTZ's...
LIKE BEING 'a' DrunKardt, in 'Front' of 'a' Botttle of 'Boooze'!
};@\
_______Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...
My Eyes are Bleeding !
Not to derail the thread, but is there a filter to block the above assault on the eyes and brain???
I don't know what you said because I didn't have the force of will to try and interpret it. It must take you at least twice as long to type in this bizarre fashion and I can guarantee nobody is reading it. So you are doing twice the work for no result.
For the love of all of our sanities, please use the english language and lower/uppercase as they were meant to be used.
Villaine
So true!
So true! Since when does the media have the right to tell someone to pull out of the race. In the "old days" the Presidential race didn't begin until after the nominating conventions. Why does the media think we must start the election 6 months out? To be honest, I think besides blatant "sexism" the reason the Obamanics, the pundits and the media are calling for Clinton to pull out is because they know deep down there is a chance she may win it all. They can't stand that the fact that their candidate may not make it to the end. So to insure that he does make it to the end, they will just convince Clinton and her supporters that she is damaging the party and will cause the Democrats to lose in November. Well guess what ... it isn't going to work and this fight is going to go all the way to the convention. May the best man, or woman, win.
In the "old days" the Presidential race didn't begin until...
Hahaha`Hell...
In 'the' OLD 'Dayz's...THe 'Primary' Season for 'the' Presidental e`Lection...
DID NOT 'Start'...'Immediately' AFTER 'the' OFF j'Year e`Lectionz's Ended!?!
'This' HAS BeeN GOIN ON...'For'~'ApproxiMately'...(1) j'Year and (6) Monthz's (of 'Media')...Gripe(ing)/and/Hype(ing)! By 'the' Way...'O'-Bama 'SAID'...'Hez's JUST 'Fine' with 'the' Way 'Thingz's Have 'Gone'...SO FAR, and 'Has'NOt BeeN 'IN'-Cluded in 'the' Groupz 'Calling' for 'Bubbba'/'Hilllarty' to 'RE'-Tire'd from 'the' Race...
For THE w`RECK'-Cord...THE 'MEDIAZ's 'DE'-Sire and 'Propogational' (ie) 'INFLUENCE'd/'Started' THIS 'NEVER'-ENDING-'Political'-STORYLINE 'Fiasco'!
Sooo...'Let'm F.i.g.h.T. 'iT' OUT...
And, (!Yep!) Let 'the' BROWN/COWZ's
'Chipppez's (and 'ALL)...FALL...
'Where' THEY 'May' ?'OK'? !OK!
wphhgg
ALLz's FAIR in 'Love', 'War' and...
e`Specially 'POLITICZ's...'Galz's & 'Guyz's!
};@)
_______Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...
Why you should write another book ..
You are so wrong in your thinking Eric, yet since we're from the same party -I think - I take your constructive criticisms seriously and offer some back -on why she should leave NOW and not let the door hit her in the ass..!
The blubbering Clintonette's cannot, on the one hand, chronically use as a crutch the civil rights hardships faced by women and blacks before this 'historic election', but ignore them entirely when comparing this election to the Reagen/Kennedy or Clinton/Browne campaigns of old, as you do.
There were no hot button civil rights issues smoldering in the background of those campaigns as we have today.
Issues back then divided the Right from the Left, but not within the Democratic party itself. Now, huge divisions and issues have cropped up between Black/White, Hispanic/Black, Israeli/Palestinian, young/old and the working/elitist claims.
Bush, the war in Iraq and the "terrorists" have inspired every wanna be white supremacist to come out of the wood works in America in the aftermath of a 9-11 Muslim Holy War attack.
In addition, the economy was not as affected back then by 'foreign' trade or 'foreign' immigrants.
The good ol' boys in America were quite comfortable with their control back then, thank you very much. And women or African-Americans just didn't get very far up the ladders of society and remained on the 'fringes' of politics, not smack in the middle.
As a disclaimer, I chose Obama almost entirely based on foreign policy issues, and votes cast by Clinton that were to insensitive and in fact offensive, to my concerns. But still felt supportive of the Clinton's in general.
But, were I neutral arbitrator between Clinton and Obama, I would look at the facts as they stand -sans emotions and hearsay - and rule, as the very fair Gov. Dean likely did, that it is an impossibility for Clinton to win the nomination on her own merits.
Were something to happen to Obama, the process and procedures declare that the SuperD's will step in and chose a replacement.
Hillary Clinton is not the decision maker in such circumstances -relative to the selection process. However, she can on her own accord stay in the race. For what end, is the question? If Obama decided to leave the race for some reason, even then the Super D's don't have to pick her.
