Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Clinton campaign death watch (contd)

The end is near, as even the NY Times noted with amusement the campaign's desperate attempts to deny the inevitable:

"In another sign of just how bedeviled the Clinton campaign continues to be, it spent this morning frantically trying to keep news organizations from following an Associated Press report that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede tonight that Barack Obama has enough delegates to claim the nomination. The Associated Press posted its report at around 11 a.m., prompting an immediate round of blog posts and “breaking news” banners on cable focused on the report’s lead that “Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation’s first female president.” Within 20 minutes, the Clinton campaign had responded with this statement: “The AP story is incorrect. Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening.”...While the campaign’s defense came through loud and clear, the Associated Press stuck by its report – which, in fact, did not say Mrs. Clinton would concede the election; rather, it reported that she would concede Mr. Obama had secured enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination but would stop short of suspending her campaign tonight. Asked what Mrs. Clinton would say if tonight “the numbers are on the side of” Obama, Mr. Ickes said, “When you hear it you’ll hear it.”

And there's more--apparently some in Clintonland continue to wish to deny the inevitable, and will go on howling into the wind--maybe:

"The last believers in the mythology of Clintonian invincibility appear to be the Clintons themselves—above all the former president, the protagonist of many comebacks who sees glimmerings of one more. “You can’t overstate the extent to which he’s an advisor of war in there,” said a prominent supporter close to the campaign. “He’s just waiting for the comeback to happen, and he’s giving her advice through the lens of his own comebacks.” The Clintons and senior advisors have been left waiting for a political miracle: “What story about him will break, what video tape will come out, or what’s going to happen"...But even as some voices in Clinton’s circle counsel fighting on, the campaign has ceased projecting anything approaching a clear message. Ickes, who left donors on one conference call bracing for a long fight, told superdelegate supporters on another Monday call that the shape of the race would likely be clear “by the end of the week,” a superdelegate on the call said. “I don’t think it’s based on any master plan, absent some real guidance from Hillary,” the superdelegate said."

You might say the Clinton campaign is coughing and sputtering to a finish:

"Seventeen months after she sat regally in her New York living room and calmly declared: “I’m in and I’m in to win,” Hillary Clinton stands on a stage in a stifling hot shed in South Dakota, coughing and spluttering, as her daughter, Chelsea, grabs the microphone from her hand to take over the show. “A long campaign,” the former First Lady chokes out between sips of water. Her husband, red-faced and exhausted — and having just apologised for another angry outburst in front of reporters — looks on wistfully at the final rally of his wife’s presidential bid, an endeavour that has been transformed from an inevitable juggernaut into a costly train wreck."