The Fallacy of Clinton's 1968 Analogy

Has anyone else noticed that, after her Kentucky win, the media was starting to revive talk about Hillary possibly being on the ticket with Obama? And then when she made her RFK comments, that talk suddenly evaporated?

With a few ill-chosen words, I think Hillary has just shut the door on any possibility of a VP nomination. At the very least, her comments demonstrated a decided lack of common sense, not what Obama needs to win in November.

Face it, Clintonistas: It's Over. The "inevitable" candidate has lost, and no amount of anger and wrigning of hands will change that. Its time to start rallying around the candidate who has won the nomination, instead of wishing for your own personal "might have been".

The ONLY reason HC is staying in is to guarantee Obama's defeat and thereby increase her chances in 2012. Anything else the Clintons say is absurd.

As a lifelong Democrat, I for one will not forget...

Jake Tapper's point about Perot is based on an incorrect assumption. Third party candidates help incumbents as elections are a referendum on them. If there are two strong challengers, the anti-incumbent vote is split. Therefore, in 1992 it is likely that Perot would split the anti-Bush votes. In 1996 Clinton would welcome Perot on the ballot because his presence would split the anti-Clinton vote. Thus, the fact that Clinton was pleased that Perot was running in 1996 is not evidence that Perot helped him in 1992.

The problem is that there is no end to the logic of continuing the candidacy. HRC says she is a fighter and not a quitter and that she owes it to her supporters and women everywhere to continue her candidacy.

By this logic, she cannot give up in June after the primaries. She must continue to fight until the convention afterall superdelegates can change their minds.

And even after the convention, she must continue to fight. Why should she quit just because Obama is the nominee? It is her right to run as an independent third party candidate. 1992 proves this.

And if she loses the General Election? No. She must not quit! She must continue to fight. She must take her supporters into the hills of Appalachia and fight on (they have the guns already) until the White House is won. She surely owes her supporters that much. West Virginia and Kentucky have the right to secede under the Constitution.

As we know, even sitting Presidents can be assassinated. She needs to ready to step in and save the nation.

Inept is 20 times more appropriate than Inapt.

I agree that Perot helped Bush lose. It's not exactly exact, though, and using exit polls to determine how someone would have alternatively voted on Election day is a little inept: the true test is determining how voters would have voted in a 2 party race had Perot not run (twice) in 1992, and had he not paid millions to rail against Bush and the failed economic engine... had he helped Clinton make the case that Bush was a failure.

Without Perot's help, Bush might well have surpassed Clinton.

In any case, rounding to nearest fifth, two fingers voted for Clinton, two fingers voted for Bush, and one thumb voted for Perot. Two fingers might spell victory for Clinton, but it was no mandate, and you are quite right to call Clinton's two wins only Plurality wins.

Obama's nomination? Also a plurality win.

D'92

For those of you who think that the June date makes sense for Hillary not dropping out, let me ask you this: If there are not enough delegates left for her to come out ahead, then exactly what is she hoping happens between now and later? It cannot be the electoral process that makes her the nominee, nor can it be a hope that the superdelegates go her way, as it is obvious that ain't gonna happen. So her entire strategy depends upon something bad happening to Obama. That's what most of us find so disgusting about what she said.

She's bending the truth, putting forth a dishonest statement about why she's staying in the race. When 60% of the electorate thinks you're a liar, telling mroe lies will not win them over!

Hillary to self: Please shut me up
before I commit political suicide!

For the most able, most vetted, most
experienced candidate she sure is
a putz, sex notwithstanding.

There are several problems with the argument in this post. Far more than I have the time to fully address here. But here are some of the highlights:

1. It falsely claims that Bill Clinton's major competitors had dropped out by April; but it leaves out Jerry Borwn who finished second and actually contested California in June of 1992. It is amazing that Jerry Brown could finish second in the race ahead of all the "serious competition" without being serious competition himself. Clinton in fact debated Brown several times leading up to the Calfornia primary. How nice of Bill to be willing to debate someone who was not serious competition.

2.Suggesting that the nomination process is different today than in 1968 is irrelevant to the point Clinton was making which was that it is not atypical for a candidate to not have more than a few months to wage a general election campaign. The issue in 1968 was that there were deep ideological divisons within the Democratic Party so to claim the lenght of the primary is what hurt the party is ridiculous. Even if the nominaion had been decided early the party would still have had serious divisons. That is not the case this year. Furthermore, both Gore and Kerry wrapped up the nomination quickly in 2000 and 2004 and lost due to the time the Repubican attack machine had to work on them. Deciding a nomination early is not promise of November success. The biggest threat to the party is the disrespect that the Obama camp and the media has paid to the Clintons. This story is but one example of that.

Jim:

It's statements like yours that make my blood run cold. You are quite willing to kill women or destroy their ability to have further children because you are handing them over to back-alley abortionists. You don't care about women. You don't care that women spend their lives gravid with ten or twelve kids. You don't care for rape or incest victims. You only care about your power over them, a power that you expect judges to ratify. No way, Jim. I would not wish McCain on this country and not just for the sake of my sisters' uteri. You don't give a whit about born children, about their health care, about their education. You don't care if they are herded off to a war that they should not have to deal with -- a war that was started to prove that Bush was more potent than his father and had a bigger organ to show for it.