And from this point forward, it's highly unlikely they would ever choose her, under any circumstances.
I, and I believe enough of a majority of the party, are highly offended and insulted by how the Clinton's have performed in this campaign. I'm now insulted by them, personally.
Because the very first things done by the
Clinton's upon Obama's quick rise was to throw a lot of Democratic African-Americans under their campaign bus, then they headed straight for the Hispanic gang infested streets of Los Angeles and Nevada to stir them up, then headed south and back east to stir up the Jewish populations.
Like a swarm of killer bees, Team Clinton pissed off Americans in a way neither Bush nor the terrorists were capable of doing: they got us all in the gutter fighting and in the streets -fighting each other. Instead of channeling us all towards a greatness we had been sorely lacking, the Clinton's pushed the majority of the Democratic party off a cliff.
The Clinton's know what the result of such behavior is -and don't care. Just as surely as Wright doesn't care about his effect on Obama, the Clinton's have made it very very clear -they could care less about Obama or the Democratic party.
And that Eric, is the precise reason why Hillary Clinton should be forced to leave.
Because in the end, the Clintons' simply did not prove to enough people that she deserved the nomination.
Instead we saw a horribly run campaign by a group from the old guard/party insiders, who proved their willingness to use every foul and despiciable trick in the book to win -at all costs.
But then the Clinton's were willing to do something even more onerous. Something not even a true Conservative Republican would ever do: they're to throw an election by taking Obama down with them and say to hell with the party, rather than lose the throne to someone other than themselves and outside their inner zone of 'acceptability'.
How can you support that?
"Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why."
_______An adversary is not an enemy. And nationalism is not terrorism.
Sadly for your argument
"Because in the end, the Clintons' simply did not prove to enough people that she deserved the nomination.
Instead we saw a horribly run campaign by a group from the old guard/party insiders, who proved their willingness to use every foul and despiciable trick in the book to win -at all costs.
"
The current vote totals stand at
Popular Vote Total
14,418,784 49.2% Obama
13,917,318 47.5% Clinton
Only a 1.7% difference.
(and that's without counting Fla or Michigan.)
If her 'horribly run' campaign gets her within 1.7% what does it say about Obama's campaign?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
Improv
This isn't scripted. It's more like pro wrestling, and the players need to know who is supposed to be winning. At first, Clinton was supposed to lose to the Republican, but now it looks like the crowd wants Obama. (That's easy to understand. People are more comfortable with a black man failing heroically.) But even now with the networks running against Obama as if he were already the nominee, Hillary won't take the hint.
If she can't take a cue that obvious, she has no business being in improv. A square like that should go into public service or something.
blame
if you want to blame someone for only hillary and obama left, blame biden, richardson, edwards, kucinich, and all the others who declared their candicacy and then quit before the battle started. they were cowards, or maybe they have been promised big, cushy jobs or bought off in some other way. oh yes i know some of you will blame clinton, she is just responsible for anything you can think of. obama and hillary, fight it out to the convention like it should be. there is enough shit to throw at mc cain when the campaign against him starts. he will not win!!!! i have never seen or heard so many whiney babies, crying because their guy/girl is not winning. this country/democratic party need adults to get us out of this mess. babies out there, if you need to take your marbles, please go home
_______mamameow
Just A Bag...
..of whatever you're smoking, mama, cuz it's powerful enough to really distort reality.
if you want to blame someone for only hillary and obama left, blame biden, richardson, edwards, kucinich, and all the others who declared their candicacy and then quit before the battle started.
Really? When the corporate media performs an aggressive blackout of your message, candidacy, position and even crops you out of appearances, how do you survive? ABC didn't allow Kucinich a single question until half of one debate was over. Two ABC online polls showing Kucinich won the debate were 'disappeared.'
Your bleatings of cowardice should, more correctly, be aimed at a manipulative media who go to great lengths to protect their power, even to the extent of going to court to block a candidate's participation in a debate. Nevermind that the same corporation, MSNBC, is owned by the third largest defense contractor or that Kucinich's policies might threaten their gravytrain.
Both Hillary and Obama have taken payoffs from the telecoms and are hardly enlightened in anything approaching healthcare initiatives. In fact, they're basically making healthcare PAYMENT mandatory; gee, I wonder who benefits from a law that legally picks people's pockets for obscenely overpriced policies...
Both Hillary's and Obama's plans keep the thoroughly corrupt insurance and pharma industries running things and calling the policy shots. What could go wrong?
