Monday, June 2, 2008

Will she bow out?

I want to go on the record for saying that I don't believe Clinton will concede. She may "suspend" her campaign, which means she won't be overtly campaigning, but she will not concede nor accept Obama as the party's nominee, despite his reaching the magic number on Tuesday night. If the supers don't come out by Tuesday night to push Obama to that number, I will damn well guarantee that she'll keep working behind the scenes to derail Obama's GE campaign, and try to influence the supers and other pledged delegates to switch on the floor in Denver. I am almost certain that she will not appeal to her supporters to get behind Obama, and she will not implore them to do anything  at all. Listen closely to her speech in NYC on Tuesday night that her campaign is already billing as a victory speech. Go quietly into that good night? Not Hillary.

Why do I believe this? Because for all of the times Hillary has been given some slack, or the benefit of the doubt, or the opportunity to be gracious, she's blown it and done exactly the opposite of what the pundits have expected.

After Iowa, she went to New Hampshire and cried. After NH, she went back to being a robot. After the debate before Ohio and Texas where she was so "honored" to be on the stage with Obama, the very next morning she was at first the shrill banshee wailing "Shame on you Barack Obama!" before she became the mocking clown exhorting the "the skies will open up" for Obama. Post-Super Tuesday, Clinton began running a GOP/Rove-style campaign against Obama, and there are no signs that she will stop. Just this weekend at the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, the Clinton team avoided every opportunity to deal, negotiate, or compromise, and they rejected the Obama camps efforts to reach out. In the end, it was the RBC itself that had to reject Clinton. That ended with Clintonut Harold Ickes crying about reserving the right to appeal the matter on the convention floor, and another Clintonut, Lanny Davis, screaming angry, spittle-laden vitriols at a DNC member.

What reason do I have to believe that she'll concede, given that she never has? Why would anyone expect her to do the honorable thing when she never has?

blog comments powered by Disqus