It must be difficult to admit that your campaign no longer has the support it needs to win the presidential nomination. But the facts seem clear: Sen. Hillary Clinton can no longer win the Democratic nomination without some political miracle occurring. So far, she's been short on miracles, and there's no indication that anything's changing.
It's time for her to begin preparing for the inevitable: Sen. Barack Obama will be her party's nominee for president this year. Clinton is not mathematicaly eliminated yet. But the passion for her campaign has been eliminated. Her supporters know it and her campaign advisers know it. Now she must understand that even though 2008 was supposed to be her time, it's not.
The worst thing in the world is for her to hang on too long -- like Republican Mike Huckabee is doing in the Republican race.
Obama's big win in Wisconsin yesterday put an exclamation point on the results. It's time for the Democrats to coalesce behind Obama and try to take the White House from the Republicans.
It will only hurt her party if Clinton drags this out or attempts to manipulate the rules to win delegates. If there's a convention floor fight in Denver in August, the Republicans win. She must withdraw from the race with dignity. To do less will play into the Clinton haters' hands about them being poor losers.
Obama has 10 wins in a row going into the Clinton states of Ohio and Texas on March 4. She must win both, as well as Pennsylvania on April 22. But the momentum is with Obama.
I think Clinton could have been a good president -- certainly better than George W. Bush, with his inept handling of the Iraq war and crashing our economy just like his father did. It took a Clinton to clean up Papa's mess and it will take a Clinton or Obama to fix junior's mess. This time it will have to be Obama, although Sen. John McCain has a good shot at winning in November. He may have to fix the Bush mess.
But that's getting ahead of ourselves. Right now it appears the Democratic nominee will be Obama.
Of course, if Obama were to pull a huge blunder or there's a revelation about him that would go to his ability to serve, then that could change the politics of the race.
Here's an MSNBC poll on whether Clinton and Huckabee should quit their races. Click here.
Big majority so far in both cases say they should drop out.
"Gracefully," is not a word you think of when considering all things Hillary! It’s now or never for Hillary! It’s that "entitlement" thing again; "I-am-woman, hear me roar."
Now that Hillary is down to her last strike, better get your hazmat suits on; it’s going to get toxic!
Reading this original post was like an other-worldly experience. In what America does anyone except the candidate decide whether it's worth his or her while to campaign for a cause her or she believes in? By your criteria, pundits should decide who runs and when they should pull out. In your world, Bill Clinton would have never been president, and John McCain would have dropped out last year. "The good of the party" was a foreign concept to George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and many other founding fathers who fought so hard against the very concept of factionalism in American government. And in what universe is the American economy "crashing"? George Bush has presided over the best economic performance in a century, by any objective measure. (Does the author of the post even know what is the definition of an economic recession? Apparently not -- espcially since they can only be confirmed in retrospect and we haven't even had 1 let alone 2 quarters of negative growth.) Media hysteria about natural corrections to overheated and speculative housing markets along with Democrats' politically-motivated doomsaying do not create reality.
Your assessment of the Clinton years shows a total disconnect with reality while trying to masquarade as objective. I didn't have to make this about you Jim.You did it all by yourself.You leave no doubt in the readers mind where your loyalty and bias lies. Good for you Jim.It must feel liberating. Now wash those meds down with Jobama Juice.All better now?Hillary and the Clintons withdrawing gracefully? Wishful thinking.
Brian: You again misunderstand my role. I don't "masquerade as objective." I'm an opinion writer. I'm not supposed to be objective. If my writing is seen as objective, I'm not doing my job. I write columns, editorials and blogs and those are opinion pieces, just as you offer your opinions in the comments you post.
I don't think she should withdrawl because a short time ago she had the momentum and Obama didn't. Things can still change in her favor and a campaign shouldn't be easy on any of them. Fight it out til its over. Anything can happen. I glad too that Huck is still in it so others don't get to cocky.
Got it Jim.When you said you were trying to understand conservatives I thought it was sincere.
I think they should all stay in and fiight for the role as President.
I think it makes for a better democractic government.
The only shame is that it costs too much money to run an effective campaign.
This is an opinion blog get it Brian? Jim is doing his job thus does not deserve to be attacked just because someone doesn't like what he writes. He has been in this business a long time so I trust that he knows what he is doing and has reference sources to everything he writes. If he is on a different page than others that is completely ok.
One of the great hazards of running for high office or being in it is that you become isolated from reality. And consumed with partisanship. I have been a chairperson of such a campaign and frankly we didn't know what was happening. Almost lost because it was early in the "law and order" movement and we discounted it. So, for Hillary, the decision to quit is probably impossible just because she doesn't see things with any clarity being on the firing line. It is like asking a soldier in a foxhole under fire to comment on the strategy of the war.