Since John Edwards and Chris Dodd dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination for President, I’ve been a nominal supporter of Hillary Clinton, due to my extreme distaste for Barack Obama. This goes back a long way, as documented in post after unanswered post, and is the sole reason I checked the box for Clinton in the California primary just over a month ago. But since primary day, I’ve become increasingly disillusioned, with my support of Clinton currently testing the limits of the definition of ‘nominal.’
Why? Where Obama’s surrogates like Megan Beyer, Kirk Watson, and Jesse Jackson Jr. are simply morons, (except Samantha Power who really crossed the line) Clinton’s seem to be truly evil, working from the same racist playbook. First it was Billy Shaheen wondering aloud if Obama had ever sold drugs. Then it was Bill Clinton‘s turn in South Carolina, when he tried to minimize Obama’s campaign by comparing it to Jesse Jackson‘s failed bids in 1984 and 1988. And now we have the icing, as former VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro said “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.”
Look, politics is an ugly, dirty business. But for the life of me I can’t figure out why Clinton still thinks this is in her interest after it has continually backfired on her. I get that she’s behind in the delegate chase and that experts have calculated that it will be very difficult for her to catch Obama in pledged delegates. But not only is this strategy not winning her any votes, it’s weakening what would be her best course of action given the numerical reality. If Clinton performs to the polls in Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico, and has her Florida and Michigan wins legitimized by new primaries there, Obama’s delegate lead would be fairly small given the total number of delegates, and she might even be ahead in the popular vote. With super-delegates in flux, she could certainly make a case that she came on strong at the end, and deserves the nomination over the less experienced Obama. With the ill will generated by her surrogates, and the alienation of black voters, her only path to victory has become much less viable.
I guess I’ll never understand why people are allowed to run campaigns and, let’s be fair, run for office, when they can’t understand simple political calculations.
Failing a nomination of my dream ticket of Jed Bartlet and the ghost of Leo McGarry, it seems clear that I’m going to have to sit this one out.