Mama, there's no other way to say this: You're breathtakingly misinformed.
_______"You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
Poor Hillary
somehow or other this wound up as a reply to a different article... oh well, thank God for cut and paste.. here 'tis:
The press has performed their assigned task flawlessly. First, they sucked up to HRC and threw money at her, while annointing her as the only possible Dem nominee.
Obama jockied for position, quietly building a grass roots infrastructure and staffing it with smart young folks who know how to run these things. (nothing wrong with that. I liked Edwards and/or Kucinich, but neither one had the ability to read the populist and college age demographics.)
The MSM ignored Obama until they got the word from Rove/Murdoch, and then opened up on HRC with the "dems are mostly liberals, and they love what Obama's saying.. Hillary is out of touch with these vast left wing nut case, Amurka hating lib'rels that want to elect Obama and let the IslamoFascists in to kill everyone who isn't an illegal alien or in a gay marriage or something,.." and they began to subtly pull for Hillary... ("These liberal bolsheviks who've taken over the democratic party have hurt HRC to the core... See the tears, Katie? .. Shameful, just shameful, picking on that poor woman, tsk tsk.." etc...)
Cue Reverend Wright, just in time to scare the Sheeple shitless.. "Oh my God, Marge, it's a Black Panther! I knew those bastards were just waiting for their chance to start killing us poor white folks again!")
And now the liberal, socio-economic progressives (read - "smart people") have thrown in with Obama, and the feminist empowerment crowd have alligned in a loose coalition with the Neville Chamberlain Appeasers faction of the Dem party, and centrist libertarians who hate Repukes more than they love Ron Paul. That makes for a nicely segmented party come november. Congratulations, President McCain. If Obama was able to raise such a huge war chest based mostly on $25 individual donations, the Dem Party should have put their faith in Obama, or rather, in his supporters. That would have sent a message to the electorate that the Democratic Party was ready to start righting the wrongs of the past 30 years.
True, Hillary would have screamed bloody murder,and the msm would hang on her every tirade, spinning the story in a pro-McCain light, but the Great Unwashed would be energized. Obama has the smarts to read the populist signals, and he has the oratory skills to get people fired up and excited about overthrowing this fascist threat many of them barely understand. But Obama can't fight the MSM and the Democratic Party, who cower while Hillary continues to run her ham-handed, clueless "principal's wife - running-for - school board" campaign.
Instead, they wring their hands, and cower every time Bill or Hillary screams at them to change this rule or unleash that attack dog. Stupid, unbridled hubris. And here we thought that was the exclusive property of the Republican Party.
For the record, I don't think it will matter one whit to BushCo, since there will most likely be another "Pearl Harbor-Type Event" around Halloween...
How many lives to the gallon does your HumVee get?
Interesting. Unprecedented, maybe...
but in all the examples you gave (I may be lazy, so correct me if I'm wrong), it looks like all of the campaigns that went all the way to the conventions lost the election to the other party in the end.
Sure, it's not the press's place; but the message seems to be right nonetheless.
Interesting slant...
quote EB:
"it's unprecedented... independent journalists taking it upon themselves to weed the presidential field by demanding one of the remaining candidates simply quit."
question:
what journalists?
what "independent" journalists?
Lupica? Dowd? Chait?
matthews, olbermann, o'reilly?
pundits, commentators, info-tainers all...
so far, no "journalists"...
Here's a novel approach: ignore all the pundits and talking heads and media goofs and journalists -- go to Denver, fight for your candidate on the floor, let the dems and ALL the delegates decide -- then turn around and support the victor in November... enjoy the historic moment... pretend it is real democracy in action.
The press is sexist
The press is sexist. I thought for a while that MSNBC was going to be an answer to FOX but they are sexist to the core. Chris Matthews in particular would do a show every night against Hillary. But the reality is that all the MSNBC programing was heavily sexist. There was a time when the media was somewhat fair, but now each talkshow host considers his or her show to be their on personal soapbox. The media has had a love affair with Obama for about two years now. Only in the last two weeks have they started to look critically at Obama. Hillary has every right to fight as long as she wants too. I hope the super degelates come to their senses and choose the person who has the best chance of beating McCain. That would be Clinton. Obama needs to get at least one full term in the senate before going for the presidency. If the nod from the super delegates goes to Obama we will lose the general to McCain. Considering how Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi have run the democratic party for the last few years the chances aren't good.
Don't give up, Hillary!
