-
Nobody other than Hillary Clinton knows what her plans are now that Barack Obama may win the delegates needed for the nomination today. Reuters reports Clinton campaign says she’s not conceding as race nears end. There is a “flurry of speculation that Hillary Clinton will quickly drop her White House bid.” But, her campaign is denying reports that she will “say on Tuesday night that Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.” Terry McAuliffe said Clinton was “absolutely not” conceding the campaign.
What I think is likely is the Clinton campaign will spend the next week trying to convince the superdelegates she remains the Democratic Party’s best candidate to face John McCain in the 2008 general election.
The Obama campaign, for their part, are keeping subdued. The Hill reports of an Obama memo to surrogates: No victory yet. He “telling his surrogates not to make that assertion just yet, according to an internal campaign memo.” Despite having enough delegates to win the nomination, “his campaign is telling his supporters that the senator will not claim victory in his speech in Minnesota.”
I suspect Clinton’s run is all but over. In his column today, Dana Milbank wrote about Bill Clinton’s campaign stop in Milbank, South Dakota “A No-Name Town Looks Like Waterloo“. The former president told the people of Milbank:
“I want to say,” he told about 500 Milbankians — about 15 percent of the town’s population — “that this may be the last day that I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics until Hillary decided to run, but it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to be able to go around and campaign for her for president.”
“Last day”? Past tense? It was the first time either Clinton had allowed the pervasive pessimism to infiltrate a public utterance.
Lastly, I’m reminded of what Bill Clinton said last April 2007 in an interview with Larry King:
“You know she’s not — some people who run for president can’t wait to get out of the Senate, or out of whatever other job she’s got. She loves it. She’s still doing it. She’s still going to her committee meetings, going to upstate New York and trying to run for president as well,” Clinton told CNN’s Larry King. “So, for her personally she’s going to be fine regardless. I think it’d be best for the country if she were elected president, but if voters make another choice, she’s a great senator, and she loves her job, and we’ll have a great life.”
I think the best thing we can do now is give Clinton space to make her decision that will be best for the country and the Democratic Party. She’s fought hard and we wanted a fighter.
Four at Four continues with probe news from NASA, China’s latest move against Tibet, and the Medal of Honor.