Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Typical Hillraisers
Recently a Hillary supporter I heard on NPR was saying that if Clinton Clinton
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Is Hillary’s public support of Barack sincere?
A new poll in California reinforces the message that Barack doesn’t need Hillary as his Vice-Presidential nominee. An analysis of the Field poll suggests “[a]mong Democratic voters, Hillary Clinton's presence on the ticket doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Only one in 10 say they're concerned about whether she's chosen to run as vice president.” This is a state she won easily in the primary. If this isn’t evidence the “pick Hillary or else” crowd is vocal but small, I don’t know what is.
Several pro-Clinton blogs are crowing about a supposed canvassing of superdelegates that revealed eight who committed to Barack would vote for Hillary in a roll call vote. This appears to be wishful thinking, but even if true, she’d need plenty more to switch to seriously threaten Barack’s nomination.
More than likely, this really part of a campaign to force Barack to make Hillary his “co-President” although her official title would be Vice-President. An Op-Ed in the London Guardian hit the nail on the head with the question “will Hillary and her sulking supporters successfully blackmail Obama into choosing Hillary as his running mate?” The media in this country have not really picked on the shenanigans of Hillary’s supporters nor have they focused on the glaring gap between Hillary’s sucking up to Barack in public and what is apparently going on behind the scenes. Hillary has only “suspended” her campaign. Traditionally when a candidate drops out and endorses the front runner, they release their delegates but Hillary has not done so. Suspending her campaign has also allowed standing to rise by keeping her out of the limelight. Once Hillary dropped out of the race, her negative press coverage ended and even many journalists who had been critical started singing their praise of Hillary. At the same time, Barack faced continued media exposure and had to make some tough decisions. I happen to think Barack voted correctly on the final FISA bill, others don’t but it is clear the easy vote for a Democrat was “no.” Hillary almost certainly would have voted for passage had she been the nominee but knowing the bill was going to pass and free from the burden of being the nominee she took the easy path in an attempt to burnish her credentials with progressives who opposed her and voted in the negative. Naturally, there is some second-guessing about Obama and while Hillary publicly butters up Barack, the implicit message is “hey, I’m still available.”
When is the press going to pick up on Hillary’s game?
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