It just galls me that the press and just about every other rabid Clinton-hater have called for Hillary Clinton's resignation saying, "She can't win." The obvious news flash here is, "Neither can Obama." Why should either candidate drop out before the Democratic Convention, the one that is supposed to choose a candidate? When did "choose" become "enthrone"?
My other gripe is that it's always "Hillary and Obama," not "Hillary and Barack," not "Clinton and Obama." Oh, yes, we wouldn't want to confuse the populace as to which Clinton is running, so it's really necessary that we use her first name. After all, that's not demeaning.
Anyway, thanks for reminding me that I have to go make another contribution to the next President of the United States' campaign.
I'm a big fan...
... of Eric Boehlert and I take seriously anything he writes. He was wise to limit his scope to the behavior of the news media, which have been predictably atrocious and outrageous as ever. As I am now an Obama supporter since John Edwards dropped out of the campaign, I would still never demand that Hillary Clinton make an exit. At least in principle.
Ya see.... here's the problem: In my view, it's not that Clinton chooses to remain in the campaign. *IT IS HOW SHE IS CONDUCTING HER CAMPAIGN!* She and Penn and Wolfson and all the other arrogant shit-for-brains morons went into panic mode after Obama's string of primary/caucus victories. They didn't have a "Plan B" because they believed their own hype about Clinton having the nomination sewn up even before the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Well, as I like to say-- a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation.
That Clinton and her political "geniuses" have resorted to a scorched earth campaign in a vain attempt to catch up to Obama shows the desperation now motivating them. They realize if she fails to secure the nomination this time around, it will be all but impossible anytime after. Especially if Obama wins the White House this November.
Having said all that, I still agree with Mr. Boehlert that it isn't the place of the news media to dictate to any candidate whether to stay in the race.
Since Obama is leading...
... the primary race in all the relevant numbers right now after the heavy handed "conventional wisdom" that Hillary had the nomination already locked up well before the Iowa caucuses, had a staggering sum of cash in the till, all the hype behind her that its possible to have................ yeah, I guess Obama *IS* thinking that very thing about Hillary right now.
Hillary was wondering recently why Obama hasn't been able to close the deal. I think the better question is, with all the incredible advantages she had going for her before the first primary vote was even cast, why hasn't *SHE* been able to close the deal?
Report the News, Don't Edititorialize
I am 66 years old and have witnessed many things that have disappointed me. But none equal the behavior of our current crop of reporters(?).
My father, A graduate of the University of Missouri's Journalism school and staff correspondent for a major and respected international daily newspaper, would have been horrified and saddened by the actions of these so called journalists. My mother, also a graduate of the same prestigious Journalism school would be horrified as well.
They were taught that to be an effective reporter one must keep his opinions to himself.
My parents can't speak for themselves so I will speak for them. Chris Wallace, Lou Dodd, Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown, Anderson cooper, etc. do not measure up to the standards that my father and his peers tried so meticulously to adhere to.
Shame on you.
Bicknell Eubanks, III
I have to disagree....
The media, particularly in this day and age, has always told a candidate to get out of the race. The only difference here is the how. It is very unusual, agreed, for them to say it outright and so bluntly.
The usual way the media goes about getting a candidate to quit is by ignoring the candidate till he goes away.
_______None at the moment, any ideas?
Are YOU still being fooled?
I won't go into my usual rant about Hillary, it's there if you want to look up the 1,000 or so times I've spelled out why she is NOT what we need as a president.
_______Just look at the LATEST example: Hillary, Ol' Soundbite HERSELF, NOW cozies up to McSame's idea of "waiving the federal gas tax for the summer!"
Barack Obama has POINTED OUT, and his observations have been AGREED WITH AGAIN AND AGAIN by economists, that this is JUST A P.R. STUNT.
It will save you up to $30.00 over the summer! It will also add MORE to our already bursting deficit, and will encourage MORE consumption, EVEN IF the greedy oil companies even see that you get a CENT of it.
IT'S SLEIGH OF HAND, SMOKE AND MIRRORS THAT I WOULD EXPECT FROM A REPUBLICAN. If you will only LOOK AT SENATOR CLINTON'S VOTING RECORD, You will SEE that she has SIDED WITH bUSH AND THE REPUBLICANS AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.
If you decide these TRANSGRESSIONS AGAINST YOU aren't as important as some bloviating minister stabbing his people in the BACK for his 15 minutes of fame, then I can tell you, get out the vasaline, you're going to be getting it even harder with McSame, or MS. McSame, HILLARY CLINTON....
"I am obviously wrong" Rush Limbaugh Oct 19, 2006