Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Clinton Strategy: If I Can't Win Neither Will You, Barack

It's an obvious point the press keeps missing. Hillary wants to beat up Obama so that if she doesn't win Obama will be too weak to beat McCain in November. Then she'll be able to run in 4 years. Therefore, the arguments calling for Ms.Clinton to step down are missing the point. Hillary doesn't give a damn that her staying in the race is hurting the Democratic Party. Remember: the Clintons destroyed the Dems when Bill was President:

The analysis was conducted by Matt Seyfang, an attorney and a former delegate counter for past Democratic presidential candidates including Bill Clinton in 1992 to Bill Bradley in 2000. According to his projections and a calculation of the number of committee seats that each candidate is entitled to based on their proportion to the statewide vote or the relevant caucus rules, Obama holds roughly 65 seats and Clinton 56. There are slightly more than 23 seats still to be decided in the remaining contests.

Seyfang’s findings reveal that Clinton faces an uphill battle if, as she signaled on Saturday, her campaign decides to take her fight to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations to the Credentials Committee.

“I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan,” she told the Washington Post. “And if we don't resolve it, we'll resolve it at the convention — that's what credentials committees are for.”

She can't even pay her bills:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose health-care plan would require every American to get insurance, owes health-insurance companies nearly $300,000 in payments to cover her own campaign staff, records reveal.

Clinton's campaign owes $229,000 to health-insurance giant Aetna and another $63,000 to CareFirst, which provides insurance coverage for her staff.

The debts, first reported by Politico.com, are part of a $9 million debt her campaign disclosed in documents filed with the feds.

[...] The potentially damaging revelation came as Barack Obama delivered yet another blow to her campaign - by scoring the endorsement of Minnesota's first-term senator, Amy Klobuchar.

Klobuchar, a superdelegate who gets to cast a vote at the party's national convention this summer, is the second female senator to endorse Obama.

She said the candidate speaks in a "different voice" and noted his impressive victory over Clinton in the Minnesota caucuses.

"Between Barack and a hard place, I chose Barack," she said, adding that she also likes Clinton.

"I believe that Sen. Clinton has every right to continue her campaign," she said, days after Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont urged Clinton to get out of the race.

Obama has now equaled Clinton in the number of endorsements received from fellow senators - 13 each.

And the arguments for her continued candidacy don't wash:
Myth: Very well, then, Mr. Smarty-Math. But if we counted Michigan and Florida, then Hillary would be winning!

Nooo, she wouldn't. The margin would depend on how you allocate the delegates, but Obama would still be ahead. And he'd still be about 100,000 ahead in the popular vote, too, despite not even being on the ballot in Michigan. However, it would enhance Hillary's chances of catching up in the remaining races.