McCain is a disaster trying to happen and I am going to do everything I can to prevent it.

One of the great characteristics of a GOOD leader is to learn by one's mistakes, and do not make them again. In Hillary's case, we have the LBJ vs MLK Jr mess in New Hampshire; the snipper firing issue; and now the RFK pronouncement. Do not think that she has learned anything, and has a tendency to say or do anything that will perpetuate her position. Hillary is sinking both her, and her husband's legacy with demonstrated stupid moves.

Right on, Brook.

Obama's smear campaign? As someone who appreciated both Clinton and Obama until Clinton went negative, if Obama is running a smear campaign it is being very cleverly hidden. Please give specific examples of his "smear" campaign.

In basketball (go Lakers!) we call this a ticky-tack foul. Not worth your time or mine and definitely had nothing to do with assassinating Barack. (Party leaders got behind Barack in April as well, so for me the point was well chosen, poorly executed. Again a ticky-tack foul, so enough already).

I am more interested in Jim Webb's comments (VP candidate). Webb it seems said; the reason Barack cannot expand his coalition beyond African Americans, for whom he does truly represent hope, and the elite, who just like that he speaks elite, is Affirmative Action.

Now wouldn't you rather have Hillary running with Barack than his choosing someone like Webb who he thinks, in true old school fashion, will appeal to the people who are now flocking to Clinton? Give her credit for widening her support among people who also have felt underrepresented for a long time.

I am hoping that Barack's people figure this out soon and stop manufacturing ticky tack non-issues to dominate the media just because they can. It’s this practice that divides the party. Hope looks like running an inspiring African American and a brilliant woman and winning in November.

Still hoping for the best. And I might say, Clinton's ability to once again stand-up to the worse and come out fighting is making me feel like we'll get it.

as a white ron paul supporter, i find it revealing that ardent clinton supporters will cross party lines to vote Bush-lite. I am a Republican considering voting Obama against 100-more-years-in-Iraq McCain. If race is not the reason Clinton supporters are defecting to McCain, what is? Certainly not the issues. "Democratic hypocrisy exposed" should be the headlines of some of these blogs. I guess the racists aren't exclusive to my party after all.

What's most puzzling about Clinton's decision to bring up 1968 is why she simply didn't say Humphrey didn't secure the nomination until the convention. As Tapper points out, back then the primary season didn't start until March. If her basic contention is that she is the most electible Democrat then what does Bobby Kennedy being assassinated have to do with that?

RFK referenece that she made was at 3PM NY time. It seems she has no experience nor judgement either at 3AM or 3PM - good bye hillary, have place in history by quiting now !

To be fair, this issue is not just how long the primary campaign is, but when it ends relative to when the election will be. In that regard, it doesn't really matter that the '68 and '92 campaigns began later -- only that they didn't end until June, five months before the election.

It's also irrelevant that only 13 states had primaries in 1968. It's only relevant that the nomination battle was still going on in June, regardless of the means by which delegates were won.

I'm no Hillary fan, but there are plenty of legitimate arguments against her. Relying on bad arguments and trivial issues makes it look like your grasping at straws. Spend your time more productively.

Clinton is reeling from disbelief that she is not going to capture the Democratic nomination. Her calculations were based on absoluted false assumptions. The primary season has become so surreal that it makes me worried the Republicans might have a chance to succeed. Well, not to worried, though, because it will take them until spring 2009 to realize they had needed to separate the Siamese twins Bush/McCan't for anything close to a prayer. That said, hold tight everyone. Clinton is going down, by her own hand and her family's (thank you, Bill). Let's have "hope" transcend hubris this election cycle.

Notably, RFK winning the California Primary on June 4, 1968 changed the race...the dynamic had changed. RFK had beat out Senator Eugene McCarthy and now was considered running in front, which spelled big trouble for Hubert Humphrey... for a few hours until his assassination.

Also regarding Bill Clinton... the media were in wait for another "bimbo" eruption ... and getting those delegates in the California June primary was a major benchmark that helped seal his bid for the presidency. Before that, anyone could have jumped back in (if they could find the money) and gave him a battle in California.

Only people NOT cognizant of the real political history would think that Hillary's comment about June was irrelevant.

And as for the technicality of convention votes... the rules may differ among the years, but the convention still has the final say.

As a practicing astrologer, I can attest that that comment may be truer than you realize and not quite inapt. Of course Hillary doesn't realize it, but what she said was a psychic slip of the tongue. All along I've believed that her birthtime is 8:10 am. That puts Uranus in her 8th house with Pisces on its cusp, signs of psychic ability. She is very intuitive. She is
subconsciously pulling from the Akashic records. She is rather innocent
actually. However a look at Obama's chart has transiting Uranus moving to oppose his natal Mars. Interpretations are subtle with this but he very well could be in the proverbial and actual crosshairs. Both upcoming eclipses activate his chart, and he will be in danger for a year or more. Hillary's comments were obvious to any reasoning person, a reference to a timeline. However the Obama thugees like this article's author strive to make it an issue. A warning. It is the intransigence and vitriol coming from Obama's supporters that is adding karmic weight to the scales. All that continued negativity spewed on his behalf will be more responsible for the blood to be spilled than some misconstrued comment by her. Sad.