the empress has no clothes
by Tom Carey
Published: May 24, 2008
Over the past several months, Senator Hillary Clinton has seen her prospects of becoming the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee consistently decline. As Senator Obama’s delegate lead increased and slowly but surely more and more superdelegates declared their support for the junior senator from Illinois, the Clinton campaign has repeatedly tried to move the goalposts, to choose a new metric by which the Democratic nominee will be decided. After a decisive finish in Indiana and a blowout win in North Carolina, Senator Obama has been declared by many (including moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, Tim Russert, an unimpeachable source) to be the presumptive nominee. To no one’s surprise, Senator Clinton sees it quite differently.
In Boca Raton, Florida, Clinton made the latest in a series of public calls to alter the measures by which victory is to be declared in the nomination process. Now, in an appeal to fundamental democratic principle and voting rights, in an article at the Huffington Post, she stated, “We carry on this cause for a simple reason, because we believe the outcome of our elections should be determined by the will of the people - nothing more, nothing less.” Her task now, as part of a last-ditch effort to take the nomination from Senator Obama, is to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations as an exact reflection of the primary results in those states. Despite Senator Clinton’s appeal to the “fundamental values” of Americans, there are more than a few problems with her logic. In fact, there are more than just problems; there is a consistent pattern of deceit and a Clinton-esque effort to change the rules to suit an implausible goal.
Her arguments have been numerous: she’s won the most populous states (New Jersey, Massachusetts), she’s won the electorally-significant states (Florida, Michigan, California, Texas, Ohio), she’s won the Democratic base (what the senator has called “working, hard-working, white Americans”). Despite her consistent efforts, Senator Clinton has not been able to convince the public that her standards (be they the popular vote, important states won, the party’s base) are the right ones.
On May 31, Senator Clinton’s fate will be decided by the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee as to whether or not Florida and Michigan will be seated and if so, how. What is most perplexing to this observer is that Senator Clinton signed a pledge not to campaign in those states, acknowledging that their respective delegations would not be seated, rendering her success in those primaries moot. Additionally, the fact that Senator Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan makes it laughable that Senator Clinton should garner the full support of the delegates she won.
Here are the facts: Obama leads her in the popular vote, states won, superdelegates and now pledged delegates. When he reaches the magic number of 2,025, Senator Obama will be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. No amount of changed metrics or twisted logic thought up by the political hacks of the Clinton campaign will change that. The fact that Senator Clinton has made so many frivolous arguments for her own nomination (when she clearly will not be the nominee) has devastated her own credibility in the public eye. She has become an obstacle, nothing more and nothing less, to a once-in-a-lifetime candidate and the generational movement he leads. In this case, I am left to say only that indeed the empress has no clothes. The jig is up Hillary; get out of this race now and spare yourself the humiliation of advancing any more half-baked schemes before the rules committee on May 31.
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